No description available.

The purpose with this thesis was to examine the most significant factors that affect the number of patents applications submitted on a municipality level in Sweden, with the objective to find the most significant of them. Three factors was chosen and analyzed more closely. The three factors was, investments in R&D made by firms, share of human capital and investments in R&D made by universities. Theses factors was tested against the dependent variable patent applications in three hypothesis and a stepwise regression model was conducted, with the objective to find the most significant variable. The result of the study, shows that not all of the factors had a positive effect on the number of patent applications, further the study indicated that the most significant factor for a municipality in order to have a high number of patent applications, was to have a high share of human capital.

Federal education policy has targeted children who are disadvantaged in order to improve their academic performance. The most recent federal education policy is the No Child Left Behind law signed by President Bush in 2001. Indicators often used to identify an at-risk youth range from economic, personal, family, and neighborhood characteristics. A probit model is used in this study to estimate the probability that a student graduates from high school as a function of 8th grade variables. Students are classified as at-risk of dropping out of high school or non at-risk based on having one or more risk factor. The main measures of academic outcomes are high school completion and post-secondary academic achievements. The main measures of labor market outcomes are short-term and long-term earnings. The results show that a student who comes from a low income family, has a sibling who dropped out, has parents with low education, is home alone after school for three hours or more, or comes from a step family in the eighth grade is at-risk of dropping out of high school. At-risk students are less likely than non at-risk students to graduate from high school. They appear to be more sensitive to existing conditions that may impair/assist their academic progress while they are in high school. At-risk students are also less likely to select a bachelor’s degree. When they are compared to comparable non at-risk students, a greater percentage of at-risk students select a bachelor’s degree or post-graduate degrees than non at-risk students. At-risk individuals face long-term disadvantage in the labor market, receiving lower wage offers than the non at-risk group. Comparing only those without post secondary education shows that the average earnings offered to at-risk individuals were lower than those offered to non at-risk individuals. At-risk college graduates also receive lower earnings than non at-risk college graduates. The wage differential is largely due to the disadvantage at-risk individuals face in the labor market.

La actual crisis económica ha reabierto el debate sobre la importancia de la productividad empresarial en el crecimiento económico de una región. Es en este contexto que el análisis de los factores que contribuyen en la mejora de la productividad empresarial se ha convertido en un elemento esencial, especialmente en las regiones con bajos niveles de productividad, como por ejemple Cataluña. El objetivo de esta tesis es analizar los efectos del capital humano en la productividad empresarial en el contexto de las pequeñas y medianas empresas Catalanas, considerando la posible existencia de sinergias entre el capital humano y otros factores productivos como pueden ser el capital tecnológico o las nuevas prácticas organizativas del trabajo. Adicionalmente, esta tesis también incluye un análisis sobre como las pequeñas y medianas empresas ajustan sus niveles de capital human con la finalidad de dar una mejor respuesta al nuevo contexto competitivo con el que se enfrentan. / The debate over the relevance of firm productivity to economic growth has been reviewed as a consequence of the current economic crisis. In this context, the analysis of elements that contribute to improve firm productivity becomes more important, especially in regions with low productivity levels, such as Catalonia. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the effects of human capital on firm productivity in the context of Catalan SMEs, taking into account the existent synergies between human capital and other production factors such as, technological capital or the new work organisational practices. Additionally, this thesis also includes an analysis of how SMEs adjust their human capital levels in order to give a better answer to the new competitive context.

No description available.

<p>I study the effect of human capital on firms' leverage decisions in a structural dynamic model. Firms produce using physical capital and labor. They pay a cost per employee they hire, thus investing in human capital. In default a portion of this human capital investment is lost. The loss of human capital constitutes a significant cost of financial distress. Labor intensive firms are more heavily exposed to this cost and respond by using less leverage. Thus the model predicts a decreasing relationship between leverage and labor intensity. Consistent with this prediction, I show in the data that high labor intensity leads to significantly less use of debt. In the model a move from the lowest to the highest decile of labor intensity is accompanied by a drop in leverage of 21 percentage points, very close to the 27 percentage point drop in the data. Overall, I argue that human capital has an important effect on firm leverage and should receive more attention from capital structure researchers.</p><p>Furthermore, I study a two-period contracting problem in which entrepreneurs need financing but have limited commitment. If an entrepreneur chooses to default, he can divert a proportion of the project's output. Entrepreneurs are heterogeneous with respect to their ability to divert output. In particular, I focus on the special case with only two types of entrepreneurs. "Opportunistic'' entrepreneurs can divert output, but "dependable'' entrepreneurs cannot. I find that, if the proportion of dependable entrepreneurs is sufficiently high, it is optimal to write contracts that induce second period default by the opportunistic entrepreneurs. This critical proportion generally decreases with the severity of the agency problem. The model delivers both cross-sectional and time-series predictions about default, investment, and output.</p> / Dissertation

ABSTRACT As enterprises have increased the demand for logistics services, the role of logistics service providers (LSPs) as home bases for merchandise transportation and distribution has consequently become increasingly important. Therefore, how to strengthen the logistics capability and promote the logistics performance has become an important topic. In addition, traditionally the perspective of treating tangible assets as the location of firm¡¦s value has been gradually diminished. The intangible intellectual capital is increasingly playing a pivotal position for the firm¡¦s performance. Researchers studied the field of intellectual capital argued that intellectual capital was the main source of organizational competitive advantages. Besides, they thought that the better the intellectual capital a company has, the better the business can have the ability to generate performance. However, researchers seldom distinguished static intellectual capital from dynamic capability for utilizing intellectual capital. Whereas, this study proposed that these two constructs were different concepts, and would like to explore the impact of utilizing intellectual capital on logistics performance. Consequently, this study integrated the concept of RBT and dynamic capability to offer a conceptual model, a survey of LSPs was undertaken in order to examine the relationships among intellectual capital, logistics capabilities and firm performance, using the structural equation modeling technique (SEM) analysis method. Previous researches had concerned the tangible resources, capabilities and firm performance, however, less from the perspective of intangible resources to study this subject. Hence, after reviewing the relevant literature, we conclude human capital, structural capital, and relational capital as dimensions of intellectual capital. Furthermore, from the empirical results of related scholars¡¦ researches, this study argues that it has a directly significant effect of logistics capabilities on logistics performance, and logistics capabilities are the critical factors for utilizing intellectual capital. Moreover, this research proposes that logistics capabilities are complex constructs. Therefore, we should clarify these constructs and provide an appropriate measurement tool with reliability and validity if we would like to measure them. Consequently, logistics capabilities were identified: service capability, innovation capability, and flexibility capability. Finally, after clarifying the definition and extracting the components of each variable from the literature review, this research deduced several hypotheses and formed the research framework. In this study, we take logistics service providers in Taiwan as the study sample. A total of 1,033 questionnaires were hand delivered and the remaining 109, valid and complete, were used for quantitative analysis. The useable response rate was 10.6%. A structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was employed to test the research hypotheses. Results indicated that structural capital, relational capital, and logistics capabilities had a significant positive effect on logistics performance. Results also indicated that human capital, structural capital, and relational capital had a positive effect on LSPs¡¦ logistics capabilities. While human capital was not found to have a direct positive effect on LSPs¡¦ logistics performance, it was found to have an indirect effect on logistics performance mediated by logistics capability. According to the results, LSPs should enhance the intangible resource - intellectual capital, further heighten their understanding of logistics capabilities and identify how such capabilities may affect logistics performance, therefore develop effective logistics strategies.

From the Mexican gulf oil spill of British Petroleum to Fukushima nuclear crisis of Japan. The awareness of impact on climate change, environmental pollution and natural resource depletion has led a wide range of stakeholders such as government, consumer and non-profit organization to put pressure on the companies to act in a more environmentally and socially responsible way. This study adopts both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Five Taiwanese green enterprises were interviewed along with thirty three questionnaires which were collected from other green enterprises for further analysis. This study attempts to explore how green entrepreneurial leader brings sustainable competitive advantage through building green human capital for the firm in the growing pressure of industrial environmental protection. The findings indicate that green entrepreneurial leaders articulate green vision, act as ethical role model, and identify environment related opportunity for exploitation. This leadership style influences the management practices on green human capital selection, development, and leverage which then lead to innovation, cost saving, and profitability.

Environmental degradation has become a major concern for all humankind. The environmental problems are no longer confined to one enterprise. The need for ¡§Greening¡¨ is urgent for enterprises because they have to gain competitive advantage.¡@ Moreover, green human capital is considered most important element of competitive advantage in most enterprises. All of the competencies of the green human capital within an enterprise is intangible assets. It is believed that if an enterprise knows that green entrepreneurial leadership contributes green human capital and competitive advantage, it can be managed effectively. This study extended previous research by attending to the boundaries of the relationship between green human capital and competitive advantage. Furthermore, we would like to examine the impact of green entrepreneurial leadership on green human capital and competitive advantage. These hypotheses were supported in examination of 108 enterprises which attained the Annual Enterprises Environmental Protection Award via Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan, and the enterprises which is registered in the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taiwan. The 231 objects are environmentalists, director of human resources department, and director of marketing department. We used confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis to testify our hypotheses. The study findings indicated: 1. Charismatic leadership increased positive relationship between development of green human capital and competitive advantage. 2. Ethical leadership increased positive relationship between development of green human capital and competitive advantage. 3. Proactive personality increased positive relationship between development of green human capital and competitive advantage. Practical implications were illustrated as following: 1. Enterprises should attach importance to selection of green human capital. 2. Enterprises should attach importance to development and leverage of green human capital. Finally, suggestions for future research and the limitation of this study also discussed.

This research addresses the question of what explains municipal performance in terms of delivering social services and fiscal performance. While the existing literature explains governmental performance with political, institutional and socio-demographic factors, I suggest that the greatest influence on municipal performance comes from having qualified managers. Specifically, I argue that that mayoral qualifications influence municipal performance. By qualifications I mean mayors’ human capital, that is, their educational and job-related experience. The rationale for my proposition rests on the fact that in developing municipalities the mayor is not just the elected leader but also the public manager, as s/he performs not just political but also administrative functions. Under certain circumstances, however, mayoral qualifications may not have the same influential power on municipal performance. Therefore, I also argue that in unfavorable municipal contexts, the potential influence of mayoral qualifications on performance decreases. I use both statistical and survey-experimental methodologies to test the hypotheses derived from the proposed “mayoral quality theory.” I collected six years of data for the statistical analyses by doing field research across the 40 municipalities that comprise the Colombian Department of Norte of Santander. For the surveyexperimental analysis, I gathered data from interviews and surveys with 120 mayors from 12 Latin American countries, who participated in the II Latin American Congress of Cities and Local Governments held in Cali, Colombia, on July 26-29, 2006. The statistical findings reveal that mayoral qualifications—education and jobrelated experience—positively influence municipal performance with respect to education enrollment, tax property collection, and social program investment. However, the positive impact that mayoral qualifications have on such performance indicators decreases under external constraints, such as the presence of illegal armed groups. From the survey-experimental study, findings show that issue salience (or nature of municipal need) moderates the impact that mayoral qualifications have on mayors’ decision-making. In education issues, for example, qualified mayors are more likely to perform better, while in infrastructure issues they are less likely to do so.