Firm Control Research Articles

Europe’s economic problems in an international perspective

The author sees signs that the European Community is entering a phase of steady economic growth, with inflation under control and a favourable outlook for exports. However, these assumptions are dependent on other trading nations getting a firmer control over their domestic fiscal and monetary policies. In particular, the US federal budget deficit will remain a problem, as will the continuing balance of trade surplus in Japan. The major problem for the European countries will remain unemployment.

Relationship between maternal parenting and eating self-efficacy in overweight children when stressed

Emotional eating is associated with negative eating habits and obesity. Parents may be able to decrease the risk of emotional eating in children by promoting greater self-efficacy to engage in healthy eating behaviors. Our goal was to determine the relationship between certain parenting behaviors and eating self-efficacy (ESE) to consume healthy foods during times of emotional stress in a population of overweight/obese children. Eighty children (60% female; mean BMI percentile = 98.4%; 79.2% White) completed a survey that assessed their ESE when stressed, feeling down, or bored. Children also reported on mothers' parenting behaviors coded along three factors: acceptance-based parenting (AC), psychological control (PC), and firm control (FC). Correlations and multiple linear regression models were used for analysis. AC was positively correlated with ESE when stressed. PC and FC were inversely correlated with ESE when feeling down. In the multivariate regression, only FC was significantly inversely associated with ESE when feeling down. Results suggest that overweight children who perceive their mothers to exhibit firm control have lower ESE to make healthy choices when feeling sad. These results suggest that pediatric obesity programs should place a stronger focus on decreasing firm control behaviors among parents in order to help children engage in healthier eating behaviors.

Analysis of Fusion Process Model—Case Study

Fusion Process Model is a software process model to enhance the software development process. Fusion process model have five fundamental phases and one fusion process controller to control and co-ordinate the overall development process. Fusion Process Model uses 3C-Model to generalize the process of solving the problem in each phase. 3C-Model, which helps in implementing component based development approach and provides firmer control over the software development process. Because of the component driven approach, the risk associated with cost and time is limited to component only and ensure the overall quality of software system, reduce the development cost and time by considering the changing requirements of customer, risk assessment, identification, evaluation and composition of relative concerns at each phase of development process. We have implemented Fusion Process Model to the design of a real world information system and evaluated this implementation with the initial project estimation.

Gestion des résultats et retraits volontaires de la cote : Le cas des OPRO en France

Cet article s’interesse au comportement comptable des dirigeants lors d’un retrait de cote volontaire de leur entreprise (offre publique de retrait avec retrait obligatoire ou OPRO). Nous supposons une gestion a la baisse des resultats comptables avant le retrait de cote dans le but de minimiser le prix d’offre propose aux actionnaires minoritaires. Cette hypothese est testee sur un echantillon de 140 entreprises francaises sur la periode 1997-2006 : 70 entreprises retirees volontairement de la cote et 70 entreprises paires cotees et de meme secteur d’activite. Les resultats confirment une gestion des resultats (GR) a la baisse d’environ – 6 % du total de l’actif pour les entreprises faisant l’objet d’une OPRO. A l’inverse, les entreprises paires ne procedent dans le meme temps a aucune GR. Dans le cas des entreprises retirees, la GR a la baisse est d’autant plus agressive que le retrait de cote n’est pas precede d’un renforcement recent du controle de l’initiateur

Creditor Control of Free Cash Flow

With free cash flows, borrowers can accumulate cash or voluntarily pay down debts. However, sometimes creditors impose a mandatory repayment covenant called “excess cash flow sweep” in loan contracts to force borrowers to repay debts ahead of schedule. About 17% of borrowers in our sample (1995-2006) have this covenant attached to at least one of their loans. We find that the sweep covenant is more likely to be imposed on borrowers with higher leverage (i.e., where risk shifting by equity holders is more likely). The results are robust to including borrower fixed effects or using industry median leverage as a proxy. The covenant is more common also in borrowers where equity holders appear to have firmer control, e.g., when more shares are controlled by institutional block holders, when firms are incorporated in states with laws more favorable to hostile takeovers, or when equity holders place higher valuation on excess cash holdings. These determinants suggest that the sweep covenant may be motivated by creditor-shareholder conflicts. Finally, we show that the covenant has real effects: borrowers affected by the sweep covenant indeed repay more debts using excess cash flows, and they spend less in capital investment and pay out fewer dividends to shareholders.

The Influence of the Venture Capitalist's Governance Activities on the Entrepreneurial Firm's Control Systems and Performance

Venture capitalists (VCs) contribute to entrepreneurial firms by engaging in governance activities, such as providing services and monitoring the entrepreneurial firm's operations and performance. This study examines the role and influence of the VC's governance activities on 93 Dutch entrepreneurial firms. Results suggest that while the VC's governance activities may help to stimulate the use of the entrepreneurial firm's control systems, they also moderate the relationship between the entrepreneurial firm's use of control systems and its financial performance. It appears in particular that cost control systems contribute positively to the entrepreneurial firm's financial performance when the VC provides service activities. However, the use of cost control systems tends to be negatively related to the entrepreneurial firm's financial performance when the VC is highly focused on monitoring.

Threat syndromes and conservation of the Australian flora

The status of the Australian flora was reviewed by compiling published information on all critically endangered and endangered species listed federally in 2004. Threatening processes were categorised and their contributions to past, present and future declines were assessed. The information was cross-referenced against State agency information and field knowledge. Land clearance for agriculture (grazing and cropping) and urbanization have been the primary causes of range contractions and habitat loss in the past, responsible for the current status of the majority of threatened Australian plants. In the future, land clearance will remain important but new issues are emerging. Many species are now at risk from demographic and environmental uncertainty alone. Threats growing in importance include disease, salinity, invasive species and changed disturbance regimes. Many species are subject to common, landscape-level threats. A key issue to emerge from our analysis is that most species are threatened by a number of interacting factors – threat syndromes. Several future risks may be mitigated effectively by simple, low-cost changes in policy, such as more stringent controls on land clearance, strategic fire management, and firmer control on the importation of plant species. Other factors will require greater effort and new strategies to mitigate, including social and legal initiatives in urban landscapes and broad strategies for pathogens, climate change and other landscape-level processes.

The commercial health insurance industry in transition.

Research Article Health AffairsVol. 6, No. 3 The Commercial Health Insurance Industry in TransitionJon Gabel, Cindy Jajic-Toth, Karen Williams, Sarah Loughran, and Kevin HaughPUBLISHED:Fall 1987No Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.6.3.46AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions View articleAbstractPrologue:The commercial health insurance industry is a vast enterprise of which health insurance is an important part. The health insurance business, which suffered substantial underwriting losses in the early 1980s because of inflation and its inability to control health costs, was in trouble. More recently, with inflation under firmer control and with some progress on the health cost front, commercial insurers have been struggling with a new challenge: more intense competition among delivery organizations for providing medical care to patients. In this survey of the recent activities of commercial health insurers, Jon Gabel and his research colleagues at the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) depict the changing nature of the industry. No longer is Blue Cross and Blue Shield the major competitor. Rather, the nations employers are assuming more of the financial risk of insuring their employees against the economic consequences of illness and are demanding that insurers provide information on medical care utilization. At the same time, commercial insurers are acquiring health maintenance organizations (HMOs), developing preferred provider organizations (PPOs), and subjecting fee-for-service medicine to more stringent forms of utilization review. While insurers are plunging into the business of direct service medical care, to which most of the large carriers are heavily committed, some of the large hospital management companies have entered the insurance business. The track record of insurers and hospital management companies in these new ventures has been less than an unqualified success, according to recent press accounts. Gabel, formerly a senior economist at the National Center for Health Services Research and Health Care Technology Assessment, is associate director of research and policy development at HIAA. Karen Williams is director of this activity at HIAA. Cindyjajich-Toth, Sarah Loughran, and Kevin Haugh are researchers at the association.TOPICSPreferred provider organizationsHealth maintenance organizationsUtilization reviewHealth care providersManaged careMarketsPhysician paymentPrivate health insuranceFee-for-servicePhysicians Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article MetricsCitations: Crossref 11 History Published online 1 January 1987 InformationCopyright © by Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe authors thank Dianne Washington and Margaret Walkover for their research assistance and Alfreda Russell for her excellent secretarial support. We also thank Gregory de Lissovoy, Donna DeSanctis, Dave Llewellyn, Tom Musco, and Thomas Rice for their insights and comments.PDF downloadCited ByThe politics of health and social welfare in the United StatesAgeing International, Vol. 31, No. 2Economies of scale and scope as an explanation of merger and output diversification activities in the health maintenance organization industryJournal of Health Economics, Vol. 15, No. 6Interrogating an accounting-based intervention on three axes: Instrumental, moral and aestheticAccounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 18, No. 4The Effect of Utilization Review on Hospital Use and Expenditures: A Review of the Literature and an Update on Recent Findings18 August 2016 | Medical Care Review, Vol. 47, No. 3The “Corporatization” of U.S. Hospitals: What Can We Learn from the Nineteenth Century Industrial Experience?1 January 1995 | International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 20, No. 1Market-Based Hospital Pricing DecisionsHospital Topics, Vol. 67, No. 6Hospital Utilization Review: Past Experience, Future DirectionsJournal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 13, No. 4The Changing World of Group Health InsuranceJon Gabel, Cindy Jajich-Toth, Gregory de Lissovoy, Thomas Rice, and Howard Cohen24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 3HMOs in the U.S.A. and Britain: A new prospect for health care?Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 27, No. 4The Regulation of Preferred Provider ArrangementsElizabeth S. Rolph, Paul B. Ginsburg, and Susan D. Hosek24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3A Physician's View Of Managed CareLawrence Kahn24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3

The Planning And Implementation Of A Parent Training Group To Teach Child Management

The following discussion relates our experience of teaching behavioural techniques of child management to single-parent mothers. We found that these mothers were able to conceptualize the theories of child behaviour and apply them successfully to their own children through the use of behavioural programmes.In teaching behavioural techniques to parents we had the following aims in mind:1. To initiate behavioural change2. To maintain behavioural change3. To foster the group members' ability to anticipate future problems and to deal with these with the minimum of professional advice. Firmer control of their children would result in greater feelings of self confidence for the mothers.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Fiscal 1972-73 was financially sound for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics; and we were able to exceed our budget in some critical revenue areas and operate under budget in some expense areas. The Financial Policies Committee remains concerned that the publications and convention activities do not result in excessive deficits. These two areas have been financially troublesome; and we will continue to encourage firmer control on the long-term planning of these activities.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Annual Financial Report

Fiscal 1972–73 was financially sound for the National Council of Tea chers of Mathematics; and we were able to exceed our budget in some critical revenue areas and operate under budget in some expense areas. The Financia l Policies Committee remains concerned that the publications and convention activities do not result in excessive deficits. These two areas have been financially troublesome; and we will continue to encourage firmer control on the long-term planning of these activities.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Annual Financial Report

The expenditure requests submitted for budgeting to the Financial Policies Committee greatly exceeded the anticipated receipts. This is not a new problem, but this year the problem was greater than ever before. It is becoming more difficult to find ways of decreasing the expenditures or increasing the revenues. We would be more optimistic about the future financial health of the NCTM if a firmer control were placed on the long-range planning of the two activities that are financially most troublesome: publications and conventions.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Annual Financial Report

The expenditure requests submitted for budgeting to the Financial Policies Committee greatly exceeded the anticipated receipts. This is not a new problem, but this year the problem was greater than ever before. It is becoming more difficult to find ways of decreasing the expenditures or increasing the revenues. We would be more optimistic about the future financial health of the NCTM if a firmer control were placed on the long-range planning of the two activities that are financially most troublesome: publications and conventions.

Tertiary volcanism in the Cape Hillsborough area, North Queensland

Abstract Potassium‐argon ages on alkali feldspar phenocrysts from trachyte lavas and on trachyandesites of the Cape Hillsborough Beds, which crop out north of Mackay, Queensland, yield concordant ages of 32.5 ± 0.4 m.y. This age is Early Oligocene and by correlation provides much firmer control than previously available on the age of the sediments deposited in the Hillsborough Basin. Isotopic ages on an altered biotite and on alkali feldspar from the Mount Jukes Syenite Complex, to the southwest of Cape Hillsborough, are indistinguishable from those measured on the Cape Hillsborough Beds, suggesting a possible genetic relationship between the lavas and the syenite intrusions. Present evidence indicates that Cainozoic volcanism in Queensland occurred in two main eruptive episodes. The earlier episode covered much of the Oligocene and its products are widespread in the southern half of the State. After a long hiatus of little or no volcanism there followed a later episode of volcanism in the Pliocene and Qu...

Limits to a Firm's Control of Labour Turnover

THE question raised in my article in Nature of February 27 was the problem of assessing the limits of the firm's control of labour turnover. P. G. Herbst's letter, it seems to me, merely confuses the issue.

Limits to a Firm's Control of Labour Turnover

IN a recent article1, Dr. Hilde Behrend states that her findings on labour turnover point to the conclusion that “external factors, particularly the level of employment, are the decisive factors in this field”, and that this conflicts with views recently put forward by Rice, Hill and Trist2, who are concerned with the way in which the characteristics of a particular firm may influence its turnover-rates. The difference in the interpretation of available data appears to have arisen in part through a different definition of internal and external determinants.

Limits to a Firm's Control of Labour Turnover

THE question raised in my article in Nature of February 27 was the problem of assessing the limits of the firm's control of labour turnover. P. G. Herbst's letter, it seems to me, merely confuses the issue.

Explorations in the Dead Sea Valley

In my preceding paper I indicated the physical history of the remarkable Dead Sea valley. I venture now to describe the three great expeditions of the nineteenth century which attempted, with some measure of success, to explore this strange region. They were not without tragedy and misfortune. The better knowledge we have of the climate and geography of this region, the improved means of communication, and the firmer control obtained by the Turkish government over the bedouins, have now entirely altered the conditions of sixty years ago. Those early expeditions will therefore always have a unique interest. The causes of the first failures are now so clear that we might be tempted to condemn as mere foolhardiness the first of these efforts; but a more sympathetic attitude, and a full allowance for the imperfect knowledge of this region at those times, will rather class them with similar heroic ventures of pioneer explorers in all climes. The first of these expeditions was that of an Irishman, Mr. Costigan, who in August and September, I835, attempted singlehanded to do what twelve years later strained the resources of an expensive and elaborately equipped United States naval expedition. Costigan conveyed his boat from the bay of Acre overland to Tiberias, and with a single Maltese servant, no more a sailor than himself, attempted the navigation of the Jordan southward toward the Dead Sea. He could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate time of year, as it was at once the hottest season and that in which the river was at its lowest. After three days' struggling down a long succession of waterfalls and rapids, in which he was more often in the water than upon it, his servant so entirely lost his patience and nerve that Costigan was obliged, although the worst difficulties were past, to abandon navigation. Sending his other baggage to Jerusalem,