DEVELOPMENT OF A FAIR CHARGING MODEL FOR A PUBLIC DATA CENTER

The purpose of the study was to explore how a public, IT services transferor, organization, comprised of autonomous entities, can effectively develop and organize its data center cost recovery mechanisms in a fair manner. The lack of a well-defined model for charges and a cost recovery scheme could cause various problems. For example one entity may be subsidizing the costs of another entity(s). Transfer pricing is in the best interest of each autonomous entity in a CCA. While transfer pricing plays a pivotal role in the price settings of services and intangible assets, TCE focuses on the arrangement at the boundary between entities. TCE is concerned with the costs, autonomy, and cooperation issues of an organization. The theory is concern with the factors that influence intra-firm transaction costs and attempting to manifest the problems involved in the determination of the charges or prices of the transactions. This study was carried out, as a single case study, in a public organization. The organization intended to transfer the IT services of its own affiliated public entities and was in the process of establishing a municipal-joint data center. Nine semi-structured interviews, including two pilot interviews, were conducted with the experts and managers of the case company and its affiliating entities. The purpose of these interviews was to explore the charging and pricing issues of the intra-firm transactions. In order to process and summarize the findings, this study employed qualitative techniques with the multiple methods of data collection. The study, by reviewing the TCE theory and a sample of transfer pricing literature, created an IT services pricing framework as a conceptual tool for illustrating the structure of transferring costs. Antecedents and consequences of the transfer price based on TCE were developed. An explanatory fair charging model was eventually developed and suggested. The findings of the study suggested that the Chargeback system was inappropriate scheme for an organization with affiliated autonomous entities. The main contribution of the study was the application of TP methodologies in the public sphere with no tax issues consideration.

An Econometric Analysis of Inter-Firm Labour Mobility

This paper utilizes the Survey of Work History (1981) data to examine the importance of non-random sampling in the context of a model of interfirm labour mobility. The paper adopts Heckman's two-step procedure in order to estimate a three-equation model incorporating an individual's mobility status as endogenously determined. The main conclusion is that in estimating wage equations it is important to consider the role of job mobility and to correct for the effects of sample-selection bias. The results generally accord with those reported by Osberg et al. (1986) in the only previous Canadian study of job mobility in a sample-selection context.

Target difficulty, intra-year target revisions and firm performance: evidence from business units' targets

Target difficulty is often argued to increase performance. While this association is well established in experimental research, empirical evidence in field research is rather mixed. We attempt to explain this inconsistency by analyzing the importance of intra-year target revisions, which are especially prevalent in real-world field settings. Using survey and archival data from 97 firms, we find that firms with more challenging business unit targets revise targets more often, in line with asymmetric, downward target revisions. Results further show that the degree to which targets are revised during a period results in negative effects on firm performance, as the anticipation of revision negatively affects the business unit management’s performance incentives. Additionally, we find that using targets predominantly for either decision-making or control influences the overall performance effects of target revisions. Our findings may partially explain the mixed field study evidence regarding the effects of target difficulty.

How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation

Do apprenticeships convey mainly general or also firm- and occupation-specific human capital? Specific human capital may allow for specialization gains, but may also lead to allocative inefficiency due to mobility barriers. We analyse the case of Switzerland, which combines a comprehensive, high-quality apprenticeship system with a lightly regulated labour market. To assess human capital transferability after standardized firm-based apprenticeship training, we analyse inter-firm and occupational mobility and their effects on post-training wages. Using a longitudinal data set based on the PISA 2000 survey, we find high inter-firm and low occupational mobility within one year after graduation. Accounting for endogenous changes, we find a negative effect of occupation changes on wages, but no significant wage effect for firm changes. This indicates that occupation-specific human capital is an important component of apprenticeship training and that skills are highly transferable within an occupational field.

Family Firm Incumbent’s Attitude toward Intra-family Succession: Antecedents and Effects on Intentions

Research shows that intention for intra-family succession is an important determinant of family firm behavior. To provide a systematic analysis of the antecedents of such intention, we use the theory of planned behavior to model the incumbent leader’s attitude toward intra-family succession because that particular attitude is idiosyncratic to family firms. Empirical tests using a sample of 271 Italian incumbent leaders of family firms show that, as predicted by planned behavior theory, attitude and self-efficacy are significant predictors of intention. They show further that attitude is affected by the number of children, emotional attachment, and need for control.

Job changes, occupational mobility and human capital acquisition : an empirical analysis

Most individuals have more than one job or occupation in their working lives. Most employees are repeatedly faced with the choice of whether to remain in their present job (with the possibility of promotion), or quit to another job in the same occupation with a different firm, or - more radically change occupation. At each stage in an individual's career, the scope for future job or occupational mobility is largely conditioned by the type and quantity of their human capital. This paper presents an empirical study of the factors which link occupational mobility and the acquisition of either firm-based, occupation-specific or general human capital. The data employed are from a cohort of 1980 UK graduates drawn from the Department of Employment Survey 1987. The econometric work presents estimates of the role of firm-based training and occupation-specific training in the career mobility of qualified manpower in the first seven years in the labour market

International transport costs and the margins of Intra-Latin American maritime trade.

This paper focuses on the analysis of the relationship between maritime trade and transport cost in Latin America. The analysis is based on disaggregated (SITC 5 digit level) trade data for intra Latin maritime trade routes over the period 1999-2004. The research contributes to the literature by disentangling the effects of transport costs on the range of traded goods (extensive margin) and the traded volumes of goods (intensive margin) of international trade in order to test some of the predictions of the trade theories that introduce firm heterogeneity in productivity, as well as fixed costs of exporting. Recent investigations show that spatial frictions (distance) reduce trade mainly by trimming the number of shipments and that most firms ship only to geographically proximate customers, instead of shipping to many destinations in quantities that decrease in distance. Our analyses confirm these findings and show that the opposite pattern is observed for ad-valorem freight rates that reduce aggregate trade values mainly by reducing the volume of imported goods (intensive margin).

The Industrial Context of Occupational Mobility: Change in Structure

The neglect of a consideration of history has been a feature of mobility research. ‘History’ affects the results of analyses of social mobility by altering the occupational/industrial structure and by encouraging exchange mobility. Changes in industrial structure are rooted more directly in historical causes and can be seen as more fundamental than changes in occupational structure. Following a substantial review of the secondary literature on changes in industrial and occupational structure in Northern Ireland, loglinear analyses of intra- and intergenerational mobility tables for sociologically-derived cohort generations that incorporate occupational and industrial categories are presented. Structural and inheritance effects for industry are as significant as those for occupation. Given the well-established finding of ‘constant social fludity’ in mobility tables once structural effects are controlled, the inclusion of categorization by industry is necessary in order to reach an accurate understanding of occupational mobility and the role of historical change in mobility.

Is low worker mobility evidence for monopsony power?

Major in Competition and Regulation

Sector-Specific Training and Mobility in Germany

This article studies mobility patterns of German workers in light of a model of sector-specific human capital. Furthermore, I employ and describe little-used data on continuous on-the-job training occurring after apprenticeships. Results are presented describing the incidence and duration of continuous training. Continuous training is quite common, despite the high incidence of apprenticeships which precedes this part of a worker's career. Most previous studies have only distinguished between firm-specific and general human capital, usually concluding that training was general. Inconsistent with those conclusions, I show that German men are more likely to find a job within the same sector if they have received continuous training in that sector. These results are similar to those obtained for young U.S. workers, and suggest that sector-specific capital is an important feature of very different labor markets. In addition, they suggest that the observed effect of training on mobility is sensible to the state of the business cycle, indicating a more complex interaction between supply and demand that most theoretical models allow for.

Sector-Specific on-the-Job Training: Evidence from U.S. Data.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we re-examine the effect of formal on-the-job training on mobility patterns of young American workers. By employing parametric duration models, we evaluate the economic impact of training on productive time with an employer. Confirming previous studies, we find a positive and statistically significant impact of formal on-the-job training on tenure with the employer providing the training. However, the expected net duration of the time spent in the training program is generally not significantly increased. We proceed to document and analyze intra-sectoral and cross-sectoral mobility patterns in order to infer whether training provides firm-specific, industry-specific, or general human capital. The econometric analysis rejects a sequential model of job separation in favor of a competing risks specification. We find significant evidence for the industry-specificity of training. The probability of sectoral mobility upon job separation decreases with training received in the current industry, whether with the last employer or previous employers, and employment attachment increases with on-the-job training. These results are robust to a number of variations on the base model.

The impact of early intra-articular corticosteroid injections on the outcome of oligoarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Contexte Un objectif important de la prise en charge de l'arthrite juvénile oligoarticulaire serait d'altérer le cours de la maladie à l'aide d'une thérapie hâtive. Nous avons étudié l'effet des injections intra-articulaires de corticostéroïdes hâtives sur les chances d'atteindre un décompte d'articulation active de zéro et une maladie inactive. Méthode Les données démographiques, cliniques et thérapeutiques des patients avec oligoarthrite juvénile enrôlés dans une étude prospective longitudinale pancanadienne ont été collectées pendant 2 ans. Une injection hâtive était définie comme étant reçue dans les 3 premiers mois suivant le diagnostic. Les équations d'estimation généralisées ont été utilisées pour l'analyse statistique. Résultats Trois cent dix patients ont été inclus. Cent onze (35.8%) ont reçu une injection hâtive. Ces derniers avaient une maladie plus active lors de l'entrée dans l'étude. Les patients exposés à une injection hâtive avaient une chance similaire d'obtenir un décompte d'articulation active de zéro, OR 1.52 (IC95% 0.68-3.37), p=0.306 mais étaient significativement moins à risque d'avoir une maladie inactive, OR 0.35 (IC95% 0.14-0.88), p=0.026. Interprétation Dans cette cohorte de 310 patients avec oligoarthrite juvénile, les injections hâtives de corticostéroïdes n'ont pas mené à une probabilité plus élevée d'atteindre un décompte d'articulation active de zéro ou une maladie inactive. Des problématiques méthodologiques intrinsèques à l'utilisation de données observationnelles pour fins d'estimation d'effets thérapeutiques auraient pu biaiser les résultats. Nous ne pouvons affirmer avec certitude que les injections hâtives n'améliorent pas le décours de la maladie. Des études prospectives adressant les limitations soulevées seront requises pour clarifier la question.

Liability of country foreignness and liability of regional foreignness: their effects on geographic diversification and firm performance

The costs of inter- and intra-regional diversification have been widely discussed in the existing international business literature, but the findings are mixed. Explanations for the mixed findings have important managerial implications, because business managers have to estimate accurately the costs of doing business within and across regions before they make their internationalization decisions. To explain the existing mixed findings, this study differentiates between liabilities of foreignness at the country and regional levels, and explores the joint effects of liability of country foreignness (LCF) and liability of regional foreignness (LRF) on the performance of internationalizing firms. Using data from 167 Canadian firms, we find that LCF may not necessarily be negatively correlated with intra-regional diversification, but LRF is positively correlated with inter-regional diversification. LCF moderates the relationship between LRF and inter-regional diversification, and also mediates the relationship between intra-regional diversification and firm performance. LRF mediates the relationship between inter-regional diversification and firm performance. Missing one or more of these variables may result in different cost estimates. Identification of the relationships between these variables helps to improve the accuracy of estimating the costs of doing business aboard.

Comportamento dos processos intra-organizacionais de aprendizagem tecnológica frente a uma mudança de estrutura de propriedade: o caso da TermoMacaé - PETROBRÁS

This academic work describes the interfirm technological learning processes behavior at a thermo plant throughout the years 2001 till 2007. Its former ownership structure was composed by two foreigners companies. This structure was changed by the acquisition of the company control by a Brazilian state owned company on April 2006. The company is a Natural Gas Fired Power Plant placed at Macaé City, at Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil generating electric power right to National Integrated System (SIN). The goal of this research is verify how the technological knowledge had been acquired by the firm and how it had been spread out throughout the organization before and after the change of the ownership structure. The taxonomy applied to determining of ownership structure take in account three parameters: type, specific characteristic and the ownership structure itself. Technological Learning Interfirm Processes have been examined from a model of systemic approach that establishes four key characteristics: ¿variety, intensity, functioning and interaction¿. During 2001 until 2006, till the change of owner structure, the firm developed its own learning processes in its own operational routines. The main learning processes have been identified from empirical evidences. It has been adopted the cut line at year of 2006 for the comparison among the technological learning processes behavior, when the change of ownership structure took place. The data capture occurred within April and August 2007 covering since 2001. Verified the behavior of these learning processes before and after the ownership structure changed from private property to state owned property. The conclusion of this case study suggests that interfirm processes of technological learning identified by the research had their dynamical behavior promptly affected by a change from private to ownerstate ownership structure, exposing the company to a poor performance in its industry, due to the lack of 51% of the technological intrafirm learning processes and reduction of the acquisition of new technical knowledge and its conversion throughout the organization.