Meeting Radical Change and Regional Transition: Regional Closedowns and the Role of Entrepreneurship
Yvonne von Friedrichs and Hakan Boter
The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the effects of radical
changes within regions by providing an empirical base from 12 Swedish
municipalities from different regions. The specific focus of the paper
is the role of entrepreneurship, both as an opportunity-seeking activity
in order to find and develop new business undertakings, as well as
entrepreneurship as a perspective for supporting activities in the public
or private spheres. The results are based on interviews and surveys, secondary
data, information from regional governments, municipal websites
and also from other public information channels. Two questions
were raised in analysing the case: (1) What types of contextual factors
are of strategic importance when regions are challenged by radical
change, and what role do these factors have in a regional restructuring
and development process? (2) What types of policy and support
measures are productive for entrepreneurial activities in regions when
adaptation to radical change is required? The results presented by the
study provide insight into how the development of local economies is
affected when conditions change in a region due to the closure of a
major public workplace. The paper also tries to present opportunities
through which municipalities are able to prepare for and take action
to help entrepreneurial activity face ongoing structural change and a
globalized local economy.
Key Words: radical change, regional transition, entrepreneurship,
restructure, strategies, closedowns JEL Classification: L26, R11
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Duration of Regional Unemployment Spells in Slovenia
Darja Boršič and Alenka Kavkler
The paper begins with an overview of the unemployment rate in Slovenia
and focuses on duration of unemployment and regional characteristics
of the unemployment rates. It is shown that the dispersion of
regional unemployment rate is gradually decreasing and is also slightly
below European average on NUTS 3 level. The analysis of the duration
of regional unemployment spells is based on the data obtained from the
Employment Office of the Republic of Slovenia, which consists of the
unemployment spells between January 1st, 2002 and November 18th,
2005 with more than 450,000 entries. The Kaplan-Meier estimates of
the survival function are presented and the effects of region on the duration
of unemployment spells are discussed.
Key Words: unemployment, regions, survival analysis, Kaplan-Meier
estimator, Slovenia JEL Classification: P33, P34
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Public and Financial Institutions in Transition Economies:
An Overview and Recent Evidences from Central and Eastern Europe
Cristian Dragos, Daniela Beju, and Simona Dragos
This article is a survey of economic literature about the public and
financial institutions in countries with transition economies. It also
presents some particularities within the countries from Central and
Eastern Europe. We investigate the factors that influence a certain institutional
architecture and the impact of those institutions on several
economic aspects such as growth, trade, corruption, stock markets,
inflation, unemployment, etc. For the financial sector we investigate
some specific problems: stock markets, deposit insurance, central
bank and credit market, consolidation, globalization and international
investment in financial services.
Key Words: institutions, transition, economic reform,
Central and Eastern Europe JEL Classification: P33, P34
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The Personal Network of the Owner-Manager of a Small Family Firm:
The Crucial Role of the Spouse
Tina Bratkovič, Boštjan Antončič, and Mitja Ruzzier
The paper investigates the personal network of an entrepreneur that
owns a small family venture. The aim of the present paper is to examine
the role of the spouse in the family firm’s networking. The research
results show that the entrepreneur’s wife has a significant influence on
the family firm’s network performing. She is present in all cliques that
are formed in the entrepreneur’s network, which allows her to obtain
information from different sources, and to influence the decision making
process in the network. She is also well connected with other network
members, and is crucial in the resource-information acquisition
process for the entrepreneur’s firm. Furthermore, her central position
in the network’s structure gives her the power to reach other network
members more quickly. She can reach other persons at shorter path
distances than the entrepreneur or other members, and is therefore an
important information provider for the entrepreneur’s network. The
key contribution of this paper is the finding that the spouse can be as
important as or even more important than the entrepreneur in the resource
and information provision for the firm.
Key Words:entrepreneur, personal network, family firm,
resource acquisition, information acquisition JEL Classification: L26
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HRM Practices in Insurance Companies: A Study of Indian
and Multinational Companies
Subhash C. Kundu and Divya Malhan
Competitive advantage of a company can be generated from human
resources (HR) and company performance is influenced by a set of effective
HRM practices. In this study, we intended to assess the HR practices
in insurance companies. Primary data based on 218 respondents
from four insurance companies (two multinational-7 branches and two
Indian-7 branches) were analyzed to assess HR practices being practiced
by insurance companies in India. Six factors from factor analysis
were further analyzed. ‘Training and benefits’ was found highly in practice
in the insurance companies. Further, ‘performance appraisal,’ ‘selection
and socialization of employees,’ and ‘HR planning and recruitment’
were moderately practised in insurance companies. ‘Workforce
diversity and contemporary HR practices’ and ‘competitive compensation’
were also practised to some extent. ANOVA results showed that
Indian companies did not practise workforce diversity. Compensation
practices were found more competitive or performance based in Multinational
insurance companies than in Indian ones. The gender effect
showed that only competitive compensation was perceived significantly
differently by male and female employees/executives. Interactive effects
were significant on workforce diversity and contemporary issues, training
and benefits, and selection and socialization of employees.
Key Words: competitive compensation, multinational companies,
performance appraisal, selection and socialization, training
and benefits, workforce diversity JEL Classification: M12, M54, O15
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