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Introduction: We report an investigation on collaboration practices in research papers published in the most prestigious English-medium astrophysics journals. Method: We propose an evaluation method based on three numerical indicators to study and compare, in absolute terms, three different types of collaboration (international, national and local) and authors' mobility on the basis of co-authorship. Analysis: We analysed 300 randomly selected research papers in three different time periods and used the student's t-test to determine whether the paired two-sample differences observed were statistically significant or not. Results: International collaboration is more common than national and local collaboration. International, national and local authors' mobility and intra-national collaboration do not seriously affect the indicators of the principal levels of collaboration. International collaboration and authors' mobility are more relevant for authors publishing in European journals, whereas national and intra-national collaboration and national mobility are more important for authors publishing in US journals. Conclusions: We explain the observed differences and patterns in terms of the specific scope of each journal and the socio-economic and political situation in both geographic contexts (Europe and the USA). Our study provides a global picture of collaboration practices in astrophysics and its possible application to many other sciences and fields would undoubtedly help bring into focus the really big issues for overall research management and policy.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, European governments have increasingly implemented performance-based funding systems for higher education. While a focus on the transnational pressures that contributed to the widespread adoption of performance-based funding in Europe accounts for the impetus for performance-based funding policies, it fails to address how and why the resultant performance-based funding policies are as distinct and different as they are. In this paper, I argue that an institutional logics perspective offers a theoretical account of the performance-based funding policy formation process. I use the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, and France as case studies. I contend that in these three cases, different local logics drove the performance-based funding policy formation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the InCites tool of Thomson Reuters, this study compares normalized citation impact values calculated for China, Japan, France, Germany, United States, and the UK throughout the time period from 1981 to 2010. InCites offers a unique opportunity to study the normalized citation impacts of countries using (i) a long publication window (1981 to 2010), (ii) a differentiation in (broad or more narrow) subject areas, and (iii) allowing for the use of statistical procedures in order to obtain an insightful investigation of national citation trends across the years. Using four broad categories, our results show significantly increasing trends in citation impact values for France, the UK, and especially Germany across the last thirty years in all areas. The citation impact of papers from China is still at a relatively low level (mostly below the world average), but the country follows an increasing trend line. The USA exhibits a stable pattern of high citation impact values across the years. With small impact differences between the publication years, the US trend is increasing in engineering and technology but decreasing in medical and health sciences as well as in agricultural sciences. Similar to the USA, Japan follows increasing as well as decreasing trends in different subject areas, but the variability across the years is small. In most of the years, papers from Japan perform below or approximately at the world average in each subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level of UK corporate debt directly affects financial stability in the United Kingdom because a significant amount of the exposure of the UK financial system is to UK corporates. Our paper provides a comparison of the determinants of corporate debt in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The comparison serves to benchmark our findings about the determinants of UK corporate debt. In addition, the UK financial sector is significantly exposed to the corporate sectors in the United States, Germany and France. The model assesses the contribution of investment, acquisitions, cash flows and market-to-book values to the determination of debt, and also the tendency of debt to revert to its optimum level. Debt was found to be positively related to the financing needs of the firm, and the optimum level of debt to be negatively related to the market-to-book ratio. This casts some light on the procyclicality of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consultation process initiated by the Commission's Green Paper on the attachment of Bank accounts has sparked a lively debate among practitioners, governments and academics. This is evidenced by the three responses printed in this issue of the ECFR as well as by other comments available via the Internet. Although it is still too early to draw a final conclusion from the first published responses to the Commission's proposal, some general trends and pervasive problems may already be discerned. This synopsis will not deal with every technical detail discussed in the various comments, but focus on the basic issues of policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in higher education institutions (HEIs) as instruments for development has increased in recent years. The main objective of this paper is to address the contribution of HEIs to development through their missions, models, and challenges. With this purpose, we perform a historical analysis and characterise higher-education systems through the perspective of university models and missions, noticing relevant aspects regarding the evolution of this institution over time, as well as the transformations undergone. We also consider the main challenges that current higher education systems face in the 21st century. As methodological approaches, we carry out a literature review complemented by a comparative analysis based on data from the higher education systems of ten European countries. The findings show that HEIs can contribute to development through their missions, which are related to the models of higher education. Their first mission (teaching) contributes to improving human capital and attracting highly qualified people to their regions; the second mission (research) improves scientific knowledge which can foster innovative activities; and the third mission (community service) acts as a link between research and business, including patents, business incubators, and collaboration agreements. We also conclude that the challenges of higher education in the 21st century can be categorised essentially in three main areas: (1) globalisation and massification of higher education, as well as the internationalisation of HEIs' missions and diversification of the educational supply to attract new students; (2) new technologies related to the digitalisation of teaching and distance learning; and (3) higher education entrepreneurship, showing the importance of university-company relationships. This paper provides a global setting for a reflection on the role of HEIs in the 21st century, given their connection with society and the need for a more effective contribution to socio-economic development.

In recent years, various revelations about government malfeasances have highlighted the vulnerability of civil society actors who work on surveillance by intelligence agencies. Simultaneously, new technologies and overburdened state oversight bodies clarify how relevant citizen scrutiny of intelligence is. Both of these factors have led to the emergence of scrutiny by civil society actors as a research subject. This paper contributes to such scholarship by presenting data collected through surveys addressed at journalists and professionals from civil society organisations (CSOs) in France, Germany, and the UK to comparatively characterize the forms, scope, and constraints of the scrutiny they perform. Indicated differences across countries highlight variances in the practices of civic intelligence oversight. These variances indicate that there is room to manoeuvre for civic forms of holding intelligence agencies to account, counteracting the primacy of security and the secrecy of intelligence. Yet, similarities of civic oversight practitioners’ perspectives across all three countries are also distinct and informative; in particular, across all three countries, journalists and CSO professionals who work on surveillance by intelligence agencies worry they are under surveillance themselves and express dissatisfaction with safeguards at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to identify the special features of the governance structures of research universities in four western countries: the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Conceptual framework was laid out as groundwork of the paper. Scholarly work of known authors in higher education governance was reviewed with major features of the governance of the research universities of these countries identified and discussed with reflection of the conceptual framework. It was found in common that major research universities have (1) governance structure with responsibilities of components specifically defined; (2) distinct separation of business affairs and academic work; (3) good collaboration among the entities of their governance structure; and (4) great respect for academic freedom and independence.

In some institutions of higher learning, one of the approaches to successful governance is through student assessment of teachers, dubbed Student Assessment of Faculty or Student Evaluation of Teaching and extensively used in the United States of America (USA). In schools and colleges, the usual largest bloc and primary stakeholders are the students. Students should therefore assess teachers for the purpose of improving the system for all stakeholders including themselves. Teaching is a service in a marketing framework and where it is offered, the buyer is in the best position to assess the offering for better performance. This paper advocates for student assessment of their teachers at the end of each teaching cycle and suggests a basket of approaches to reduce the dissonance that accompanies the exercise where applied. A template is suggested in the paper.

This paper uses panel data regression models, to empirically examine the determinants of health expenditure in six countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany over a ten year period. Empirical findings emphasize the role of various demographic and economic variables on health expenditures including income level, fertility level, mortality rate, population above age 65 (or old-age dependency), and rural population. The regression results for North America and Europe found the fixed effect- model and the random- effect model are favorable over the pooled model. This paper contributes to the existing literature both in terms of the sample studied as well as variable considered. The results reveal that per capita income and the percent of population over age 65; these factors have significant effects on total health expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses a longitudinal dataset on legal protection of shareholders over a 36 year period, 1970–2005, for four advanced countries, the UK, France, Germany and the USA. It examines two aspects of the legal origin hypothesis—whether shareholder protection is higher in the common law countries (UK and USA) than in the civil law countries (France and Germany) and whether shareholder protection matters for stock market development in the short and long runs. It also examines the ‘causation’ issue and the ‘endogeneity’ problem—whether greater shareholder protection leads to stock market development or whether stock market development leads to changes in law. The paper casts serious doubt on the validity of the basic theses of the Anglo Saxon legal and developmental model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between the consumer price index (CPI) and the producer price index (PPI) in the UK, France and Germany from 1997 to 2013. We employ the momentum-threshold autoregressive (MTAR) cointegration model for empirical analysis. The results show that the CPI and the PPI are cointegrated with bi-directional long-run Granger causality between CPI and PPI, signifying the existence of both demand-pull and the cost-push nature of inflation. The estimates of threshold vector error correction models (TVECMs) indicate asymmetric adjustments to equilibrium, where upward adjustments are statistically significant but downward adjustments are sluggish and insignificant. Moreover, we generate the unconditional half-life estimates as a measure of persistence, which reveal robust evidence of complex non-linearities in the adjustment process. Our overall results provide valuable information for policymakers to formulate inflation-control policies and optimal policy horizons under a non-linear framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an EU-funded project under the Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) Programme, with a particular emphasis on the Oxford-based part. Involving six European universities, the overarching investigation was concerned with the tensions between standardization and tradition in education. In Oxford the focus was on aspects of EU education and training policy in four Member States: the United Kingdom, German, Sweden, and France. The paper describes the research undertaken and its outcomes, using the project as an example of EU funding programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define international technological specialisation (ITS) as the technological performance of a country in a specific technology relative to its overall international technological performance. This paper uses patent applications and patent citations at the European Patent Office for five countries (US, UK, Italy, France, Germany) from 1989 to 1994 for 135 technological classes in three industrial sectors (Chemicals, Electronics and Machinery). It shows that ITS is significantly persistent and is affected by the direction of cross-sectoral knowledge spillovers within countries. In addition, the paper shows that the concentration of innovative activities, the emergence of new innovators and technological co-operation positively affect ITS. Some differences across sectors emerge. Keywords: Technological specialization; Knowledge spillover; Market structure [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess rates of traversing barriers to care to access optimal clinical outcomes in people with migraine internationally. Background: People in need of medical care for migraine should consult a health care professional knowledgeable in migraine management, obtain an accurate diagnosis, and receive an individualized treatment plan, which includes scientific society guideline-recommended treatments where appropriate. Methods: The Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes-International (CaMEO-I) Study was a cross-sectional, web-based survey conducted from July 2021 through March 2022 in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (US). Respondents who met modified International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition, criteria for migraine and had Migraine Disability Assessment Scale (MIDAS) scores of ≥ 6 (i.e., mild, moderate, or severe disability) were deemed to need medical care and were included in this analysis. Minimally effective treatment required that participants were currently consulting a health care professional for headache (barrier 1), reported an accurate diagnosis (barrier 2), and reported use of minimally appropriate pharmacologic treatment (barrier 3; based on American Headache Society 2021 Consensus Statement recommendations). Proportions of respondents who successfully traversed each barrier were calculated, and chi-square tests were used to assess overall difference among countries. Results: Among 14,492 respondents with migraine, 8,330 had MIDAS scores of ≥ 6, were deemed in need of medical care, and were included in this analysis. Current headache consultation was reported by 35.1% (2926/8330) of respondents. Compared with the US, consultation rates and diagnosis rates were statistically significantly lower in all other countries except France where they were statistically significantly higher. Total appropriate treatment rates were also statistically significantly lower in all other countries compared with the US except France, which did not differ from the US. All 3 barriers were traversed by only 11.5% (955/8330) of respondents, with differences among countries (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Of people with migraine in need of medical care for migraine, less than 15% traverse all 3 barriers to care. Although rates of consultation, diagnosis, and treatment differed among countries, improvements are needed in all countries studied to reduce the global burden of migraine. Trial registration: NA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the dynamic relationship between short term interest rates and inflation is analyzed for five countries (U.S.A., UK, France, Germany and Switzerland), covering the period 1974-1980. The framework of analysis is the bivariate autoregressive representation of the interest and the inflation rate, which allows to test the traditional approach (interest rate as distributed lag of inflation) as well as the novel approach of Fama (the inflation rate as function of the one period lagged interest rate). In general, the hypotheses of both approaches are rejected by the data. An analysis of the variability of the real interest rate suggests that it contributes strongly to the variation of the nominal interest rate and that the nominal interest rate and inflation help to predict the ex ante real interest rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the effects of accounting diversity on the financial ratios and stock market valuation of the accounting data given by companies in France, Germany, and Great Britain. Also, the effectiveness of the European Union's efforts to lower diversity in accounting standards is looked at. Using a capital markets strategy and creating capital-markets-based measures for diversity in the accounting measurement practices the effects of measurement differences are discussed. The EU directives include minimizing the choices in accounting measurement principles, requirement of a specified set of annual report disclosures, and emphasis of the true and fair view in comparability and transparency.

This study explores the relation between risk of job automation and participation in adult education and training (AET) and examines variation in that relation across welfare regimes distinguishing between situational and institutional barriers. Using microdata of PIAAC, we analyze participation in formal or nonformal AET for job-related reasons in relation to the risk of automation of the respondents' occupation after controlling for main sociodemographic characteristics. Logistic regression models are run on respondents from 14 European countries representing different welfare regimes: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (Scandinavian countries); Italy, Greece, and Spain (Southern European); Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland (Central and Eastern Europe), Belgium, France, and Germany (Continental); and United Kingdom and Ireland (Anglo-Saxon countries). Our findings confirm that workers in occupations at high risk of automation were found to be consistently less likely to participate in job-related AET, quite irrespective of welfare regime. [The paper was presented at XIII Conferenza Espanet Italia--Il welfare state di fronte alle sfide globali (Venezia, 17 September 2020).]

This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment Programme during the 2014-2015 survey) using a multi-stage sampling method. The study employed multi-level latent class analysis and three-step analysis in order to determine both the number of multi-level latent classes of educators' literacy scores as well as the selected independent variables' success in predicting those latent classes. The analysis revealed that educators in Germany constituted the group with the highest literacy skills while educators from Singapore comprised the group with the lowest literacy skills. [This study was presented at the 9th International Congress of Educational Research. Ordu University, Ordu, Turkey.]

This is a conceptual paper that examines the origin and development of universities and their current role in global society. There has been an unprecedented and exponential growth of technology and artificial intelligence capabilities over the past ten years which is challenging current working practices and affecting all areas of society. The paper examines how this role may change to match the new demands placed on them by a digitally enabled society that has greater leisure time. The design of the paper is first to detail some of the changes in work practices that are taking place and how these will impact on society. It then offers several ways in which universities could modify their role to respond to these emerging challenges. This could include new courses, new organisational structures and new pedagogical practices. The paper provides a platform for discussion and debate around the strategic vision and direction of travel for higher education.

ABSTRACT Research on ideological attitudes has identified two main dimensions that refer to two fundamental features of group organization: social solidarity and social control. In response to prior research that has studied their relationship mainly from a correlational perspective, this paper introduces a social reality model based on psychological functionality of ideological attitudes. Social position variables (education, income and material vulnerability) and insecurity variables (fear of crime and distrust) are used to predict the interplay between ideological attitudes towards social solidarity and social control. Using K-means cluster analysis, a typology with four patterns of support for solidarity and control ('socials', 'repressives', 'minimalists' and 'social-repressives') was created, on the basis of representative survey data for the UK, France and Germany ( N = 7034). Results from logistic regression analyses show that the proposed social reality model explains membership in typology categories, with similar results across the three countries. Overall, the model underscores the social origins of ideological attitudes as functional responses to perceived social reality. The paper illustrates how the social psychological study of ideological attitudes may be enriched by a typological approach that examines patterns of attitudes rather than single dimensions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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ABSTRACT European labour markets have undergone several important innovations over the last three decades. Most countries have reformed their labour markets since the mid-1990s, with the liberalization of fixed-term contracts and temporary work agencies being the common elements to such reforms. This paper investigates the existence of a change in the dynamic behaviour of the aggregate employment for major European Union countries - France, Germany, Italy and Spain. According to our results, partial labour market reforms have made the response of the aggregate employment to output shocks larger and quite comparable to that found for the UK - the most flexible labour market in Europe since the Thatcher reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical fertility transition is the process by which much of Europe and North America went from high to low fertility in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This transformation is central to recent accounts of long-run economic growth. Prior to the transition, women bore as many as eight children each, and the elasticity of fertility with respect to incomes was positive. Today, many women have no children at all, and the elasticity of fertility with respect to incomes is zero or even negative. This paper discusses the large literature on the historical fertility transition, focusing on what we do and do not know about the process. I stress some possible misunderstandings of the demographic literature, and discuss an agenda for future work. (JEL I12, J13, N30) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes three contributions. First we present a technique by which the monetary transmission mechanism of Germany, France, the UK and the Eurozone can be decomposed into its component cycles, compared across economies and across time. As a result, we found that the individual data generating processes have varied over time. Second we show that Germany has now converged on the rest of Europe and not vice versa, although Germany had dominated monetary policy making in Europe for many years. Third, we show that the UK as an outsider has behaved like a peripheral EMU country, even when EMU was not in place. In other words, the transmission mechanisms of Germany and the UK were fundamentally different. Hence, when that German monetary policy dominated Europe in a way that was not in line with the rest of Europe, never mind the UK, it is no surprise that the UK eventually left the ERM (1992). The current financial crisis may enforce the trend of convergence of the transmission mechanism. But there have been signs of a divergence between core and periphery, to some extent involving the UK, so this general convergence, as opposed to tighter convergence in the core, may not last. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses 82 national newspaper sites from eight Western European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK). These sites were checked as to whether the content is offered free or against payment, the payment instruments they accept are listed, and it is noted whether the sites rely on subscriptions and/or unbundled access options such as pay-per-view. Based on these dimensions, the paper paints a picture of the payment instruments accepted by Western European newspaper sites. One observation that stands out is that micropayment instruments are still not popular. Most schemes are only accepted in a single country, by a limited number of sites. Tellingly, none of the micropayment instruments is accepted by more than 13 per cent of newspapers. Also, 17.5 per cent have yet to adopt an online payment system, for either macropayments or micropayments. A second result is that there are large idiosyncrasies between countries, which typically reflect differences in use in the real world. Finally, the analysis confirms that traditional payment instruments are accepted mainly for the payment of subscriptions, and micropayment instruments mainly for unbundled access options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper finds empirical support for a Taylor (1993) type interest rate determination rule. The model is solved analytically, estimated and used for simulation, impulse response analyses and forecasting with quarterly time series data for the UK and annual time series data for Germany, France, Japan, the UK and the US. The results confirm that such rules implicitly exists during the period of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "big trade-off," described by Arthur Okun some thirty years ago, is back again: equality or efficiency, or to put it differently, modern highly developed economies and societies have to choose between the Scylla of income inequality and the Charybdis of unemployment. Furthermore, it looks like the continental European economies—foremost Germany and France—sided with more egalitarian ends accepting higher unemployment while the liberal economies such as the United States and the United Kingdom chose higher inequality for lower unemployment. In this paper it is argued that the trade-off is not a supply-side necessity to maintain work effort in a situation of incomplete contracts, but is a politico-economic issue of particular interest groups seeking rents. However, unlike in Mancur Olson's seminal approach, it is not the trade unions that are forming distributional coalitions on the labor market, but rather the meritocracy which is happy to use Keynesian-type demand management to advance their material interests by pursuing a "meritocratically optimal rate of unemployment" (MORU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, deregulation of social welfare provision is underway throughout Western Europe. The major tendency is for disorganisation, together with the emergence of welfare markets. This is also changing the way elderly people are provided with personal and socio-medical services. Focusing on domiciliary eldercare, the paper explores if this is accompanied by a change in what Kohli has termed the moral economy of old age welfare. Departing from a general reflection on the organisation of social services in modern welfare capitalism the paper sketches evolutions in the eldercare system of three major European countries, with a special focus on the role of civic rationales and professional norms in the organisational field under consideration. It is argued that the moral economy of eldercare has become fluid, thus implying a broader transformation in the societal treatment of old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs four cointegration test approaches, PO, HI, JJ and KSS, to test for pairwise long-run equilibrium relationships between Taiwan's stock price index and each of the stock price indexes of four European markets – French, German, Dutch, and British stock markets. The results from these four tests are robust and clearly consistent in suggesting that the Taiwan stock market is not pairwise cointegrated with the four European stock markets. This provides strong evidence that there exist long-run benefits for Taiwan investors diversifying in the equity markets of Taiwan's major European trading partners, France, Germany, Holland, and the UK, over the sample period considered from 6 January 1998 to 30 May 2002. These findings could be valuable to Taiwan individual investors and financial institutions holding long-run investment portfolios in the equity markets of France, Germany, Holland, and the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews theory and evidence on the ways in which regulation affects productivity outcomes. In a context of endogenous growth, it is argued that traditional measures of compliance costs miss the potentially most important impacts of regulation on productivity which occur through changes in incentives to invest and to innovate. Recent attempts to measure cross-country variations in the strength of product-market and employment regulation are considered and some weaknesses are highlighted. Nevertheless, consistent with endogenous growth models, there appears to be quite strong evidence that regulations which inhibit entry into product markets have an adverse effect on TFP growth in OECD countries. Although there are some discrepancies in the evidence, on most measures the UK appears lightly regulated relative to France and Germany, and this may have contributed to a reduction in the recent past in the UK's TFP gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that governments of some otherwise enlightened states are increasingly fearful of acknowledging the restraints imposed on them by existing international law. They are also reluctant to enter into new commitments by way of international conventions that would expand the reach of international law. The paper asks whether these fears are based on a true understanding of international law or on some distorted view of it. It will draw comparisons and some contrasts between Australia and the United States in their reactions to a number of recent events as well as to some enduring situations of contemporary relevance. Had time (and the limits of my research) permitted, one might also have examined public attitudes toward international law in China, Japan, and Russia in this context, where similar fears appear to be entertained. France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, also enlightened states, appear by contrast to belong to a group more dedicated to international law. As Robert Kagan has recently remarked, the experience of two world wars at close quarters, and the formation of the European Union, have made the European countries more dedicated to process, where the United States is more interested in results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to study the effectiveness of the risk management system in the European context, especially with regard to the risk management committee, the uncertainty of the environment and company performance. In summary, it evaluates European companies listed on the stock exchange in France, Germany and the United Kingdom to determine how risk management systems influence financial companies' performance. Design/methodology/approach -- To study the effectiveness of risk management systems and their influence on performance, the large companies selected in our sample are fairly representative of the European market, according to the Dutch indices of each country (SBF 120 in France, HDAX 110 in Germany and FTSE 100 in United Kingdom).The empirical evidence is based on an international quantitative analysis, using a data set involving 320 companies listed on the stock exchange over a ten-year period from 2005 to 2014. Findings -- The results indicate that the establishment of a risk management and control system by a company positively influences its management, and its performance level and value creation also improve. The results of this study demonstrate a significant strengthening of the role of the risk management committee in the three countries. The surveillance function is reinforced, and in particular, the internal control system is accentuated. Research limitations/implications -- This study has some limitations that can form leads for future research. One of these limitations is the sample size. The authors have represented the European context by three countries that certainly constitute great European powers, but have regulations different from other countries. The company size is also a possible research element. Indeed, risk management system varies between large, small and medium-sized enterprises, so it is important to study each type of company well. Originality/value -- This study identifies the risk management committee as a mechanism of control that is highly important in the company, and it proposes an international framework that comparatively and empirically evaluates how the risk management system used in large European companies can improve their financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the health care systems in Europe are considered the global benchmark, European nations were severely affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This manuscript aimed to examine the strategies implemented to combat the COVID-19 pandemic by France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia and their outcomes in terms of the number of cases, testing, and deaths. This is the first review of its kind that extensively analyzes the preparedness, mitigation, and response strategies against the COVID-19 pandemic adopted by these nations. This paper further suggests a strategic preparedness model for future pandemics. From the analysis, we found that a decentralized approach, prompt decision-making and timely execution, coordination between local health authorities, and public participation in the implementation of strategies could substantially reduce the case fatality rate. Nations with a high percentage of gross domestic product invested in the health sector, as well as more nurses, physicians, hospital beds, intensive care unit beds, and ventilators, better managed the pandemic. Instead, nations that postponed their pandemic response by delaying tracking, tracing, testing, quarantine, and lockdown were badly affected. The lessons learned from the present pandemic could be used as a guide to prepare for further pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Scholarly interest in interorganizational learning (IOL) has spiked in the past decade because of its potential to absorb, transfer and create valuable knowledge for enhanced innovative performance and sustained competitive advantage. However, only a handful of review studies exists on the topic. The evolution of IOL has not been studied explicitly and there is a lack of understanding of the field trends. To fill this gap, this paper aims to comprehensively review the literature on IOL and map its evolution and trends using bibliometric techniques. In particular, the authors use visualization of science mapping freeware to systematize the findings and interpret the results. Design/methodology/approach: The authors synthesize the findings using "evaluative bibliometric techniques" to identify the quality and quantity indicators of the IOL research and use "relational bibliometric techniques" to determine the structural indicators of the IOL field such as the intellectual foundations and emerging research themes of IOL research. Findings: Through an analysis of 208 journal publications obtained from the Scopus database, the authors determine the leading authors, countries, highly cited papers and their contributions to the IOL literature. By identifying the key hotspots, intellectual foundations and emerging trends of IOL, the authors provide promising avenues in IOL research. Originality/value: To the best of the knowledge, this study is the first to systematically review the IOL literature and provide future research directions.

The paper constructs estimates of labour productivity in three broad service sectors including distribution, transport and communication and financial and business services and for ten sub-sectors within these broad categories. It compares Great Britain with the U.S., Germany and France. These sectors are referred to as market services, cover most private service activities with the exception of personal services and domestic service. Defining market services as distribution, hotels and catering, transport and communications and financial and business services accounted for 34-43 percent of total employment in the four countries studied and 36-43 percent of GDP. For labour productivity in market services as a whole, France led Great Britain by 36 percent in 1993, Germany led Great Britain by 34 percent and the U.S. led Great Britain by 38 percent. There is a considerable difference between the ranking of countries in terms of living standards and in terms of productivity. The main reason is that there is a marked variation in the proportions of the population who work.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

The principal objectives of this paper are to estimate and analyse the private value of patent rights in the United Kingdom, France and Germany during the post-1950 period, and to provide and consider some implications of an index of the `quality' (or average private value) of patents. Since patent rights are seldom marketed, their private value is in general unobserved. This paper makes inferences on the value of patent rights from the economic responses of patentees. in most countries patentees must pay an annual renewal fee in order to keep their patents in force. If it is assumed that agents make renewal decisions based on the value of the patent right obtained by renewal, then data on patent renewals and renewal fee schedules contain information on the distribution of the value of patent rights. In Section I we outline a simple economic model of patent renewal decisions which, when combined with the renewal data, allows us to estimate the distribution of the private value of patent protection. Section II describes the data set and provides some simple nonparametric evidence on shifts in the patent value distribution over time. In Section III we parameterise the model, and then present and discuss the estimates. This includes some discussion of the empirical correlates of intertemporal changes in the value distribution. Section IV derives estimates of the quantiles of the distribution of the value of patent rights, and compares our results to information on both the distribution of the value of patented ideas and on the resource cost of producing them. Section V considers some implications of our results for the distinction between measures of the quantity and the value of patents. The results indicate that the average value of patents varies across countries. We also use the estimates to examine the relationship between the decline in patenting activity since the late 1960s, the simultaneous fall in patents per unit of inventive output, and the contro... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Educators require focused training to foster the development of intercultural competence in nurses. Training programs for educators need to be based on a comprehensive profile with a focus on intercultural learning. This study aims to define and validate a profile of the Intercultural Nursing Educator (INE). Method: The Delphi method was used with an iterative, multi-stage process to transform opinions into group consensus. A total of 46 European, African, and American experts from the nursing and intercultural field participated. Inclusion criteria required English at a level of B2, expertise in the field of intercultural competence, experience in teaching intercultural competence in the nursing context, and publications focused on intercultural topics. Results: The INE profile was developed and all 126 competencies were validated. Discussion and conclusion: The profile is freely available on the project website and provides the basis for curricula, training programs and assessment of the required competences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this research is to investigate the positive effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on loyalty to retailers through trust dimensions (competence, benevolence and integrity) taking into account socio-cultural factors (social norms and collectivism) across nations. Design/methodology/approach: The authors carried out three quantitative studies (N = 948) in three countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom [UK]). They then used structural equation modelling to test the model and hypotheses. Findings: The results show contingent positive effects of CSR perception on customer loyalty. They underscore indirect effects of CSR on loyalty through the mediation of specific dimensions of trust (competence, benevolence and integrity). The authors also identify significant moderations such that the effects of social norms on CSR and loyalty are stronger in France/Germany than in the UK. The effects of collectivism on CSR and loyalty are stronger in France than in Germany and the UK. Practical implications: Retailers can rely on CSR and trust to increase loyalty directly. When communicating CSR activities, retailers have to account for cultural differences in their main markets and adopt adjusted strategies to convince consumers about their CSR efforts. Retailers should understand the social norms of their customers in order to determine the effectiveness of disclosing CSR initiatives. Originality/value: Using a cross-cultural perspective, this article extends and enriches knowledge on the relationship between CSR, social norms and loyalty in retailing in different cultural settings. It also underscores the role of trust in building loyalty across nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a bibliometric analysis of the investigations of the last 54 years focused on the teaching of topology and its applications in the learning of other areas of knowledge was carried out. The articles that appear in the SCOPUS database were taken into account under the search criteria of the words topology and teaching, connected with the Boolean expression AND in the search field ABS. As a result, 329 articles were obtained which, based on the PRISMA methodology, were reduced to 74 papers. In them publication trends, impact of publications, citation frequencies, among others, were compared. In addition, its use was identified for learning topology at different levels of training, areas of knowledge where this discipline is most applied and strategies used to teach these applications.

According to the theory of instrumental actualization in mediated conflicts, the mass media tend to exaggerate events consistent with the editorial line. This theory was tested using press coverage in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom on the Japanese seaquake, the tsunami it caused, and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Within a period of seven weeks after the seaquake, the coverage in the four countries in 27 national newspapers and magazines on the three events was analyzed. As hypothesized from theory, German and Swiss media concentrated on Fukushima and stressed its relevance to domestic nuclear plants, whereas French and British media placed a greater emphasis on the tsunami and rarely related the nuclear catastrophe in Japan to domestic nuclear programs. In addition, there were remarkable correlations between the views of journalists and the bias of statements on nuclear energy presented in their news sections. Findings are discussed and related to the theory of public opinion and political decisions in liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.