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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the state of integration of securities market infrastructure in Europe.

Given the lack of quantitative and price‐based measures, this paper adopts a rather qualitative approach to evaluating the degree and evolution of integration in the securities market infrastructure within Europe. Future challenges, policy options for regulation and market design are discussed.

Despite its single currency, the euro area securities infrastructure remains highly fragmented due to cross‐border differences in tax regimes, procedures, laws, and vested interests. Cost savings and increased efficiency can be expected from further integration.

This is the only paper which provides a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the current level of integration of the securities infrastructure in the euro area and its implications for regulation and market policy.

The article offers an empirical investigation of the incidence and scale of household marriage overspending around the world, and the governments' reaction once the problem emerges.

This study relies on regression analysis of open source data from legislation, mass media, and judiciary hearings for 141 countries. In the Phase 1 logistic regression of cross-country large-N data is used to identify country-incidence of marriage cost escalation. In the Phase 2 ordered logistic regression is used to uncover statistically significant factors that predict the probability of alternative government reactions in 87 countries which experience marriage cost escalation.

In a strong collectivist sociocultural environment, driven by informality, the rise of middle classes, combined with the decline of traditional hierarchies, and limited opportunities for economic mobility motivates households to enter emulative wedding spending, thus leading to overspending. Governments' reaction depends on available policy resources, and the economic scale of the problem.

The research findings suggest that rising living standards in the developing countries are more likely to escalate wedding costs, and consequently reinforce traditional values.

Academic literature links marriage-related overspending to armed insurgency, child marriage and decreasing state efficiency. Despite the problem's scope, existing research has not comprehensively addressed both its causes, and cross-country differences in government reactions to it. The article addresses both of the mentioned gaps, by offering a conceptual model of marriage cost escalation.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to analyse the trend of trafficking of fake Indian currency notes (FICN), which is organised in nature. It accounts the trend of the smuggling of FICN through the route of Nepal and emerging routes as a consequence of the extension and strength of the criminal gangs.

The author utilized the governmental and non-governmental reports besides journalistic reports related to the intention of fake currency trafficking to analyse the ground reality and vested interests of such crime.

Though the open border of Nepal with India is exaggerated as the reason behind the cross-border crimes, such as smuggling of FICN, this paper has falsified the biased perception of labelling the borderline as a crime zone. It finds an outcome of the FICN smuggling that turns the Indo–Nepal border areas as a covert battlefield of organised criminal gangs as well as secret agencies of regional powers.

Due to ethical issues and limitations of research works on the topic, the descriptive analysis that could be carried out was limited.

The negative findings of the crime are implacable, in keeping in mind before establishing a good policy related to development and security of Nepal, especially the Terai region.

The paper highlights social problems and challenges in the Terai region of Nepal that enforced the people residing in that area towards the fake currency racket. Hence, it urged to solve the social problems to curb the financial crime such as counterfeit notes trafficking in the region.

This study is the latest research describing and disclosing the fact behind fake currency trafficking and its consequences.

This paper aims to investigate the actions and activities undertaken by public managers of a local government to institutionalise an externally mandated performance measurement and management (PMM) system in a developing country.

A qualitative case study of one of the best-ranked early adopters of PMM in a local government in Indonesia was undertaken, with interviews with public officers at various organisational levels, along with an extensive documentary review. An institutional work perspective was used to explain the types of work undertaken to institutionalise PMM at the organisation.

The PMM change was shown to be centralised and directed from the top and facilitated by other public officers. The Mayors’ instrumental and political view of PMM as a tool for efficiency and societal legitimacy enabled the adoption of PMM. The political and cultural work of the Mayor and the key officers involved constructing new rules pertaining to PMM, specifically in dealing with resource allocation and its associated sanctions and rewards, which encouraged more substantive implementation. The substantive implementation of PMM had a significant influence on the norms and values of the local government.

The case organisation is the local government of a relatively medium-sized city. Therefore, it may be easier to achieve tighter control and coordination as compared to the local government of other larger cities.

The paper highlights the interrelated nature of institutional work in the creation and disruption of institutions. In addition, the three main types of institutional work, i.e. political, cultural and technical work, are not mutually exclusive. The paper also indicates the processes involved in the implementation of PMM, which unfolds from the establishment of a policy, its impact, and the role of the actors in the process.

The purpose of this study is to answer the call for additional detailed research on factors that influence corporate social responsibility (CSR) authenticity by examining how the former is affected by the commonly reported CSR spending allocations expressed as percentages of annual profits. It integrates equity and attribution theories to propose a new construct of inequity perceptions to explain how CSR spending allocations influence CSR authenticity. Inequity perceptions form from smaller allocations that are perceived disproportionate compared to the potential reputational gains from the executed CSR communication, which, in turn, prompts lower authenticity inferences.

Three experiments were performed. Study 1 examines how different CSR spending allocations influence inequity perceptions and how the latter relate to CSR authenticity. Study 2 examines how inequity perceptions are affected by firm size. Study 3 examines whether psychological distance (being a customer or non-customer) affects information processing by predisposing customers to forming higher inequity perceptions.

Study 1 shows that lesser allocations produce higher inequity perceptions. Study 2 demonstrates that inequity perceptions are enhanced when numerically small allocations are reported by a large as opposed to a small firm. Study 3 shows that both customers and non-customers form similar inequity perceptions from smaller percentage allocations without support for the psychological distance effect.

This study shows that the percentage of profits allocated to CSR, as well as firm size, can affect authenticity inferences via inequity perceptions. These findings point to different implications of CSR communication that features percentage allocations that multiple firms may not be aware of.

Marketers can benefit from the reported findings by understanding when and how CSR communication that features percentage allocations may be counter-productive by generating lesser CSR authenticity.

This study provides a novel perspective on how consumers evaluate CSR authenticity in a marketplace where awareness of firms’ vested interests is increasing.

This paper attempts to trace and describe the role played by the government sector – the state – in promoting economic growth in Western societies since the Renaissance. One important conclusion is that the antagonism between state and market, which has characterised the twentieth century, is a relatively new phenomenon. Since the Renaissance one very important task of the state has been to create well‐functioning markets by providing a legal framework, standards, credit, physical infrastructure and – if necessary – to function temporarily as an entrepreneur of last resort. Early economists were acutely aware that national markets did not occur spontaneously, and they used “modern” ideas like synergies, increasing returns, and innovation theory when arguing for the right kind of government policy. In fact, mercantilist economics saw it as a main task to extend the synergetic economic effects observed within cities to the territory of a nation‐state. The paper argues that the classical Anglo‐Saxon tradition in economics – fundamentally focused on barter and distribution, rather than on production and knowledge – systematically fails to grasp these wider issues in economic development, and it brings in and discusses the role played by the state in alternative traditions of non‐equilibrium economics.

Publication in quality journals has become a major indicator of research performance in UK universities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the notion of “quality journal”.

The paper examines the situation in management studies and finds dizzying circularity in the definitions of “quality journal”.

The paper finds that what a quality journal is does not really matter: agreement that there are such things matters very much indeed. As so often happens with indicators of performance, the indicator has become the target. So, the challenge is to publish in quality journals, and the challenge rewards gamesmanship. Vested interests have become particularly skilful at the game, and at exercising the winners’ prerogative of changing the rules. All but forgotten in the desperation to win the game is publication as a means of communicating research findings for the public benefit. The paper examines the situation in management studies, but the problem is much more widespread.

This original and topical paper concludes that laughter is both the appropriate reaction to such farce, and also, perhaps, the stimulus to reform.

Extensive research on the importance of collaborative working (CW) and aligning stakeholders’ interests in construction has been widely conducted. But often the practice of commercial actors during CW has often been overlooked, particularly within the UK setting, where scholars have lamented on the lack of industry-wide collaboration. This study aims to explore the factors affecting commercial actors in CW, specific to the UK construction industry.

The research used a context-based approach to seek stakeholders’ perspectives on the key factors affecting commercial actors in CW within the UK. Semi-structured interviews with individuals (contractors, cost consultants, designers among others) from construction and infrastructure organisations were conducted, using multiple case study investigations. The collected data was analysed using a case study approach, and principles of inductive thematic analysis to identify the key factors.

Findings from the analysis identified “institutional” factors such as transactional cost economic influence, the prevailing construction model influence and professional related drivers. Key drivers within these factors include commercial background and training, custom and practice, misaligned interests in projects, clients’ perception of consultants, cost-driven environment, conventional procurement protocols and bureaucratic functions.

In conclusion, these factors continue to affect CW with undue influence on commercial actors in the UK, thus preventing performance improvement demanded by successive UK Government reports. The context-based approach applied in this study is expected to provide some insight in construction management research, especially from a commercial perspective in the UK, to gain an understanding of how these factors are manifesting.

In this chapter, we introduce the history of critical thinking briefly, starting from Socrates to contemporary contributions. Based on this history, we derive several modules for training in critical thinking via practical exercises in critical thinking. Three classic critical thinking models are introduced: Socratic questioning method, Cartesian doubting method, and Baconian empirical method. We discuss their potential for critical thinking as foundational methods. The material in this chapter is distributed in three parts. In Part I, we provide a brief history of critical thinking. In Part II, we design models of critical thinking based on its classic history. In Part III, we list some models of critical thinking based on its history, from the Renaissance period to the current times. In the last section, we also discuss critical thinking in the context of business ethics, by delineating its normative domain, assessing its characteristics, and reviewing its processes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of trust in the collaborative learning processes that underpin innovation as a competitive strategy in organizations.

As a conceptual paper, the argument is framed by academic perspectives, drawn from the academic literature on the topic and by professional and life experience.

The collaborative learning practices that underpin idea generation and realization in organizations are strongly dependent for their effectiveness upon the availability, within and beyond stakeholder networks, of trust and other key social capital resources.

If innovation is dependent upon social capital resources, such as trust, then leadership endeavour needs to be much more focused upon the creation of a social environment that nurtures rich stakeholder and other relevant network, relationships. New forms of governance and power management, and more appropriate and aligned organizational structures, are required in organizations that are attempting to compete through innovation.

The paper's explication of the role of social capital resources, like trust, in organizational innovation offers new insights into this complex but increasingly vital form of competitive strategy.