The Board Value Protection Function in Young,Mature and Family Firms

Next to value creation, the value protection function of the Board of Directors is a widely accepted fact. Nevertheless, the current literature struggles to show a positive impact of the Board Value Protection (BVP) on firm performance. We use the decision rights model of board functions and argue the difference between board member roles (insider vs independent) and functions, to isolate the BVP from other director functions. By using the German context as a natural setting, we can isolate the BVP and show how it evolves with the firm lifecycle and owner motivations. Based on a sample of 446 initial public offerings (IPOs) from 1995 to 2015, our results show that the importance of BVP in young firms decreases with age, increases in mature firms and that this effect is stronger in family firms.     

A Retrospective Analysis of Employment Duration: Evidence from the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Popular perception holds that average employment durations have declined in recent decades. However, most studies conclude that the proportion of long‐term employment relationships has remained remarkably stable over time. To shed light on this discrepancy we use distribution analysis to systematically track changes in Canadian employment durations over the second half of the 20th century. The analysis reveals that earlier cohorts were more likely to have longer employment durations than later cohorts and that there are shifts in proportions between longer and shorter work episodes with employment durations declining sharply for men and mixed results for women.     

The self as risk taker: a cultural theory of contagion in relation to AIDS

Some people are prepared to take high risks with their lives and those of others. Should this be surprising? Is it more normal to be risk-taking? Or risk averse? The argument below will be that the risk taking facet and the risk-averse facet of the personality each emerges in the course of a public debate on freedom and control. It is not psychology but anthropology that shows how the community forces sharp and clear ideas about the self upon its members.     

Perceptions of Job Security in Europe’s Ageing Workforce

Using data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, this paper investigates older workers’ perceptions of job security in eleven countries. We describe cross-national patterns and estimate multilevel models to analyse individual and societal determinants of self-perceived job security in the older labour force. While there are considerable cross-country variations around a median value of 23% of workers aged 50 or older ranking their job security as poor, none of our suggested macro-level explanatory variables—employment rate, employment protection legislation, mean level of general social trust, and proportion disapproving of working beyond age 70—bears statistically significant associations with individuals’ job security. We find some indication, however, that the various societal factors considered here might contribute jointly to explaining the observed cross-national variation. Future research should aim at identifying statistically more powerful indicators of the supposed multilevel relationship between social context and older workers’ perceptions of job security. Moreover, supplementary findings indicate that further attention should be paid to the gender dimension of job insecurity.     

Transformational Leadership and Volunteer Firefighter Engagement

This study explores the relationship between transformational leadership and volunteer firefighter engagement. Using responses from 213 volunteer firefighters, structural equation modeling reveals a positive relationship between transformational leadership and volunteer engagement, which is mediated by both group identification and perceived social impact. In addition, higher volunteer engagement is positively related to a firefighter's intention to continue volunteering and to recruit others. Taken together, the results indicate that transformational leaders achieve positive volunteer outcomes by strengthening the organizational ties of volunteers and by connecting volunteers with the prosocial impact of their work. Theoretical implications for transformational leadership research in volunteer settings as well as practical recommendations for a sustainable volunteer management are provided.     

Nest design in a changing world: Great tit <Emphasis Type="Italic">Parus major</Emphasis> nests from a Mediterranean city environment as a case study

Investigations of urbanization effects on birds have focused mainly on breeding traits expressed after the nest-building stage (e.g. first-egg date, clutch size, breeding success, and offspring characteristics). Urban studies largely ignored how and why the aspects of nest building might be associated with the degree of urbanization. As urban environments are expected to present novel environmental changes relative to rural environments, it is important to evaluate how nest-building behavior is impacted by vegetation modifications associated with urbanization. To examine nest design in a Mediterranean city environment, we allowed urban great tits (Parus major) to breed in nest boxes in areas that differed in local vegetation cover. We found that different measures of nest size or mass were not associated with vegetation cover. In particular, nests located adjacent to streets with lower vegetation cover were not smaller or lighter than nests in parks with higher vegetation cover. Nests adjacent to streets contained more pine needles than nests in parks. In addition, in nests adjacent to streets, nests from boxes attached to pine trees contained more pine needles than nests from boxes attached to other trees. We suggest that urban-related alterations in vegetation cover do not directly impose physical limits on nest size in species that are opportunistic in the selection of nesting material. However, nest composition as reflected in the use of pine needles was clearly affected by habitat type and the planted tree species present, which implies that rapid habitat change impacts nest composition. We do not exclude that urbanization might impact other aspects of nest building behaviour not covered in our study (e.g. costs of searching for nest material), and that the strengths of the associations between urbanization and nest structures might differ among study populations or species.     

Union Wage Setting,Employment and Investment: a Survey of Theory and Empirical Evidence

Abstract. This paper provides a survey of recent theoretical and empirical research on union wage setting, employment and investment. The basic models of union wage setting and employment are presented in a unified framework. The distinction between insiders and outsiders is introduced as an extension of the basic models. Empirical evidence on union preferences and on the performance of the various models is accessibly ordered. Finally, attention is paid to the effects of strategic behaviour between union and firm on wages, employment and investment.     

极地环境变化——将减少炭黑排放作为保护极地以及阻止气候突变的机制

1 绪论 气候变化对北极的影响比对地球任何其他地方的影响都要更早,且更强烈.在过去的5年里,天的气温已经上升了3～4℃,1] 预计到本世纪末,地温度会上升4～7℃,冰洋的温度会上升7～10℃.但有一产业会在短期内,海冰消融中受益,就是航运业.随着北极变暖,业增长、资源开发以及包括游轮业在内的旅游业的发展,随之增长.北极航运线路的开发将降低全球航运时间和成本,短日本至英国差不多5000m的行程.过去的1个世纪里,极海洋冰块已经大晕减少,且还在继续减少,使得在北极发展航运业和加大资源开发成为现实.     

How performance related pay affects productivity and employment

This paper uses information from a panel of Dutch firms to investigate the labor productivity effects of performance related pay (PRP). We find that PRP increases productivity at the firm level with 9% and employment growth with 5%.