The Importance of Being in Control of Business: Work Satisfaction of Employers, Own-account Workers and Employees

__Abstract__ Self-employed workers can be own-account workers who control their own work or employers who not only are their own boss but also direct others (their employees). We expect both types of self-employed, i.e., own-account workers and employers, to enjoy more independence in determining their work content (type of work) and more flexibility in shaping their work context (e.g., working conditions) compared to paid employees and hence to be more satisfied with their work. Furthermore, we suspect that employers (who can delegate work to their employees and can help them to develop and grow) enjoy even higher levels of work satisfaction compared to both own-account workers (who are their own boss but do not give direction to others) and (non-supervisory) paid employees (who have to obey orders from others within organizational hierarchies). While prior studies typically broadly compare the work satisfaction of self-employed and paid employees, we distinguish employers from own-account workers within the group of self-employed using data from the ECHP for 14 European countries. Our findings indeed show that employers are significantly more satisfied with their work than both own-account workers and paid employees. Additionally, while employers as well as own-account workers enjoy greater procedural utility than (non-supervisory) paid employees stemming from the content and the context of their work, there also seems to be an additional work satisfaction premium for employers

Complete genome sequence of phocine distemper virus isolated from a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) during the 1988 North Sea epidemic

Phocine distemper virus (PDV) was identified as the cause of a large morbillivirus outbreak among harbor seals in the North Sea in 1988. PDV is a member of the family Paramyxoviridae, genus Morbillivirus. Until now, no full-genome sequence of PDV has been available

Entrepreneurial engagement levels in the European Union

A multinomial logit model and survey data from the 25 EU member states and the US are used to establish the effect of demographic and other variables on various entrepreneurial engagement levels. These engagement levels range from 'never thought about starting a business' to 'thinking about it', 'taking steps for starting up', 'having a young business', 'having an older business' and 'no longer being an entrepreneur'. Data of the 2004 Entrepreneurship Flash Eurobarometer survey containing over 13,500 observations is used. Other than demographic variables such as gender, age, education level and whether parents are self-employed, the set of explanatory variables used includes country specific effects, measures of risk tolerance, internal and external locus of control and four perceptions of 'obstacles'.

Menorah Review (No. 28, Spring, 1993)

Counterpart Communities -- Peace and Existenz -- The Meaning is in the Meeting -- Judenthum As the Quintessential Other -- Focusing -- Book Briefing

Entrepreneurship in the old en new Europe

Developing a dynamic SME sector is essential for countries transforming their centrally planned economy into a market oriented one. New firm formation is the major driver of this transition. Obviously, entrepreneurial energy is a necessary condition for new firm formation. This paper uses 2004 survey data from the 25 EU member states and the US to explain country differences in entrepreneurial energy. This energy is captured as latent and actual entrepreneurship.

The Stature of the Self-employed and its Premium

__Abstract__ Taller individuals typically have occupations with higher social status and higher earning

Interpreting the Development and Growth of Convict Criminology in South America

The Convict Criminology (CC) network has expanded beyond its American and Canadian roots to the United Kingdom and Europe. Although increasing documentation of CC’s activities and scholarship built upon CC has been produced in these countries and region, less well known are efforts beyond these locations. This article reviews attempts to build a network of scholars who are interested in the growth of Convict Criminology in South America. It may also serve as a discussion paper for a possible conference to be held in São Paulo, Brazil, Santiago de Chile, or Quito, Ecuador in the near future. The balance of the article reviews some of the dynamics for the conference

The Use of the Guttman Scale in Development of a Family Business Index

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new approach for operationalising family-business variables. It is consistent with multidimensional definitions of family business such as the F-PEC scale. This paper demonstrates the use of the Guttman-scaling procedure, on a random sample of 885 Dutch SMEs. More specifically, the research question is as follows: Can various indicators of family business be validly combined using a Guttman scale? After reviewing the different definitions dealt with in the family business research literature, the paper presents the results of an analysis of various items available for this particular dataset. In particular, the index assigns a value of family-relatedness to a company depending upon the criteria that it meets. The study uses a series of statistical procedures, including factor analysis and cross-tabulations, to identify a potential ordering of criteria varying in difficulty. The least difficult criterion, that one or more of the management team is drawn from the family that owns the business, is met by 77.6% of the responding firms. The most difficult of the criteria, met by only 26% of the firms, is that current management plans to transfer the enterprise to the next generation. 85% of the sample can be classified properly according to this Guttman scale: If a company meets one of the more difficult criteria, it also meets all the easier criteria. In the second part of the paper, the proposed Guttman Scale is compared with the individual criteria making up the scale as well as other family business variables to predict self-perceptions of family business. In particular, the scale is positively correlated with the outcome of the question, 'Would you consider your firm a family business?' In addition, a multiple regression of the individual criteria on the dependent variable is compared with the use of the index. The paper sums up with further discussion of the possible advantages and disadvantages of the Guttman scale technique, both for theoretical and empirical development in family business research.

IO table containing industries and size-classes; functional design document

One of the data-inputs for simulations of EIM's PRISMA-model is the input output (IO) table for the base-year of the simulation. PRISMA is an economic macro-sector model designed to produce results on SMEs in the Netherlands consistent with those produced by the current macro-sector model of CPB, Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. PRISMA is used for forecasting, scenario building and what-if analyses with respect to government policies and exogenous shocks. Its time horizon is 3-25 years. At present, the Dutch statistical institute does not publish an IO-table that simultaneously distinguishes firms by sector and firm size. As such a distinction is required for PRISMA it should be constructed separately. This paper presents the design of the table.

Disintegration and Trade

The gravity model of trade is utilized to assess the impact of disintegration on trade. The analysis is based on three recent disintegration episodes involving the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The results point to a very strong home bias around the time of disintegration, with intra-union trade exceeding normal trade approximately 43 times in the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, and 24 times in the former Yugoslavia. Disintegration was followed by a sharp fall in trade intensity. Nevertheless, there is a considerable hysteresis in economic relations, with trade flows among the former constituent Republics still between two and 30 times greater than normal trade in 1998.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39737/3/wp353.pd