Multinationals and Skills Policy Networks: HRM as a Player in Economic and Social Concerns

This paper uses an embeddedness framework to reconceptualize HRM agency over the external labour market, and in so doing bring into focus the societal implications of HRM. Drawing on qualitative data from 53 key informants in two English regions, we identify the ways in which the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals (MNCs) engage with labour market skills actors. Our findings reveal how power structures are mobilized by local economic actors to align labour market skills with MNCs’ demand priorities. We show that multinationals may seek to partially endogenize (i.e. take ownership of) the resources of local labour markets when their competitive value is redefined in social as well as economic terms, and demonstrate that the social structure of sub‐national institutional governance arrangements and firm strategic action on skills creates the conduit through which resource endogenization may occur. Theoretically, this paper identifies the social structure of networks as a casual mechanism to bridge divergent skill interests, which is mobilized when network actors have the capacity to frame fields within the social structure of the network around ideas on economic sustainability and moral interest.     

Advantages of a wholly Bayesian approach to assessing efficacy in early drug development: a case study

This paper illustrates how the design and statistical analysis of the primary endpoint of a proof‐of‐concept study can be formulated within a Bayesian framework and is motivated by and illustrated with a Pfizer case study in chronic kidney disease. It is shown how decision criteria for success can be formulated, and how the study design can be assessed in relation to these, both using the traditional approach of probability of success conditional on the true treatment difference and also using Bayesian assurance and pre‐posterior probabilities. The case study illustrates how an informative prior on placebo response can have a dramatic effect in reducing sample size, saving time and resource, and we argue that in some cases, it can be considered unethical not to include relevant literature data in this way. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ranking football players

The Actim index is the official player rating system of the Barclays Premiership, which was introduced for the 2004–2005 football season. It was devised by Ian McHale and Phil Scarf for the Press Association in partnership with the Premier League and Football Data Co. Here they describe the development of the index and take a look at player performance this season.     

Irrational thinking among slot machine players

According to the cognitive perspective on gambling, regular gamblers persist in trying to win money at gambling because they hold a set of false beliefs about the nature of gambling, the likelihood of winning, and their own expertise. In order to investigate this claim, twenty seven university students were recruited who played one of three types of games at least twice a week: slot machines, video draw poker, and video amusement games. Subjects played their preferred machines on site (clubs, hotels and amusement arcades) first for at least thirty minutes and then the other two games for a minimum of twenty minutes each. During play, each subject spoke aloud into a microphone describing what he or she was doing or thinking about in the game. It was hypothesised that slot machine players would verbalise more irrational thinking than video poker or video amusement players and that slot machines would elicit more irrational thinking than video poker or video amusement machines. Most importantly, it was hypothesised that slot machine players would exhibit relatively greater amounts of irrational thinking when playing their preferred game. The data supported all three hypotheses. Out of all of the statements made by slot machine players when playing slot machines, 38% were categorised irrational. Furthermore, 80% of the strategic statements made by slot machine players while playing slot machines were categorised as irrational. These results are consistent with earlier work which showed high levels of irrational thinking in artificial gambling games. Together, the results provide support for a cognitive view of the origins of gambling problems.