Functional Upgrading and Value Capture of Multinational Subsidiaries

This paper investigates the relationship between the value capture of multinational subsidiaries and functional upgrading, which is defined as a diversification of employment from primary business functions to higher value adding activities such as ICT, R&D, marketing or logistics. By combining survey-based business function indicators with longitudinal accounting data for a representative sample of multinational subsidiaries located in six Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), we assess the impact of functional upgrading on foreign subsidiaries' value capture. The results provide robust evidence that the breadth as well as the scope of functional upgrading induces an upward shift of subsidiaries' value added. The effect of functional upgrading is stronger in the earlier phases after entry of the foreign investor, while the long-term growth trend remains unaffected.     

Experimental evidence on external auditor reliance on the internal audit

With the revised version of ISA 610 (revised 2013), external auditors now face both requirements and guidance addressing their responsibilities when relying on the internal audit function (IAF). The reliance decision of an external auditor has important economic consequences and implications for the efficiency and effectiveness of the annual audit. Using an experimental design, we explore how German external auditors’ reliance decisions regarding the IAF are affected by varying levels of environmental factors, like client business risk, effectiveness of the internal control system, and quality of the corporate governance. Furthermore, the experiences of external auditors in collaborating with an IAF are taken into consideration. The results indicate main effects for each factor and a two-way interaction between the effectiveness of the internal control system and the quality of corporate governance. Specifically, a strong internal control system can compensate for weaknesses in corporate governance with respect to the confidence of external auditors in the IAF. Also, the type of audit procedure influences the willingness of auditors to rely on the IAF, and the inherent risk of the examined transaction strengthens the negative impact of client business risk on the reliance decision. Moreover, past experiences of external auditors with an IAF have a significant impact on their reliance decision. Overall, the findings suggest that organizations can foster internal–external auditor coordination by enhancing corporate governance effectiveness and strengthening the internal control system.

     

Probabilistic linear solvers: a unifying view

Statistics and Computing - Several recent works have developed a new, probabilistic interpretation for numerical algorithms solving linear systems in which the solution is inferred in a Bayesian...     

Probabilistic solutions to ordinary differential equations as nonlinear Bayesian filtering: a new perspective

Statistics and Computing - We formulate probabilistic numerical approximations to solutions of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) as problems in Gaussian process (GP) regression with nonlinear...     

Preverbal Infants' Ability to Encode the Outcome of Distributive Actions

This research examined whether 10‐month‐old infants expect agents to perform equal distribution of resources. In Experiment 1, infants saw a distributor performing either an equal distribution where one strawberry was given to each of two recipients, or an unequal distribution that favored one of the recipients. Infants looked longer at the unequal test event, suggesting that they expected the strawberries to be distributed equally. In Experiment 2, the potential recipients were replaced with inanimate objects to rule out a lower‐level alternative explanation of the results in Experiment 1 based on symmetric movement of the distributor. Infants' looking times did not reveal a preference for one of the two outcomes of the test events (i.e., symmetric or asymmetric movement). Experiment 3 controlled for the role of the distributive action, that is, here the distributors only removed barriers revealing strawberries that the recipients already had. No preference was observed when an equal or unequal initial allocation of resources was revealed. Experiment 4 assessed whether infants relied on affiliative information provided by the distributor's movements. The distributor made the same movements as in Experiment 1, but without distributing any strawberries, and no difference in looking times was observed. These findings support the view that preverbal infants expect agents to behave according to a simple principle: Resources are to be distributed equally among equivalent recipients. We discuss the possible links between such reactions and the emergence of an early sense of fairness.     

Changing attitudes about self-injury prevention management: lessons learned

In the behavioral health environment, nurses often use continuous staff monitoring and, at times, physical restraints, to manage the severity of patients' self-injury. Both options put staff in control, are the most restrictive in nature, and can be financially draining on the hospital's budget. This can result in negative reactions by both patients and staff. It is important to develop a program that will empower patients to control their behavior and allow staff to be aware of their perceptions and attitudes toward patients who self-injure. This article describes the leadership initiative that drove the development, training, and implementation of a self-injury prevention project and the lessons learned by staff.     

Wer wurde als homosexuell verfolgt?

This paper investigates the impact of the social structure on the persecution of homosexuals in Austria during the Nazi regime and the following democratic Republic. So far local studies for the German case have come to the conclusion that the middle class has been victim to the same, or event to a greater extent, of state-supported homophobia as the lower social class. An analysis of court files confirms this finding partly but reveals the working class as the mainly affected social group in the Austrian case. Social status, however, did only have a marginal influence on the length of imprisonment. The fact that different occupational groups were overrepresented among the sentenced homosexuals in the two considered periods of time (1938?C1944; 1945?C1955) points to systematic patterns of repression. As historical data is sparse we can only formulate hypotheses on why certain persons were more likely to be sentenced for being homosexual than others.     

Design recommendations for the creation of icons for the elderly

During employment of icons in order to represent system functions, specific user requirements from elderly people have not been scientifically gathered and thus will merely be considered during the process of system design. The survey, with explicit consideration of technology acceptance and experience of 120 elderly probands, looked into the comprehension of four different classes of non-animated graphical representations. It was shown that among elderly, the use of photos compared to pictograms or clip art leads to a significantly higher recognition rate. The mapping of actions rather than objects leads to a further reduction of the error probability and is thus, especially in the context of telemedicine, preferable for the target group.