International Joint Ventures: Partnering Skills and Cross-Cultural Issues

Cooperative activity has become an important element of strategic behaviour and, with increasing globalisation, many alliances are being formed across national boundaries, with the attendant challenges of surmounting linguistic and other cultural barriers. This article provides new perspectives on the partnering skills needed for success in such international joint ventures (IJVs). Based on the analysis of 60 personal interviews from a sample of 20 Anglo-European JVs, four categories of skills are analysed: inter-partner skills, managing the IJV managers, the “upward management” skills of IJV managers managing the ‘parent’ partners, and those of managing the IJV itself. The article presents a matrix to examine the four categories of skill in the context in which each are used. Serving both as an analytical device and a diagnostic tool, this matrix offers results that have important implications for the management of IJVs with regard to the selection and training of managers and the inculcation of the skills required for each level of operation.     

Efficiency Wages: Signals or Incentives An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Wage and Commitment

Efficiency wage theories arguethat firms induce their employees to work in a moredisciplined way by paying high wages. Two basicmechanisms have been pointed out in economics about how these wage premia motivate employees.The incentives-driven `shirking model' impliesthat employees who have a highly paid job workin a more disciplined way so as to avoid beingdismissed. The ``gift exchange' model is basedon the assumption that high wages change therelationship between employer and employee.Empirical evidence on the incentives approachis mixed and a thorough competitive testingagainst the gift exchange model was notpossible due to the fact that the latter wasnot worked out enough. However, there is a relational theory of efficiency wages which isworked out in detail in order to allow directcompetitive testing. This relationalsignaling approach, as it is called, is basedon framing effects and comes to specifichypotheses about the conditions under whichefficiency wages work. These hypothesescontrast sharply with predictions from theincentives approach. The paper presents anempirical test of the theories and shows thatthe data clearly reject the incentive-basedpredictions and confirm the relationalsignaling predictions.     

Efficient Labour Contracts: Impediments and How to Circumvent Them

Efficient labour contracts on wages and employment could contribute to a reduction in unemployment in Europe. Their implementation is hindered by institutional settings and asymmetric incentives at different levels of the bargaining process. Employed workers have no incentives to forego wage increases at the firm level for potential employment gains, while employers’ federations possess no means to guarantee an employment increase for the sector covered by a wage agreement. Decentralization of wage bargaining does not solve this incentive problem. It is demonstrated that the introduction of marketable certificates may reduce the asymmetric incentive effects enabling contracts with higher employment.     

Declining Return Migration From the United States to Mexico in the Late-2000s Recession: A Research Note

Researchers in the United States and Mexico have variously asserted that return migration from the United States to Mexico increased substantially, remained unchanged, or declined slightly in response to the 2008–2009 U.S. recession and fall 2008 global financial crisis. The present study addresses this debate using microdata from 2005 through 2009 from a large-scale, quarterly Mexican household survey, the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE), after first validating the ENOE against return-migration estimates from a specialist demographic survey, the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID). Declines in annual return-migration flows of up to a third between 2007 and 2009 were seen among the predominantly labor-migrant groups of male migrants and all 18- to 40-year-old migrants with less than a college education; and a decline in total return migration was seen in the fourth quarter of 2008 (immediately after the triggering of the global financial crisis) compared with the fourth quarter of 2007.     

Infant mortality in London, 1538-1850: a methodological study

A review of evidence on infant mortality derived from the London bills of mortality and parish registers indicates that there were major registration problems throughout the whole of the parish register period. One way of addressing these problems is to carry out reconstitution studies of individual London parishes, but there are a number of problems with reconstitution methodology, including the traffic in corpses between parishes both inside and outside of London and the negligence of clergymen in registering both baptisms and burials. In this paper the triangulation of sources has been employed to measure the adequacy of burial registration, including the comparison of data from bills of mortality, parish registers and probate returns, as well as the use of the same-name technique. This research indicates that between 20 and 40 per cent of burials went unregistered in London during the parish register period.     

Child Protection and Radiography: Clinical and Technical Issues

The role of the radiographer in child protection has received little attention. This review considers issues which arise in this field, highlighting the implications for those responsible for the management of child protection systems, for those responsible for training, and for staff in other specialisms and professions within the hospital. The different types of imaging technique are discussed with some comment on their advantages and disadvantages. Forced immobilisation is sometimes required, and consideration is given to the issues which arise for the radiographer and abused child in this process. The article reviews the knowledge needed by radiographers of the clinical and radiological manifestations of abuse. It is noted that there are additional social and emotional issues which are discussed in a further paper. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linear Regression Limit Theory for Nonstationary Panel Data

This paper develops a regression limit theory for nonstationary panel data with large numbers of cross section (n) and time series (T) observations. The limit theory allows for both sequential limits, wherein T→∞ followed by n→∞, and joint limits where T, n→∞ simultaneously; and the relationship between these multidimensional limits is explored. The panel structures considered allow for no time series cointegration, heterogeneous cointegration, homogeneous cointegration, and near-homogeneous cointegration. The paper explores the existence of long-run average relations between integrated panel vectors when there is no individual time series cointegration and when there is heterogeneous cointegration. These relations are parameterized in terms of the matrix regression coefficient of the long-run average covariance matrix. In the case of homogeneous and near homogeneous cointegrating panels, a panel fully modified regression estimator is developed and studied. The limit theory enables us to test hypotheses about the long run average parameters both within and between subgroups of the full population.     

Testing and Estimating Shape-Constrained Nonparametric Density and Regression in the Presence of Measurement Error

In many applications we can expect that, or are interested to know if, a density function or a regression curve satisfies some specific shape constraints. For example, when the explanatory variable, X, represents the value taken by a treatment or dosage, the conditional mean of the response, Y , is often anticipated to be a monotone function of X. Indeed, if this regression mean is not monotone (in the appropriate direction) then the medical or commercial value of the treatment is likely to be significantly curtailed, at least for values of X that lie beyond the point at which monotonicity fails. In the case of a density, common shape constraints include log-concavity and unimodality. If we can correctly guess the shape of a curve, then nonparametric estimators can be improved by taking this information into account. Addressing such problems requires a method for testing the hypothesis that the curve of interest satisfies a shape constraint, and, if the conclusion of the test is positive, a technique for estimating the curve subject to the constraint. Nonparametric methodology for solving these problems already exists, but only in cases where the covariates are observed precisely. However in many problems, data can only be observed with measurement errors, and the methods employed in the error-free case typically do not carry over to this error context. In this paper we develop a novel approach to hypothesis testing and function estimation under shape constraints, which is valid in the context of measurement errors. Our method is based on tilting an estimator of the density or the regression mean until it satisfies the shape constraint, and we take as our test statistic the distance through which it is tilted. Bootstrap methods are used to calibrate the test. The constrained curve estimators that we develop are also based on tilting, and in that context our work has points of contact with methodology in the error-free case.