Bonus Scheme Research Articles

COMPUTATION OF BONUS IN MULTI-STATE LIFE INSURANCE

AbstractWe consider computation of market values of bonus payments in multi-state with-profit life insurance. The bonus scheme consists of additional benefits bought according to a dividend strategy that depends on the past realization of financial risk, the current individual insurance risk, the number of additional benefits currently held, and so-called portfolio-wide means describing the shape of the insurance business. We formulate numerical procedures that efficiently combine simulation of financial risk with classic methods for the outstanding insurance risk. Special attention is given to the case where the number of additional benefits bought only depends on the financial risk. Methods and results are illustrated via a numerical example.

Does performance persistence exist in mutual and pension funds? Evidence from Turkey

The objective of this study is to investigate the performance persistence of Turkish mutual and pension funds. 310 mutual and 259 pension funds were analyzed between the period of 2010–2019 in order to determine if there is an evidence of performance persistence. In this study, a persistence rate is developed, and the skill ratio is used to crosscheck the results of the persistence rate. Furthermore, six different risk-adjusted return measures, such as Sharpe, Treynor, Information, Jensen’s alpha, Sortino, and Omega ratios are calculated to analyze whether funds also exhibit superior risk-adjusted returns. The results indicate that only 2% of funds demonstrate persistence above 50%, and 15 out of 20 fund categories do not have any funds that show persistence in 10 years. Most of the persistent funds have positive skill ratios, and it is observed that the persistence rate is effective. However, it cannot be stated that there is performance persistence in the Turkish fund management industry, since performance persistence is not evident for various fund types, so investors do not need to invest in the best funds of the previous year. Additionally, the empirical results associated with risk-adjusted performance analysis indicate that persistent funds also do not generally yield higher risk-adjusted returns. The lack of persistence in funds’ performance is a significant result for investors in their investment decisions, for fund managers in their human resource policies and bonus schemes, and for regulators in their policy decisions.

Risk factors associated with respiratory infectious disease-related presenteeism: a rapid review

BackgroundWorkplace transmission is a significant contributor to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreaks. Previous studies have found that infectious illness presenteeism could contribute to outbreaks in occupational settings and identified multiple occupational and organisational risk factors. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative to investigate presenteeism particularly in relation to respiratory infectious disease (RID). Hence, this rapid review aims to determine the prevalence of RID-related presenteeism, including COVID-19, and examines the reported reasons and associated risk factors.MethodsThe review followed a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) search approach and focused on studies published in English and Chinese. Database searches included MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database (CNKI) and preprint databases MedRxiv and BioRxiv.ResultsThe search yielded 54 studies, of which four investigated COVID-19-related presenteeism. Prevalence of work presenteeism ranged from 14.1 to 55% for confirmed RID, and 6.6 to 100% for those working with suspected or subclinical RID. The included studies demonstrated that RID-related presenteeism is associated with occupation, sick pay policy, age, gender, health behaviour and perception, vaccination, peer pressure and organisational factors such as presenteeism culture.ConclusionsThis review demonstrates that presenteeism or non-adherence to isolation guidance is a real concern and can contribute to workplace transmissions and outbreaks. Policies which would support workers financially and improve productivity, should include a range of effective non-pharmaceutical inventions such as workplace testing, promoting occupational health services, reviewing pay and bonus schemes and clear messaging to encourage workers to stay at home when ill. Future research should focus on the more vulnerable and precarious occupational groups, and their inter-relationships, to develop comprehensive intervention programs to reduce RID-related presenteeism.

The Incentive Game Under Target Effects in Ridesharing: A Structural Econometric Analysis

Problem definition: We study a ridesharing platform’s optimal bonus-setting decisions for capacity and profit maximization problems in which drivers set daily income targets. Academic and Practical Relevance: Sharing-economy companies have been providing monetary rewards to incentivize self-scheduled drivers to work longer. We study the effectiveness of the monetary bonus scheme in the context of the ridesharing industry, where the drivers are highly heterogeneous and set income targets. Methodology: We model a driver’s decision-making processes and the platform’s optimization problem as a Stackelberg game. Then, utilizing comprehensive datasets obtained from a leading ridesharing platform, we develop a novel empirical strategy to provide evidence on the existence of drivers’ income-targeting behavior through a reduced-form and structural analysis. Furthermore, we perform a counterfactual analysis to calculate the optimal bonus rates for different scenarios by using the characteristics of heterogeneous drivers derived from the estimation outcomes. Results: Our theoretical model suggests that the drivers’ working hours do not increase monotonically with the bonus rate under the target effect and that the platform may not use all its budget on bonuses to maximize capacity or profit. We empirically demonstrate that the drivers engage in income-targeting behavior, and furthermore, we estimate the income targets for heterogeneous drivers. Through counterfactual analysis, we illustrate how the optimal bonus scheme varies when the platform faces different driver compositions and market conditions. We also find that, compared with the platform’s previous bonus setting, the optimal bonus strategy improves the capacity level during peak hours by as much as 26%, boosting the total profit by $4.3 million per month. Managerial implications: It is challenging to develop a flexible self-scheduled supply of drivers that can match the ever-changing demand and maintain the market share of the ridesharing platform. When offering monetary bonuses to incentivize drivers to work longer, the drivers’ income-targeting behavior can undermine the effectiveness of such bonus schemes. The platform needs to understand the heterogeneity of drivers’ behavioral preferences regarding monetary rewards to design an effective bonus strategy.

The Bavarian Midwives Bonus - A Contribution to Monitoring Freelance Midwifery Care in Bavaria

Supply bottlenecks in midwifery care could intensify due to increasing birth rates in Bavaria. Midwives are already fully booked and can only take care of pregnant women by increasing their working hours. The situation of self-employed midwives is particularly precarious. Bavaria has been supporting self-employed midwives by granting the Bavarian midwife bonus of up to € 1,000 per year since September 2018. This analysis aims to describe the current status of the unique Bavarian midwife bonus scheme and to describe current programmes to improve care in obstetrics in Bavaria. All midwives who were self-employed, had their primary residence in Bavaria and had cared for at least four births in the application year were eligible for the Bavarian midwife bonus. We used data from application years 2017 and 2018 to describe the number of applications per year and the socio-demographic characteristics of the applicants and analyzed the regional distribution of the midwives and the regional supply density. In 2017, a total of 723 midwives received the bonus, in 2018 already 852 midwives. The average age of the applicants, who were exclusively female, was 44 years in the application year 2018. In 2018, 37 midwives per 100,000 women aged 15-44 were self-employed in obstetrics in Bavaria. A regional comparison showed an above-average supply density in the Upper Palatinate (52) and Lower Bavaria (54) and a below-average supply density in the Upper Franconia (13). The analysis of the Bavarian midwifery bonus enables a glance, albeit limited, into the supply situation of self-employed midwives in Bavaria. Whether the political instruments can improve the supply situation in Bavaria have to be evaluated using newly generated representative data. Central registration of midwives in Bavaria could be useful.

On the Cost-Effective Design of Agglomeration Bonus Schemes for the Conservation of Multiple Competing Species

An important mechanism of species co-existence in spatially structured landscapes is the competition-colonisation trade-off which states that co-existence of competing species is possible if, all other things equal, the better competitor is the worse coloniser. The effectiveness of this trade-off for the facilitation of co-existence, however, is likely to depend on the spatial arrangement of the habitat, because too strong agglomeration of the habitat may overly benefit the strong competitor (being the poor disperser), implying extinction of the inferiour competitor, while too much dispersion of the habitat may drive the superiour competitor (being the inferiour coloniser) to extinction. In working landscapes, biodiversity conservation is often induced through conservation payments that offset the forgone profits incurred by the conservation measure. To control the spatial arrangement of conservation measures and habitats in a conservation payment scheme, the agglomeration bonus has been proposed to provide financial incentives for allocating conservation measures in the vicinity of other sites with conservation measures. This paper presents a generic spatially explicit ecological-economic simulation model to explore the ability of the agglomeration bonus to cost-effectively conserve multiple competing species that differ by their competition strengths, their colonisation rates and their dispersal ranges. The interacting effects of the agglomeration bonus and different species traits and their trade-offs on the species richness in the model landscape are analysed. Recommendations for the biodiversity-maximising design of agglomeration bonus schemes are derived.

Conservation Costs Drive Enrolment in Agglomeration Bonus Scheme

Agglomeration bonus schemes have become important policy tools when the environmental benefit hinges on spatial coordination of conservation sites. We here analyse how spatial factors affect the uptake of an agglomeration payment scheme in a Swiss mountain region, which seeks to establish a network of conservation areas to conserve favourable conditions for biodiversity. We use a combination of spatially explicit farm census (44,279 parcels) and survey data in a spatially lagged explanatory variable model. In addition, we also consider the collaborative process in establishing the eligibility of parcels for receiving the bonus payment. We find that parcels that are more distant from the farm as well as those at steeper slopes are more likely to enter the scheme. This implies that conservation costs are an important driver of the farmers' decisions. The results remain robust when controlling for a wide range of parcel, farm and farmers' characteristics. The analysis also showed that the collaborative process increased the enrolment of parcels cultivated by larger farmers managing their land more intensively. We conclude that the collaborative process increased the weight given to biodiversity from connecting conservation sites in the planning process of the agglomeration bonus scheme.

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs): the importance of human capital

The Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) subject has been gaining relevance due to its novelty, due to the capital amounts involved in the projects, as well as the disruptive technology and methods involved. ICOs are a disruptive way to finance new projects which involve high risks and which are mainly technological. This way to finance a project has been compared to others, namely, crowdfunding, venture capital or Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). Nevertheless, ICOs have very specific characteristics which make them unique. We have studied the ICO projects and developed a literature review on the topic. Building on the Human Capital Theory (HCT), we have also studied the importance given to the project’s team and its perceived impact on projects’ success. Our contribution to fill in this literature gap was to develop an econometric model which measures the impact of team’s characteristics on the success of a project. The database was collected with the combination of two data sources and is composed of 3158 profiles and 340 ICO projects. We have concluded that team variables are significant contributors to project’s success. Our data suggests that people’s location contributes to projects’ success as well as promoters’ networks. The ratings attributed by external parties to the project are also indicators of success. Several control variables such as the implementation of thresholds to investment, the number of currencies accepted, the platform in which the ICO is developed, the existence of bonus schemes and the year of the project were found to be statistically significant having an impact on projects’ outcome.

Pengaruh Mekanisme Bonus, Exchange Rate, Intangible Assets, dan Kompensasi Rugi Fiskal Terhadap Keputusan Perusahaan Melakukan Transfer Pricing

This research aims to examine to analyze the effect of bonus scheme, exchange rate, intangible assets, and fiscal loss compensation on the company’s decision to do transfer pricing. The population in this research are all of the companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2014 until 2018. The sample of study was determined by using purposive sampling method, and that total sample 93 companies. The data used secondary data and collected by documentation at www.idx.com. This research use logistic regression analysis as analysis method. The result of analysis in this research showed that bonus scheme, exchange rate, and fiscal loss compensation had no effect on the company’s decision to do transfer pricing. Intangible Assets had a positive effect on the company’s decision to do transfer pricing

Comparative Functional HRM Practices in Nepalese Banking and Insurance Companies

The main objective of this research is to examine the core aspects of the practices of functional human resource management (HRM) in Nepalese commercial banks and insurance companies. This research is focused on primary sources of data. Data was gathered from 10 commercial banks and 10 insurance companies of Nepal by creating a set of questionnaires and distributing these questionnaires to the officer-level employees of each of the commercial banks and insurance companies. The findings point out that there are significant differences between commercial banks and insurance companies in functional HRM practices in terms of employee selection and placement and in the management of pay & bonus schemes. Commercial banks are often found to typically have a higher level of HRM practices, while insurance companies have a lower level of HRM practices. There is a possibility of the mobility of human resources from insurance companies to commercial banks. Therefore, both commercial banks and insurance companies in Nepal must ensure that investment in their human resources and HRM practices definitely attract and retain competent people from the job market. Keywords: Human resource management, Employees, Practices, Commercial banks, Insurance companies DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-30-01 Publication date: October 31 st 2020

Gamification for Sales Incentives

Gamification as the use of game mechanisms for motivation in non-game contexts has been gaining popularity and is considered one of the hottest topics in management. However, there is little research on gamification in remuneration systems, especially with regard to the sales force. The article discusses some problems posed by different types of incentives schemes for sales persons as well as two approaches that could be used for gamification in this area; the so called BLAP approach to gamification and gamification based on prize drawing. The results of two questionnaire-based opinion studies carried out on two groups of about 100 sales representatives show that the experience and knowledge in the area of gamification is low in this group of employees. Acceptance of gamification was studied taking into consideration institutional (i.e., the sales cycle length), organizational (i.e., satisfaction from the existing bonus scheme), psychological (i.e., risk adverseness), and situational (i.e., the need for high regular income) factors. Both bonus draws among sales representatives who achieved targets and collecting points exchangeable for non-material rewards are accepted by some of traders, and such acceptance of either of the two types of gamification is correlated with a dissatisfaction with the existing bonus scheme.

The Effects of Table Versus Formula Presentation Formats on Investors’ Judgment about Executive Compensation

We investigate how the data presentation format of executive compensation disclosures affects investors’ compensation- and investment-related judgment and decisions. We examine the effects of these formats and their underlying mechanisms via laboratory experiments. We compare bonus schemes presented in the table and formula formats and find an interaction effect between data presentation format and compensation favorability. When a manager receives unfavorable compensation due to missed performance targets, the table format is easier to understand than the formula format, whereas the latter appears more scientific than the former. These two effects work in opposite directions and therefore, result in an insignificant difference in approval ratings when the table, versus the formula, format is used. However, when the manager receives favorable compensation for beating performance targets, investors do not pay much attention to the disclosure’s understandability but still favor the formula format, as it has a scientific appearance. Therefore, we find that investors’ approval ratings are higher when using the formula format than the table format. We contribute to several research areas such as information understandability, the halo effect, compensation disclosures, and shareholder voting. Our findings also have practical implications for both managers and investors.

Promoting tropical architecture by implementing design control in zoning regulation

Globalization has led to uniformity in the city images. The ubiquitous “modern” buildings have dissociated the local climate and cultural context. Frampton’s Critical Regionalism postulate saw this phenomenon as the destruction of the creative nucleus of a great civilization and great culture. Postcolonial countries, like Indonesia which inherit colonial cities, facing issues to define their identity, namely in terms of performing Tropical Architecture principles and enforcing it institutionally. The private building’s architectural design is seen as a private domain that cannot be regulated, thus the building owner’s need to present themselves as a “modern and progressive” party shall not be restricted. This paper tries to examine how urban planning can help modern tropical city image actualization by implement supporting regulations. A qualitative approach with stakeholder analysis is conducted to seek the design control implementation opportunity by the municipal government that met with private interest. A content analysis of Landscaping for Urban Spaces and High-Rises (LUSH) Programme from Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) also studied as a success story. The result is that a design control, to achieve a more contextual approach in architecture design practice, could be performed with incentive and bonus schemes in the building permit process and zoning regulations.

What determines success in initial coin offerings?

ABSTRACT We analyse the determinants of success for 630 ICOs undertaken from August 2015 up until the end of December 2017, a period in which the market for ICOs grew to an unprecented level. We find evidence that ICOs are more successful in raising funding when they disclose more information to investors (i.e. have a higher profile rating), have a higher quality rating by cryptocurrency experts, have a pre-ICO GitHub repository, organise a presale, refrain from offering bonus schemes, have shorter planned token sale durations and have a larger project team. ICOs that disclose more information to investors and that have a higher quality rating at the time of the campaign show stronger ex-post performance. Longer-term project success is positively impacted by having a pre-ICO GitHub repository, a shorter planned token sale duration and having a larger project team at the time of the ICO, although these results depend on the ex-post success measure used. We conclude that for entrepreneurs it is important to make an ICO as transparent as possible and that profile and expert ratings are a valuable means to overcome the information asymmetry problems associated with token sales.

Evaluation of Globally Operating Salesforce Staff by Multiple Attribute Decision Making Methods

Business managers, globally sales executives operating worldwide, representing brands and good reputation of international companies are a special group of staff needing especially flexible working conditions to do their job all over the world. The evaluation and rewarding of their performance is globally linked to achieving business targets. How evaluate results of all involved staff working on different international markets as one set of so many variants and criteria with ensuring transparency, objectivity and fairness? The solution is found in multiple attribute decision methods (MADM). The aim of the paper is to evaluate a group of salesforce staff making international business world-wide by using MADM to identify and reward the best sales executives and at the same time manage to make them to feel be valued for their well-done work, efforts and achievements. Two methods of multiple attribute decision making were used for this evaluation – the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and the Weighted Sum Approach (WSA). The results of both methods were compared and the more suitable method for this universal application practicable world-wide in terms of the processing complexity and the user friendliness was chosen and recommended. The bonus scheme is based on a healthy competition for sales executives, on a motivation to grow up and gain better results to get additional special bonus beyond the standard rewards for meeting performance targets. Part of this papers is the proposal of flexible bonuses for reached positions in the ranking of evaluated employees.

Executive Pay Composition and Corporate Financial Health Maximisation

This study examined the relationship between executive pay composition and corporate financial health maximisation in Nigeria. Secondary data was obtained from the annual reports and accounts and Nigerian Stock Exchange Fact-book during the period 2008-2017 and ordinary least square was employed in the analysis of data. Net interest margin, return on asset and return on equity were operationalized as proxies for corporate financial health maximisation while bonus scheme as proxy for executive pay composition. The study found an executive pay package comprising of a bonus scheme is likely to influence managers to behave in a manner that would ensure the overall wellbeing of the organization. The study recommends that a bonus scheme should be a major component of executive composition as not a way of managing agency cost but also as a tool for instigating managerial behaviour that would enhance overall wellbeing of the organization. Keywords: Executive pay composition, Corporate financial health maximisation, Bonus scheme DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-22-05 Publication date: November 30 th 2019

Incentivising international publications: institutional policymaking in Chinese higher education

ABSTRACT This study examines Chinese universities’ incentive schemes for international publication in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). It analysed 172 incentive documents collected at 116 research-intensive universities in China, including monetary bonus schemes and career-related incentives. This analysis is complemented by interviews with six senior administrators at six Chinese universities and four journal editors to explore the policy-making process and impact of incentivisation. The study found that most universities actively promoted international publications, with variations and similarities in their incentive schemes. In general, more benefits were granted for SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index) and A&HCI (Arts and Humanities Citation Index) journal publications than domestic publications. We conclude that such incentivisation showcases the influence of western standards and global benchmarking in the internationalisation of Chinese HSS, and that the incentive schemes may create a ‘Matthew Effect’ enabling SSCI and A&HCI journals to flourish, while deepening the divide between these and other journals.

Managerial delegation games and corporate social responsibility

In a duopoly in which firms universally engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, this paper shows that, in contrast to the main tenet of the received managerial delegation literature, if the CSR sensitivity is sufficiently high: (a) when both firms delegate output decisions to managers, at the equilibrium profit (resp. consumer welfare) is higher (resp. lower) than when firms are pure CSR; (b) in a managerial delegation game, asymmetric multiple subgame perfect Nash equilibria emerge in which one firm delegates and the rival does not. These results hold under both the “sales delegation” and “relative profits” manager's bonus schemes.

Adding realism to the Agglomeration Bonus: How endogenous land returns affect habitat fragmentation

The Agglomeration Bonus has been shown to be a potentially successful policy to reunite fragmented habitat and increase conservation enrollment in laboratory testbed experiments. Yet, one key criticism has been that land prices have been assumed exogenous and fixed in these experiments. In the field, voluntary conservation enrollment by landowners will likely affect the value of the surrounding land. This endogeneity of land values suggests a discrepancy between results from laboratory experiments and true landowner decisions under a given policy. We address this concern by using an experimental design that accounts for the endogenous effect on surrounding land values from habitat conservation based on estimated returns from an actual landscape in eastern Wyoming as a case study. We show that without incorporating endogenous land values, traditional laboratory experiments likely will underestimate the amount of habitat fragmentation resulting from basic conservation policies without Agglomeration Bonuses. We also find that a low-cost Agglomeration Bonus can work to reunite this fragmented habitat, even under endogenous land value conditions. Our research indicates that through voluntary conservation decisions by private landowners, a more cost effective Bonus scheme can create contiguous habitat across privately held land, even when incorporating realistic endogenous land values.

Pengaruh Tunneling Incentive, Mekanisme Bonus Dan Exchange Rate Terhadap Keputusan Perusahaan Melakukan Transfer Pricing

This research aims to examine to analyze the effect of tunneling incentive, bonus scheme and exchange rate on the company’s decision to do transfer pricing. The population in this research are manufacturing companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2014 until 2017. The sample of study was determined by using purposive sampling method, and that total sample 48 manufacturing companies. The data used is secondary data. The technique of collecting data by documentation at www.idx.com. The analytical method used is Panel Regression Analysis with SPSS22 software. /This research use logistic regression analysis as analysis /method.The result of analysis in this research showed that tunneling incentive and bonus scheme had no effect on ithe company’s decision to do transfer pricing. Exchange rate had a significant effect on the company’s decision to do transferi pricing