Brain Circulation: The Educational Profile of Return Migrants

Population Research and Policy Review - Countries increasingly compete to attract and retain human capital. However, empirical studies, particularly those of migrants moving back to developing...     

Managing in uncertain economic times: The case for planning

The traditional organization format in most firms has been to separate production, marketing and distribution and accept a certain amount of friction at the interface of these functions. The price of this friction and the risks inherent in its acceptance make this an increasingly unattractive organizational alternative. New organizational structures that forecast, monitor and control materials flow between raw materials and customers in a systems context are required for intrafirm response and implementation to the challenges of a rapidly changing business environment. The article emphasizes these conclusions against the backcloth of a shortage aconomy.     

Is Evidence‐Based Organizational Innovation in the NHS a Chimaera – Or Just Elusive?

Evidence-based adoption of organizational innovations requires explicit definition of the outcomes the innovations are intended to produce. Implementation theory, however, suggests that organizational innovations are often politicized in the sense that the prospect of implementing them provokes conflicts of interests among the parties affected. Then the intended outcomes of the innovation are liable to be formulated ambiguously, misleadingly or not at all, which makes evidence-based organizational innovation unattainable. Analysis of 61 organizational innovations in nine English NHS primary care trusts suggests that while the majority of innovations were not politicized in this way, a substantial minority were. Innovations whose adoption is motivated by evidence can therefore be differentiated from politicized innovations whose adoption is not so motivated, even when they nevertheless do have evidential support .     

The role of attribution of causality in economic decision making

Research has established that economic decisions often deviate from game theoretic predictions. We explore the process of causal thinking as a possible explanation for such deviations. Specifically, we suggest that causal information affects economic decisions based on the principles advocated by Weiner, 1985, Weiner, 1986 attribution theory (AT) of motivation and emotion. Prior research in this area considered only subsets of the dimensions employed by the theory. We test the predictions stemming from AT in contexts where economic decisions involve sharing gains between party members (e.g., splitting profits) and assess how such decisions are affected by the reasons attributed for obtaining the gains. Results indicate a significant link between causal attribution and economic decisions and shed light on the rules and the rationale that guide this link. We conclude that research into economic decision making should pay a greater attention to the explanatory value of AT.     

Information-driven coordination: experimental results with heterogeneous individuals

We study experimentally a coordination game with N heterogeneous individuals under different information treatments. We explore the effects of information on the emergence of Pareto-efficient outcomes, by means of a gradual decrease of the information content provided to the players in successive experiments. We observe that successful coordination is possible with private information alone, although not on a Pareto-optimal equilibrium. Reinforcement-based learning models reproduce the qualitative trends of the experimental results.     

Bernstein's languages of description: Some generative principles

There are numerous ways of displaying Likert‐type scales but only a few investigators have investigated these differences systematically. In this study we report the results that we found when we compared four different layouts: scales that went numerically from ‘0’ to ‘10’, or from ‘10’ to ‘0’, and scales that went verbally from ‘clear’ to ‘unclear’, or ‘unclear’ to ‘clear’. Over 450 participants rated each of seven aspects of a structured abstract in a web‐based study, with each one using only one of the four scale formats listed above. The resulting data showed that the scale ‘Clear – 10 … 0 – Unclear’ consistently led to significantly higher ratings in all seven cases. Such findings have implications for the design of Likert‐type scales and for the data that are gathered from them.     

Strategic planning for distribution

The process of long range planning is relatively new to both the corporation and the distribution area. Until recent years the distribution function was considered a functional area which reacted to, rather than anticipated, corporate marketing effort. New technology in data processing and other areas has provided the support capability for developing both tactical and strategic planning. With this increased capability has come a new responsibility for distribution management to be future oriented—to anticipate the appropriate support role of physical distribution in supporting both short term and long term corporate goals.     

Life‐Course Transitions and the Age Profile of Internal Migration

Despite underlying regularities in the age profile of migration, there is mounting evidence of cross‐national variations in the ages at which migration occurs. Explanations for these differences have variously been sought by reference to cultural, social, and economic factors, and through analysis of reasons for moving. There is also a growing body of work linking migration events to particular transitions in the life course. We set out a conceptual framework that links contextual factors to the age structure of migration through life‐course transitions that act as proximate determinants of the age at migration. We propose metrics to capture the prevalence, timing, and spread of four key life‐course transitions: education completion, labor force entry, union formation, and first childbearing. We then seek to quantitatively establish the link between these indicators and the age and intensity of internal migration at its peak for a global sample of 27 countries. Correlation and factor analysis reveal substantial diversity in the timing and spread of transitions to adult roles, and show that cross‐national differences in the age profile of migration closely parallel variations in the age structure of the life course for over two‐thirds of countries. Migration age profiles are aligned with transitions to adulthood for both sexes but most strongly among women.