Suchergebnisse

The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship of sports directors' familiarity with sports rights concepts and risk management behaviors at Kurdistan province in Iran. The methodology of this research is descriptive survey. The research statistical society consisted 255 members of all directors at Kurdistan Sport domain. The sampling method was simple random and for determining the sample volume 150 sport directors' managers of Kurdistan province, using Morgan table, were selected as the sample. Measuring tool was questionnaires of Thomas Irons about familiarity of managers and directors with sports rights and risk management. Its validity was confirmed by 10 experts and its stability was % 85 and % 89, in order. For theories analysis, Pearson's correlation coefficient was used. The finding showed that there is relation between the familiarity of sports directors with sports rights concepts, supervision, medical issues, bystander and population control, transportation, safety and applied equipment to their schedule at Kurdistan province. P<0.05; but employment and upbringing, safety, applied equipment and facilities factors do not affect manager's familiarity with sports rights P>0.05. Finally, it can be said that it seems risk management and sports rights require facilities and specific situations that rarely exist in the country's organizations and institutions and while it is not the right condition it is not expected these behaviors would happen in a favorable way. The present research concluded valuable results about investigating the relationships of familiarity of sports directors of Kurdistan province, with sports rights concepts and risk management behaviors.

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo consiste en describir el trabajo de las mujeres africanas que ejercen la prostitución en el Poniente almeriense y los locales específicos donde lo realizan. La investigación se ha abordado mediante metodología cualitativa; el trabajo de campo ha consistido fundamentalmente en observación participante y el registro de conversaciones informales con diferentes agentes, en una variada gama de escenarios de interacción en los que ha participado el investigador. Los resultados obtenidos permiten concluir que el trabajo de esas mujeres se puede encuadrar dentro del mercado sexual, si bien actúa articulando a su alrededor una variada gama de prácticas comerciales, de acusado carácter étnico, que van más allá de la estricta relación de intercambio de sexo por dinero entre la trabajadora sexual y su cliente. Abstract: The aim of this article is to describe the african women's work who exercise the prostitution in the area of Almería Poniente and the especific locals where they perform it. The research was approached by qualitative methodology; the fieldwork was composed of participant observation and the record of informal conversations with different agents, in a variety of interaction stages where the investigator was taken part. The results obtained indicate that the work of these women can be framed within the sex trade, while articulating acts around a variety of business practices, with a ethnic character, that go beyond the strict terms of exchange sex for money between the sex worker and client.

PurposeThe problem in alleviating homeowner mortgage distress through refinance is how to achieve meaningful alleviation without prospectively harming the financier. The problem revolves around two parameters from real estate finance – the probability that the distress leads to foreclosure and resulting foreclosure loss severity for the financier if foreclosure does occur. Previous analysis focuses on reducing the probability that homeowner distress leads to foreclosure. By contrast, the purpose of this paper is to focus on reducing foreclosure loss severity.Design/methodology/approachThe study develops a new intuitive formula for foreclosure loss severity to quantify its dependence on transaction costs. The study shows that foreclosure loss severity reduction is feasible by introducing a new refinancing instrument that lowers foreclosure transaction costs and applying property law to derive the structure of the refinancing instrument.FindingsForeclosure loss severity reduction can subsidize concessions on scheduled payments for homeowners with arbitrarily poor credit without prospective harm to the financier.Research limitations/implicationsQuantification of mortgage distress relief is limited to distressed mortgages described by representative parameter values from various government studies.Practical implicationsFor most distressed homeowners, payment and principal reductions could exceed those available from the recent government programs.Social implicationsImplementation should significantly enlarge the pool of homeowners eligible for mortgage distress relief.Originality/valueThe mortgage refinance is qualitatively different from that available under existing government refinance programs because it is based on an arms-length exchange of property rights that makes market sense regardless of whether the refinancing results in subsequent homeowner default.

Purpose
This study aims to provide additional insights by further investigating the governance aspects including board composition, risk monitoring and management by the board, ownership structures as well as the incentive compensation.


Design/methodology/approach
This study investigates the relationships between corporate governance, risk-taking behaviors and default risk by analyzing 78 publicly listed Japanese regional banks during the 2007-2008 crisis period.


Findings
Banks that were more diversified in the run-up to the crisis were associated with higher default risk during the crisis. Foreign shareholders may have prompted banks to engage in higher risk-taking activities in pursuit of higher returns, putting banks at a higher risk of default. On the other hand, board-level risk management committees may have mitigated the risks to protect firms from rising default. Finally, banks perceived to have better quality accounting information, by being audited by one of the Big 4 auditors, benefitted by mitigating price misevaluation and thus reducing default risk during the crisis.


Originality/value
Different from the majority of previous related studies on the relationship between governance and performance of stock returns, the current study focuses on the relationship between governance and default risk during the crisis which has a more direct link through which governance practices can affect risk-taking behaviors and thus the default risk during the crisis. In addition to examining conventional governance aspects, this study also focuses on the more relevant aspects of banks' risk monitoring functions.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe in-depth a community-based social partnership, emerged in response to the financial crisis in Greece, with members from the private, public and civic sectors, using a case example of a grass-root self-organised national network.


Design/methodology/approach
Formal and informal interviews as well as written communication with members of the partnership mainly formed the basis for the analysis. Topics covered formation and implementation activities, outcomes, relationship issues, such as trust and links to social capital.


Findings
A shared community risk and a national media campaign to increase public awareness of the issue were catalysts for individuals' sensitisation and participation in the partnership. The shared risk was the loss of community's social cohesion, through poverty aggravated by the financial crisis. Self-organisation led to innovative relationships, whereas trust, collective action and collaboration show social capital attributes in the partnership enabling resilience development.


Research limitations/implications
The research contributes in the fields of community-based partnerships and engagement in building community and crisis resilience. The findings are based on a case example. More evidence is needed in order to derive generalised statements about the partnership's contribution to crisis resilience.


Practical implications
The partnership has shown impact on community engagement, health and well-being.


Originality/value
This paper presents a partnership type for building community and crisis resilience with the case example of one such partnership in Greece, formed to alleviate community distress caused by the crisis.

PurposeThe psychological and behavioral consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster were among the most widespread, long term, and costly of all oil spill-related disasters. However, many people were resilient, and understanding the factors associated with resilience in the immediate aftermath of this disaster are needed to guide early interventions. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 133 adults from the Northeast Gulf Coast participated in a study of mental health outcomes during the oil spill and one year later. Participants completed a battery of measures that assessed their basic demographics, income status, perceived environmental risk (i.e. characteristic way people think about and interpret environmental risks), self-reported resilience (i.e. ability to "bounce back" after a disaster), and mental health status.FindingsResults of univariate analyses indicated similar, elevated levels of mental health problems at both time points; however, environmental risk perception was higher one year post-spill than during the spill. In multivariate analyses, income stability, increased time, higher self-reported resilience, and lower environmental risk perception were associated with better mental health outcomes while age and gender had no association.Originality/valueOil spills are protracted disasters, and better mental health outcomes are linked to financial stability, as well as a belief in environmental restoration and one's own capacity for resilience. Since resilience and environmental worry are potentially modifiable processes, they might be targeted in prevention and early intervention efforts in order to create more robust, prepared individuals in the face of an oil spill disaster.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the effects of contractionary fiscal policy shocks on major Greek macroeconomic variables within a structural vector autoregression framework while accounting for debt dynamics.Design/methodology/approachThe sign restriction approach is applied to identify a linear combination of government spending and government revenue shock simultaneously while accounting for debt dynamics. Additionally, output and unemployment responses to fiscal shocks under different scenarios concerning the amalgamation of austerity measures are considered.FindingsThe results indicate that a contractionary consumption policy shock, namely, a 1 per cent decrease in government consumption and a 1 per cent increase in indirect taxes, is preferred, as it produces a minor decrease in output and substantially decreases public debt, while a contractionary wage policy shock is suitable only when the government aims to sharply reduce public debt, as the consequences for the economy are harsh. A contractionary investment policy shock is not recommended, as it triggers a rise in unemployment and a fall in output, while the effect on the public debt is minor.Practical implicationsPolicymakers should focus their efforts on reducing unproductive government consumption on the expenditure side. Concerning revenues, the reinforcement of tax administration is recommended to ensure that indirect taxes will be collected.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the existing literature by providing a disaggregated analysis of the effects of fiscal policy actions in Greece by implementing several fiscal policy scenarios and accounting for the level of public debt. All scenarios are in the vein of the economic adjustment programs guidelines.

Purpose
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) exhibit limited understanding of their business processes. This lack of understanding limits the potential of these businesses and is a direct contributor to the high failure rates of this sector of the economy. Research has suggested that existing BP methods to not support SMEs in gaining an improved understanding of their processes due to the high complexity and resource intensity of these tools, more suitable for deployment within a large business context. The paper aims to discuss these issues.


Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports on two qualitative case studies of medium-sized financial entities that employ a new approach, the critical process targeting method (CPTM), to improve their understanding of their processes.


Findings
In reviewing these two case studies, the authors find that the CPTM can be considered a useful tool in improving process understanding in SMEs, and can lead to the achievement of strategic goals. This paper, however, also describes a number of practical limitations that were encountered when employing the CPTM within the SME context.


Originality/value
This new contribution to theory adds significant and critical support to academia and practice in business process understanding where current methods are found to be too resource heavy for even some large organisations. These two case studies have also provided support for struggling management teams being overwhelmed by the need to understand business processes within their organisations. Published literature and the case study experience both suggest that medium-sized entities have difficulty understanding their business processes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the variation in migrant labour market regimes and what these reveal about variant patterns of state and extra state regulation in two contemporary political economies.Design/methodology/approachResearch based upon a participatory action research agenda in Mexico and the north of Ireland. Migrant workers and their families where involved in the project and its development. This included participation in the research design, its focus and purpose.FindingsMigrant workers experiences of labour market subordination are part of wider processes of subordination and exclusion involving both the state, but also wider, often meta- and para-state, agents. In different locations, states and contexts, the precarity experienced by migrant workers and their families highlights the porosity of the formal rational legal state and moreover, in the current economic context, the compatibility of illegality and state sponsored neoliberal economic policies.Research limitations/implicationsIt is important to extend this study to other geographic and political economy spaces.Practical implicationsThe study challenges the limits of state agency suggesting the need for extra state, i.e. civil society, participation to support and defend migrant workers.Originality/valueNotwithstanding the two very different socio-economic contexts, the paper reveals that the interaction, dependence and restructuring of migrant labour markets can be understood within the context of meta- and para-state activities that link neoliberal employment insecurities. Migrants' experiences illustrate the extent to which even formal legal employment relations can also be sustained by para- and meta- (illegal and alegal) actions and institutions.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain progress, or the lack of it, in achieving workplace gender equality goals prescribed by affirmative action regulation by using concepts from soft regulation and organizational learning.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is a longitudinal study (2002-2012) of a critical case, that of a single large organization in the male-dominated steel manufacturing, distribution and mining industries. The case focusses on the evidence about organizational learning to be found in that organization's reports to government on its activities to promote workplace gender equality.FindingsWhile other factors play a role, the apparent failure of the soft regulation to generate a significant shift in gender equality outcomes may also be attributed to ineffective organizational learning, demonstrated by the absence of systematic reflection within the organization on how to improve workplace gender equality, and the lack of firm targets and external benchmarking.Research limitations/implicationsSelf-reported data may be overstated or incomplete. More research is needed to confirm the nature of the specific learning processes occurring within organizations.Practical implicationsAbsent the advent of hard sanctions in workplace gender equality regulation, the responsible government agencies may find it valuable to focus on ways to encourage target organizations to develop competence in organizational learning.Social implicationsMore effective gender equality regulation may change organizational policy and practice and improve work opportunities for women.Originality/valueRather than concluding that the only alternative, when soft regulation is unsuccessful, is hard regulation, this paper shifts the focus to ways that soft regulatory processes might be improved to strengthen their effect.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight a series of critical points in the traditional theory (and practice) of ER/IR, in search of a more comprehensive paradigm.Design/methodology/approachAfter an introduction based on a literature review, the paper draws on the results of recent empirical research, and particularly of a survey of employment relations in Italian small firms, in order to explore the extent to which practices conform to traditional expectations on the functioning of collectively mediated IR systems.FindingsThrough the combination of two dimensions – the representation of labour and the degree of workplace welfare – a typology of ER models in small firms is thus delineated unveiling the diffusion of "anomalous" configurations, in which labour organization and workplace welfare are disconnected from one another.Research limitations/implicationsThe research results, which are here instrumentally used as an example of a much broader range of facts and behaviours that challenge the traditional wisdom, disclose a number of implications at theoretical level, that still need to be fully appreciated. They include the need to consider: the structure and composition of resources available to ER/IR actors both within and beyond workplaces; and the conditions for good labour relations also in absence of representation.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the debate on the possibilities of positive and socially acceptable ways of setting the rules of work in the globalized scenario by focussing not on new, fashionable issues, but on an old problem often neglected by classic studies on industrial relations in the golden age.

PurposeThis study aims to use expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) to investigate how an organization's satisfaction with its supply network's behavior influences its intention to open innovation with that network. This paper proposes that an organization's orientation to open innovation is influenced by confirmation of previously held expectations of trust and commitment and level of perceived procedural justice in its open innovation partner. This paper also examines the effect of this orientation on the organization's supply chain competence.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from a survey of 286 European firms, the study proposes and evaluates a structural equation model.FindingsThe results show that a positive disconfirmation of trust (where perceived trust exceeds expectations) plays a crucial role in shaping organizations' intentions to continue open innovation with their supply networks. These results show that disconfirmation is a good predictor of overall satisfaction with open innovation. This paper also confirms the positive effect of orientation to open innovation on supply chain competence. Finally, this paper obtained evidence for the positive effect of supply chain competence on firm performance.Originality/valueThis study shows the importance of managing expectations in open innovation under the EDT. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous research has analyzed the consistency between the trust and commitment an organization expects from its open innovation partner and the trust and commitment it ultimately perceives as a factor explaining its degree of orientation to open innovation. Therefore, this research contributes to a better understanding of open innovation enablers and also its consequences.

Abstract
Every public sector reform must promote ethics in the eyes of the citizens. One of the most notorious examples of successful modernization of public sector institutions in Macedonia is the effective reform of the Agency for Real Estate Cadaster. Thus, the main objectives are concentrated around examining ethics as very important aspect in the overall results of the implemented reforms within the Agency. The scope of the research is to clarify these objectives and depends on the knowledge that already exists in the research literature on the Macedonian Agency for Real Estate Cadaster. Therefore, the research methodology relies on observation and content analysis of various governmental documents and research papers. The research results show that the successful implementation of the E-cadaster system enabled new sophisticated dimension in the delivery of e-services to the public (notaries, geodetic companies and municipalities), but most importantly, to the citizens. The accent was on ethical issues when communicating with citizens. The role of public managers has been of tremendous help in fostering ethical behavior within and outside the Agency. However, periodical citizen surveys showed mixed results about the work of different Agency's units located in different municipalities. As in the past, there are still cases of unethical behavior of managers and employees in the Agency. The conclusions impose valuable implications for future academic and practitioner research in the field. It seems that there is no "perfect" public organization when it comes to ethics. Moreover, it seems that human nature can not always get in line with the Weberian organizational hierarchy.

Purpose
In this paper, the authors compare the open government data (OGD) ecosystems of Mexico, Russia and the USA in an effort to extract some of the major points of similarity and differentiation between these countries and to trace how variations in these ecosystems may be related to context-specific historical problems and politics, particularly with regard to the possibility of sustained and institutionalized practice.


Design/methodology/approach
The authors take a comparative approach, using a set of concepts commonly applied to the three countries to analyze similarities and differences within this group. The authors gathered textual data and information, the searches for relevant documents guided by a set of concepts or criteria that are frequently used in studies of government's open data readiness assessment.


Findings
The authors conclude by focusing on the very different national exigencies that have given rise to open data ecosystems in the three countries, the variations in policy vehicles and implementation schemes that have instantiated open data practices within the three ecosystems and the common challenges that each country faces in institutionalizing OGD programs beyond the tenures of their current executives.


Originality/value
OGD is an information policy with near global relevance and increasing application. Practitioners and scholars alike have used the concept of an "ecosystem" to guide their approach to implementing this policy and to theorizing its scope and benefits. The international comparison is original and adds to the current understanding of an ecosystem approach to OGD.

Purpose
In "data collaboratives", private and public organizations coordinate their activities to leverage data to address a societal challenge. This paper aims to focus on analyzing challenges and coordination mechanisms of data collaboratives.


Design/methodology/approach
This study uses coordination theory to identify and discuss the coordination problems and coordination mechanisms associated with data collaboratives. The authors also use a taxonomy of data collaborative forms from a previous empirical study to discuss how different forms of data collaboratives may require different coordination mechanisms.


Findings
The study analyzed data collaboratives from the perspective of organizational and task levels. At the organizational level, the authors argue that data collaboratives present an example of the bazaar form of coordination. At the task level, the authors identified five coordination problems and discussed potential coordination mechanisms to address them, such as coordination by negotiation, by third party, by standardization, to name a few.


Research limitations/implications
This study is one of the first few to systematically analyze the phenomenon of "data collaboratives".


Practical implications
This study can help practitioners better understand the coordination challenges they may face when initiating a data collaborative and to develop successful data collaboratives by using coordination mechanisms to mitigate these challenges.


Originality/value
Data collaboratives are a novel form of data-driven initiatives which have seen rapid experimentation lately. This study draws attention to this concept in the academic literature and highlights some of the complexities of organizing data collaboratives in practice.