...Human Development Research Paper 2010/30 Dealing with employment risk: Policy options for emerging markets Simon Commander United Nations Development Programme Human Development Reports Research Paper November 2010 Human Development Research Paper 2010/30 Dealing with employment risk: Policy options for emerging markets Simon Commander United Nations Development Programme Human Development Reports Research Paper 2010/30 November 2010 Dealing with employment risk: Policy options for emerging markets1 Simon Commander Simon Commander is Managing Partner at the EBRD, IE Business School and Altura Advisers. Email: scommander@alturaadvisers.com Comments should be addressed by email to the author(s). 1 Thanks to Jeni Klugman for discussion and comments and to Ginette Azcona for help with data. Abstract The paper looks at the experience of advanced economies in dealing with employment volatility. It examines in detail the impact of labour market institutions on equilibrium unemployment and the p ossible le ssons f or e merging ma rket e conomies tr ying to d esign p olicy f or d ealing w ith unemployment and a wider, growing demand for social protection from their citizens. Part of the paper concentrates on t he t ransition e conomies whose i nstitutional c ontext m ay b e r elevant t o other emerging ma rkets. S ome leading principles in policy d esign a re elaborated th at take into account s ome o f t he co mmon f eatures o f em erging m arkets, n...
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...English for Academic Purposes 1 (EAP 1) UK Education System Booklet Autumn 2015 Contents | Page | Tips for Using this Booklet | 3 | 1. Organisation | | Education System in the UK | 4 | 2. Funding | | Trends in education and schools spending | 8 | School budgets facing significant cuts | 10 | 3. Quality | | UK second best education in Europe | 11 | GCSEs to become more demanding and rigorous, says Michael Gove | 13 | 4. Comparison of UK education system | | The United Kingdom Education System in Comparative Context | 15 | Tips for Using this Booklet Choose three topics only: although the articles in this booklet cover a range of areas you only need to focus on three in your essay. You may choose to look at another topic not covered in this booklet but check with your tutor if you are unsure if it is suitable. Read selectively: the journal article in section 4 contains a lot of useful information about the UK as well as other countries. However, it is quite long and contains quite a lot of historical background information in the first few pages which will not necessarily be useful for your assignment. Use the sub-headings to focus on the sections that will be most useful to you. Use only relevant details: Be selective when choosing the information you want to include and make sure it remains relevant to the topic of the paragraph. E.g. If the paragraph is on the structure of the education system, do not start discussing any...
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...1994 and launched it online in 1995. It started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs and MP3s, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and so on. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, and China. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products. On January 15, 2009, a survey published by Verdict Research found that Amazon was the UK's favorite music and video retailer, and came third in overall retail rankings.[4] History Amazon was founded in 1995,[5] spurred by what Bezos called "regret minimization framework", his effort to fend off regret for not staking a claim in the Internet gold rush.[6] While company lore says Bezos wrote the business plan while he and his wife drove from New York to Seattle,[7] that account appears to be apocryphal.[8] The company began as an online bookstore;[8] while the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores and mail-order catalogs for books might offer 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could offer more. Bezos named the company "Amazon" after the world's largest river. Since 2000, Amazon's logotype is an arrow leading from A to Z, representing customer satisfaction (as it forms a smile); the goal was to have every product in the alphabet.[9] In 1994, the company incorporated in the state of Washington, beginning service in July 1995, and was reincorporated in 1996 in Delaware...
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...how the organization of production is manipulated as a result. It is argued that while hardware production is organized by console manufacturers using truly global sourcing strategies, the production of software is far more complex. In fact, software production networks are bounded within three major economic regions: Western Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. This paper seeks to explain how and why this has occurred. Keywords: video games, global production networks, value, power, embeddedness JEL classifications: L14, L23, L82 Date submitted: 4 October 2004 Date accepted: 12 April 2005 1. Introduction The video games industry1 was born during the early 1960s and has rapidly, and almost continuously, grown in size and scope ever since. It is estimated that the industry was worth around $23.2 billion in 2003, and is predicted to reach $33.4 billion in 2008 (DFC Intelligence, 2004). Despite now being comparable in size to the global film industry, and having a pervasive impact upon popular culture, the video games industry has received relatively little...
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...of managerial ownership on performance and the determinants of managerial ownership for small and medium-sized private companies. We use a panel of around 1300 firms in the German business-related service sector for the years 1997-2000. Managerial ownership up to around 80 per cent has a positive impact on firm performance (incentive effect); for higher shares the effect becomes negative (entrenchment effect). Moreover, risk-aversion of managers and signalling of f rm quality leads to a non- linear i relationship between managerial ownership and the risk exposure of a firm. The determinants of performance and ownership are estimated simultaneously. JEL Classification: G32; C23 Keywords: corporate governance, managerial ownership, firm performance, small and medium-sized enterprises. This paper was produced as part of the Centre’s Labour Markets Programme Acknowledgements We thank Bernd Fitzenberger, Steve Nickell and Marcia Schafgans for helpful discussions and Irene Bertschek, Dirk Czarnitzki, Ulrich Kaiser and Joachim Winter for useful comments. All remaining errors are our own. Elisabeth Mueller is a member of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. Contact: E.Mueller@lse.ac.uk. Alexandra Spitz is a member of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Research Group Information and Communication Technologies, PO Box 103443, 68034 Mannheim, Germany. Contact: spitz@zew.de Published by Centre for Economic Performance London School of Economics...
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...Windsperger c,2 a Michael F. Price College of Business, The University of Oklahoma, 307 West Brooks, Norman, OK 73019-4001, USA b Eastern Illinois University, School of Business, 4002 Lumpkin Hall, Charleston, IL 61920, USA c Center of Business Studies, University of Vienna, Brünner Strasse 72, A-1210 Vienna, Austria Abstract About four decades ago, during the formative years of the franchising industry, visionary authors like Oxenfeldt and Kelly (1968) and Ozanne and Hunt (1971) proposed a rich slate of research agenda which still continues to guide some of the contemporary scholarship in the franchising domain. This article (1) explicates some of the unique features of the franchising context that presumably inspired these pioneering authors, (2) discusses four established elements of ontology unique to franchising and isolates the remaining research gaps therein, (3) specifies a new slate of more contemporary research agenda for future scholarship, and (4) concludes with a brief discussion of the ten articles featured in this Special Issue of the Journal of Retailing dedicated to the theme of Franchising and Retailing. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc on behalf of New York University. Keywords: Franchising Research Agenda; Research Frontiers; Mixed Motives Context; Asymmetrical Power Setting; Twenty-First Century Introduction Modern franchising in USA dates back to at least the 1850s when Isaac Singer attempted to increase the distribution of his sewing machines by establishing...
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...ANDREAS JOHNSON Host Country Effects of Foreign Direct Investment ANDREAS JOHNSON Host Country Effects of Foreign Direct Investment The Case of Developing and Transition Economies JIBS Dissertation Series No. 031 JIBS Dissertation Series No. 031 ANDREAS JOHNSON Host Country Effects of Foreign Direct Investment The Case of Developing and Transition Economies This thesis consists of four individual essays and an introductory chapter. While independent from each other, these essays share some common properties. They are all empirical and focus on the interaction between inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and host country characteristics. The primary focus of the thesis lies in how inflows of FDI affect developing and transition economies. Macro-level data are used in all essays. The first essay analyses the FDI inflows that the transition economies of Eastern Europe have attracted and tries to find determinants of these inflows. The following two essays compare the effect of FDI between developing and developed economies. The second essay studies the relationship between corruption in the host country and the volume of FDI inflows. The third essay explores the effect of FDI inflows on host country economic growth. The fourth and final essay analyses the relationship between FDI and trade, focusing on the link between FDI flows and host country exports in eight East Asian economies. ISSN 1403-0470 ISBN 91-89164-64-4 ANDREAS JOHNSON Host Country Effects...
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...macqueen@ed.ac.uk. This is a substantially revised, updated and rewritten version of the chapter which appeared under the same title in L Edwards and C Waelde (eds), Law and the Internet: Regulating Cyberspace (1997). I am grateful to those who commented upon that earlier version, to those who sent me information about developments on the Internet (especially Dr Athol Murray), and to the editors once again for their help, guidance and patience over a prolonged period.) Introduction A major issue for copyright lawyers at the present time is how to deal with the rapid development of the Internet and the prospect of the ‘information superhighway’, world-wide telecommunications systems which permit the rapid, indeed virtually instantaneous transmission around the world, at times chosen as much by individual recipients as by transmitters, of information and entertainment in all media - print, pictures still and moving, sound, and combinations thereof. The issues are manifold. Is the ease of perfect reproduction and manipulation of material in the digital form used by our communications systems the death-knell of the whole basis of copyright? Are we at least going to have to reconsider such fundamentals of copyright law as what constitutes publication, copying and public performance, or the old distinctions between categories of work such as literary, artistic, sound recording and film? What rights should users enjoy? Are the rights accorded them in the analogue world so ill-defined...
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...Product Team Cialis (Validus): Getting Ready to Market Christopher Cashen – 5545586 Date: Monday 18th January 2010 MG511 Strategic Marketing Management Assignment Submission Student Name: Christopher Brendan Cashen – 55455863 MMK1 - MBS in Marketing Cialis (Validus) Case Study Programme: Project Title: Module code: MG511 Lecturer: Project Due Date: Ms. Joanne Lynch 18-Jan-2010 Declaration I the undersigned declare that the project material, which I now submit, is my own work. Any assistance received by way of borrowing from the work of others has been cited and acknowledged within the work. I make this declaration in the knowledge that a breach of the rules pertaining to project submission may carry serious consequences. I am aware that the project will not be accepted unless this form has been handed in along with the project. Signed:_____________________ 2 Table of Contents Introduction – Page:4 External Marketing Audit – Page: The Market – Page: 6-11 Competition – Page: 11 - 14 Internal Marketing Audit – Page: 14 Strategic Issues Analysis – Page: 14 - 21 SWOT Analysis – Page: 21-24 Marketing Objectives – Page: 24 -25 Marketing Mix Decisions – Page: 25 - 29 Organisation and Implementation – Page: 29 -31 Control – Page: 31 -32 Bibliography : 33- 34 4- 6 3 Introduction Through extensive External and Internal analysis, the formulation for the best fit strategy has been developed and refined to suit the resources, culture and infrastructure...
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...and application of SHRM. To analyse the relationship between strategic management and SHRM. To examine the different approaches to SHRM, including: – The best-fit approach to SHRM – The configurational approach to SHRM – The resource-based view of SHRM – The best-practice approach to SHRM. To evaluate the relationship between SHRM and organisational performance. To present a number of activities and case studies that will facilitate readers’ understanding of the nature and complexity of the SHRM debate, and enable them to apply their knowledge and understanding. Introduction to strategic human resouce management This chapter charts the development of strategic human resource management. It assumes a certain familiarity with the evolution of HRM, early HRM models and frameworks and their theoretical underpinning as discussed in Chapter 1. The aim of this chapter is to provide a challenging and critical analysis of the strategic human resource management literature, so that you will be able to understand the synthesis both within and between strategic human resource management and strategic management in its various forms. Since the early 1980s when human resource management arrived on the managerial agenda, there has been considerable debate concerning its nature and its value to organisations. From the seminal works emerging from the Chicago school and the matching model of HRM (Fombrun et al., 1984), the emphasis has very much concerned its strategic role in the organisation...
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...3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page i International Human Resource Management 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page ii 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page iii second edition International Human Resource Management edited by A n n e - Wi l H a r z i n g J o r i s Va n R u y s s e v e l d t SAGE Publications London l Thousand Oaks l New Delhi 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page iv © Anne-Wil Harzing and Joris van Ruysseveldt, 2004 First published 2004 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Olivers Yard London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave Post Box 4109 New Delhi 100 017 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 4039 1 ISBN 0 7619 4040 5 (pbk) Library of Congress Control Number...
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...The Effect of Corporate Restructuring on the Shareholders’ Value: The Case of GEC/Marconi Magdy Abdel-Kader 1 * and Vagia Mentzeniot 2 1 Brunel Business School. Brunel University. Uxbridge. Middlesex UB8 3PH. UK * Corresponding author: Tel: +44 (0)1895 266739. Fax: +44 (0)1895 269775. Email: magdy.kader@brunel.ac.uk 2 Finance Division, Piraeus Bank Group, Headquarters, Stadiou & Amerikis 4, Athens, 10557, Greece Abstract GEC/Marconi’s transformation from a diversified conglomerate to a focused telecommunications and information technology company was an eventful and rambling transmission that resulted in the deterioration of shareholders’ value. It represents one of the most dramatic falls from grace in British corporate history and one of the greatest corporate governance fiascos of all time. The study investigates the wealth effects of Marconi’s sell-offs and acquisitions on its shareholders’ value by calculating the abnormal returns on the announcement days of all the disposals/acquisition during 1996-2002. The results support the view that shareholders’ value increases when a company proceeds to corporate sell-offs to pursue a focus strategy. However, the authors conjecture that GEC/Marconi has destroyed shareholders’ value through these disposals/acquisitions because of several mistakes, such as being prone to heavy debt. © 2007 World Research Organization. All rights reserved Keywords: Marconi, GEC, Restructuring, Disposals, Acquisitions, Divestiture Citation:...
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...Value Creation of Spin-offs and Carve-outs Dissertation zur Erlangung der Würde eines Doktors der Staatswissenschaften vorgelegt der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Basel von Roger Rüdisüli von Amden SG Difo-Druck GmbH Bamberg 2005 Genehmigt von der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Basel auf Antrag von Prof. Dr. Heinz Zimmermann und Ass.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Drobetz. Basel, den 10. Mai 2005 Der Dekan Prof. Dr. Heinz Zimmermann Acknowledgements V Acknowledgements My dissertation would not have been possible without the support of various people to whom I would like to express my sincere gratitude. Firstly, I would like to thank my academic supervisors Heinz Zimmermann and Wolfgang Drobetz of the University of Basel (Switzerland) for their academic guidance, encouraging support and the very pleasant cooperation. Special thanks goes to Jürg Wicki for his advice in selecting the subject, structuring the dissertation, and choosing its fundamental building blocks. I am also heavily indebted to Neelesh Singhal and his team at McKC in Madras (India) who helped me to find the vast amount of data used in my research. Without their assistance it would have been impossible to obtain the data. I am also grateful to Sabine Keller-Busse and the partners of McKinsey & Company in the Zurich office for making my educational leave possible and for the financial assistance provided. My acknowledgement also goes to Thomas Bollinger...
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...Diversification in E- Commerce [pic] Diana Reyes – 27828 Introduction Economies of scope and synergies in business operations are consequences of diversification strategies. It is possible to classify companies according to the type of diversification strategy selected. Unrelated diversifiers are companies that diversify across industry, while related diversifiers are firms that diversify within the industry (Kim, Hwang and Burgers 1989). Companies pursuing related diversification over a period of time have achieved superior performance than companies following an unrelated diversification (Palepu 1985). Amazon has started its business by selling books and music, soon after it incorporated online auctions for airlines tickets and hotel rooms, computer hardware, pet food and pet accessories, electronic cards, toys and consumer electronics. Whereas Amazon has achieved very high volume of sales and gained important market shares in the book industry, the company has never been profitable. As a result, in this essay, in order to determine if Amazon’s decision to diversify so extensively was a wise decision, we will firstly describe the firm business model and the reasons for its success. We will then try to determine if this business model is applicable to Amazon’s diversification strategy as well as the limit of diversification. And finally we will try to evaluate the limit of such strategy in an international context. ...
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...INTRODUCTION Firms are major economic institutions in market economies. They come in all shapes and sizes, but have the following common characteristics: g g g g g g Owners. Managers. Objectives. A pool of resources (labour, physical capital, ¢nancial capital and learned skills and competences) to be allocated roles by managers. Administrative or organizational structures through which production is organized. Performance assessment by owners, managers and other stakeholders. Whatever its size, a ¢rm is owned by someone or some group of individuals or organizations. These are termed shareholders and they are able to determine the objectives and activities of the ¢rm. They also appoint the senior managers who will make day-to-day decisions. The owners bear the risks associated with operating the ¢rm and have the right to receive the residual income or pro¢ts. Where ownership rights are dispersed, control of the ¢rm may not lie with the shareholders but with senior managers. This divorce between ownership and control and its implication for the operation and performance of the ¢rm is at the centre of many of the issues dealt with in this book. OWNERSHIP STRUCTURES The dominant model of the ¢rm in Western economies is the limited liability company owned by shareholders, but the form varies signi¢cantly between countries. In some countries the control rights of the owners are limited by powers given to stakeholders who may share in the appointment and supervision of...
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