Labour Redundancy Research Articles

The Power of Voice: Non-State Shareholders and the Labor Redundancy of SOEs

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the impact of non-state-shareholders on the labor redundancy of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). We find that the participation of non-state shareholders helps to reduce the labor redundancy in SOEs. Specifically, non-state shareholders cannot reduce the labor redundancy in SOEs only with holding shares, while they can effectively mitigate the labor redundancy problem by appointing directors to the board. Furthermore, we find that non-state shareholders play a greater role in reducing the labor redundancy for highly labor-intensive SOEs and firms with strong government intervention. Finally, we document that non-state-shareholders help improve the operational and financial performance of SOEs.

Dead Ends: Ruin, Redundancy, and the Horrors of Precarity in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and It Follows

While Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) ostensibly focalise their films’ narratives upon the imminent threat of bodily violence which endangers their respective protagonists’ lives, a deeper analysis of both films illuminates the terror at the heart of the narratives: economic precarity and immobility. Both Hooper and Mitchell deliberately situate their horror films within settings that are haunted by the past hope of prosperity and which have corroded into ruins, left to rust and rot under the hostile conditions of post-industrial capitalism. These rents in the socio- economic fabric are intimately registered on a corporeal level, as the bodies of both Chain Saw protagonist Sally Hardesty and It Follows protagonist Jay Height become the sites onto which the capitalist horrors of unequal prosperity and labour redundancy are violently enacted. In Hooper’s film, the rural backwoods of Texas play host to a brutal confrontation between a working-class family—made redundant by the rise of automation and thus embodying the industrial atrophy of the American South—and a group of drifting, unfettered young people, represented by Sally and her friends.

Peer Migration in China

AbstractWith over 290 million rural labourers transitioning to urban areas in 2019, China is experiencing an unparalleled scale of internal migration, the largest in human history. Employing instrumental variables (IVs) gleaned from the 2006 China Agricultural Census (CAC), we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the migration rate among co‐villagers amplifies an individual's probability of migrating by 7.13 percentage points. Influencing factors such as information dissemination at the origin and cost efficiencies at the destination likely contribute to the observed clustering of migration by age, destination and industrial sector. Intriguingly, migration seems to exert a negligible influence on the agricultural productivity of those who remain, which may be due to substantial labour redundancy at the point of origin and potentially higher productivity among migrants.

What causes green efficiency losses in Chinese agriculture? A perspective based on input redundancy

Incompatibility between agricultural production inputs and the resource environment leads to efficiency losses and has an impeding effect on sustainable agricultural development. However, efficiency loss in agriculture is a blind spot in current research. To explore the green development performance and efficiency losses in China's agricultural modernization process, this paper measures the green efficiency of China's agriculture from static and dynamic perspectives. An in-depth analysis of efficiency losses in the efficiency measurement process was conducted. It was found that the overall agricultural green efficiency (AGE) of China showed a continuous upward trend from 2006 to 2019 and the average growth rate is 4.1 %. The utilization efficiency of agricultural inputs in China increased significantly, but the regional variations in the redundancy of agricultural inputs widened. Both agricultural modernization and environmental regulations are associated negatively with labor redundancy, and environmental regulations are associated negatively with fertilizer and machinery redundancy. The effective substitution of labor production factors by agricultural modernization can reduce labor redundancy and release a large amount of rural labor engaged in primary agricultural production, and environmental regulations effectively inhibit the waste of fertilizer, labor, and machinery inputs.

The operational performance of fashion companies in the context of the coronavirus pandemic: static and dynamic analyses

PurposeThis study clarifies the operational performance of fashion companies during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, improvement strategies have been provided in the post-pandemic era.Design/methodology/approachThe static and dynamic perspectives were combined to comprehensively analyze the operational performance of fashion companies before, during and after the COVID-19 outbreak. A comparative analysis among five representative countries was conducted to achieve global conclusions. Additionally, data envelopment analysis (DEA) theory and various DEA models were employed for the analysis.FindingsThe fashion industry has not achieved overall effectiveness. American companies have the best operational performance, followed by European and Chinese companies. In contrast, the impact of the pandemic on American companies was severe, whereas Chinese and European companies showed operational resilience. In addition, the pandemic had a devastating influence on the global fashion industry. This resulted in a decline in total factor productivity, and the main reason was technological regress. Furthermore, labor redundancy is a critical issue for the fashion industry in the post-pandemic era, even if it shows a decrease because of the pandemic.Originality/valueThe existing theory on the fashion industry during the pandemic was improved by expanding the time and geographical dimensions and integrating the advantages of various DEA models. Scientific improvement strategies were presented in the post-pandemic era with application value.

Influencing factors and improvement paths of green water use efficiency in the Yellow River Basin: a new perspective based on ecogeographical divisions.

Exploring the influencing factors and improvement paths of green water use efficiency (GWUE) based on different regions is very important for the protection and utilization of water resources in the Yellow River Basin (YRB). However, previous studies focused only on the external impact of water use efficiency and did not take into account both internal and external factors. For the zoning of the YRB, the traditional upper, middle, and lower zoning methods were mostly used, and they could not show the impact of climatic and geological conditions. Therefore, based on ecogeographical divisions, the dynamic evolutionary characteristics, regional differences, and internal inefficiencies of green water use efficiency for 48 cities in the YRB from 2008 to 2018 are analyzed using a data envelopment analysis-slack-based measure (DEA-SBM) model, global Malmquist‒Luenberger (GML) index decomposition, and kernel density estimation. We further use a panel Tobit model to analyze the external influencing factors of green water use efficiency and propose ways to improve the utilization of water resources in different regions from both the internal and external perspectives. The results are as follows: (1) During the study period, the GWUE fluctuated between 0.58 and 0.67 and showed a trend of improving in the arid areas and deteriorating in the humid area. (2) Exploring the sources of inefficiency from the internal perspective reveals that the labor redundancy, capital redundancy, and wastewater redundancy in the semihumid area are higher; the energy redundancy in the semiarid area is higher; and the economic output in the arid area is insufficient. (3) From the GML perspective, the absolute difference in the green water use efficiency of the cities in the YRB is expanding. Regarding the technical efficiency (EC) index, the technical efficiency of the semiarid area has a convergence effect. Regarding the technological progress (TC) index, the gap in the arid area has been widening, and the technology in the semihumid and semiarid areas is converging backward. (4) There are significant differences in the external factors affecting GWUE in different ecogeographical regions. This study can help the government consider ecogeographical factors when formulating water resource-related policies, and it provides a scientific reference for how to better utilize water resources in different regions of the YRB from both the internal and external perspectives.

Competencies of Personnel in Economy 4.0: Challenges and Solutions

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the transformation of the worker’s competencies model in the Economy 4.0 conditions, to the identification of the causes for the increase of the labor redundancy and mismatch on the labor market. The authors identified key competencies that are important for Ukrainian businesses and made a forecast of required competencies for 2030. The analysis of the compliance of training programs of educational institutions with market requirements has practical value. The authors also proposed the roadmap for coordination of the program of the human resource manager competencies development. An important result came out to be the developed matrix of the necessary level of development of staff competencies for various divisions of the company depending on the decision-making center.

Do multiple large shareholders reduce agency problems in state-controlled listed firms? Evidence from China

In this article, we investigate how the emergence of an ownership structure with multiple large shareholders (MLS) affects principal-agent as well as principal-principal conflicts of interests in Chinese listed firms having the government as controlling shareholder. Thereby, we account for the source of MLS entry by distinguishing between a non-state investor buying shares when the government divests vs. retains its ownership stake. We find that MLS entry alleviates principal-agent problems, as evidenced by a lower managerial perk consumption and a higher pay-for-performance sensitivity of managerial compensation, as well as principal-principal problems, as reflected by a smaller ratio of related-party transactions and a lower labor redundancy. Interestingly, and except for the reduction in excess personnel, we find that the above effects arise only when the newly entered non-state investor accumulated a stake without corresponding government divestment. In contrast, the curtailing effect of MLS entry on labor redundancy only occurs when the government was willing to give up a non-trivial part of its ownership. In line with the above findings, we show that MLS entry significantly enhances the firm's stock market valuation, with this effect predominantly arising from the anticipated reduction in excess personnel.

Remote-control technology performance for excavation with pneumatic caisson in soft ground

The pneumatic caisson method is applicable to various ground conditions and has competitive advantages in deep excavations. However, in the conventional pneumatic caisson, workers are at risks of suffering from decompression sickness because of long-duration exposure to the hyperbaric environment. Furthermore, the construction cost of the conventional pneumatic caisson is fairly high owing to the inefficiency and labor redundancy. To address these issues, an automatic construction system for the pneumatic caisson, which enables unmanned excavations based on a remote-control technology, has been developed. This system mainly comprises a remotely operated excavator, a vertical screw conveyor for continuous soil discharge, and an integrated real-time monitoring system. Additionally, a program named “NPC (new pneumatic caisson) Manager” is adopted for the comprehensive analysis of real-time monitoring data. This paper describes the details of this system and its execution process, in which all the work of excavation and removal of soil is completed remotely by workers on the ground. Moreover, an application in a tunnel shaft in soft ground, as well as an analysis of its monitoring results, is also presented.

Spatial-temporal disparities and influencing factors of total-factor green use efficiency of industrial land in China

Achieving “green” use of industrial land is beneficial to save precious land resources, protect ecological environments and achieve the green development of China's economy. In this paper, we estimate the dynamic performance of the total-factor green use efficiency of industrial land (TGUEIL) in China by using a global non-radial directional distance function (GNDDF) and the non-radial Malmquist performance of industrial land green use (NMPILGU). The results show that the TGUEIL had a rising trend in most years during 2006–2015. The eastern region enjoys the greatest TGUEIL, and the gaps in the TGUEIL between regions are narrowing. Technical progress in the industrial sector contributes more to the NMPILGU than efficiency progress. To raise the TGUEIL, we should increase the internal expenditures in R&D activities, the number of effective inventions and R&D staffs in industrial enterprises. We should promote the use of clean energy in industrial production and increase efforts in energy-saving and emission reduction. We should prohibit local governments from selling land to cover the deficit. The government should pay more attention to industrial labor redundancy in eastern China and guide orderly redundant industrial labor force transfer from eastern regions to central and western regions.

Limit to Autocracy: An Analysis of China's Renationalization

We document large-scale reversal of privatization in China — local governments taking back shares in a quarter of previously privatized firms. Politicians who are not affiliated with any of the dominant political factions are more likely to waver under pressure and adopt renationalization because they are disadvantaged in the promotion process and are more sensitive to unemployment pressure. The failure to adhere to the privatization scheme reduces productivity and raises labor redundancy and firm leverage. The policy reversal casts doubt on the notion that autocracies have advantages in policy implementation.

Поселенческая структура Красноярского края в 1970–2010 гг.: проблемы совершенствования

A logical step in the development of the post-war world was the decrease in the proportion of rural residents, but in the Krasnoyarsk Krai this process was accelerated by the CPSU industrial policy: in 1971– 1990s the region experienced two All-Union ten-year constructions on the complex development of the region’s productive forces. Under the influence of intensive industrial development, the process of urbanization received the accelerated character; however the formation of the settlement structure was not followed by creation of highly organized living environment. The collapse of the USSR and transition to market economy strengthened disproportions of territorial development of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. Today the Krasnoyarsk Krai is one of the most perspective regions of the Russian Federation having great natural resources and a production potential. However, labor force in the region is dispersed unevenly. In many cities and rural settlements there is a labor redundancy while for development of areas of Lower Angara region there are not enough working hands. The problem of rational placement of labor resources in the region is not studied: there are only a few publications on this subject. This article analyzes the transformation of the settlement structure of the Krasnoyarsk Krai from 1970 to 2010s, the factors of change, the necessity of public policy on the use of labor resources and the change in the settlement structure in the region. DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2016)4-11

Energy Efficiency Estimation Based on Bayesian Method and Industrial Economic Transition: Taking Shandong as an Example

This paper studied the total factor energy efficiency of industrial sector’s in Shandong. First, theoretical models of stochastic frontier approach on energy efficiency were structured, and then the referred parameters were estimated by using panel data of thirty-seven industries in Shandong from 2006 to 2013 and Bayesian estimation method. Finally Tobit model was applied to empirically study the influencing factors on energy efficiency of industrial sector’s. The study indicates that: (1) The input of capital and energy is notably positively correlative to output, while the input of labor quantity is negatively correlative to output. This means labor redundancy exist in industrial sectors. (2) Chemical industry, machinery industry, equipment manufacturing industry and food processing industry which have high energy efficiency should be further developed, especially marine chemical industry and marine biological medicine should be focused on to realize traditional industry upgrading. (3) Enterprise scale, international trade, the level of foreign investment and technology progress are notably positively relative to energy efficiency, while the proportion of state-owned economy have negative impact on energy efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary for further improvement in industrial energy efficiency in Shandong to decrease the proportion of stated-owned, encourage private capital entrance, extend opening up, and speed up the technical innovation.

Expropriation of Minority Investors in Chinese Listed Firms: The Role of Internal and External Corporate Governance Mechanisms

ABSTRACTManuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: We investigate how ownership structure, board characteristics, and regional differences in law enforcement and stock market development affect the conflict of interest between majority and minority investors in Chinese listed firms. For this purpose, we study related‐party transactions as well as labor redundancy, and classify firms as either state‐ or private‐controlled.Research Findings/Insights: We find that related‐party transactions grow more extensive as the wedge between the controlling shareholder's control rights and cash flow rights increases. Related‐party transactions also rise with voting rights held by the government in state‐controlled firms. Next, the state as controlling shareholder exacerbates labor redundancy. The control rights of the second to tenth largest investors can offset expropriation. Regarding board characteristics, we find that a larger fraction of directors affiliated with the dominant owner enlarges related‐party transactions, while large boards also increase labor redundancy in state‐controlled firms. We find only weak evidence that higher‐quality institutions help to restrain expropriation of minority investors.Theoretical/Academic Implications: In Chinese listed firms, a major conflict of interest arises between majority and minority investors. Also, the state may exercise its control rights to achieve imperative social and political objectives, to the detriment of external investors. Yet, as the stock market valuation and financial performance of state‐controlled firms rise with the fraction of shares held by the state, future research should better delineate the conditions under which state ownership is either detrimental or beneficial to firms. Next, the results indicate that governance mechanisms suggested by conventional agency theory are deficient in Chinese listed firms. Future research could therefore establish more clearly when internal and external governance mechanisms are likely to work, thereby also taking into account the identity of the controlling shareholder.Practitioner/Policy Implications: Investors should be aware that expropriation in Chinese listed firms has specific implications when the state is the controlling owner. Also, at this stage of development, independent directors and external governance mechanisms can hardly protect the best interests of minority investors. Rather, expropriation is counterbalanced when voting rights are concentrated in the hands of other large block holders. Policy makers should work on ownership restructuring, board independence, and institutional quality to better protect minority rights in Chinese listed firms.

Manufacturing productivity in China and India: The role of institutional changes

In this paper we undertake a comparative study of productivity in the manufacturing sector for China and India using data from survey of manufacturing industries for the two countries. We find that productivity of manufacturing industries in China relative to that in India improved substantially over the 1998–2003 period. Specifically, the average total factor productivity (TFP) growth for the manufacturing sector over this period was about 11% higher in China than in India. We document two substantial changes in government policies in China that were not witnessed in India. First, the late 1990s saw an enormous wave of ownership restructuring due to the formal endorsement of private property rights by the Chinese central government. Second, in 1997 a large scale labour retrenchment program was launched to address the long standing problem of labour redundancy in the public sector. Using data from the Chinese survey of manufacturing industries, we quantify the impact of these large scale institutional changes on TFP of Chinese manufacturing industries. We find that these policy changes can explain about 30% of the growth in TFP of manufacturing industries. Hence we conclude that these institutional changes in China can account for a significant part of the gains in productivity of manufacturing industries in China relative to that in India over the 1998–2003 period.

Productivity analysis of the telecommunications sector in China

This paper applies the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to measure the productivity performance of China's telecommunications sector at the provincial level. The results indicate that the efficiency scores for different provinces and regions are diverse: the efficiency scores of the provinces in the eastern region are significantly higher than those in the central and western regions. The differences in efficiency scores are mainly due to the differences in the operating environments of different provinces, rather than the efficiency performance of telecommunications enterprises. The results also suggest that labour redundancy and excess capacity of long-distance optical cable lines are major problems in China's telecommunications sector. After a period of rapid growth in investment and number of subscribers, it is time for the telecommunications sector to consolidate and to put more emphasis on productivity growth in order to meet the challenges posed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments.

Brief Assessment of the Labour Market Situation in Selected CIS Countries

After more than 15 years of transition, some of CIS countries face serious problems on their labour markets, in spite of significant economic growth in recent years, with weak job creation, employment contraction, decreasing activity rates, high unemployment, declining industries and labour redundancies, and widespread informal economy. Consequently, these countries are confronted with serious poverty and social exclusion of certain population segments, while the weight of subsistence agriculture and small-scale self-employment activities are expanding as one coping strategy against poverty. The main factors responsible for this situation are related to labour hoarding inherited from Soviet era, which reduces the productivity of labour; a certain tendency in private and privatized firms to substitute the labour for capital; slow and inefficient structural restructuring, leading to unfriendly business environment and considerable barriers to entry and expanding the economic activity; mismatch between the demand for skills required by the market, and the effective skills supplied through the education system. Six countries are selected for this comparative analysis: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Tajikistan.

Overcoming Problems Associated with Sustainable Development of the Construction Industry in China

Confronted with the transition from the traditional planned to market-driven economy, the Chinese construction industry has undergone rapid reforms and developments. The way to improve the competitiveness of Chinese construction firms is very important for the sustainable development of the industry. This paper examines the market opportunities and challenges of the Chinese construction industry. The critical factors affecting the competitiveness of construction firms are identified through a structured questionnaire survey. Using the relative importance factor analysis, the critical factors that need to be addressed in the reform include: abnormally large in size of enterprises; uncoordinated organizational structure; poor rewarding system leading to de-motivation; leaders' lack of sense of ownership to the enterprises; immature procurement systems; delay in payments from clients; labour redundancy in most enterprises; short of technical professionals; and poor quality equipment, which are peculiar to the Chinese construction industry due to the structure, market, management, and resources of the industry. To revive the industry, the following strategies and efforts need to be employed: regulating the structure of the industry by rationalizing the proportion of different sizes of enterprises, creating a favourable market environment to encourage market competition, and reengineering the current ownership of the state-owned enterprises.

Soft budget constraints, social burdens, and labor redundancy in China's state industry

The soft budget constraint hypothesis of Kornai (1980) offers an attractive explanation of over-manning in public enterprises. Sometimes overlooked in the literature is the fact that governments, especially in transition economies, often use state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to pursue non-financial objectives and to finance the resulting social burdens with subsidies and policy loans. In studying a panel of about 700 SOEs, we find that hardening budget constraints, without at the same time relieving SOEs from their social burdens, was a major proximate cause of rising redundant labor in the early 1990s in China.

Socio‑Economic Change and Rural Entrepreneurs in Pre‑Crisis East Java, Indonesia: Case Study of a Madurese Upland Community

This paper examines the roles and economic strategies of rural entrepreneurs in a Madurese community in East Java, Indonesia. The incorporation of rural communities into the regional economy through commercial sugarcane production provided opportunities for entrepreneurs to expand their enterprises. They diversified their economic activities through their investment strategies and social networking. They dominated the local economy through their attempts to monopolize the resources provided by state agencies and brokers at the supra-local level. The entrepreneurs served as catalysts in the process of economic diversification, which sees a shift from subsistence agriculture to cash cropping. That had caused labour redundancy. The monopolization of job brokerage by village entrepreneurs, mediating between increasingly redundant manpower and external (international) labour markets, provided a new avenue for economic diversification and capital accumulation. The 1970s economic boom in Indonesia, fuelled by state oil income, was accompanied by agricultural modernization and infrastructure development in the rural areas of Java. Earlier studies have documented that relatively well-off farming families, members of which held office as local village administrators, reaped disproportionately large shares of state benefits in the form of credits, subsidies, and agricultural inputs (Husken 1979, 1989, 1996; Husken and White 1989; Hart 1986; Maurer 1996, p. 114). Former president Soeharto's New Order government (1965-98) sought the political support of the rural elite and