Economic Downfall Research Articles

Exploring downsizing: a case study of airline company of Pakistan

Pakistan is facing economic downfall for the past few years and this has created adverse impact on all government and private organizations. Due to economic downfall organizations are reducing number of employees to decrease their costs by using downsizing. This study investigated the consequences of downsizing on survivor employees in a leading airline company of Pakistan. Case study technique has been used and data has been collected through un-structured interviews from 12 employees. NVivo 10 software has been applied for in-depth qualitative analysis. Different techniques have been used for the validation of different themes of the study including graphs, word tag clouds, word tree map and tree map. The findings depicted 14 more or less critical consequences of downsizing on survivor employees. More critical consequences are perceptions about work, internal feelings, internal motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, career development, employee performance, feelings of job insecurity, thinking for better opportunity and stress. Less critical consequences are increase in workload, fear of job loss, bad health and thinking to switch. These consequences of downsizing can be divided into two major categories such as effects on attitudes and effects on behaviors. It is concluded that employees with less experience are more inversely affected by downsizing. Downsizing has negatively affected attitudes and behaviors of survivor employees in leading Airline Company of Pakistan but impact on attitudes is higher than on behaviors. Keywords: Attitudes, Behaviors, Downsizing, Survivors, NVivo.

Copy Machines and Downtown Scenes

In the early 1970s, as New York City was in an economic and social downfall, a vibrant downtown arts scene emerged in downtown Manhattan south of 14th Street. The scene's development is often attributed to the neighbourhood's at-the-time inexpensive rent, which permitted artists to live, work, and exhibit with low overhead. This article maintains that the scene's development was also contingent on the growing availability of a new medium: the copy machine. While xerographic copiers had been staples in office culture for 15 years, they were newly available to the general public in the early 1970s. This article examines how copy machines were used by artists and writers to produce and distribute works, to promote upcoming gigs of all kinds from drag shows to punk shows, and, eventually, to facilitate the downtown scene's migration into the suburbs and beyond through the production of mobile texts, including zines and mail art. Finally, this article asserts that as a media technology that is at once capable of intensifying the local and developing and sustaining non-local networks, copy machines were and remain uniquely situated to accommodate the inherent tensions and contradictions that define scenes.

Dollars and Delusion: Global Finance, Cultural Trauma and Ethno-economic Subjectivity in Post-boom Iceland

Paradoxically, recent financial crises reveal both the ultimate collapse of ‘national capitalism’ and the increased prominence of economic nationalism. This article examines the Icelandic case in order to analyse socio-cultural dynamics of economic downfall and to offer an approach to investigate (post-)neoliberal impressions of the nation as economic entity. It employs Piotr Sztompka's work to assess Iceland's economic meltdown in 2008 as traumatizing change that triggered a project of (national) self-transformation. This project, dissected as mnemonic phenomenon, entails reframing the success of bankers as deceit, a call for the purge of politics and business, and various adaptive efforts initiated to realize a sustainable existence in tune with Iceland's ‘real’ history and geography. We stress that such dissection reveals the influence of macro-economic tendencies on principles and practices of collectivity, and illustrates the relevance of a focus on ethno-economic subjectivity to study the lived experience of those confronted with contemporary politics of finance.

Starbucks sustained during economic crisis

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the understand that how companies compute their financial ratios and use these financial ratios to identify company’s financial situation. The company is also compared with the competitor’s financial statements to identify current position in markets. Design/ Methodology: The case study method is used to better understand the company. In this study researchers developed that how company’s operations and position is effected by the great economic downfall in overall world’s economy. Moreover they discussed that how they are trying to survive in markets to retain their leading position. Findings: After considering all financial aspects researchers found that the company is no doubt badly effected with the worse economic situations but still they adopted strategies from top to operational level that keep them a right hand to sustain in market as a leader. Suggestions: Developing advertisement strategies, international price stability, target to all economic classes and all aged persons, and diversify business rather then only beverages or confectionary item related businesses.

Innovation Management in Times of Economic Crisis

Since the last quarter of 2008, countries all around the world have been facing a deep economic crisis and the changes therewith connected, and it has been estimated that crisis repercussions will be in effect until 2014, or even longer in certain industries. The industries in general have been weakened and shaken, unemployment has risen, and investments crucial for innovations and future growth are under risk. In many countries, governments have endorsed expenditure of billions of dollars for the purpose of founding stimulating funds, but the hard work of rebuilding of the damaged economies has just begun. The primary task of managers is to enforce various business decisions, mainly cost-inspired, in order to keep their organizations afloat, but they seem unaware of the fact that the key to return to long-term growth under these conditions is precisely the human capacity to innovate. By rational investments, national governments can slow down the economic downfall, speed up economic recovery and place a foundation for a strong and sustainable growth. However, most managers seem not to understand the possibility to use that basis in an efficient way, but only through innovation. This paper describes the process of innovation management in times of economic downturn, with the accent on its strategic implications to companies’ business. We present the usual managerial behavior in a time of economic crisis, but also give recommendations for fruitful business behavior during such times.

Efficiency of the European Social Fund Contribution to the Regions of Latvia

Abstract From 2004 till mid-2007, the economics of Latvia experienced fast development, which to some extent was influenced by accessing the European Union (EU), which in its turn provided access to the EU funds and subsequently to significant investment in the country’s development, thus also affecting the topicalities of social security and employment. Because of the world recession, the EU has experienced an economic downfall which hit Latvia and its regions very hard, causing a significant reduction in the economic activity, increase in the unemployment level, and the risk of social stratification. To facilitate the socio-economic development of the regions, to increase the level of welfare in the regions with lower socio-economic development indicators, as well as to prevent the possibility of appearance of unfavourable situations in the future, it is necessary to use correctly the EU funds available in Latvia, including the financing of the European Social Fund (ESF). In the period from 2004 till 2010, the Riga region has acquired 33% of the total ESF financing in the welfare sector, Latgale has the second largest financing - 25%, but the other resources have been acquired in a more or less equal amounts in the other regions: Kurzeme (16%), Zemgale (14%), and Vidzeme (12%). The ESF financing in the welfare sector has influenced the socio-economic indicators of the regions. Functional correlations are observed among the ESF financing in the welfare sector and the value changes in the number of registered unemployed persons, job seekers and the territory development index.

Structural Modernisation of Economy and Occupation of the Labour Force in Romania

Structure of the occupied population has sensibly changed over the last decades, and theprocess is far from being over; some of the structural displacements are inscribed on the normal courseof evolution to occupational structures specific to developed economies, while others are confusingand atypical. But all of them occurred because of the economic downfall. The negative rate of increaseof the Romanian population which started in the years ’90, has already decreased population by 10%.To this it is added the labour force migration, estimated between one and two million people of thelabour force population, among which most of them are short-term. Most of the immigrants are stillincluded in the labour force statistics as inactive, but they are absent from the labour force fromRomania, which makes attaining of the 2020 Strategy objective more difficult and might be partiallyresponsible for the slow progress of the labour force occupation rate in Romania.

Review of Sudanese External Debt and Impacts on Poverty Rates in Sudan

The turbulent economic crisis prevailing in today's Sudan was not born yesterday. It represents the bitter fruit of forty years of economic mismanagement, political uncertainties and entrenched corruption. Part of it, is borrowing from international financial institutions for presumed developmental projects, failures in utilization capacity and production schemes and debts accumulation with heavy arrears. Currently, it is estimated that external debts of Sudan has exceeded US$42 Billions by the end of 2011. Thus, due to evidence of continuous mismanagement, International Financial Institutions refrain from extending hands. When oil came into production many expected that to help develop the other productive sectors and integrating the Sudanese economy with the world. That did not happen, however, and debts volume continued to bloat due to interest rates and arrears. The situation worsened by the secession of Sudan's southern part which contains %75 of the country's reserves. The value of the domestic currency collapsed, inflation rates accelerated and added to the dominating recession generating unprecedented stagflation. That added to the unemployment and poverty rates in the country. This research aims to study relationship between the external debt and economic indicators, exchange rate and GDP in addition to population of Sudan during the period of (1980-2003). The analyzed data of External Debt were collected from External Debt Unit-Bank of Sudan. Annual Record and the GDP and exchange rate data were collected from the General Research and Statistics administration Bank of Sudan. The Population Data collected from the Central Bureau of Statistics by using transfer function models. The research is constituted of an introduction about External Debt and the way of data collection was exposed as a total value of external debt and number of population. A statistical description of the variables of the study came to some important points as the increase of the total external debt share per capita, and increasing exchange rate of dollar against national currency. Moreover, there were continuous decreases per capita share in GDP. Conclusions are that there are strong correlation between GDP and exchange rate; population and per capita share of external debt. There were recommendations that more in depth statistical studies to be conducted on budget planning and debt servicing to void the commercial credits witch always not used in developing projects. Additionally, loans should be used to invest in the infrastructure and social projects in the health, education and infrastructures. Conclusively, with the country continuing economic downfall, there are no solutions under the present political regime. The question is how that will add to poverty and eventual starvation leading to mass human tragedy and could it possible to put the country under economic trusteeship.

The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites, 1878–1960 (review)

Reviewed by: The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites, 1878–1960 Mary McCulley The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites, 1878–1960, by Olwen Purdue, pp. 297. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2009. $105 (cloth) $50; (paper). Distributed by Dufour Editions, Chester Springs, PA. Olwen Purdue’s The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power, and Social Elites, 1878–1960 adds to the ongoing recent critical work that has begun to uncover differences (though sometimes subtle ones) between the Six Counties and the rest of Ireland. Purdue seeks to rectify a historical perspective that fails to distinguish the extent of devastation to the homes of the Ascendancy between most of Ireland and the large estates in northeast Ireland, which have for the most part been ignored in previous studies of the Big Houses as exceptions to the story. The book does not construct a divergent history of the decline of the landed elite in Northern Ireland; in fact, much of Purdue’s research supports the conclusion that the Northern experience was a pattern of decline parallel to that occurring elsewhere in Ireland. But Purdue does argue, with attentive use of primary sources, for a more sympathetic view of the northeastern landlords. Her research undoes a sweeping vilification of Irish landlords, traditionally seen as powerful absentees who mismanaged their estates, and describes Ulster landlords as determined, noble survivors. Each chapter traces one major force in the economic and political decline of the Irish landed elite, including the Land Acts, the tenant rights movement, the government’s purchase of lands, the struggles against Home Rule, and the rise of a mercantile middle class. In the North, however, many of the landowners managed to retain their estates through 1960. The northeastern landlords faced the same political and economic turmoil that affected their counterparts elsewhere; Purdue attributes their prolonged survival to several factors. She argues first, that in the northeast the landed class and the rising middle class tended to be linked by shared Protestant and Unionist sympathies, which enabled the landlords to keep much of their prestige and social influence even as their economic and political influence dwindled. She also notes that many of the land owners of large estates were successful because of careful management and creative economic ventures, including mining and sea exploits. The upper class’s insistence on maintaining an active social life, and on preserving key places in the political [End Page 152] and social organization, helped the landlords to save their name and prestige—even as the demands of survival forced them to sell off more and more of their belongings and to change their lifestyles drastically. If Purdue’s project is in part to rescue those residents of the North’s Big Houses from a large-scale demonization of landlords, then Chapter Five is the most successful in accomplishing this goal. There, Purdue introduces the most human of her arguments as she tells the story of one “determined survivor,” Lady Mabel Annesley, who inherited her property and retained the estate through economic decline, a commitment stemming from a clear emotional attachment. Purdue details her fiery determination in excerpts from letters and journals in which Lady Annesley discusses in detail how she altered her routines and habits, including the symbolically charged measure of eating only potatoes for supper—a measure that might have been more than familiar for her tenants, but which to Annesley appeared draconian. Purdue employs extensive and detailed charts and figures throughout the book to set up, objectively, the difference in the extent of decline between the northeastern landlords and the rest of Ireland. But the appeal of the book lies in the small anecdotes from letters and journals which offer insight into both the mindset and the rhetoric of the upper class. Purdue’s project might well spawn feminist rhetorical recovery, as she documents the ways in which women were involved in social activities and organizations. These activities played a large part in sustaining the resilience of the upper class’s symbolic prestige, enabling them to foster the respect of the rising mercantile class in the midst of economic downfall...

The Fraud Auditing: Empirical Study Concerning the Identification of the Financial Dimensions of Fraud

The last two decades, marked by financial instability, economic crises, the bankruptcy of worldwide renowned companies, stock exchange speculations, financial scandals and lack of trust in capital markets, have lead to an economic downfall and have brought back into light the analysis of the responsible factors. Of these, financial fraud is a significant element regarded as a disastrous phenomenon difficult to pin under safe touchlines. Therefore, the identification of the determining factors of fraud is nowadays an important desideratum at an international level for the prevention and elimination of these events beyond the psychological approaches. This study aims to identify the main financial components of fraud in order to obtain score classification functions, as well as to determine the probability of occurrence of the risk of fraud starting from a series of consecrated economical-financial indicators by using advanced statistical methods of data analysis. The research objectives and the validation of the work hypotheses have been achieved based on the study of 65 frauded and unfrauded companies, quoted on the main financial markets in the world. In order to obtain the research results, the data have been processed with SPSS 19.0.

The Impact of Economic Crisis on Happiness

There is a common belief that economic crisis will lead to a decrease in subjective wellbeing. Previous studies indicate that income is correlated with happiness and unemployment with unhappiness. The relationship between increased income and happiness is well documented while the impact of decreased income has been less explored. The aim of this paper is to study how the economic downfall in Iceland, followed by reduced income and increased unemployment, affects happiness as well as to explore which groups are most vulnerable to changes in happiness and which are most resilient. The study is a longitudinal, nationally representative postal survey which assessed 5,918 individual’s aged 18–79. A total of 4,092 (77.3%) answered again in 2009. The relationship between economic factors and happiness was explored using multiple linear regression to find out how much they explain of the happiness variance and the changes in happiness, together with demographic factors, health and social relationships. Results indicate that income and unemployment did not predict happiness but financial difficulties did. A decrease in happiness was detected after the collapse. The change in happiness from 2007 to 2009 was normally distributed, 40% had the same score in both years and an equal number increased as decreased. The explored factors did not explain the changes in happiness. The economic crisis had a limited affect on happiness. Those with financial difficulties were hardest hit. Changes in happiness need to be studied further since they are not well explained by the factors which influence cross-sectional levels of happiness.

Nurses must care for themselves, too

Thank you for addressing the issue of caring at the heart of effective leadership. As nurses, we learn to be compassionate and provide care for our patients, but who's caring for our nurses when their fuel needs to be replenished? With expanded nurse manager roles and overly stretched management responsibilities, nurse managers may not recognize the compassion fatigue syndrome that a nurse may experience. This was illustrated in the April 2010 article entitled, "Compassion Fatigue: Nothing Left to Give?" I agree that, as a nurse manager, it's essential to develop a one-on-one relationship with the individual nurse to provide support and guidance for our nurses who may be in need of counseling referrals to programs such as the employee assistance program. Nurses are educated to provide care to their patients unselfishly, but as nurse managers we must remind our staff nurses that they need to take care of themselves first in order to provide quality patient care. The nurse management team may also facilitate this by having one of the counselors from the employee assistance program give an in-service during staff meetings on stress management or tips on managing daily life. We all know that compassion fatigue syndrome may affect nurses or nurse managers. As we become aware of the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue that depend on the daily stressors in our lives, we should seek early intervention to lead healthier lives and possibly help with nurse retention as well. I'm an RN and an MBA/MSN graduate student at Holy Names University in Oakland, Calif. I'll share this article in my clinical leadership class and at the nurse managers' meeting to increase awareness of compassion fatigue syndrome. Suzanne Lee, BSN, RN Fremont, Calif. Focus on nurse and patient satisfaction I've just finished reading the article entitled, "From Wall Street to Main Street...to Your Hospital" from the January 2010 issue. I have to say that the authors really did a great job focusing on some of the problems that hospital administrators are facing with the economic downfall that this nation has experienced. Having been mainly a staff nurse with only a few supervisory jobs, I've never had to work on a budget or cutbacks. My main concern was always taking care of the nurses and keeping the patient care in mind along with their safety. After reading this article, I was amazed by the ways hospitals are attempting to remedy the problem. Taking away paid time off, incentive pay, health benefits, and retirement plans isn't the answer to retain seasoned nurses who have the experience to give good-quality patient care. If you look at any Magnet®-recognized hospital system, you'll find that nurse satisfaction reflects on patient care. Happy nurses are happy at work, and therefore their positive outlook shows in the patient care they deliver along with outcomes. Education programs need to be maintained in order to retain those nurses who pride themselves on professional development. Hiring new graduates is essential for building a nursing workforce for the future generation. Using mature or older nurses to mold and guide new graduates in the right direction needs to be the main focus in all hospitals. Educating the nurses on the effects of working too many hours was accentuated very well in this article. Unfortunately, there are no laws pertaining to this issue and patients suffer. Hospital administrators need to take the time to listen to nurses—the core of hospital bedside care—and not just look at everything on a spreadsheet in order to handle the economic downfall. There are many more answers to these issues, but the main focus should be giving great, not just good, care to all patients and maintaining their safety. Pamela Anstead, RN El Paso, Tex.

Science & Systems of Economics

Scientists and astronomers have taken planets in our solar system just as mass balls spinning at great speed and producing gravitational power to attract and balance each other in the space. My long research on space electricity and economic events on the globe has discovered an intimate relationship between economic events and space electricity generated by planet Saturn and planet Jupiter. The nature of electricity generated by these planets is in the form of basic constituents of electricity as negative charges and positive charges.Whenever a particular segment or economy on earth is exposed to Saturn from the closest angular distance the segment or the economy gets electrified with negative charge and becomes ready to receive the positive charge from Jupiter to produce maximum amount of economic wealth with the resources available in that economy. Saturn produces the economic gravitation in that zone to gravitate resources from other zones too at the minimum cost possible to enable the economy to flourish manifold.In case the positive charge from Jupiter is not in the same segment or in certain productive angular distance form Saturn the negative electrical charges from Saturn acts negative for that zone to produce economic downfall. In case the negative electrical charge gets support from the resistant factor through veiled darkness from the lunar node the negative electrical charges of Saturn turns acute negative to produce economic catastrophe in the form of Depression in that economic zone.

Safety and Health in Small‐Scale Enterprises and Bankruptcy during Economic Depression in Korea

Safety and Health in Small‐Scale Enterprises and Bankruptcy during Economic Depression in Korea: Ji‐Yong Kim, et al. Dongkuk University, School of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine—On November 1997, Korea experienced a rather sudden economic depression after a shortage of foreign currency and downfall of foreign investment. This brought a sudden increase in the bankruptcy rate and also an increase in unemployment from the usual 2‐3% to over 10%. This study was undertaken to examine the effect of the antecedent health and safety status on the subsequent bankruptcy during economic depression. We were able to obtain the previous occupational health and safety records of 4,811 out of 5,010 companies which had received a financial subsidy from the government for occupational safety and health services during 1997. Based on the data of the Workmen's Insurance Corporation in Korea as of March 1999, we could identify the bankruptcy status of 3,980 companies altogether. When the results of the annual special workers' health examination, workplace environment measurement, and injury rate during 1996 were analyzed according to the survival status of the identified companies as of 1999, the bankrupt companies had significantly worse records in workplace environmental exposures and injury rates than the survived companies. Although the prevalence of noise‐induced hearing loss and heavy metal poisoning was higher in the bankrupt companies, the prevalence of pneumoconiosis was lower. The type of industry and the size were also analyzed and accounted for in the final analysis of the impact of safety and health status on the survival of the enterprises, and the results showed the same trends. These results suggest that companies run by better management with better health and safety records will experience less bankruptcy during economic downfall. When considering the long latency from the first exposure to the final manifestation, the higher prevalence of pneumoconiosis in the survived companies could be explained on the basis of the longer operation time and longer exposure duration.

"Hot Air" as Precedent for Developing Countries? Equity Considerations

I. INTRODUCTION In June 1992, the world's nations met at the Rio Earth Summit Conference to discuss the various challenges facing the global environment.(1) One of the outcomes of the conference was the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a global agreement addressing climate change.(2) The main objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, which are recognized as having a negative impact on climate change, and to prevent dangerous man-made interference with the climate system.(3) Under the UNFCCC, the Parties undertook general commitments to reach this stabilization objective and agreed to be guided by a number of principles, including equity, in fulfilling the terms of the Convention.(4) In December 1997, the Conference of the Parties, which is the Supreme Body under the UNFCCC, met in Kyoto, Japan to establish specific commitments.(5) Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries and countries with economies in transition(6) agreed to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by certain amounts, called assigned amounts. Emissions are to be reduced in reference to a particular year, called a base year. The first commitment period is between 2008 and 2012.(7) The assigned amounts of most developed countries entails a reduction of their emissions,(8) The assigned amounts of countries with economies in transition, like Russia and Ukraine, represents in theory, a stabilization at 1990 levels of emissions (i.e., zero growth from 1990 levels). However, such assigned amounts in fact may allow Russia and Ukraine to increase their emissions because, since 1990, their economic downfall has resulted in an approximately 30% reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions.(9) Therefore, while ostensibly assuming commitments to stabilize their level of greenhouse gas emissions, countries with economies in transition, like Russia and Ukraine, have effectively been given surplus emission allocations. This surplus allocation, which has come to be known as air, is defined here as the difference between the assigned amounts for the first commitment period and the lower emission levels that would exist during that period in the absence of climate related policies and measures.(10) There are two main reasons why hot air granted to countries with economies in transition could have serious implications on the achievement of the UNFCCC stabilization objective and might therefore slow down the process of combating climate change.(11) First, it could enable those countries to increase their emissions from current levels, instead of reducing them.(12) Second, once the negotiation process begins for developing countries,(13) developing countries could rely upon the granting of hot air to countries with economies in transition as a precedent.(14) While the total emissions in developing countries are still relatively low, their emissions are expected to surpass those of the developed world by 2020 under a normal growth scenario(15) Delaying or limiting developing countries' reduction commitments would cause an increase in greenhouse emissions, thereby seriously compromising the stabilization objective of the UNFCCC. The purpose of this article is to determine whether, on the basis of equity which is a guiding principle under the UNFCCC,(16) developing countries could claim surplus emission allocations by using the hot air obtained by countries with economies in transition as precedent. Section I examines the role of equity in relation to the UNFCCC and the negotiation process that preceded the adoption of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. Section II discusses the rationale behind granting hot air to countries with economies in transition and its possible implications. Section III analyzes whether hot air given to countries with economies in transition can be relied upon as a precedent by developing countries. The analysis examines the similarities and differences between countries with economies in transition and developing countries in the context of climate change, and the arguments that can be made in favor of, or against, developing countries obtaining their own hot air. …