170 research outputs found
Pragmatic engagement in a low trust supply chain: Beef farmersâ perceptions of power, trust and agency
The academic discussion of power in supply chains has changed from a discussion of the use of coercive power to one which emphasizes the role of trust in embedding co-operation and disincentivizing opportunism. Whilst a number of empirical studies have suggested the former is alive and well, this paper argues that power relations may also be constituted by the self-perceptions of weaker actors as much as by the explicit actions of more powerful ones. This study explores the role of power through the perceptions of subjugated actors, which set the ârules of the gameâ. Our case centres on perceptions of Northern Irish beef farmers and their reflections on their âpowerlessnessâ in relation to the larger, more consolidated processors that they sell to. We find that the way farmers make sense of the power relations they encounter is influenced by the individuating character of the power relations exercised by the processors, which debilitates their ability to collaborate and resist collectively. What emerges is a story about the process of accommodation whereby farmers pragmatically resign themselves to play by âthe rules of the gameâ to remain âpart of the gameâ
Pay and the Pandemic:The decoupling of Dutch boardroom pay from performance during the Covid-19 outbreak
The shareholder value revolution has coincided with rapid increases in Dutch top managersâ pay. Theoretically, rising executive bonuses should reflect improved corporate performance, as measured by a series of operational and shareholder value indicators. However, critics argue that in practice the relationship between pay and performance is weak. Given its negative impact
on the finances of most firms, the Covid-19 pandemic provides an insightful test case. What happened to Dutch executivesâ pay during the pandemic? Our detailed analysis of the remuneration
packages paid out to Dutch top managers before and during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic shows that whilst executive pay rose quickly when economic conditions werefavourable, it continued to rise at the aggregate level even when the crisis hit. Despite sharp falls in profitability and the receipt of unprecedented
levels of government support in 2020, average levels of remuneration of Dutch top managers increased by 15 per cent in the same year. Pay for performance practices have thus fostered a system that leads to large increases in pay for small improvements, while substantial decreases in pay are rare, even under the most dire circumstances. More broadly, our empirical results show how
the growing financialization and shareholder orientation adopted over the past three decades has promoted a gradual hollowing out of many large Dutch companies. The case of executive pay offers a lens through which we can observe some of the implications of these trends
Corporate Governance for Sustainability
The current model of corporate governance needs reform. There is mounting evidence that the practices of shareholder primacy drive company directors and executives to adopt the same short time horizon as financial markets. Pressure to meet the demands of the financial markets drives stock buybacks, excessive dividends and a failure to invest in productive capabilities. The result is a âtragedy of the horizonâ, with corporations and their shareholders failing to consider environmental, social or even their own, long-term, economic sustainability.
With less than a decade left to address the threat of climate change, and with consensus emerging that businesses need to be held accountable for their contribution, it is time to act and reform corporate governance in the EU.
The statement puts forward specific recommendations to clarify the obligations of company boards and directors and make corporate governance practice significantly more sustainable and focused on the long term
Mapping genetic variations to three- dimensional protein structures to enhance variant interpretation: a proposed framework
The translation of personal genomics to precision medicine depends on the accurate interpretation of the multitude of genetic variants observed for each individual. However, even when genetic variants are predicted to modify a protein, their functional implications may be unclear. Many diseases are caused by genetic variants affecting important protein features, such as enzyme active sites or interaction interfaces. The scientific community has catalogued millions of genetic variants in genomic databases and thousands of protein structures in the Protein Data Bank. Mapping mutations onto three-dimensional (3D) structures enables atomic-level analyses of protein positions that may be important for the stability or formation of interactions; these may explain the effect of mutations and in some cases even open a path for targeted drug development. To accelerate progress in the integration of these data types, we held a two-day Gene Variation to 3D (GVto3D) workshop to report on the latest advances and to discuss unmet needs. The overarching goal of the workshop was to address the question: what can be done together as a community to advance the integration of genetic variants and 3D protein structures that could not be done by a single investigator or laboratory? Here we describe the workshop outcomes, review the state of the field, and propose the development of a framework with which to promote progress in this arena. The framework will include a set of standard formats, common ontologies, a common application programming interface to enable interoperation of the resources, and a Tool Registry to make it easy to find and apply the tools to specific analysis problems. Interoperability will enable integration of diverse data sources and tools and collaborative development of variant effect prediction methods
Finance as âbizarre bazaarâ: using documents as a source of ethnographic knowledge
Markets and finance have long attracted ethnographic interest but the nature of their activity
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opaque,
secretive, and increasingly placeless
â
precludes traditional ethnographic fieldwork. In this paper we
propose documents as an
alternative access point to these organisations as an ethnographic object of
enquiry. Documents do not only present a written record, they also enact relationships and encode
tacit understandings. We develop Geertzâs work on the bazaar by taking an indire
ct route to access
the field site
â
Collateral Debt Obligations
â
through documents. In reading these documents, we
assume the position of investors who, in the absence of alternative publicly available information, are
dependent on the documentary accounts
made available to them by the sellers. These media act in
ways that are similar to tourist guidebooks, a comparison we use to reframe the exchange as one that
builds upon sociocultural relations rather than the abstract market relationships described by
m
ainstream economists. We propose that these documents are not merely representational artefacts
of the organisation, but serve to establish and maintain social relationships between buyers and
sellers through the management, standardisation and ritualisati
on of information disclosed to the
investor
Exploring new physics frontiers through numerical relativity
The demand to obtain answers to highly complex problems within strong-field gravity has been met with significant progress in the numerical solution of Einstein's equations - along with some spectacular results - in various setups. We review techniques for solving Einstein's equations in generic spacetimes, focusing on fully nonlinear evolutions but also on how to benchmark those results with perturbative approaches. The results address problems in high-energy physics, holography, mathematical physics, fundamental physics, astrophysics and cosmology
Common, low-frequency, rare, and ultra-rare coding variants contribute to COVID-19 severity
The combined impact of common and rare exonic variants in COVID-19 host genetics is currently insufficiently understood. Here, common and rare variants from whole-exome sequencing data of about 4000 SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals were used to define an interpretable machine-learning model for predicting COVID-19 severity. First, variants were converted into separate sets of Boolean features, depending on the absence or the presence of variants in each gene. An ensemble of LASSO logistic regression models was used to identify the most informative Boolean features with respect to the genetic bases of severity. The Boolean features selected by these logistic models were combined into an Integrated PolyGenic Score that offers a synthetic and interpretable index for describing the contribution of host genetics in COVID-19 severity, as demonstrated through testing in several independent cohorts. Selected features belong to ultra-rare, rare, low-frequency, and common variants, including those in linkage disequilibrium with known GWAS loci. Noteworthily, around one quarter of the selected genes are sex-specific. Pathway analysis of the selected genes associated with COVID-19 severity reflected the multi-organ nature of the disease. The proposed model might provide useful information for developing diagnostics and therapeutics, while also being able to guide bedside disease management. Š 2021, The Author(s)
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