Transparency and accountability influences of regulation on risk control: the case of a Swedish bank

Journal of Management and Governance - This qualitative in-depth case study explores the influence of financial regulation on risk control within Banque de Montagne, a large listed bank in Sweden....     

Quality of Life in a City: The Effect of Population Density

There exist a number of concepts andoperational definitions of quality of life. Inthe present study the aim has been to develop acomprehensive, global index of quality of life,and relate the sub-indexes and global index tovarious socio-demographic variables, somatichealth and density of population in theresidential area. The sample consisted of 2066individuals between 18 and 65 years old fromthe common population. Seven sub-indexes weredeveloped. They constituted one factor withmoderate intercorrelations between thesub-indexes. Good somatic health, living in astable relationship with a partner, preferablymarried, in a less densely populated area,having a good education, a good income andbeing a younger female were the independentstatistical determinants of global quality oflife. However, various sub-indexes were relatedto different socio-demographic variables. Agewas oppositely related to differentsub-indexes. The study shows the importance ofwhat type of quality of life is investigated.To our knowledge, this is the first study ofthe effect of population density on quality oflife.     

Testing the effect of conspecific reproductive success on dispersal and recruitment decisions in a colonial bird: Design issues

Factors affecting dispersal and recruitment in animal populations will play a prominent role in the dynamics of populations. This is particularly the case for subdivided populations where the dispersal of individuals among patches may lead to local extinction and 'rescue effects'. A long-term observational study carried out in Brittany, France, and involving colour-ringed Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) suggested that the reproductive success of conspecifics (or some social correlate) could be one important factor likely to affect dispersal and recruitment. By dispersing from patches where the local reproductive success was low and recruiting to patches where the local reproductive success was high, individual birds could track spatio-temporal variations in the quality of breeding patches (the quality of breeding patches can be affected by different factors, such as food availability, the presence of predators or ectoparasites, which can vary in space and time at different scales). Such an observational study may nevertheless have confounded the role of conspecific reproductive success with the effect of a correlated factor (e.g. the local activities of a predator). In other words, individuals may have been influenced directly by the factor responsible for the low local reproductive success or indirectly by the low success of their neighbours. Thus, an experimental approach was needed to address this question. Estimates of demographic parameters (other than reproductive success) and studies of the response of marked individuals to changes in their environment usually face problems associated with variability in the probability of detecting individuals and with nonindependence among events occurring on a local scale. Further, very few studies on dispersal have attempted to address the causal nature of relationships by experimentally manipulating factors. Here we present an experiment designed to test for an effect of local reproductive success of conspecifics on behavioural decisions of individuals regarding dispersal and recruitment. The experiment was carried out on Kittiwakes within a large seabird colony in northern Norway. It involved (i) the colour banding of several hundreds of birds; (ii) the manipulation (increase/decrease) of the local reproductive success of breeding groups on cliffpatches; and (iii) the detailed survey of attendance and activities of birds on these patches. It also involved the manipulation of the nest content of marked individuals breeding within these patches (individuals failing at the egg stage were expected to respond in terms of dispersal to the success of their neighbours). This allowed us to test whether a lower local reproductive success would lower (1) the attendance of breeders at the end of the breeding season; (2) the presence of prospecting birds; and (3) the proportion of failed breeders that came back to breed on the same patch the year after. In this paper, we discuss how we dealt with (I) the use of return rates to infer differences in dispersal rates; (II) the trade-off between sample sizes and local treatment levels; and (III) potential differences in detection probabilities among locations. We also present some results to illustrate the design and implementation of the experiment.     

The Politics of Voluntary and Mandatory Pensions in the Nordic Countries

The article provides an overview of the voluntary (private) pension sector in the Nordic countries, and relates it to the mandatory (public) pension system. It also provides an account of how the Nordic countries have tried to cope with various weaknesses of voluntary occupational plans. The problem of State involvement in the voluntary pension sector is discussed. Concerning this point four problems are underlined: inclusion of marginal labour; securing the pension promise in the case of bankruptcy; conflicting interests in fund management; tax treatment.     

Creative and innovative behaviours of corporate directors: an elusive role of task-related conflicts

The aim of the present work is to examine corporate directors’ boardroom interactions associated with conflicts as well as creativity and innovation phenomena. In line with the behavioral perspective in research on boards, we investigate relationships between task conflicts, an emerging creative and innovative boardroom climate as well as directors’ work behaviors. Drawing upon the survey data from 423 corporate directors, we tested hypothesized relationships by the means of the structural equation modelling technique. The results provide evidence suggesting that task-related conflicts among corporate directors appear to be equally detrimental for the psychological workgroup climate as they are advantageous for initiating creative and innovative work behaviours. In other words, the positive effect of task conflicts on directors’ creative and innovative work behaviours occurs so long as such conflicts do not simultaneously impair their perception of the creative/innovative boardroom environment. By integrating the literature on workplace group conflicts, creativity and innovation with the corporate governance writings, this study offers a new insight into corporate directors functioning. Presented findings have clear implications for future board research and managerial practice.     

Gambling Control Self-efficacy as a Mediator of the Effects of Low Emotional Intelligence on Problem Gambling

This study investigated whether lower emotional intelligence would be related to less self-efficacy to control gambling and more problem gambling and whether gambling self-efficacy would mediate the relationship between emotional intelligence and problem gambling. A total of 117 participants, including 49 women and 68 men, with an average age of 39.93 (SD = 13.87), completed an emotional intelligence inventory, a gambling control self-efficacy scale, and a measure of problem gambling. Lower emotional intelligence was related to lower gambling self-efficacy and more problem gambling. Gambling control self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and problem gambling.     

Extending social security in developing countries: a review of three main strategies

The article discusses strategies to extend social security cover-age in developing and newly industrialised countries. The three major options are to extend social insurance coverage , to rely on mutuals or micro-insurance or to bring in social assistance in one form or another. Social insurance usually covers small population segments. Insiders are seldom willing to extend coverage to poorer groups, as poorer groups are usually higher-risk groups. Micro-insurance and mutual societies work pri-marily among people with similar risk profiles. Discretionary social assistance targets poorer groups, but is open to patronage and misuse. However, some social assistance designs are less open to misuse than others. Demogrants, i.e. benefits given to people in vulnerable social categories, are easy to administer and difficult to misuse. Whether or not a developing country provides such benefits can be considered an indicator of the willingness of the ruling elite to alleviate hardship among 'unproductive' population groups.     

Further Evaluation of Prompting Tactics for Establishing Intraverbal Responding in Children With Autism

We compared prompting tactics to establish intraverbal responding (question answering) in four boys with autism. Based on the results of intraverbal, textual, echoic, and tact pretests, we compared vocal and picture prompts with three participants, and textual, vocal, and picture prompts with one participant. We also evaluated repeated acquisition with different question sets, and included a concurrent-chains arrangement, in which initial link selections determined which prompting procedure occurred in the terminal link. All the prompting procedures were effective in establishing intraverbal responding, but vocal prompts resulted in the fewest trials to criterion for all four participants during the initial prompt comparison. However, the results were less consistent for the second comparison. The concurrent chains arrangement revealed a clear preference for picture prompts for one participant, but the results for the others were inconclusive.     

Computationally efficient familywise error rate control in genome-wide association studies using score tests for generalized linear models

In genetic association studies, detecting phenotype–genotype association is a primary goal. We assume that the relationship between the data—phenotype, genetic markers and environmental covariates—can be modeled by a generalized linear model. The number of markers is allowed to be far greater than the number of individuals of the study. A multivariate score statistic is used to test each marker for association with a phenotype. We assume that the test statistics asymptotically follow a multivariate normal distribution under the complete null hypothesis of no phenotype–genotype association. We present the familywise error rate order k approximation method to find a local significance level (alternatively, an adjusted p-value) for each test such that the familywise error rate is controlled. The special case k=1 gives the Šidák method. As a by-product, an effective number of independent tests can be defined. Furthermore, if environmental covariates and genetic markers are uncorrelated, or no environmental covariates are present, we show that covariances between score statistics depend on genetic markers alone. This not only leads to more efficient calculations but also to a local significance level that is determined only by the collection of markers used, independent of the phenotypes and environmental covariates of the experiment at hand.