Pre-commitment and flexibility in a time decision experiment

An agent with dynamically inconsistent preferences may deviate from her plan of action as the future draws near. An exponential discounter may do exactly the same when facing an uncertain future. Through an experiment we compare preference-based vs. uncertainty-based explanations for choice reversal over time by eliciting choices for pre-commitment and flexibility. Evidence of widespread commitment favors a preference-based explanation.

Inequality aversion,impartiality and utilitarianism

Egalitarianism presents the problem of baseline-dependence: egalitarianism from where? No collective choice can be egalitarian for all choices of a baseline. So the question arises as to whether and how the egalitarian program can be weakened in order to be compatible with baseline-independence. I characterize the set of choices that satisfy a minimal degree of inequality-aversion, embodied in the generalized Lorenz criterion, independently of the choice of a baseline. It turns out that this set coincides with the Lorenz-Utilitarian set, the set of Utilitarian choices which are not Lorenz dominated for any choice of baseline. Either this set is empty or it coincides with the Utilitarian set (when this is a singleton). Moreover, I also characterize the full Utilitarian set by using a standard requirement of impartiality (the Suppes-Sen criterion).     

Robust multivariate transformations to normality: Constructed variables and likelihood ratio tests

The assumption of multivariate normality provides the customary powerful and convenient ways of analysing multivariate data: if the data are not normal, the analysis may often be simplified by an appropriate transformation. In this context, the most widely used test is the likelihood ratio, which requires the maximum likelihood estimate of the transformation parameter for each variable. Given that this estimate can only be found numerically, when the number of variables is large (> 20) it is impossible or infeasible to compute the test. In this paper we introduce alternative tests which do not require the maximum likelihood estimate of the transformation parameters and prove algebraically their relationships. We also give insights both using theoretical arguments and a robust simulation study, based on the forward search algorithm, about the distribution of the tests previously introduced.     

The impact of knowledge management and strategy configuration coherence on SME performance

According to recent literature, effective knowledge management should be coherent and based on the firm’s strategy. Prior empirical research, in contrast, tries to evaluate the impact of knowledge management initiatives directly on performance but finds inconsistent results and not allows the understanding of knowledge management contribution to competitive advantage generation. In this study we aim to investigate the impact of knowledge management and strategy configuration coherence on SMEs innovation and organizational performance through a quantitative analysis carried out on a sample of 60 manufacturing SMEs in northeast Italy. Our findings reveal that a significant coherence exists between knowledge management and strategy configurations. Most of the SMEs with a prospector and defender strategy adopt, in turn, an aggressive and conservative knowledge management. Moreover, we find that such coherence has a significant impact on the overall performance. This is particularly interesting since it suggests that the inconsistency in the results of prior studies on the impact of knowledge management on performance (Kalling in J Knowl Manag 7(3):67–81; 2003) may be due to the lack of consideration of knowledge management and strategy configuration coherence.     

基于中国制度环境的智力资本测量研究

在文献回顾的基础上,探讨了智力资本在西方制度环境下的测量逻辑和测量的制度基础,并将其与中国制度环境的特殊性对比,进而分析和评价了智力资本的3个维度和测量指标在中国制度环境下的适用性,并在此基础上提出基于中国制度环境的智力资本测量指标的修正。     

Measuring the Integration of Immigrants: Critical notes from an Italian experience

This paper describes an instrument developed in Italy by the ISMU Foundation to measure the level of integration of immigrants present in the country. The instrument consists of an index based on data collected by means of a structured questionnaire. The paper first describes the technical characteristics of this instrument and the main results obtained from its first, experimental use with the administration of over 12,000 interviews in Italy. There follow some critical notes on the limits and potential of the application of synthetic indexes in the analysis of migratory processes, and particularly in study of the integration of immigrants.     

Challenging Europe’s external borders and internal boundaries. Bosnian Xoraxané Xomá on the move in Roman peripheries and the contemporary European Union

ABSTRACT

This paper explores, from an ethnographic standpoint, the mobility of a Bosnian Romani community in relation to the xenophobic and anti-Romani discourses that are pervading contemporary Italian and European society in the time of the so-called migrant crisis. The analysis focuses on some so-called Xomá families who live dispersed among illegal shanties in the Rome and whose movements and social network protract into other Italian and European cities. The question of mobility is addressed both in terms of local movements within the Roman peripheries and of wider transnational trajectories. Romani mobility appears as a tactical response to processes imposed from above that challenges the forms of governmentality related to the policing of borders and the production of boundaries of the EU and its member-states.