scholarly journals A Micro Analysis of Urban Child Labour: Some Determinants of Labour and its Conditions

1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (4II) ◽  
pp. 1249-1271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahnaz Hamid

This paper focuses on (1) The estimation of urban child labour, (2) Analysis of its determinants, (3) Analysis of some of its conditions and their sectoral determinants, and finally puts forward some possible solutions. This paper is divided into four sections. Section 2 explains the conceptual and analytical framework and describes the data set. Section 3 analyses the empirical evidence and finally Section 4 gives the conclusions and recommendations.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Giulio Calabrese ◽  
Alessandro Manello

Purpose This study aims to contribute to the debate on the relationship between board diversity and performance, a hot topic for scholars and shareholders. A number of studies have found contrasting impacts of board diversity on firm performance and this paper adds new and original evidence in the context of the automotive supply chain focusing on gender, age and nationality diversity. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose a triple stage empirical analysis. First, the authors use linear models according to different performance indexes for investigating diversity (gender, age and nationality) within the board of directors and executives. Second, the authors investigate the issue of diversity in different contexts such as position in the supply chain, nationality of the owner and family/corporate ownership. Finally, the authors use non-linear models to find a better combination of diversity in terms of gender and nationality for retrieving some managerial implications. Findings First, the authors demonstrate a robust positive effect of women in board representation on firm performance in terms of profitability and firm risk. In the case of, age and nationality the results are more equivocal in particular for the former. Second, the authors depict board diversity in different contexts as follows: positioning in the supply chain, type and nationality of the final owner. Again, gender heterogeneity is more adequate in the complex firm as Tier 1 suppliers, corporate and foreign company. Originality/value The authors focused the analysis on a specific industry, shedding light on the main specificities linked to operating in certain phases of the supply chain, a substantial novelty in this field. The empirical evidence is based on a very large data set containing quantitative and qualitative information on a representative sample of 1,538 firms operating in the Italian automotive supply chain, one of the most relevant in Europe.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Paklina ◽  
Elena Shakina

PurposeThis study seeks to explore the demand side of the labour market influenced by the digital revolution. It aims at identifying the new composition of skills and their value as implicitly manifested by employers when they look for the new labour force. The authors analyse the returns to computing skills based on text mining techniques applied to the job advertisements.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology is based on the hedonic pricing model with the Heckman correction to overcome the sample selection bias. The empirical part is based on a large data set that includes more than 9m online vacancies on one of the biggest job boards in Russia from 2006 to 2018.FindingsEmpirical evidence for both negative and positive returns to computing skills and their monetary values is found. Importantly, the authors also have found both complementary and substitutional effects within and between non-domain (basic) and domain (advanced) subgroups of computing skills.Originality/valueApart from the empirical evidence on the value of professional computing skills and their interrelations, this study provides the important methodological contribution on applying the hedonic procedure and text mining to the field of human resource management and labour market research.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Lafargue ◽  
Michael Rogerson ◽  
Glenn C. Parry ◽  
Joel Allainguillaume

Purpose This paper examines the potential of “biomarkers” to provide immutable identification for food products (chocolate), providing traceability and visibility in the supply chain from retail product back to farm. Design/methodology/approach This research uses qualitative data collection, including fieldwork at cocoa farms and chocolate manufacturers in Ecuador and the Netherlands and semi-structured interviews with industry professionals to identify challenges and create a supply chain map from cocoa plant to retailer, validated by area experts. A library of biomarkers is created using DNA collected from fieldwork and the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre, holders of cocoa varieties from known locations around the world. Matching sample biomarkers with those in the library enables identification of origins of cocoa used in a product, even when it comes from multiple different sources and has been processed. Findings Supply chain mapping and interviews identify areas of the cocoa supply chain that lack the visibility required for management to guarantee sustainability and quality. A decoupling point, where smaller farms/traders’ goods are combined to create larger economic units, obscures product origins and limits visibility. These factors underpin a potential boundary condition to institutional theory in the industry’s fatalism to environmental and human abuses in the face of rising institutional pressures. Biomarkers reliably identify product origin, including specific farms and (fermentation) processing locations, providing visibility and facilitating control and trust when purchasing cocoa. Research limitations/implications The biomarker “meta-barcoding” of cocoa beans used in chocolate manufacturing accurately identifies the farm, production facility or cooperative, where a cocoa product came from. A controlled data set of biomarkers of registered locations is required for audit to link chocolate products to origin. Practical implications Where biomarkers can be produced from organic products, they offer a method for closing visibility gaps, enabling responsible sourcing. Labels (QR codes, barcodes, etc.) can be swapped and products tampered with, but biological markers reduce reliance on physical tags, diminishing the potential for fraud. Biomarkers identify product composition, pinpointing specific farm(s) of origin for cocoa in chocolate, allowing targeted audits of suppliers and identifying if cocoa of unknown origin is present. Labour and environmental abuses exist in many supply chains and enabling upstream visibility may help firms address these challenges. Social implications By describing a method for firms in cocoa supply chains to scientifically track their cocoa back to the farm level, the research shows that organizations can conduct social audits for child labour and environmental abuses at specific farms proven to be in their supply chains. This provides a method for delivering supply chain visibility (SCV) for firms serious about tackling such problems. Originality/value This paper provides one of the very first examples of biomarkers for agricultural SCV. An in-depth study of stakeholders from the cocoa and chocolate industry elucidates problematic areas in cocoa supply chains. Biomarkers provide a unique biological product identifier. Biomarkers can support efforts to address environmental and social sustainability issues such as child labour, modern slavery and deforestation by providing visibility into previously hidden areas of the supply chain.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1015-1041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Pletz ◽  
Joan Upson

Purpose This paper aims to analyse normative corporate governance evolution in the UK between 1995 and 2014 against the benchmark of Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) regulatory principles. Design/methodology/approach Methodologically, the authors conduct an empirical, longitudinal data set analysis of the formative years of UK normative corporate governance development between 1995 and 2014. We provide a qualitative discussion of the empirical evidence that links the type of UK regulatory corporate governance development to financial market growth thereby adopting a mixed approach based on quantitative and qualitative research methods. Findings The authors find that compared to the OECD model of corporate governance, the UK model is less rigid following a more self-regulatory approach based upon a “comply or explain” paradigm. Thus it is scored below corporate governance systems that follow a compulsory implementation model. However, even with such “low” tilt towards formal shareholder primacy norms, the UK has the best performing financial market. As a quasi-empirical study, the authors suggest that there are several historical and economic reasons for this, which together with a robust rule of law in the UK contribute to this performance – and the law especially the type or tilt is less relevant. Originality/value This is the first of its kind empirical, longitudinal data set analysis with qualitative elements that links empirical evidence to regulatory developments in the wider context of UK corporate governance evolution.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135481662097812
Author(s):  
María Santana-Gallego ◽  
Johan Fourie

Although it seems obvious that tourism flows would be adversely affected by terrorism, crime and corruption, not all the empirical evidence supports this view. This article investigates the extent to which insecurity hurts tourism in Africa. We use a new data set consisting of 187 countries, 38 of which are in Africa, for the period 1995–2017. It combines information on the number of tourist arrivals in African countries with information on three types of security risk – terrorism, crime and corruption. While we find no statistically significant evidence that connects terrorism to tourism globally, we do find an effect for tourists travelling to Africa. Crime, too, hurts tourism, but we find no robust relationship between corruption and tourism. Our results emphasize the importance of government expenditure on safety and security to protect this labour-intensive and pro-poor sector.


2019 ◽  
pp. 097215091986833
Author(s):  
Shuktij Singh Rao ◽  
Arindam Banik ◽  
Ashutosh Khanna ◽  
Deepu Philip

Taking an idea or invention successfully from laboratory to the market is innovation. When such an innovation becomes so successful that it ultimately changes the social practices and thereby forces incumbent market leaders to shut shop, it becomes disruptive innovation (DI). Christensen proposed a framework to analyze an industry for DI and later analyzed five industries—aviation, education, healthcare, telecommunication, semiconductors & innovation overseas—using this framework. However, the business of aerospace and defence is different from conventional businesses and thereby requires additional considerations and modifications to the framework proposed by Christensen. This article focuses on the DI in aerospace and defence industry by developing an analytical framework that captures essential factors based on the original theory of Christensen; literature on and around it; known frameworks and studies of select successful cases of DI in aerospace and defence industry literature. Christensen’s framework is analyzed and evaluated for its strengths and weaknesses and also its applicability to aerospace and defence business. Stakeholder analysis is also conducted, and empirical evidence of the factors is verified. A framework is then developed to analyze DI in the aerospace and defence industry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 945-972
Author(s):  
Mohd Fikri Sofi ◽  
M.H. Yahya

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of Shariah Advisory Panel (SAP) on both the level of agency cost and fund performance against conventional corporate governance, within corporate and Shariah governance settings, between Shariah and conventional mutual fund (CMF), in an emerging economy of Malaysia during the period 2008-2015. Design/methodology/approach Panel data regression is appropriately used within corporate governance research because of empirical issues of unobserved heterogeneity effects to avoid spurious evidence. The secondary data of 172 CMFs and 80 Shariah mutual funds are gathered hand-collected from annual reports and master prospectuses for the purpose of analysis between the period 2008 and 2015, generating 2,016 fund-year observations. Findings SAP is found to have a positive effect on agency costs. Consequently, it leads to empirical evidence that substantiates a negative and marginally significant association with fund performance when designated by accounting measure. Thus, the Shariah monitoring proxy is not a good mechanism for controlling agency costs inconsistent with performance maximizing (agency cost minimizing) outcomes. Research limitations/implications The unique data set of mutual funds used in this research may restrict the generalization of the findings unless mentioned and explained specifically the data characteristics. The single proxy for Shariah monitoring could be better off by having a list of different measures. Practical implications The paper highlights and suggests a consistent improvement in regulation that could be performed by policymakers pertaining to the non-trivial additional cost of implying Shariah governance. Originality/value This paper provides empirical evidence of the SAP effects from the view of a more complex monitoring structure in consequence of having an additional layer of governance, devoting on the trade-off between benefit and cost to shareholders.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 1338-1365
Author(s):  
Stefan Wimmer ◽  
Johannes Sauer

Abstract This article explores how farm size is related to economic benefits from diversification. Using a data set pertaining to Bavarian dairy farms (2000–2014), we estimate an input distance function (IDF) to derive cost complementarities between distinct outputs. A Bayesian estimation technique is used to improve the theoretical consistency of the IDF. The results show that small dairy farms are more likely to benefit from diversification between milk and livestock production, while larger farms tend to benefit from diversification between milk and crop production. Both managerial and policy implications are discussed.


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