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Having a gatekeeper position in a collaborative network offers firms great potential to gain competitive advantages. However, it is not well understood what kind of collaborations are associated with such a position. Conceptually grounded in social network theory, this study draws on the resource-based view and the relational factors view to investigate which types of collaboration characterize firms that are in a gatekeeper position, which ultimately could improve firm performance in subsequent periods. The empirical analysis utilizes a unique longitudinal data set to examine dynamic network formation. We used a data crawling approach to reconstruct collaboration networks among the 500 largest companies in Germany over nine years and matched these networks with performance data. The results indicate that firms in gatekeeper positions often engage in medium-intensity collaborations and less likely weak-intensity collaborations. Strong-intensity collaborations are not related to the likelihood of being a gatekeeper. Our study further reveals that a firm's knowledge base is an important moderator and that this knowledge base can increase the benefits of having a gatekeeper position in terms of firm performance.

Conditions of rapid development and increasing competition in the sphere of restaurant business actualize the issues of development of innovative approaches to managing the development of the restaurant business enterprise in a competitive environment, which should contain creative innovations to increase the social and emotional value of restaurant services for consumers. The ability of the restaurant business enterprise to generate the desired impression on the consumer will determine its competitive position and success in the market. Insufficient coverage of the fundamentally important issues related to the study of the essence of the concept of “impression economy”, insufficient theoretical consideration of the theoretical and methodological aspects of the concept of impression economy in managing the development of restaurant business enterprise confirm the relevance and purpose of the above topic. The study is based on a set of rules and procedures containing a series of methods that use to systematize scientific approaches to defining the essence of the concept of “impression economy”, to establish the relationship of gastronomy and restaurant business, to systematize the motives for visiting the restaurant business enterprise by consumers into 4 groups (physical, cultural, interpersonal, status), identify the levels of management of the restaurant service. Such methods include: problem and comparative, formal and logical, system and structural. The five-tier model of restaurant service management is proposed in the article. Customer impressions as a key value of the restaurant service are highlighted separately in this model at the highest level. This restaurant service has a synergistic effect that transforms the traditional approach to the restaurant service offering into a multi-tiered innovative interconnection system: “restaurant service – value of restaurant service – impression of restaurant service”. Prospects for practical implementation of the concept of economy of impressions in the activity of restaurant business enterprises are connected with the need to solve a number of problems. In particular, studies require the application of the concept of impression economy as an element of marketing-oriented management of the development of restaurant business enterprises, which will increase the value of the restaurant service, contribute to the formation of a positive image and accelerate the achievement of target activity indicators.

Motivational policy plays a large role in the effective management of personnel. The state of the economy and social relations in Ukraine and, equally important, the state of self-awareness of its citizens is unstable and complicated. During this period, it is especially important to act effectively in the field of enterprise personnel management. The situation is constantly changing and, accordingly, the approaches to the choice of effective methods of work with personnel must change. The methodological basis of the study is the dialectical method of cognition, determining the position of the theory of motivation of domestic and foreign scientific schools. In the course of the research, a systematic and logical approach to the scientific knowledge of the set of phenomena and processes related to the functioning of the personnel motivation system was applied, which revealed the main problems and prospects of improvement of the motivational policy in the enterprises. During the research, the methods of logical generalization and comparison were used to formulate the basic provisions and prerequisites for the formation of a motivational policy, an algorithm for managing a motivational policy; systematic analysis and synthesis, in particular, when substantiating the main directions of improvement of motivation policy at agricultural enterprises; statistical analysis - in the study of changes in the number and wages of employees in agriculture; logical generalization - when formulating conclusions. The article is devoted to the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to the formation of a modern effective motivational policy in agricultural enterprises. The main directions of improvement of motivational policy in agricultural enterprises are revealed. Systematic stages of implementation of motivational policy in agricultural enterprises. The trends of changes in the number and wages of employees in agriculture are determined. Based on the considered approaches, the algorithm of management of motivational policy in agricultural enterprises is formulated. The results of the study will expand the list of important directions of improvement of motivational policy, which are considered in the context of the algorithm of its management. The proposed algorithm for managing the improvement of motivational policy in agricultural enterprises will provide research and analysis of labor efficiency indicators, their monitoring, which will contribute to the increase of labor efficiency. Tracking factors of influence on the motivational orientation of management processes, deepening the study of motivational systems of change management in agricultural enterprises will be a promising area of research.

Accurately assessing a firm's human capital and its relative position compared to other firms is critical, as it has strong implications for many stakeholders to understand the firm's strategic competitiveness. The traditional way of assessing firm human capital is mostly based on survey method and the accuracy depends on a large group of survey respondents. In this article, we propose to adopt the PageRank algorithm in the context of a firm network formed by actual flow of employees among firms. The PageRank score obtained provides a good assessment of the firm's human capital, which is validated by both the regression model and the random forest model. Our work contributes to the literature by proposing a more accurate, faster, and more cost-effective assessment approach for measuring firm's human capital. This novel approach is also friendly to real-time and big data of the current business world and provides important implications for the development of a more effective third-party ranking system regarding human capital of firms.

Drawing on insights from organizational theory, in this article, we examine the paradoxical tensions that reside between quality and safety and impact construction organizations and their projects. Rather than adopting the dualistic, reductionist, and ineffective “either/or” framing of quality and safety, we suggest confronting them as a duality. The corollary is balancing the competing demands of quality and safety, thus putting managers in a position to optimally reduce rework and improve project safety at the same time. Managers also need to focus on balancing the paradoxical tensions of error prevention and error management that can influence a project's performance. However, the offsetting of these tensions has been overlooked in practice. In this article, we proffer that if construction organizations are to make headway to improve quality and safety simultaneously, then managers should espouse ambidexterity, move from the “tyranny” of quality or safety to “genius” of quality and safety and, thus, synergize these two competing demands while managing the paradoxical tensions of error prevention and error management.

El propósito del artículo es reflexionar acerca de una epistemología latinoamericana y caribeña, considerando que casi todo el pensamiento a lo largo de la historia se ha caracterizado por la hegemonía euronorteamericana. En tal sentido, se hizo una hermeneúsis documental de algunas de las principales producciones que se han hecho desde y para la región. En primer lugar, para demostrar que a pesar de esta primacía se han realizado valiosos planteamientos, que tienen elementos comunes entre sí y con la postura de la autora, quien forma parte de una red de investigadores desde la cual se viene planteando una epistemología transcompleja, cuya característica fundamental es la complementariedad de ideas, autores, paradigmas, teorías y enfoques. Estos y otros elementos permiten comprender, explicar y transformar esta realidad compleja y diversa.

Stock price forecasting is a type of time series problem that forecasts the future price or status of a company on the basis of analysis of time respective values. As the price of stock or company varies with respect to time, its behavior can be analyzed by different machine learning approaches. In this work, methodology is proposed to evaluate the stock position with variation in time using deep learning approach such as recurrent neural network (RNN). This methodology used the technical parameters to evaluate the long term and short-term analysis of any stock or share. This approach also evaluates and gives suggestions to investors either to buy or sell any stock for long term and gives return at very low risk. In this paper work, hybridization of co-relation analysis and deep learning approach for stock price and long-term behavior analysis. The proposed work is termed as time lagged weight optimized RNN (TL-WO-RNN) that is adopted in this work and effectively predict the technical parameters and on the basis of that stock behavior is also predicted. The result analysis was performed on data from different sectors and such as Telecom, Powers, Manufacturing, Finance, Software sectors, etc. The result analysis shows the effectiveness of the TL-WO-RNN algorithm as compared to existing work.

International audience; Using an approach that embodies an explicit tradeoff between need and governance considerations, we propose an optimal aid allocation formula. We first assume exogenous, then endogenous governance. In the former case, a central concept is need-adjusted aid effectiveness while in the second case the donor has policing instruments under the form of monitoring and sanctioning capacities. We show that external disciplining has two advantages when the donor is sensitive enough to poverty intensity: (1) to cater to poor countries to a greater extent than is possible when local governance cannot be influenced by external forces, and (2) to respond (non-perversely) to improvements in the local governance of a country by raising its aid share. In institutionally weak countries, populations should welcome wisely applied donor's discipline as a way not only to get access to financial support but also to constrain their elites to refrain from abusing their position excessively. Imposing discipline when the release of externally-provided development funds is at stake seems more acceptable than aid directed to the explicit purpose of combatting corruption.

We study optimal promotion decisions of hierarchical firms, with one junior and one senior managerial position, which interact in a search and matching labor market. Workers acquire experience over time while being employed in a junior position and the firm has to determine the experience level at which the worker receives a promotion which allows her to fill a senior position. Promoted workers move to the senior position in their current firrm, if it is vacant, otherwise they search for senior positions on the market. The promotion cut-offs of the competing firms exhibit strategic complementarity, but we show that generically a unique stable symmetric general equilibrium exists. If workers have homogeneous skills, then an increase in the skill level induces faster promotion. In the presence of two skill levels in the work force an increase of the fraction of high skilled leads to slower promotion of both types of workers, where the promotion threshold for high skilled workers is substantially below that for low skilled workers. This implies earlier promotions of high skill workers compared to the low skilled consistent with available empirical evidence. Finally, we show that inserting pyramidal firms, which have twice as many junior than senior positions, into the market induces all firms to promote later. Pyramidal firms in equilibrium promote substantially later than vertical firms which is supported by the existing empirical findings. The paper also makes a methodological contribution by combining search and matching theory with simulations in order to characterize the general equilibrium promotion cut-offs in a market setting with heterogeneous hierarchical firms.

The integration of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within the concept Industry 4.0 represents one of its main challenges, as they play a vital part in industrial value chains that shall be digitized from suppliers to the end customer. However, what the implementation stages for Industry 4.0 in SMEs should be as well as the respective resources for achieving the next stage are scarcely understood. In response, this paper proposes a framework using a resource-based review for Industry 4.0 implementation according to the stage of development in SMEs, created between researchers, policy makers, and 354 manufacturing SMEs in the province of Gipuzkoa (Basque Country, Spain). The paper applies a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative (interviews) and quantitative elements (survey data). The results are used to develop a model with four stages of SMEs that are characterized by having distinct preconditions and conditions for Industry 4.0. Thereupon, the required measures to achieve the next stage of Industry 4.0 implementation are derived. This highlights Industry 4.0 for SMEs as a process with different stages toward achieving sustainable competitive advantage and offering insight into how the different resources operate. The high importance and advanced position regarding industrial value creation and SMEs in Gipuzkoa allows to generalize and transfer the findings to other European regions.

Introduction: Many studies conducted in different countries or geographic locations had reported different reasons as a major cause for permanent teeth extractions. Many patients report to our OPD for extraction and refuse other treatment options. This had led to early edentulism and decreased quality of life in our population. Methods: A sample size of 1000 who had tooth extracted in Nepalgunj Medical College Teaching Hospital, Kohalpur and consented to take part were included in this study from April 2019 to March 2022. Collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (SPSS) Version 25 and Chi-square test was used to compare between different variables. Results: A total of 1000 (male 346(34.6%) and female 654(65.4%)) patients underwent extractions of 1306 teeth. The mean age of the patient was 44.27±17.488. Teeth were extracted most commonly in 4th decade of life and third molars were the most commonly extracted teeth. The most common reason for tooth loss is dental caries 939(71.9%). The most common cause for preventable tooth loss were Patient unwillingness to save the tooth 104(37.54%). Complications occurred in 61(4.7%) of cases intra-operatively and 21 (1.6%) cases postoperatively. Conclusions: Dental caries and its sequelae is the most common reason for extraction of all teeth and in all age group. Most patient visited clinic at the advanced stage where teeth cannot be saved. Failed endodontic treatment had also contributed for negative attitude towards teeth conservation among which majority of treatment has been performed by practitioner not registered in Nepal Medical Council.

Following a new innovation strategy, software vendors move their software onto their software service platforms and open up their platforms to third-party software service vendors. Although many studies state that enlarging the scope of software service offerings is the goal of the platform providers, only a few studies have focused on the roles that the platform providers take on to achieve the goal. These studies identified that the platform providers not only manage the platform but also promote and regulate third-party software. In this article, we extend this research by analyzing the activities of how platform providers promote innovation. For the analysis, we use empirical data about software services gathered from AppExchange of Salesforce. The analysis identifies the clusters and positions of software services of Salesforce and third-party vendors in the software service network. Our analysis results show that Salesforce promotes innovation by provisioning software services that are in core positions or that are bridges between service clusters. Third-party vendors release software services that are complementary to those of Salesforce. Overall, the results suggest that platform providers need to position strategically their software services to build successful software ecosystems, and that research on innovation needs to analyze the roles and efforts of the platform providers in detail.

Press releases are short pieces of writing issued by companies or institutions to communicate newsworthy information to the journalist community on the one hand, and to the general public (indirectly through newspaper reporting, or, increasingly, directly by making press releases available on corporate websites) on the other. While ostensibly informative, press releases also carry an implicitly self-promotional purpose, in so far as the information they contain comes from a source internal to the organization which is the object of the release itself. This paper explores the generic features of press releases and investigates the way in which they codify the different communicative purposes and multiple receiver roles which distinguish the genre. Drawing on Bhatia’s work on genre (Bhatia 1993, 2004), and building on Jacobs’s preformulating features (Jacobs 1999a), which can be seen as linguistic strategies aimed at achieving the primary and most ostensible purpose of the press release (i.e. getting the story in the news with as little manipulation as possible on the part of journalists), the paper identifies a set of moves and strategies common to the genre, and links them to communicative purposes on the one hand, and to envisioned audiences on the other. It is argued that the press release occupies a hybrid position along the informative-promotional continuum, and that identification of its communicative purpose relies as much on core as on peripheral textual features.

Refereed/Peer-reviewed Foreign institutional actors (INAs) can act as a liaison between firms and authorities and other power players to navigate bureaucratic structures, both as resource and legitimacy providers in the host market. Building on institutional theory, this study draws from broader organizational sociological literature, to explore the structural position of INAs in a host country context, and engages with fundamental questions of legitimacy, status, and power. It responds to repeated calls that more studies in international business research are needed on the impact of institutional differences, how to obtain legitimacy, and enhance the home country support networks. To understand INAs' position, specifically within the social structure of a bureaucratic host environment, our study uses in-depth interviews with elite actors from the support networks. Japan is chosen for this study as a host market, because it is the European Union's second largest trading partner in Asia, has a strong central bureaucracy, and historically and currently remains a challenging market for Westerners due to complex market entry barriers. The findings provide a new theoretically derived empirical model demonstrating the positional leverage of these INAs, to “open-doors” into a complex environment and offer a nuanced understanding of their formal and informal structural positions of power. The findings also demonstrate a significant overlap between organizational legitimacy and the exemplary status of these INAs in the bureaucratic environment, which enhances and empowers their leverage to reach authorities, press, and other important actors in the market.

This paper provides an empirical classification of migration-related diversities in 166 European cities. The local turn in migration studies has shown that migration-related diversity may take varied forms in different cities. Our understanding of how and why cities differ is lagging behind the wealth of existing conceptualisations. This is partly because most studies look only at one kind of city, in particular, superdiverse global cities. This paper takes a systematic inductive approach to map the diversity of migration-related diversities in urban setting and understand the reasons behind such variations. Applying quantitative classification methods to European cities in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, we search for a new meaningful classification of the urban diversity configurations based on measures of volume, variety and spread of migration-related diversity. Five empirical clusters of cities of migration are found: superdiverse cities, migrant minority cities, new diversity cities, low-migration cities and non-diverse cities. Subsequently, we develop a better qualitative understanding of these clusters by examining typical cities, their economic positioning, migration history, their policy and political structures, as well as their social and geographical position. A thorough classification, we argue, is necessary to have a more differentiated view of the existing urban diversities and go beyond one-size-fits-all solutions for urban governance of migration-related diversity.

The development of blockchain-based applications, to date mostly virtual currencies, touches many areas of law and economics. The most well-known applications of public blockchains rely on Proof of Work as a consensus mechanism in which miners compete to solve a cryptographic puzzle. We argue that economic tools for market definition may be adapted to delineate relevant cryptocurrency mining markets. Antitrust law can help to prevent network attacks and exclusion of transactions with lower fees by large miners. When multiple blockchains are part of the same market, the role of network effects in securing the leading position of more established cryptocurrencies can potentially lead to exclusionary behaviour.

BACKGROUND: Employee satisfaction, employee engagement and turnover intention have always been hot issues in the study of sustainable human resource management. Understanding the relationship among the three is critical for both researchers and human resource practitioners. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to distinguish the effects of employee satisfaction on employee engagement and turnover intentions, and explore the mediating roles of employee engagement and the moderating effects of position level. METHODS: Structural equation modelling and questionnaire. RESULTS: Pay satisfaction, satisfaction with supervisor, satisfaction with work itself, and satisfaction with promotion have positive impacts on employee engagement significantly. Pay satisfaction, satisfaction with supervisor, satisfaction with promotion, satisfaction with co-workers have negative impacts on turnover intention. Employee engagement has a negative impact on turnover intention. Employee engagement partially mediates the relationships between satisfaction with supervisor and turnover intention as well as satisfaction with promotion and turnover intention. The moderating roles of position level between satisfaction with supervisor, satisfaction with co-workers and turnover intention have been supported by data. CONCLUSIONS: This paper validates the relationship among employee satisfaction, employee engagement and turnover intention, and the moderating role of position level systematically. Some suggestions are provided for practitioners in the area of human resource management.

We study the implications of automation for labor market fluctuations in a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) framework that is generalized to incorporate automation decisions. If a job opening is not filled with a worker, a firm can choose to automate that position and use a robot instead of a worker to produce output. The threat of automation strengthens the firm's bargaining power against job seekers in wage negotiations, depressing equilibrium real wages in a business cycle boom. The option of automation also increases the value of a vacancy, raising the incentive for job creation, and thereby amplifying fluctuations in vacancies and unemployment relative to the standard DMP framework. Since automation improves labor productivity while muting wage increases, it implies a countercyclical labor income share, as observed in the data.

"Network adequacy regulations" expand patients' access to hospitals by mandating a lower bound on the number of hospitals that health insurers must include in their networks. Such regulations, however, compromise insurers' bargaining position with hospitals, which may increase hospital reimbursement rates, and may consequently be passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums. In this paper, I quantify this effect by developing a model that endogenously captures: (i) how insurers form hospital-networks, (ii) how they bargain with hospitals over rates by threatening to drop them out of network or to replace them with an out of network hospital, and (iii) how they set premiums in an imperfectly competitive market. I estimate this model using detailed data from a Massachusetts health insurance market, and I simulate the effects of a range of regulations. I find that "tighter" regulations, which force insurers to include more than 85% of the hospital-systems in the market, raise the average reimbursement rates paid by some insurers by at least 28%. More moderate regulations, however, can expand the hospital networks without leading to large hikes in reimbursement-rates.

In many industrial sectors, firms amass large patents portfolios to reinforce their bargaining position vis a vis competitors. In a context where patents have a pure strategic nature, we discuss how the presence and the effectiveness of a patent system affect firms technological decisions. Specifically, we present a two-stage game where firms first choose whether to agglomerate (i.e. develop technologies for the same technological territory) or to separate (i.e. develop technologies for different territories) and then they take their patenting decisions. We show that strong patents may distort technological choices yielding to firms to follow inefficient technological trajectories in an attempt to reduce competitors’ patenting activity. While an increase in the strength of patent rights − i.e. the extent to which patents can be used to extract value − undoubtedly distorts firms choices, the impact of a larger scope − the degree to which patent protection carries out in the adjacent ares as well − is ambiguous. We also discuss how such distortions change when one firm is prevented from obtaining its optimal number of patents and when firms patenting activities generate additional market value.

Research on open innovation has, in the main, focused on large, high-technology firms and tended to adopt an organization-centric approach in examining external links. In contrast, this article uses social network analysis and network centrality to explore open innovation among a cluster of 33 low-technology small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) manufacturers in Ireland. Adopting a mixed-methods approach this article looks beyond the immediate external links that SMEs form with external organizations and explores the wider network in which such firms are located, their position in these networks and the impact of such positioning on open innovation. This article reports a generally positive relationship between networking activity and innovation performance. Within the context of the low-technology cluster it is apparent that the positioning of a firm within the network may serve to enhance or impede its innovation activity in product development. Despite factors such as fears of appropriation limiting the degree of knowledge and resource exchange within the network, this evidence suggests that those firms occupying central network positions and thus connected to a greater number of other members of the cluster, typically demonstrate greater degrees of innovation activity. Finally, as a means of elucidating the factors that may influence a firm's position the article illustrates that firm size, absorptive capacity, and managerial orientation serve as antecedents of network position.

This paper estimates the heterogeneity in peer effects among research scientists in terms of network position. I propose a new measure, brokerage degree, that determines the extent to which a scientist depends on a coauthor to provide him unique access to other scientists further away. I apply this measure to the coauthorship network of medical scientists. I show that network position is crucial for productivity by facilitating access to nonredundant knowledge. Identification results from variation in brokerage degree among coauthors linked to a star scientist who dies. A one standard deviation increase in the brokerage degree of a deceased star is associated with a 10% decrease in annual publications of his coauthor. By applying brokerage degree to topics, I provide evidence that access to knowledge flows embodied in scientists further away can account for a large proportion of the identified heterogeneity effect. This paper was accepted by Toby Stuart, entrepreneurship and innovation.

We study sales dynamics of grocery chain stores during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemics in Italy. We document a sustained growth in revenues for storable products, such as food staples and household supplies, arising right before restrictions to mobility were introduced, and protracted throughout the whole lockdown period. We further look into the revenue surge, by disentangling the role of different types of stores. We find that the increase has been driven by the dynamics of smaller outlets, located in urban areas, closer to the city center, while hypermarkets faced a drop during the lockdown period, plausibly related to their more peripheral position. We also exploit both the remarkable granularity of scanner data, and the staggered implementation of restrictions across Italian regions to causally identify the short-term effects of mobility constraints on outlets' sales. According to our estimates, large grocery stores in areas subject to lockdown measures earned revenues around 10 percent lower than their control group's.

The paper investigates the relationship between compositional inequality (how the shares of capital and labor income vary along income distribution) and inter-personal income inequality. Using a new methodology and data from 47 countries covering the period 1995–2018, we show that higher compositional inequality is associated with higher inter-personal inequality. This is clearly shown by Latin American countries and India. Nordic countries are exceptional because they combine high compositional inequality with low inter-personal inequality. Their exceptionalism is attenuated when pension income received from largely government-mandated accumulated savings is added to capital income. The analysis shows the theoretical possibility of societies where low compositional inequality may be combined with high income inequality. Currently, China and the United States come closest to that position.

Problem Little is known about what midwifery leaders need to effectively contribute to maternity services reform. Background Despite evidence establishing midwifery continuity of care as the gold standard of maternity care, implementation of these models has been slow. Midwives in health service leadership roles are in an ideal position to re-orientate maternity services to midwifery continuity of care. Question What do midwives in leadership positions need in order to be effective in contributing to the reform of maternity services in Australia? Methods This qualitative descriptive study used purposive sampling to recruit 13 midwifery leaders from across Australia. Individual telephone interviews were conducted and analysed through line-by-line coding and identification of themes. Findings Five main themes emerged from the data: ‘core leadership skills and education are essential’; ‘motivation and commitment to implementing evidence-based maternity care’; ‘ability to create and sustain strategic relationships’; ‘bringing the vision to life’ which contained two sub-themes of ‘changing the culture’ and ‘reaching midwifery’s full potential’; and, ‘organisational support and commitment are key to maternity reform’. Discussion This study echoes findings from previous research emphasising the importance of leadership attributes and development opportunities for midwifery leaders. Additional needs of midwifery leaders were also revealed, which have not yet been extensively explored in the literature, including a strong commitment to continuity of care, effective relationships with key stakeholders and support from healthcare executives. Conclusion Midwifery leaders need to be equipped to contribute to maternity care reform through leadership development opportunities, effective relationships and support from healthcare executives.

Recent increases in mortality have brought life expectancy back to the forefront of the public health debate in the US. Though unprecedented, this trend comes after an equally striking phenomenon: a decades long deterioration in the relative position of the US in the world's life expectancy distribution, culminating in the late 2010s in a gap of close to 3 years to the OECD average. This paper takes a comparative approach and documents the relative performance of life expectancy in the US from an international perspective. We characterize the changes in this relative performance over time, its age and cause of death profiles, and estimate its welfare implications. We show that this phenomenon is not recent, is not restricted to very particular causes of death, but is mostly driven by adult and old age mortality. We calculate that welfare gains in the US over the last few decades could have been between 19% and 28% higher had the US been able to reproduce the average health performance of OECD countries at their typical health expenditures.

In 2014, Washington State used a lottery system to allocate licenses to firms in the newly legalized retail cannabis industry, generating random variation in how many stores entrepreneurs were able to own. We observe highly detailed data on all subsequent industry transactions, including prices, wholesale costs, markups, and product assortments. We find that entrepreneurs who are randomly allocated more store licenses ultimately earn substantially higher per store profits than do single-store firms, suggesting that the returns to scale in the mom-and-pop retail sector are quite large. Despite these firms having greater market power, this increase in profits does not come at the expense of consumers. Rather, retailers in multi-store chains ultimately charge significantly lower prices and margins and offer greater product variety. This gap in prices is not initially present but grows substantially over time, as does the difference in assortment size and profits between stores in multi-store chains and stores operating alone. Using the full history of outcomes, we track the evolution of firms in this new market and show that multi-store retailers use an initial advantage in offering larger assortments to position themselves as the low-price, large-assortment retail option and attract a larger but more price-sensitive set of customers. These results have implications for the study of retail concentration and mergers, countervailing buyer power, and consumer search. Our results suggest that policies to help entrepreneurs expand in retail may have large benefits to both firms and consumers.

what has affected the countrys economic climate today is the implementation of international sanctions against iran. the effect of the whip effect on supply chains performance is one of the main reasons for reducing the performance of supply chains when demand changes occur during the supply chain. Bullwhip effect as one of main issues in reducing of supply chains efficiency, occurs when the change of the demand in supply chain is faced with large fluctuations. Awareness of the causes and effects of supply chain whip helps organizations to adopt policies to reduce the intensity of its occurrence and its damaging effects. knowledge of the causes of the Bullwhip effect helps the organization and supply chains to mitigate the severity of its occurrence and its destructive effects. the main purpose of this paper is to design a suitable model to investigate the effects of sanctions on the supply chain in terms of satisfaction of people, drug prices and producers. moreover, the effect of the effect of whip effect on the effect of effect on the whole chain has been analyzed. These policies were examined, including government support for consumers, reduction of government exchange rates, lower prices of raw materials, and a reduction in laxative effects. The supplier, distributor and overall profit of the drug supply chain. the above research in a distinct position is that, according to previous studies, drug production analysis has been considered less attention with the dynamics approach of the systems. in this study, the supply chain of a particular drug (Deferoxamine), examines the effect of whip and policy to reduce its effect on the whole chain. A dynamic medicine supply chain has been first modeled; After that, causal loop diagram has been plotted and finally system’s flow chart has been drawn. More over, simulation results have been discussed, and at the end of the research four policies for improving current situation have been suggested.

In this work we address the main issues of Information Technology (IT) consumerization that are related to security risks, and vulnerabilities of devices used within Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy in particular. We propose a ‘soft’ mitigation strategy for user actions based on nudging, widely applied to health and social behavior influence. In particular, we propose a complementary, less strict, more flexible Information Security policies, based on risk assessment of device vulnerabilities and threats to corporate data and devices, combined with a strategy of influencing security behavior by nudging. We argue that nudging, by taking into account the context of the decision-making environment, and the fact that the employee may be in better position to make a more appropriate decision, may be more suitable than strict policies in situations of uncertainty of security-related decisions. Several examples of nudging are considered for different tested and potential scenarios in security context.

This paper investigates the association of corporate reporting and executive network centrality, which measures an executive’s relative position in a massive network consisting of outside corporate leaders. I find that high-centrality chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) are generally more likely to engage in financial misreporting than low-centrality CEOs and CFOs. I also find that the influence of CFO network centrality is greater than that of CEOs in financial misreporting. Further analyses show that the monitoring effect of internal governance mechanisms on high-centrality executives is very limited and that the discipline of the managerial labor market is weaker for high-centrality CFOs as well. My results hold for a subsample subject to exogenous shocks to CFO connectedness and are robust to a series of alternative specifications including using CFO fixed effects. Taken together, my findings suggest that corporate reporting can be influenced by executives’ social network position, with high-centrality CFOs using their social power to make adverse corporate reporting decisions to gain personal benefits. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.

When choosing a career path in otolaryngology, one might consider locum tenens as an opportunity to sample a practice or locale before deciding where to settle down. It may also be an excellent way to garner some new perspective and experience while between jobs or while unable to commit to a long-term position. Before deciding to pursue locum tenens otolaryngology, it is important to consider logistical and lifestyle factors. When deciding on an assignment, one must consider the proposed work schedule, call obligation, patient acuity, and reimbursement.

We investigate whether firms time their decisions to make changes in accounting estimates (CAEs) in consideration of their earnings benchmarks. Using CAE data from 2006-2018, we find that 28.1 percent of income-increasing CAEs are implemented in quarters where pre-CAE earnings are below a forecasted earnings benchmark but inclusion of the CAE effectively allows the firm to meet the benchmark. We find that income-increasing CAEs are more likely implemented when a firm’s pre-CAE earnings are further below the benchmark. We also find that firms are more likely to implement income-decreasing CAEs under two scenarios: 1) when pre-CAE earnings are relatively high, as a way to either smooth earnings or to “bury bad news,” and 2) when pre-CAE earnings are already low, as a way to take a financial “big bath” and position the firm for positive future earnings. Additionally, we present evidence that firms using CAEs to achieve an earnings benchmark face financial consequences in terms of poorer immediate stock price performance and subsequent return on assets. Our conclusions hold after performing several additional analyses, including consideration of other discretionary options, addressing endogeneity concerns and conducting falsification tests. In sum, we contribute to the earnings management literature by presenting consistent evidence that firms appear to time CAEs to meet earnings benchmarks or achieve other reporting objectives.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of implementing e-supply chain management (E-SCM) on the competitive position of companies and whether implementing customer relationship management (CRM) can affect the relationship between E-SCM and competitive advantage. To achieve this objective, a quantitative approach was utilized. A total of 300 questionnaires were distributed where 243 questionnaires were returned, with 17 incomplete questionnaires being excluded, leaving 226 usable questionnaires. PLS-SEM software was used to analyze the data. The results of this study demonstrate the imperative role of implementing E-SCM and CRM on creating a competitive advantage for firms. It also shows that CRM mediates the relationship between E-SCM and competitive advantage, suggesting that utilizing different technologies can help firms better communicate with their customers and thus better serve them which in turn will enhance customers’ satisfaction and thus boost the competitive position of the firm.

In recent years, increasing attention has been drawn to improving productivity in logging passages while reducing negative impact on soil and water. The position of landings and extraction routes is crucial in these efforts, as it has a huge impact on efficient and sustainable forwarder passages. In this paper, we propose a two-phase approach to identify the best possible landing locations integrated with log extraction route design. The first phase identifies potential landing zones adjacent to forest roads. It considers practical restrictions such as slopes, stoniness, and closeness to infrastructure. The second phase uses an optimization model to evaluate the potential impact of each zone and aggregate zones, selecting one or two complete landings. This model is a relaxation of a formulation for an extraction route design; it is used to minimize a weighted objective of the total driving distance, avoid steep terrains and impact on soil and water. The proposed approach has been tested on a set of harvest areas in southern Sweden. The results not only show the potential to identify feasible landing zones but also identify a shorter driving distance and hence lower contractual cost with optimized positioning. The possibility to increase efficiency in forest operations by performing scenario analysis and thus forwarding distances with different landing sites is among the results.

The engineering management literature is now focusing on customer-orientation (CO) and environmental issues. Our research explores these facets by incorporating CO in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, as customers demand firms to be increasingly environmentally conscious. The article explored and benchmark how multi-national companies (MNCs) with existing successful CSR programs, approach CSR strategically towards enhanced corporate financial performance (CFP). The article assessed how MNCs structure CSR management (the internal focus of the firm and organizational adjustments for CSR implementation) ensuring strategic use of CSR, and how to position CSR to affect stakeholders through external communication. Our article used primary and secondary data from publicly traded engineering dependent MNCs on the “Top-100 CSR Index” on NASDAQ-OMX stock exchange in Sweden (n = 82). The data was triangulated using their aggregated CSP score as rated by the investment service provider GES. The results significantly and positively indicate that MNCs with strategic CSR enjoys greater CFP (.454**).

There is often considerable anxiety and conflicting advice concerning the benefits of presenting/being evaluated first. We thus investigate how expert evaluators vary in their evaluations of entrepreneurial proposals based upon the order in which they are evaluated. Our research setting is a premiere innovation fund competition in Beijing, China, where the prize money at stake is economically meaningful, and evaluators are quasi-randomly assigned to evaluate written grant proposals without the possibility of peer influence. This enables us to credibly recover a causal position effect. We also theorize and test how heterogeneity in evaluators’ prior (context-specific) judging experience moderates position effects. Overall, we find that a proposal evaluated first requires total assets in the top 10th percentile to merely equal the evaluation of a proposal in the bottom 10th percentile that is not evaluated first. Firm and evaluator fixed-effects models yield consistent findings. We consider evaluation design elements that may mollify these position effects in the discussion section. This paper was accepted by Sridhar Tayur, entrepreneurship and innovation.

African experts remain underrepresented in global climate change work and assessments, potentially from patterns of international funding, collaborations, or funder mandates. We evaluated authorship and funding of African climate science by searching Web of Science Core Collection for studies published between database inception and 31 October 2018, identifying 12561 journal articles reporting climate research in Africa. We exported the funding information, and ranked funders by the number of publications they funded. For the ten agencies funding the most publications with at least one African author, we identified all publications (n = 214) from the top five grants, by number of publications. We examined the number and position of African authors on these, and the mandates of these ten agencies. Of the publications on Africa climate research, 58% (7232) included no African authors. Among the top ten funders of African-authored publications, the South African NRF funded predominantly South African authors, while the United Kingdom’s NERC, German BMBF, and USAID, funded research involving authors from 7 to 15 African countries. Only the IDRC and CGIAR have clear mandates to develop capacity within regions being studied. Overall, African climate experts are absent from much of the foreign-funded climate change research about Africa. Funders should promote collaboration with Africans when funding work on the continent, to improve African research capacity and expertise, and bolster African climate science. Most importantly, research done without local expertise may exclude important local knowledge, not be locally relevant or applicable, or miss African based solutions of potential global importance.

To experience seamless adoption of future industry 4.0, it is imperative to investigate its existing roadblocks and success factors in the Indian manufacturing context. Striking similarities among diverse researches highlight the importance of the cyber-physical system assuring many benefits to the manufacturing sector. Many studies concluded that sooner or later, all manufacturing companies will evolve by penetrating industry 4.0 technologies in their enterprise activities. There is a possibility of negative consequences on business functions if top management remains unprepared to assess roadblocks to these future technologies' adoption. Identification of roadblocks is the first and foremost thing industrial policymakers should focus on. This research enlists the stumbling blocks for industry 4.0 technologies' adoption that manufacturing industries may encounter by reviewing the latest literature and ranks them using VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) methodology by consulting five experienced Indian industrial authorities. Weightage to each industrial experts' input is decided by the entropy method. Results indicate that “Skilled workers scarcity,” “Internal employee resistance,” “Worries about cyber security,” and “Inadequate knowledge of/from exterior agencies” are the top four barriers to the incorporation of industry 4.0 technologies in the Indian manufacturing context while “Lack of knowledge about enabling technology solutions” secured lower position. The robustness of the output was checked by carrying out a sensitivity analysis with varying weights. The approach adopted in this study will be helpful for industrial authorities to concentrate their efforts in tackling the most critical barriers. This research will aid industrial decision-makers in remaining proactive during the industrial technology adoption transition.

Objective To determine the impact of industry payments to authors of opinion articles on the Urolift and Rezum devices. We also examined the extent to which authors omitted acknowledgements of financial conflicts-of-interest. Methods We searched Google Scholar for all articles that cite either of the respective pivotal trials for these devices. 2 blinded urologists coded the articles as favorable or neutral. A separate blinded researcher recorded industry payments from the manufacturers using the Open Payments Program database. Results We identified 29 articles written by 27 unique authors from an initial screening list of 235 articles. Of these articles, 15 (52%) were coded as positive and 14 (48%) were coded as neutral. 20 (74%) authors have accepted payments from the manufacturer of the device. Since 2014, these authors have collectively received $270,000 from NeoTract and $314,000 from Boston Scientific. Of the 20 authors with payments, 9 (45%) received more than $10,000 from either manufacturer. Of authors with payments, 65% (13/20) contributed to only positive articles. Authors who received payments had more than 4 times the number of article contributions than did authors without payments (42 vs 10). Authors of at least one favorable article were more likely to have received payments from the device manufacturers than authors of neutral articles (P = .014, Chi-squared test). Most (80%, 16/20) authors with payments did not report a relevant conflict-of-interest within any of their articles. Conclusion These data suggest a relationship between payments from a manufacturer and positive published position on that company's device. There may be a critical lack of published editorial pieces by authors without financial conflicts of interest.

This study examines the often-overlooked effect of product category type—high- vs. low-priced, high- vs. low-frequency, and high- vs. low-perishability—when assessing the effectiveness of product advertisement locations in retailer direct mail flyers. Employing a quasi-experimental design, we analyze a national retail chain’s various featured product weekly advertisements across the transaction records of 1817 products in 225 different product categories that cover a year of sales. All three-product types had a significant moderating effect on increasing the sales volume of the featured products when placed on the interior page feature location. For example, the interior pages are often ignored unless the recipient is sufficiently interested to flip through other parts of the flyer. Placing high-priced products, low-frequency products, and highly perishable products in the interior page feature location led to advertising effectiveness. In terms of frequency, the sales volume of high-frequency products were consistently higher than low-frequency products regardless of the location. On the other hand, the front and back page are the most visible pages of a flyer. In these two most visible locations, placing products that perish quickly maximized the effectiveness of using a flyer. These results highlight the importance of considering these three product types when making retail promotion decisions, including where retailers should position featured products within advertisements.

The amount of people leaving an organization plays a critical role in business success. Higher employee turnover could be serious as they are an essential part of every business. The loss of key people would have significant impacts on organizational and financial development as well as on maturity. The word “Attrition” refers to scaling down of employees in an organization. It occurs because of retirement, resignation or death of the employee. There can be many reasons for an employees to leave an organization like he may be getting higher job position in some other company or he may want to change his profession or he may leave an organization for higher studies, etc. A further contributing factor to turnover is the absence of employees’ confidence in their representatives, which results in a lack of motivation and therefore in low employee retention. From the employee’s side they state that lack of recognition and lack of growth within the organizations. Unfair treatment of employees is also another reason. Recently, gender discrimination has also contributed attrition. Finally, the present generation finds their jobs less challenging.

In Canada (Attorney General) v Fairmont Hotels Inc 2016 SCC 56 the Supreme Court of Canada corrected a wrong turn in the Canadian law of rectification, returning it to a position of harmony with the approach taken in English and Australian law. This note examines the case and explores the position adopted in two leading Commonwealth jurisdictions: England and Australia.

Currently, the low number of candidates and the complex formation of the teams are great problems in the occupation of the school leadership position. This qualitative study aims to identify the main difficulties experienced from the perspective of the candidates. Based on the data obtained in various interviews, it should be noted how the headteacher selection process is influenced by different variables, both contextual and personal. The variables that condition this process include complexity of the decision to be a candidate or accept the appointment and the difficulty of forming and a team, among others.

Portugal is one of the most externally indebted economies in the eurozone. The deeply negative net international investment position (NIIP) suggests that large current account surpluses will be needed in the future to restore external sustainability. Despite significant interest in the scope for external adjustment within a monetary union, little is known about the magnitude or likelihood of the relative price change required to facilitate this adjustment. Drawing on a new probabilistic framework of external sustainability, this paper estimates the likelihood that a real effective depreciation is needed to lower Portugal’s net external liabilities to more prudent levels. Contrary to conventional thinking, we find that the NIIP is sustainable without real depreciation with fairly high probability, estimated between 32 and 43 percent. We highlight the predominance of financial account shocks over current account shocks in this assessment. To provide context to the assessment, we also apply the framework to Ireland. Despite a weaker NIIP than in Portugal, the probability that the external position is sustainable in Ireland is higher, estimated between 54 and 60 percent, predominantly reflecting forecasts of large and sustained trade surpluses. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10258-021-00201-y.

Practical news feed platforms generate a hybrid list of news articles and advertising items (e.g., products, services, or information) and many platforms optimize the position of news articles and advertisements independently. However, they should be arranged with careful consideration of each other, as we show in this study, since user behaviors toward advertisements are significantly affected by the news articles. This paper investigates the effect of news articles on users' ad consumption and shows the dependency between news and ad effectiveness. We conducted a service log analysis and showed that sessions with high-quality news article exposure had more ad consumption than those with low-quality news article exposure. Based on this result, we hypothesized that exposure to high-quality articles will lead to a high ad consumption rate. Thus, we conducted million-scale A/B testing to investigate the effect of high-quality articles on ad consumption, in which we prioritized high-quality articles in the ranking for the treatment group. The A/B test showed that the treatment group's ad consumption, such as the number of clicks, conversions, and sales, increased significantly while the number of article clicks decreased. We also found that users who prefer a social or economic topic had more ad consumption by stratified analysis. These insights regarding news articles and advertisements will help optimize news and ad effectiveness in rankings considering their mutual influence., Comment: 30th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM2021)

This article aims to review and systematize prior works that investigate how the presence of women in top echelon positions of firms affects sustainability and to create an agenda to guide future research in this promising area. In contrast to previous reviews, ours examines how women in top echelon positions affect sustainability by distinguishing both the position women held in the firm (i.e. Board of Directors—BoD, top management team, CEO and relevant committees) and the specific elements of sustainability (i.e. activity, performance, and disclosure). Our structured systematic review resulted in 187 publications retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus and revealed that the presence of women in top echelon positions is associated with greater engagement in social and environmental projects. Their presence also positively influences the environmental and social performance and increases the level, quality, and transparency of sustainability disclosure. Furthermore, the presence of women in top echelon positions and the implementation of sustainable activities improve both the firm financial performance and value. However, conflicting results have also emerged. On the basis of these findings, research gaps and future research agenda are identified and presented.

This study aims to determine the strategy for developing the food processing industry in Sungai Penuh City in the future. The analysis used in this research is SWOT analysis. Based on the results of the SWOT analysis, the strengths and weaknesses of the food processing industry in Sungai Penuh City are balanced in number, as well as in terms of opportunities and threats are also balanced. This can be interpreted that the position of the food processing industry in Sungai Penuh City is in an average condition. The possibility to develop is still open, meaning that it can choose which alternative will be applied

Problem setting. Studying of the experience of the leading economically advanced countries, their systems, mechanisms and models of the state regulation of innovative development of the commercial and industrial sphere of economy and their practical application is extremely important for solving the current and future problems and challenges facing the system of the state regulation of Ukraine.Recent research and publications analysis. The issue of studying the experience and approaches to the implementation of models of state regulation of innovative development of the world leading countries in its adaptation to today’s conditions and globalization challenges is still relevant for the system of the state regulation of Ukraine.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem lies in revealing the key features of models for the state regulation of innovative development of the commercial and industrial sphere of economy in the leading, economically advanced countries, and determining the areas of using this experience as a model for the state regulation of innovative development of the commercial and industrial sphere of the economy of Ukraine.Paper main body. When considering the methods of state support for innovation, the following approaches are emphasized: the European, American, and Japanese approaches to activation and regulation of innovation.As a positive experience for Ukraine, it is worth noting the regionalization of innovative development of the EU economies, in particular, creation of regional centers for the development of science – technopark structures, technopolises.In Ukraine, it would be appropriate to apply the following models and approaches to the structure of a comprehensive mechanism of the state regulation of innovative development: development of technology parks and cluster approach; modernization of the financial and economic mechanism of state regulation of innovative development, state encouragement of innovative development; a comprehensive program for developing joint research projects, which would cover all aspects of scientific life – from changes in programs for training specialists and employees to scientific and technical cooperation in high-tech fields.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. A balanced system of the state regulation of innovative development of the commercial and industrial sphere of economy is a guarantee of state competitiveness and sustainable welfare of society. Given its position in the global rankings of innovations, Ukraine is still on the sidelines of this process; therefore the issue of adapting the experience of models and mechanisms of the state regulation of innovative development of the commercial and industrial sphere of the leading economically advanced countries, taking into account the national characteristics, becomes very important.

There is a duopoly in the global civil aircraft industry. The market for the production of passenger aircraft is mainly divided between companies such as Boeing and Airbus. This work describes the history of the creation and activities of both companies throughout their existence, as well as the trends in their activities today, related to external events. Competition between these companies is quite high and exists due to a number of certain factors. The results of this competition are the position of each of the companies in the market, which is reflected in their production and financial indicators and reflects the overall situation in the market for the production of civil aircraft. Also, this work allows us to identify future trends in the activities of these manufacturers, and, accordingly, the entire industry as a whole.

The study of poverty reduction is very relevant in the 21st century. The rapid development of technology has proven to improve various quality of life but has not been able to solve the problem of poverty in a total scale. On the other hand, the development of public administration science, especially regarding collaborative governance, provides hope for poverty reduction through the active role of various parties. Many experts explain that poverty is a complex problem. Poverty reduction efforts must be carried out in a holistic and participatory manner. Furthermore, there needs to be an active contribution from various parties, namely the government, the private sector and the community. This requires researchers to conduct further studies on how Collaborative Governance can be an alternative solution to solving the problem of poverty. This study aims to delineate the development of Collaborative Governance studies through the Systematic Mapping Study and associate it to the poverty alleviation to obtain the current research position. The study shows that research on Collaborative Governance for Poverty Reduction is included in Social Issues in Community concentration and it has the lowest percentage. The most widely used method in the research concentrated on Collaborative Governance is qualitative, and the publication trend shows a very significant development, especially in 2014-2018. Therefore, research on collaborative governance for poverty alleviation is still very limited and the opportunity to produce variety of renewals is very large.