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The relationship between the local option sales tax (LOST) and property taxes and own source revenue is not well documented in the literature. This may be due in part to the aggregated nature of the data, which fails to capture different motivations for adoption of LOSTs. Using county-level data from 35 states, this study finds that LOSTs increase own source revenue and in some circumstances decrease property tax burdens. The primary contribution of this research is that it uses a policy variable, the LOST rate, to distinguish between the two types of counties that use their LOST revenues differently. This research represents the first step in bridging the gap between the LOST literature and the tax mix choice literature.

Local governments are expanding their revenue portfolios and becoming less dependent on property taxes. It should not be assumed, however, that this diversification is increasing the stability of local governmentsʼ own source revenue, as previous research suggests. It is thus important for local government officials to know how this process will affect the stability of their own source revenue, as they are almost certainly diversifying away from a stable tax, the property tax (Groves and Kahn, 1952; McCubbins and Moule, 2010), and moving toward a more volatile tax, such as the sales tax. Using county-level data in thirty-five states, I examine the effect of local option sales taxes (LOSTs) on the volatility of own source revenue and find that greater use of LOSTs increases revenue volatility.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of the Great Recession on the capital assets being depreciated and the capital assets condition ratio for the governmental activities of the government-wide financial statements, while identifying possible socioeconomic and financial variables that help explain capital investment behavior in local government.

Based on capital spending from fiscal year 2005–2006 (FY06) to fiscal year 2012–2013 (FY13) for the governmental activities of 471 North Carolina municipalities as reported on their government-wide financial statements, the authors use a fixed effects model to test our two hypotheses.

The authors find that most municipalities consistently invested in capital assets before, during, and after the Great Recession but were not able to maintain pace with depreciation. The authors also find that the capital assets being depreciated is affected by numerous socioeconomic and financial variables, while the capital assets condition ratio is not.

The study continues to build on previous research, demonstrating that different results are produced when the analysis is based on local data rather than sub-national data.

An implication from our study that expands across research and practice is that capital investment and capital value are two different dimensions of capital management in local government, which drives research in terms of how this multidimensional concept is specified and drives practices in terms of how this multidimensional concept is approached within annual capital budgets and capital improvement programs.

The study represents one of the first studies that focuses on capital spending in local government based on data from the government-wide financial statements.

This study aims to explore manufacturing companies' environmental performance with the green supply chain management (GSCM) approach, taking into account company size, geographic region, industrial sector, target market and environmental management maturity level.

Based on the literature review, five propositions were put forward. An empirical study, using survey research, was completed. The survey questionnaire was designed with 46 items, using both the literature and industry expert input. Statistical analysis was employed to test the propositions in a sample of 116 Colombian manufacturing companies.

The test results indicate that significant environmental performance differences exist, given company sizes and target markets. However, no statistical significance was found involving the geographic region or industrial sector. Significant differences were found in maturity levels between the three clusters identified: reactive, preventive and proactive. Although the companies in the proactive group performed better, they still lagged in green practices that implied integration with suppliers and customers.

This study provides empirical evidence regarding the profile of those manufacturing companies that achieve better environmental performance. Moreover, the results yield insights for the generation of continuous improvement processes in companies with lower performance.

Few empirical studies have been carried out in GSCM that integrate specific factors in the environmental performance assessment of manufacturing companies in developing countries. On the other hand, the results permit the identification of the profile of those companies with greater maturity in their environmental practices.

The purpose of this paper is to identify important university-industry linkage (UIL) activities that can stimulate the likelihood of employability among students.

A total of 404 respondents located in Tanzania, comprising students, faculty members and employees from 20 companies operating within the oil and gas industry and mining constitute the empirical basis for the study. Descriptive analysis, the Mann-Whitney U-test and a Kruskal-Wallis test were applied to help analyse the data.

The results reveal that UIL activities were strongly perceived to raise the employability of students, in particular student internships in companies followed by joint projects and the involvement of companies in modernizing university curricula. Adoption and diffusion internship strategies are suggested for foreign companies and for local firm, respectively, as vehicles for increasing employability.

Perceived effects on the likelihood of employability are measured, and not actual effects.

The findings have implications for foreign companies exploring resources in the host country, local firms trying to improve competitiveness, universities trying to improve its role in society, students preparing for work-life and policy makers defining premises for resource-extractive foreign companies.

Very few empirical studies of UILs have previously been carried out in a developing country context, and in particular in dealing with student employability. The fact that many developing nations have attractive rich natural resources implies that international companies have a motive to invest in the UILs, and possess valuable competencies that can improve the overall quality of the universities and the attractiveness of graduating students.

The purpose of this study is to identify arrangements of fully funded defined contribution (FF-DC) pension plans associated with the continuity of retirement savings.

The authors adopted an experimental design composed of a control group and two treatment groups. In all groups, individuals made decisions throughout nine periods: five during the working period and four at the postretirement stage. The authors asked participants if they wanted to join a pension plan, and which plan. The authors offered three plans with different risk profiles: plan 1 (high risk), plan 2 (moderate) and plan 3 (low risk) and one risk-free plan, plan 4. In treatment groups 1 and 2, there was an automatic enrollment of the participants in the default plan (moderate risk), and in the following periods they had to decide whether to continue contributing, and in this case, to which plan, with a defined percentage.

In treatment scenarios, participants chose the riskiest plan in all periods of the experiment, and most of them chose the risk-free plan in period 5. These findings suggest that pension plans with automatic enrollment, employer matching and low risk foster the continuation of retirement savings.

The research has as limitation the fact that the sample is not representative of the population and therefore does not allow generalizations. This is because the authors use social media ads to prospect respondents.

The research's findings can be relevant for the design of public policies for private pension plans, suggesting that compulsory automatic enrollment can be used as default in plans offered by the employers. The results encourage the inclusion of behavioral elements in the design of the pension system, paying attention to the nudges. In this sense, it is possible to increase participation in the pension plan and develop low cost programs to increase the amount accumulated by people before retirement.

Decision-making architecture, such as automatic enrollment, can improve individuals' retirement decisions, affecting savings and welfare in the long run.

Although the effect of pension plan designs is widely studied in other countries, such as the United States and United Kingdom, the authors are unaware of a national empirical research that seeks to understand how different arrangements affect an individual choice through an experiment.

This paper aims to assess the behavioural intention of construction organisations to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the delivery of construction projects. Using the unified theory of technology adoption and use of technology (UTAUT) model, the study strives to improve project delivery by adopting beneficial digital technologies.

The study adopted a postpositivism philosophical stance through a quantitative research approach using a structured questionnaire administered to construction organisations in South Africa. Primary data gathered was analysed using frequency, percentage, mean item score, Mann–Whitney U-test and confirmatory factor analysis, where the latter sought to deductively confirm the variables within the UTAUT model.

Construction organisations were found to rarely use UAVs in the country and furthermore, most of the participating organisations are unsure about using UAVs for their project delivery. Factors impacting on an organisation’s intention to use UAVs were identified as social influence, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions. However, factors surrounding resistance to using and perceived risk cannot be overlooked as they also proved to be significant (at p = 0.05) to the behavioural intention of organisations to use UAVs.

Practical guidance for industry practitioners is offered in terms of insight into the key factors that must be considered for the effective utilisation of UAVs and the realisation of concomitant benefits.

This study bridges the knowledge gap in extant literature by exploring the practitioner’s behavioural intention to use UAVs. As an aside, an emergent theoretical backdrop for future works on UAVs is provided (particularly in developing countries where such a study has not been previously explored).

The purpose of this study is to compare the production efficiencies and frontiers differences of oil-producing countries (OPCs) in four inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) in the international petroleum industry with the aim of providing such countries understanding of group characteristics that help maximize their supply interests.

The empirical analysis is based on 14 years of panel data covering the period from 2000 to 2013. In all 46 unique countries who are members of four IGOs relevant to the international petroleum industry are examined on individual and group bases. The authors use both metafrontier analysis and global frontier difference in examining the group average and group frontiers, respectively.

Groups with high inter and intra-group collaborations which ensure exchange of information, organizational learning and innovation tend to do better than groups with even higher hydro-carbon endowment. Additionally, hydro-carbon resource endowment may not be the solution to group inefficiency without higher endowment in human capital, economic stability, technology and infrastructure.

Choice of inter-governmental organizational membership should be based on the level of inter- and intra-group collaborations, human capital endowment among others and not mere historic links or even resource endowment.

This is among the few studies to compare and rank IGOs. Specifically, it is among the first studies to analyze the petroleum production efficiencies of IGOs involved in the international petroleum industry. This study assesses the performance differences among OPCs with the aim of identifying for OPCs the characteristics of inter-governmental groups that are beneficial to efficiency in upstream petroleum activities.

Portugal has been experiencing a continuous growth in tourism activity, with hospitality industry as one of the main tourism sectors. Therefore, the assessment of hotel companies’ performance is very important to assist decision processes. The purpose of this paper is to assess the financial performance (FP) of 570 hotel companies operating hotel units in Portugal in 2017. To explore the question of brand affiliation, a comparison was made between hotel companies with similar stars rating and market orientation. In addition, this paper intends to fill a gap in literature studying the Portuguese reality on the subject of brand affiliation.

The present study uses a methodology based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the overall performance for each company, which further decomposed into the within-group performance and the technological gap. The performance of the hotel company is assessed through the aggregation of multiple financial indicators using the composite indicator (CI) derived from the DEA model. A bivariate analysis based on the Tobit regression to test the robustness of brand effect on FP of hotel companies (HC) was also included.

The empirical results show that branded companies, on average, have significantly better overall FP than non-branded companies. On the one hand, the brand effect tends to improve the within-group FP of HCs and the brand presents a statistically significant positive effect on the FP. On the other hand, the best practices are observed in both branded and non-branded companies.

The results of this study illustrate that, globally, the better FP of the branded companies is because of their individual relative companies’ performance and a better model of operation given by the brand effect. Brand affiliation will generally allow for a better FP and essentially a better profitability for invested equity, a higher return on sales and a higher value added per employee.

The study provides important theoretical and practical contributions that can assist the strategic decision of the HCs in choosing to operate independently or to adopt brand affiliation. Also, it is innovative because the FP of branded and non-branded HCs is measured not using a set of individual financial ratios but through a single CI that aggregates those financial ratios, using a DEA model.