Effects of Government Ownership on Firm Performance: Evidence from Finnish Companies

Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää, miten valtionomistajuus vaikuttaa yrityksen suorituskykyyn suomalaisissa pörssinoteeratuissa valtionyhtiöissä, joissa valtio toimii pää- tai osaomistajana. Suorituskykyä tutkitaan kandella eri menetelmällä. Ensin tutkitaan osaketuottoja Jensenin alfan avulla, jonka jälkeen suoritetaan tilinpäätöstunnuslukujen toimialavertailu. Tutkimuksen teoriaosuudessa esitetään yksityistämisen tuottamia etuja yrityksen taloudelliseen suorituskykyyn, sekä myöskin valtionomistajuuden tuottamia etuja. Lisäksi teoriaosuudessa käsitellään aikaisempien empiiristen tutkimusten tuloksia valtionomistajuuden vaikutuksista. Tämän tutkimuksen empiirisessä osiossa käytettävä data on saatu osakedatan osalta Datastreamista ja tilinpäätöstunnuslukujen osalta Balance Consulting Oy:ltä. Kokonaisosakedataa koskeva tutkimus Jensenin alfalla ei osoittanut valtionyhtiöiden toimivan tehottomasti, vaan osoitti yritysten kyenneen tuottamaan epänormaaleja tuottoja riskitasoonsa nähden. Vuositasolle pilkotun datan analysointi sen sijaan tuotti useita negatiivisia alfoja yrityksille eli merkkejä tehottomuudesta tiettyinä vuosina. Lisäksi tilinpäätöstunnuslukujen analysointi osoitti osan valtionyhtiöistä olleen pääosin omaa toimialaansa tehottomampia, kun taas osa kykenipäihittämään toimialansa.

Identidad colectiva y lengua en contextos pluriculturales y plurilingües: el caso del Valle de Arán (Lleida, España)

La comarca del Valle de Arán (Cataluña) presenta unas peculiaridades lingüísticas y sociodemográficas que la convierten en un escenario ideal para el estudio del proceso de construcción de la identidad colectiva y su relación con la lengua. En este artículo presentamos un análisis de la construcción de la identidad colectiva en este territorio y el papel de la lengua en este proceso. Partiendo de una concepción basada en que la importancia de la lengua propia en el proceso de construcción de la identidad colectiva no es un fenómeno categórico y universal, más bien obedece a una construcción social que convierte la lengua en expresión y vehículo de la pertenencia al colectivo, se demuestra que efectivamente la lengua aranesa desempeña un importante papel tanto en la formación como en la configuración de la identidad, pero el significado que se le otorga entre los residentes en la comarca difiere en gran medida, en función principalmente de que los sujetos se identifiquen o no con el universo aranés.

Indicadores de calidad de la producción en la Web of Science de diez profesores del Área de Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamiento Psicológico: aportaciones adicionales al estudio de Olivas-Ávila y Musi-Lechuga

Los rankings de productividad científica resultan cada vez más relevantes, tanto a nivel individual como institucional. Garantizar que se basan en información confiable y exhaustiva es, por tanto, importante. Este estudio indica que la posición de los individuos en esa clase de ranking puede cambiar sustancialmente cuando se consideran diversos indicadores bibliométricos internacionalmente reconocidos. Se usa, como ilustración, el caso de los diez profesores del área de ‘Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamiento Psicológico’ consignados en el reciente análisis de Olivas-Ávila y Musi-Lechuga (Psicothema 2010. Vol. 22, nº 4, pp. 909-916).

Ownership change and banking efficiency in the new EU members

The aim of this study is to analyze how European integration and, especially, changes in ownership, has affected banking efficiency in Central and Eastern European countries which have recently experimented this process more intensely. Using a stochastic frontier approach (SFA) applied to panel data, we have estimated bank efficiency levels in a sample of 189 banks from 12 countries during the period 2000 to 2008 and we have analyzed the influence of some bank characteristics on these efficiency levels. The results show that European integration has significantly improved the cost efficiency of banks in these countries but profit efficiency has significantly decreased. We have found very small differences between different ownership types and only a very small impact of foreign ownership on cost efficiency, showing that the entry of foreign ownership is not enough to explain the significant variations in banking efficiency after the accession.

Drumming in immersive virtual reality: the body shapes the way we play

It has been shown that it is possible to generate perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive virtual reality (IVR) over a virtual body seen from first person perspective, in other words over a body that visually substitutes the person's real body. This can occur even when the virtual body is quite different in appearance from the person's real body. However, investigation of the psychological, behavioral and attitudinal consequences of such body transformations remains an interesting problem with much to be discovered. Thirty six Caucasian people participated in a between-groups experiment where they played a West-African Djembe hand drum while immersed in IVR and with a virtual body that substituted their own. The virtual hand drum was registered with a physical drum. They were alongside a virtual character that played a drum in a supporting, accompanying role. In a baseline condition participants were represented only by plainly shaded white hands, so that they were able merely to play. In the experimental condition they were represented either by a casually dressed dark-skinned virtual body (Casual Dark-Skinned - CD) or by a formal suited light-skinned body (Formal Light-Skinned - FL). Although participants of both groups experienced a strong body ownership illusion towards the virtual body, only those with the CD representation showed significant increases in their movement patterns for drumming compared to the baseline condition and compared with those embodied in the FL body. Moreover, the stronger the illusion of body ownership in the CD condition, the greater this behavioral change. A path analysis showed that the observed behavioral changes were a function of the strength of the illusion of body ownership towards the virtual body and its perceived appropriateness for the drumming task. These results demonstrate that full body ownership illusions can lead to substantial behavioral and possibly cognitive changes depending on the appearance of the virtual body. This could be important for many applications such as learning, education, training, psychotherapy and rehabilitation using IVR.

Collective decision making in a heterogeneous environment: Lasius niger colonies preferentially forage at easy to learn locations

Many ants forage in complex environments and use a combination of trail pheromone information and route memory to navigate between food sources and the nest. Previous research has shown that foraging routes differ in how easily they are learned. In particular, it is easier to learn feeding locations that are reached by repeating (e.g. left-left or right-right) than alternating choices (left-right or right-left) along a route with two T-bifurcations. This raises the hypothesis that the learnability of the feeding sites may influence overall colony foraging patterns. We studied this in the mass-recruiting ant Lasius niger. We used mazes with two T-bifurcations, and allowed colonies to exploit two equidistant food sources that differed in how easily their locations were learned. In experiment 1, learnability was manipulated by using repeating versus alternating routes from nest to feeder. In experiment 2, we added visual landmarks along the route to one food source. Our results suggest that colonies preferentially exploited the feeding site that was easier to learn. This was the case even if the more difficult to learn feeding site was discovered first. Furthermore, we show that these preferences were at least partly caused by lower error rates (experiment 1) and greater foraging speeds (experiment 2) of foragers visiting the more easily learned feeder locations. Our results indicate that the learnability of feeding sites is an important factor influencing collective foraging patterns of ant colonies under more natural conditions, given that in natural environments foragers often face multiple bifurcations on their way to food sources.

Inducing illusory ownership of a virtual body

We discuss three experiments that investigate how virtual limbs and bodies can come to feel like real limbs and bodies. The fi rst experiment shows that an illusion of ownership of a virtual arm appearing to project out of a person"s shoulder can be produced by tactile stimulation on a person"s hidden real hand and synchronous stimulation on the seen virtual hand. The second shows that the illusion can be produced by synchronous movement of the person"s hidden real hand and a virtual hand. The third shows that a weaker form of the illusion can be produced when a brain-computer interface is employed to move the virtual hand by means of motor imagery without any tactile stimulation. We discuss related studies that indicate that the ownership illusion may be generated for an entire body. This has important implications for the scientific understanding of body ownership and several practical applications.

The Conceptualisation and Measurement of Issue Ownership

Issue ownership means that some parties are considered by the public at large as being more able to deal with, or more attentive to, certain issues. The theory has been used to explain both party behaviour - parties are expected to focus on owned issues - and voter behaviour - when a voter considers a party to own an issue, this affects the odds of voting for that party. The purpose of this article is, first, to provide a look backward at the existing research through a literature review of the studies that were conducted in the past decade-and-a-half. Secondly, it takes stock of the current conceptualisation and argues that issue ownership is a multidimensional concept. Thereafter the article discusses how this multidimensionality affects both the role of issue ownership in voter and in party behaviour. Finally, the article outlines a number of shortcomings of the extant literature and discusses potential avenues for future research.

Associative Issue Ownership as a Determinant of Voters' Campaign Attention

Campaigns raise public interest in politics and allow parties to convey their messages to voters. However, voters' exposure and attention during campaigns are biased towards parties and candidates they like. This hinders parties' ability to reach new voters. This paper theorises and empirically tests a simple way in which parties can break partisan selective attention: owning an issue. When parties own issues that are important for a voter, that voter is more likely to notice them. Using survey data collected prior to the 2009 Belgian regional elections it is shown that this effect exists independent of partisan preferences and while controlling for the absolute visibility of a party in the media. This indicates that issue ownership has an independent impact on voters' attention to campaigns. This finding shows that owning salient issues yields (potential) advantages for parties, since getting noticed is a prerequisite for conveying electoral messages and increasing electoral success.

'Steal me if you can!' The impact of campaign messages on associative issue ownership

Whereas extant work on issue ownership treats voters' issue ownership perceptions as independent variables to explain electoral choice or party behaviour, this article examines whether parties can, by communicating on an issue, turn voters' perceptions of issue ownership to their advantage. In contrast to most previous studies that have focused on competence ownership - measured as a party's capacity to handle an issue - this article analyses the short-term and long-term impact of campaign messages on voters' perceptions of associative ownership, which refers to the voters' spontaneous party-issue association, regardless of whether or not voters consider the party as the most competent at dealing with the issue at hand. Based on an online experimental design in Belgium, we show that parties are unable to steal issues that are associated with another party. However, by communicating on their own issues, parties can reinforce their reputation as an associative owner - but only in the short run and only if their previous ownership reputation is not overly strong.