Half Of Companies Research Articles

Use of Digital Technologies for HR Management in Germany: Survey Evidence

Abstract Using a survey with 57 German firms, we evaluate the level of digitalization of the human resource management (HRM) function and document perceived benefits and barriers of technology adoption from organizational and individual users’ perspectives. The results give reason for optimism. Most of the companies report that the core HR processes are digitized. We do not observe adverse effects of the digital HRM tools on users’ job satisfaction and work stress. Still, more than half of companies do not yet use digital tools for strategic HRM decisions. Respondents appreciate the increased speed and cost-efficiency of digital HR processes and associate them with a competitive advantage in talent acquisition. The most prominent barriers to adoption are lack of qualified professionals, high costs, and uncertainty regarding the legal framework. Additionally, we test whether small- and medium-sized enterprises differ systematically from larger organizations in how they use digital HRM tools.

Exploring the quality of corporate governance disclosure under an “apply and explain” regime

Purpose This study aims to explore the quality of corporate governance disclosure under an “apply and explain” regime in the context of an emerging economy (Mauritius), following a transition from the traditional “comply or explain” approach within the national code of corporate governance. Design/methodology/approach The research relies on a content analysis of corporate governance disclosure in 86 annual reports of companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius for the financial periods 2018–2019 and 2019–2020, one-way analysis of variance tests and draws on the typology of corporate governance explanations developed by Shrives and Brennan (2015), focusing on specificity, location and comprehensiveness dimensions. This paper draws on legitimacy theory and the concepts of substantive and symbolic disclosures to guide the interpretation of the findings. Findings From a specificity point of view, the disclosure index revealed significant variations, with the highest score being four times the lowest score. With regards to location and comprehensiveness, only around half of companies are making optimum use of a corporate governance report and providing explanations by principles. This paper also illustrated how some firms provided symbolic disclosures. Overall, there are disparities in the application of the code by companies, reflected in a blend of substantive and symbolic disclosures to maintain their legitimacy. Originality/Implications This study examines “apply and explain” disclosures in a emerging economy in contrast to the “comply or explain” approach studied so far in the literature. Merely professing a “well intended” shift to the “apply and explain” approach does not necessarily lead to improvements in the quality of corporate governance disclosures. Companies, governance professionals and regulatory bodies could formulate disclosure guidance to better underpin the implications of the “apply and explain” approach.

Price Promotions – the Problematic Child of Marketing

Price promotions account for more than half of companies’ marketing budgets, and in many countries, sales from promotions are reaching unsustainable levels despite these promotions’ unsatisfactory results. This paper presents the findings from a single case study on price promotion decision-making at a large consumer packaged goods (CPG) company in Bulgaria. The findings suggest that price promotion decisions made by the company are largely inertial and based on very limited information, promotions are used to maintain leadership in terms of volume market share, and there is a lack of alignment between marketing and financial goals. Combined information on advertising and sales changes following price promotions in nine product categories was employed as additional empirical material.

Blockchain solutions for carbon markets are nearing maturity

Blockchain solutions for carbon markets are nearing maturity

The Process of Recruitment of Managers: Formal Management Education or Management Experience?

In this paper we have analyzed 228 job announcements for the recruitment of managers within two online recruitment platforms most often used in Romania, named Ejobs and Indeed, regarding two important aspects: 1) recruitment of managers depending on management experience or formal management education and 2) recruitment of management graduates. The main objective is to describe the degree the practice of recruitment of managers takes into consideration the scientific advances in the management field and the formal management education. Through the mean of an archival data analysis research strategy, we found that for the recruitment of managers the companies asked almost exclusively for experience (91.2%). The companies in our sample almost did not require the management education. Only in ten announcements the recruiters asked for a formal management educational degree. Moreover, only half of companies asked for management experience (56.1%). Technical (39.4%), industry (25.2%) and working experience (7.7%) are the other types of experience valued by the recruiters. Most companies asked for management abilities, in addition to experience, however (e.g influence), but they did not require that these abilities to be formed during a formal educational program. The future manager only should possess these abilities acquired from somewhere. The paper aims to contribute to the academic debate regarding the criteria used by companies to hire managers. In addition, the paper has a strong practical orientation aiming at improving the recruitment practice of managers and equipping the companies and organizations with management teams with adequate managerial knowledge, abilities, and competences.

Navigating the Insurance Landscape for Coverage of Reduction Mammaplasty.

Reduction mammaplasty provides symptomatic relief to patients with macromastia. Insurance companies act as gatekeepers of health care by determining the medical necessity of surgical procedures, including reduction mammaplasty. The authors sought to evaluate insurance coverage and policy criteria for reduction mammaplasty. The authors conducted a cross-sectional analysis of U.S. insurance policies on reduction mammaplasty. Insurance providers were selected based on their enrolment data and market share. The authors conducted telephone interviews and Web-based searches to identify the policies. Medical necessity criteria were abstracted from the publicly available policies that offered coverage. The authors reviewed 63 insurers. One in 10 insurers had no established policy for reduction mammaplasty. Of the 48 publicly available policies, shoulder pain and backache were the most common symptoms required for preapproval (98 percent and 98 percent). A minimum resection volume was requested by 88 percent of policies. One-third of policies (31 percent) offered a choice between removal of a minimum weight per breast or a volume based on body surface area. Over half of companies (54 percent) used body surface area calculations to predict minimum resection volume. Medical necessity that extended beyond national recommendations included trial of weight loss (23 percent) and nipple position (10 percent). Insurance policy criteria for reduction mammaplasty are discordant with current national recommendations and current clinical evidence. Many policies use outdated criteria that do not correlate with symptom relief and consequently limit access to reduction mammaplasty. Here, the authors propose a comprehensive guideline to maximize coverage of reduction mammaplasty.

Primena računovodstva fer vrednosti u Srbiji - empirijsko istraživanje

The results of the research presented in this paper suggest a high tendency of the companies in the Republic of Serbia to apply fair value accounting. In large companies, as much as over a half of the total assets were measured at fair value. As expected, the item of financial statements most subject to fair value measurement turned out to be that of property, plant and equipment. Although fair value application is not mandatory for this item or for investment property, a large portion of property, plant and equipment in companies was measured at fair value, as well as all of the investment property. The income approach was most frequently used in the fair value measurement, performed by valuation agencies in the majority of cases. Accountants quite firmly believe that fair value provides the most valuable and relevant information to investors, while the complexity and high costs of fair value accounting seem to be of little concern to them. Nearly three quarters of accountants view fair value as a tool for earnings management, whereas two thirds of them perceive fair value as a tool for manipulation and frauds in financial reporting. Almost a half of companies do not provide ongoing training in proper application of fair value accounting, while about two thirds of them do not perform periodic reviews of the selected models and fair value application procedures.

What are the factors that discourage companies in the Irish commercial sector from investigating energy saving options?

To implement an energy saving measure, companies must first decide to investigate the options available. Representative survey data shows that almost half of companies in the Irish commercial sector do not take this step. This paper explores the barriers and drivers of this. Two logit models are fit to data to estimate the influence of variables, representing company and building characteristics, on the likelihoods of a company investigating either a fabric upgrade or a behaviour change measure.Companies are more likely to investigate a fabric upgrade that: own the building they operate from, make energy related decisions locally, have more than 10 employees, have had a recent renovation, accept longer paybacks, and apply a case by case approach to budget decisions. Hotels and offices were found to have a higher likelihood of investigating fabric options. Lack of knowledge of building floor area reduced the likelihood of investigation of both fabric upgrade and behavioural options. Much of the previous research is concerned with the final adoption of measures; this analysis adds additional insights by identifying the factors that determine if a company is likely to investigate the options available.

The Delaware Trap: An Empirical Study of Incorporation Decisions

One of the most enduring debates in corporate law centers on why Delaware has become the dominant state in the market for corporate charters. Traditionally, two perspectives dominated the debate, the “race to the top” perspective that sees competition among states as driving legal rules toward efficiency and the “race to the bottom” perspective that sees competition among states as driving legal rules toward the interests of corporate managers. The two dominant perspectives have struggled to explain why approximately half of companies incorporate in Delaware, while the other half incorporate in their home states. Whether the choices are attributable to the quality of state law or to characteristics of the companies themselves or both has given rise to a large, but inconclusive empirical literature.This Article uses a large dataset of corporate financings to shed new light on this mystery and uncovers strong evidence that some of the strongest factors in incorporation choice are factors unrelated to either the quality of state law or the characteristics of individual companies. Instead, the data strongly suggest that demographic markers of sophistication, such as choice of law firm and headquarters location, predict the jurisdictional choice about as well as state law or the business attributes of companies. Companies with more demographic markers of sophistication tend to choose Delaware incorporation, and companies with fewer demographic markers of sophistication tend to choose home-state incorporation. The finding persists even when other attributes of the company are controlled for, such as its industry classification, the amount of money raised, or whether the company is public or private. Indeed, the sophistication factors arguably predict Delaware incorporation as well or better than any factors documented in the vast literature on state competition for corporate charters.The findings have important implications for the state “race-to-the-top” debate in corporate law. At a minimum the results in this Article make it clear that the choice of legal representation is an important missing variable in models of incorporation decisions. The fact that the choice of law firms drives the jurisdictional choice has far broader implications. If law firms drive the jurisdictional choice they may steer companies toward states that serve the law firms’ own interests without regard to the quality of legal rules or the needs of the client. When the state chosen is Delaware, as it often is, there are few alternative jurisdictions that shareholders and managers can agree on. As a result, companies inadvertently fall into a “governance trap” from which reincorporation out of state is nearly impossible. This interpretation would suggest that Delaware’s carefully calibrated positioning in the charter market has largely eliminated meaningful competition among the states for the quality of corporate law.

The competitive influence of corporate social responsibility and corporate social disclosure in Italian small and medium sized companies: Focus on disclosure and competitive drivers1

There has been growing attention paid to Corporate Social Responsibility @CSR) over the last forty years, among academics, companies, not‐for profit organisations, public sector organisations, and citizens (Mathews, 1997). At the same time, increasing interest has been paid to the external communication of CSR practices, through Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD), and the role CSD can play in helping to improve competitive drivers linked to the implementation of CSR strategies (Porter and Kramer, 2006). This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature by analysing CSD in Italian SMEs that have been found in the past to use best CSR practices. It investigates CSR knowledge, CSD media and CSD competitive outcomes. It is based on an internal perspective, reporting the results of a questionnaire submitted to the companies’ CSR officers. The research shows that all Italian SMEs investigated in this study (all of which have been found in the past to use best CSR practices) have, as would be expected, an overall knowledge about CSR topics. The most popular CSR tools are: ISO 9001, 14001 and SA8000 certification, codes of ethics and sustainability reports. The website is the most used CSD media, followed by sustainability reports and ethics codes, with different levels of stakeholder interest perceived in these different media. Half of companies perceive benefits from the implementation of CSD. In particular, about two thirds of respondents stated that CSD had helped to improve their competitive drivers. The analysis reveals different results between companies that started CSR more than two years ago, in comparison with those that started CSR less than two years ago.

Evidences of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Implementation in Brazil: The Case of Derivatives

The objective of this paper is to analyze the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Brazil. This analysis focuses specifically on derivative transactions. For these, a disclosure index has been elaborated using recent Brazilian standards, which are based on the IAS 39 – Financial Instruments Recognition and Measurement and on the IAS 32 – Financial Instruments: Disclosure and Presentation. This disclosure index has a total of 4 categories and 22 sub-categories: qualitative information (5), quantitative information (6), derivative values (5) and sensitivity analysis (6). Sample is composed by the top 100 largest non-financial public companies. Information has been gathered from Financial Statements for the years ended in 2006, 2007 and 2008 with the use of content analysis. Main findings are: (i) more than half of companies did not disclose the initial accounting effects of new standards, (ii) the majority of companies did disclose the fair value of these financial instruments but did not disclose the criterion utilized in computing them and (iii) some companies still do not evidence any information regarding their transaction with derivatives. In sum, new accounting standards, based on IFRS, did have a positive impact of corporate disclosure but companies still do not disclose all the information required.

O40: Perceived Lower Availability of Neighborhood Food Stores of Low-Income Older Adults in Northeast Georgia

food marketing to children. Sources included: company websites, reports and press releases, media clippings, Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative pledges, and communications with companies. Outcome Measures and Analysis: Researchers assessed company nutrition standards for marketing to children, including calories/portion size, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugars, sodium, and positive nutrient content (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, vitamins and minerals). Researchers compared companies’ nutrition standards to each other, to companies’ product portfolios, and to recommended guidelines for responsible food marketing to children. Results: Thirteen of the 22 food companies (59%) had nutrition standards for food marketing to children. Of the 13 companies with nutrition standards, all set limits on calories, saturated fat, trans fat, sugars, and sodium. Five companies (38%) had requirements for positive nutrient content. None of the companies had standards as strong as recommended guidelines for food marketing to children. Conclusions and Implications: Nutrition standards for marketing to children vary greatly across companies. Standards vary to maximize companies’ ability to market their existing products. Although about half of companies have nutrition standards that are consistent with recommended guidelines for food marketing to children, as a complete package, companies’ nutrition standards are weaker than recommended. These findings suggest the need for a uniform set of nutrition standards and they help to inform the current state of self-regulation of food marketing to children.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Australia: A Review

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is currently one of the most discussed topics by business people and scholars alike. The concept has been enthusiastically supported by three very disparate groups - by government, by non-government organisations (NGOs) ranging from charities to national and international industry groups, and by business itself, in particular large corporations. In 2000, a study by the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs and the Business Council of Australia found around half of Australia's large companies had policies related to community involvement, social responsibility or stakeholder engagement. More than half of these companies had developed policies in the last decade. In 2001, Cronin and Zappala concluded from their survey of Australia's top 100 companies that just over 70 percent of companies surveyed had corporate community involvement (CCI) or CSR policies. Increasing numbers of companies in Australia have policies and programs that purport to reflect their commitment to the community, society and the environment. Yet, despite the prolific amount of literature on CSR - particularly from the perspective of companies themselves and from practioners in the thriving industry of CSR consultancy - there is a dearth of empirical studies examining whether, and if so to what extent and in what manner, Australian companies are responding in practice to the increasing momentum surrounding CSR. This review outlines and discusses the small number of studies that have been conducted in Australia over the past decade by academics, business associations, government, non-profit organisations and by consultancies into these issues.