Macro stress testing and resilience assessment of Indian banking

This study conducts policy-based macro stress testing of the Indian banking sector and also assesses its resilience towards compliance with BASEL norms with the aid of an empirical macro-financial model. It uses scenario analysis and quantitative techniques to capture the impact of macroeconomic stress on the stability of the Indian banks by evaluating financial soundness indicators (credit quality, quantity and quality of capital adequacy). The scenarios are generated through policy-based shocks vis-à-vis other external shocks. The results from the estimation of the model indicate a cointegrating relationship between credit quality and key macroeconomic variables including output growth rate, interest rate, money growth rate and exchange rate. The results of the scenario analysis reveal that the Indian banking sector remains largely sound in terms of total regulatory capital adequacy ratio as per current BASEL II and even BASEL III requirement. The results also show that expansionary monetary policy impacts credit quality and capital adequacy in a positive and significant manner via its effect on the economy’s growth rate.     

Pesticide exposure and sprayer's task goals: comparison between vineyards and greenhouses

Plant protection products are used in agriculture to improve yields, but this use can cause contamination of the environment and is also likely to have adverse short and long term effects on agricultural workers. The field study took place in greenhouses and vineyards where operators are involved in high levels of pesticide spraying. The objective of this intervention was to identify factors explaining the influence of task factors on the exposure of greenhouse growers and vineyard workers. Thirteen operators were selected for detailed observations during one session of spraying. Video recordings provide counts of physical contacts between the operator and all the surrounding surfaces during the spraying operation. Both in vineyards and in greenhouses, physical and temporal constraints are the predominant factors in establishing a specific spraying procedure. Every action taken by the operator is a result of a compromise between safety, task performance and quality.     

Immigration Provisions in the Violence Against Women Act: Implications for Asian Indian Marriage Migrants

We explore the perspectives of 26 domestic violence advocates from 14 nonprofit organizations on gaps in the immigration-related provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as these relate to the intersectional needs and experiences of Asian Indian marriage migrants. Findings indicate that, based on immigration status and other intersectional locations, policy provisions differentially affect this population. In addition, because agencies focus on broadly defined populations (immigrants or women), but victims’ locations are intersectional, intersectional policy analysis and coordination between and across agencies formulating and administering policies are required to meet the needs of abused Asian Indian marriage migrants.     

Hybrid Dirichlet mixture models for functional data

Summary.  In functional data analysis, curves or surfaces are observed, up to measurement error, at a finite set of locations, for, say, a sample of n individuals. Often, the curves are homogeneous, except perhaps for individual-specific regions that provide heterogeneous behaviour (e.g. 'damaged' areas of irregular shape on an otherwise smooth surface). Motivated by applications with functional data of this nature, we propose a Bayesian mixture model, with the aim of dimension reduction, by representing the sample of n curves through a smaller set of canonical curves. We propose a novel prior on the space of probability measures for a random curve which extends the popular Dirichlet priors by allowing local clustering: non-homogeneous portions of a curve can be allocated to different clusters and the n individual curves can be represented as recombinations (hybrids) of a few canonical curves. More precisely, the prior proposed envisions a conceptual hidden factor with k -levels that acts locally on each curve. We discuss several models incorporating this prior and illustrate its performance with simulated and real data sets. We examine theoretical properties of the proposed finite hybrid Dirichlet mixtures, specifically, their behaviour as the number of the mixture components goes to ∞ and their connection with Dirichlet process mixtures.     

Integrating normative values and/in value creation: A strategic management decision aid tool for social enterprises' values practices

Normative values are one of the most central motives for the creation of nonprofits and social enterprises. Nevertheless, their actual role in the management of these organizations has been little explored. Furthermore, the social enterprise literature has typically approached the concept of value from a value creation perspective. This paper looks at the role played by normative values in the strategic management decisions of a nonprofit social enterprise and unpacks the dynamics between the enactment of these values and the creation of social and economic value. In terms of practical implications, this research allows for proposal of a value‐based, strategic management decision aid tool that emerged from the in‐depth, longitudinal study of a work integration social enterprise. Our findings suggest that the enactment of normative values can actually feed in economic value creation, which, in turn, allows for strengthened respect of the normative values, thus generating virtuous cycles that ultimately help the organization to find a coherence between its social mission and market.     

Risky businesses: economic crisis in Argentina and the generative power of generations

Theory and Society - How are risk orientations shaped in the sphere of work beyond proximate structuring institutions? In the absence of clear organizational imperatives or institutional supports,...     

Administrative Buy-in for User Participation in Managing Social Services

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study conducted in Hong Kong on the value position of the social service providers regarding user participation in service management. Using a survey instrument to collect data from 642 service providers in an elderly service organization, the study explored whether or not the value position had an effect on the views of the service providers on the structural set-up for user participation, and whether the value position of the professional staff was significantly different from that of the non-professional staff. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA), confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied in the analysis. The findings identify that administrative buy-in needed to support shared decision-making with the welfare service users has not been achieved in the studied organization, owing to the absence of value commitment to the user participation cause. As the professional staff was more supportive of values favoring user participation, the paper calls for an acculturation process that would be stimulated and led by professionals to develop a participatory culture. The paper also recommends conducting similar study on a larger scale and qualitative inquiry into factors influencing the formation of values about user participation in future research.     

Health related quality of life of women at the sixth week and sixth month postpartum by mode of birth

Background

Health-related quality of life of women in the postpartum period may depend on the mode of birth. However, previous findings are contradictory.

Infants' Perception of Intonation: Is It a Statement or a Question?

The ability to distinguish phonetic variations in speech that are relevant to meaning is essential for infants' language development. Previous studies into the acquisition of prosodic categories have focused on lexical stress, lexical pitch accent, or lexical tone. However, very little is known about the developmental course of infants' perception of linguistic intonation. In this study, we investigate infants' perception of the correlates of the statement/yes–no question contrast in a language that marks this sentence type distinction only by prosodic means, European Portuguese (EP). Using a modified version of the visual habituation paradigm, EP‐learning infants at 5–6 and 8–9 months were able to successfully discriminate segmentally varied, single‐prosodic word intonational phrases presented with statement or yes–no question intonation, demonstrating that they are sensitive to the prosodic cues marking this distinction as early as 5 months and maintain this sensitivity throughout the first year. These results suggest the presence of precocious discrimination abilities for intonation across segmental variation, similarly to previous reports for lexical pitch accent, but unlike previous findings for word stress.