Intra-Labour Strategic Commitment

<p>This thesis explores a strategic investment motive for the choice of skilled labour (management). Using the case study of department store competition, we argue that management is an observable and irreversible input. This allows firms to use it to obtain a first-mover advantage in oligopolistic interactions. We find that, given complementarities of labour inputs, firms will hire excess management relative to the cost-minimising input bundle. This idea is first illustrated with a simple two-stage example. We then show that over-management also holds in a more realistic setting with infinitely-lived firms facing finite adjustment costs.</p>

Intra-Labour Strategic Commitment

<p>This thesis explores a strategic investment motive for the choice of skilled labour (management). Using the case study of department store competition, we argue that management is an observable and irreversible input. This allows firms to use it to obtain a first-mover advantage in oligopolistic interactions. We find that, given complementarities of labour inputs, firms will hire excess management relative to the cost-minimising input bundle. This idea is first illustrated with a simple two-stage example. We then show that over-management also holds in a more realistic setting with infinitely-lived firms facing finite adjustment costs.</p>

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility as a Marketing Investment on Firms’ Performance: A Risk-Oriented Approach

In light of the growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is still controversy regarding its impact on firms’ performance. In this paper, we examine the impact of CSR initiatives, as a marketing investment, on firms’ performance. We treat CSR initiatives as investment and, consequently, the returns appear over the long term. We use the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach which is a forward-looking financial market-based metric that captures the firm’s long-term performance. We focus on the banking industry as it confronts a variety compound of risk. We find that CSR implementation is positively reflected in profit efficiency, regardless of the strategic commitment to implementing CSR and bank size, as these variables do not influence the CSR–performance relationship. However, we find that bank age and competitive positioning have a significant impact on the CSR–performance relationship. Our study provides valuable insights to CSR practitioners and researchers, especially in the banking sector. We provide empirical evidence on the importance of CSR and its positive impact on bank performance in Egypt as one of the emerging markets.

Case Study: Decolonising the Curriculum – An Exemplification

Coventry University has made a strategic commitment to address the dimension of ‘race’ in its learning and teaching. Central to this is the establishment of a cross-institution curriculum change initiative called ‘Curriculum 2025’. The case study shared here details how we are approaching this task and some early reflections. Two things are explained: first, the provision of resources for staff who want to learn more about possible actions to take; second, our approach to working alongside course teams on new materials, often designed as reusable learning objects. An example of such a learning object is discussed which uses Wikipedia to enable students from diverse backgrounds to examine critically academic texts, books and other resources to understand how their learning may be skewed in favour of Western-originated thought and to identify alternative perspectives. The student activity also provides a co-creation opportunity, in that students are discovering the curriculum for themselves.

CONFLICT OF STRATEGIES – BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND SUPPORT STRATEGIES OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Over the past twenty five years, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been experiencing, with more or less oscillations, low and stagnant economic growth. Planning and economic policy documents shaped the vision of rapid transition and successful economic growth, which was supposed to enable the sustainability of the economic system and its elements. The strategic commitment to integrate into the European Union system has not changed. It was confirmed by signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement in 2008. International financial institutions have even provided financial support to the economic programs in BiH and its entities to an extent greater than their capacity to use, but below the economic needs of the country as a whole. In these circumstances, the issue of a possible conflict between the economic development goals of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the objectives of financial support provided by the international community has been raised. Circumstances such as a long period of time, modest economic performance, lost opportunities and dangerous negative trends indicate the need to reconcile the conflicting strategies and interests of two parties - Bosnia and Herzegovina and the international community.

Building on Strategic eLearning Initiatives of Hybrid Graduate Education a Case Study Approach: MHEI-ME Erasmus+ Project

Online courses are gaining popularity because they provide extensive and varied course material, information, knowledge, and skills, whilst also creating an effective educational online community. This research adopts a case study approach to focus on the teaching method and the manner in which a strategic commitment to eLearning provides scope for the development and implementation of top quality educational online fully accredited programs. Entrepreneurship focuses on developing businesses that add value and create wealth and prosperity in our societies. Therefore, entrepreneurship is a key area of learning for graduate students seeking to set up and operate their own SME organizations. It can serve as a benchmark for the teaching of other graduate subjects that require a sound correlation for the correlation of concepts and theories to the challenging complexities of the real world. The program was developed on the basis of the implementation of a state-of-the-art eLearning platform that allowed for a combination of varied self-learning and collaborative learning elements and activities within a single platform. This enabled students to access the online content material efficiently and effectively. It allows for the development of a program based on the flipped classroom teaching methodology. The underlying concept of the flipped classroom methodology is that effective eLearning should comprise both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. This combination of self-learning and collaborative learning calls for careful planning by the tutor to ensure that the learning objectives are clearly defined for each activity and that the relevant deliverables are monitored. The content material for each subject course module was designed, developed, produced, and presented by the different project partners in a holistic manner structured to motivate participants to learn. The results of our analysis have shown that students were able to learn, discuss their projects, and cooperate during an online course in an effective and participant-focused manner with their tutors. The feedback given highlights the importance of ongoing communications between students and the tutors who often need to act as mentors to retain student engagement.

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE DEEP-WATER FLUID SAMPLING WHILE DRILLING

The objective of this paper is to provide a context for strategic use of fluid sampling while drilling (FSWD) in the deep-water environment. Our work is based on data collected from Gulf of Mexico wells over the last 7 years and we incorporate both operator and service company experience. In this paper we review the current FSWD technology and the quality of the fluid samples. We provide practical guidelines for executing the FSWD operation and review types of wells where FSWD has been most effective. We also discuss the role FSWD plays in the business of efficient well construction (drilling, evaluating, and completing). Strategic use of FSWD can provide time savings and operational risk mitigation. FSWD has proven to provide high quality data and fluid samples, however, an awareness of the differences between conventional fluid sampling (wireline) and sampling while-drilling is important for maximizing benefits. Additionally, long term strategic commitment to FSWD is likely to provide the largest benefits to operators. FSWD has been around for about 10 years, but how, and where, to apply the technology has not been clear to many operators. The broader industry can benefit by learning from experiences accumulated through consistent and extensive FSWD use in deep-water wells showing how the technology has progressed, and how it is used to achieve business benefits.

Marketing Investments and Corporate Social Responsibility

Although the short-term effects of marketing efforts that promote immediate consumer responses have been extensively investigated, the long-term impacts of marketing activities have received little attention. Marketing effects can be carried over time as consumers experience an emotional attachment to products and build trust and affection. In addition, a firm’s advertising spending not only improves customer awareness of the firm’s products and services but also serves to promote other company information, such as the firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR), a long-term strategic commitment to improving the welfare of customers and society. This paper focuses on the long-term effects of marketing investments by examining the relation between advertising expenditures and a firm’s commitment to CSR, finding that firms with a higher advertising expenditure are more likely to have a higher CSR performance. The findings of this study demonstrate that marketing investments are related to a firm’s long-term sustainable activities. Additionally, the finding may indicate that a firm’s CSR initiatives are influenced by the extent to which the firm commits to advertising that promotes customer awareness of the firm’s products and services.