1,720,977 research outputs found
Ownership structure and development of Polish life insurance companies - evidence from 1991 to 2004
No full textThe main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between changes in the ownership structure and the development of life insurance companies in Poland. The simple regression model is used to reveal the relation. The findings of this study, that the solvency ratio, overall indebtedness ratio, premiums retention ratio and profitability ratio on technical activity and sales are positively related with the changes in the share of foreign capital and especially that the claims ratio is negatively related, suggest that foreign investments have greatly influenced the development of the life insurance industry in Poland during the transition period
Between vision and reality: promoting innovation through technoparks in Kazakhstan
No full textA common motivation for the technopark movement is the belief that technoparks promote innovation and economic growth at regional and/or national levels. The paper analyses the role of technoparks as instruments of innovation promotion in Kazakhstan using data from a firm survey and interviews. Our results suggest that, unlike what is assumed in the innovation policy literature, technoparks do not house firms dealing with the commercialisation of innovations that are ready for introduction to the market. Technopark firms are no more innovative than other firms. They are oriented largely towards the local market, and operate in traditional sectors; the frequency and intensity of their external links are more developed than are their internal links. The key motivations for relocating to a technopark seem to be lower rents and the possibility of accessing finance. Overall, Kazakh technoparks seem to be successful in terms of facilitating business incubation, but much les so in terms of innovation promotion and diversification of the economy. Currently, Kazakh industry does not make any demands for local R&D, and its sources of competitiveness lie in non-R&D activities. This suggests that innovation policy should focus on assisting companies to upgrade their technological capabilities to the level that they can articulate their R&D demands. Focusing on technoparks as the main mechanism to improve competitiveness and diversify the economy is an ineffective and uncertain a policy option at this stage of the country's economic development. However, there seems to be significant scope for supporting business incubation. These conclusions are of relevance to other emerging economies
Corporate governance and control in Russian banks
Get PDFThe Working Paper employs the paradigm of new institutional economics to examine peculiarities of the Russian model of corporate governance and control in the banking sector. The study relies upon theoretical as well as applied research of corporate governance in Russian commercial banks featuring different forms of ownership. We focus on real interests of all stakeholders, namely bank and stock market regulators, bank owners, investors, top managers and other insiders. The Anglo-American concept of corporate governance, based on agency theory and implying outside investors' control over banks through stock market, is found to bear limited relevance. We suggest some ways of overcoming the gap between formal institutions of governance and the real life
Construction of home by Polish and Lithuanian migrants in the UK
No full textResearchers across the social sciences and humanities have sought to understand the nature of people's affiliation with a particular place, to understand the emotional and symbolic ties that bind people to a place and make them feel at home. The concept of home becomes especially complex when analysed in the light of migration. In this context Gilles Deleuza and Felix Guattari (1987) invent a pair of concepts: 'homing of diaspora' and 'diasporising of home'. These two phrases express the essence of diasporic existence: on one hand, 'home' and especially nostalgia for home left behind is infused into the very notion of diaspora; on the other hand, diasporas take their 'home' with them when they travel and reconstruct 'home' in the new environment. This article analyses how these processes of home creation take place among the new Polish and Lithuanian migrants in the UK, based on interviews conducted with migrant workers for the research project 'Changing Status, Changing Lives?' carried out by the University of Oxford
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Knowledge based entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic and Hungary: results from 4 case studies
No full textThis paper describes knowledge based entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic and Hungary, in particular the growth and development process of 4 firms are studied: Dekonta, an environmental services firm, Et netera, an IT services firm, both operating in Czech Republic, along with a data recovery firm, Kurt, and a biopharmaceutical firm, Solvo, both operating in Hungary. The objectives of the case studies are to illustrate experiences of knowledge based entrepreneurship within a transition environment in terms of their different growth and development paths.
By carrying out in depth case studies using semi structured interviews with the founders, top management teams, core employees and key stakeholders in industrial associations I am able to explain the growth process of entrepreneurial knowledge based ventures. I assume an ecological view of the firm and examine the role of internal, strategic, network and external factors in this development process. I propose that the relative importance of these factors evolve over time from start up to maturity. Moreover, I anticipate that there will be complementarities between these factors in the spirit of Milgrom and Roberts (1995) and Von Tunzelmann (2003). This approach should help us better understand the complex nature of entrepreneurship.
The key contributions of these case studies are the application of an ecological conceptual framework to the development of knowledge based firms in Central and Eastern Europe, and so the viability of this model is tested within the transition environment. I follow the recommendations by Ireland et al. (2005) and introduce a temporal element in order to analyse the shift in importance of the factors impacting on firm development and growth, thus hoping to deal with some of the criticisms on existing entrepreneurial research
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
An evaluation of government- sponsored vocational training programmes for the unemployed in urban Russia
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