Varieties of Capitalism and the Learning Firm: Contemporary Developments in EU and German Company Law - A Comment on the Strine-Bainbridge Debate About Shared Values of Corporate Management and Labor

Research in corporate governance and in labour law has been characterized by a disjuncture in the way that scholars in each field are addressing organizational questions related to the business enterprise. While labour has eventually begun to shift perspectives from aspirations to direct employee involvement in firm management, as has been the case in Germany, to a combination of \u27exit\u27 and \u27voice\u27 strategies involving pension fund management and securities litigation, it remains to be seen whether this new stream will unfold as a viable challenge to an otherwise exclusionary shareholder value paradigm. At the same time, recent suggestions made by Delaware Chancery Court Vice Chancellor Strine, to dare think about potentially shared commitments between management and labor - and UCLA\u27s Stephen Bainbridge\u27s response - underline the viability - and, the contestedness - of attempts at moving the corporate governance debate beyond the confines of corporate law proper. While such a wider view had already famously been encouraged by Dean Clarke in his 1986 treatise on Corporate Law (p. 32), mainstream corporate law does not seem to have endorsed this perspective. This paper takes the questionable divide between management and labor within the framework of a limiting corporate governance concept as starting point to explore the institutional dynamics of the corporation, hereby building on the theory of the innovative enterprise, as developed by management theorists Mary O\u27Sullivan and William Lazonick. Largely due to the sustained distance between corporate and labour law scholars, neither group has effectively addressed their common blind spot: a better understanding of the business enterprise itself. In midst of an unceasing flow of affirmations of the finance paradigm of the corporation on the one hand and \u27voice\u27 strategies by labour on the other, it seems to fall to management theorists to draw lessons from the continuing co-existence of different forms of market organization, in which companies appear to thrive. Exploring the conundrum of \u27risky\u27 business decisions within the firm, management theorists have been arguing for the need to adopt a more sophisticated organizational perspective on companies operating on locally, regionally and transnationally shaped, often highly volatile market segments. Research by comparative political economists has revealed a high degree of connectivity between corporate governance and economic performance without, however, arriving at such favourable results only for shareholder value regimes. Such findings support the view that corporate governance regimes are embedded in differently shaped regulatory frameworks, characterized by distinct institutions, both formal and informal, and enforcement processes. As a result of these findings, arguments to disassociate issues of corporate governance from those of the firm\u27s (social) responsibility [CSR] have been losing ground. Instead, CSR can be taken to be an essential part of understanding a particular business enterprise. It is the merging of a comparative political economy perspective on the corporation with one on the organizational features, structures and processes of the corporation, which can help us better understand the distribution of power and knowledge within the \u27learning firm\u27

The Generation R Study: design and cohort update 2010

The Generation R Study is a population-based prospective cohort study from fetal life until young adulthood. The study is designed to identify early environmental and genetic causes of normal and abnormal growth, development and health during fetal life, childhood and adulthood. The study focuses on four primary areas of research: (1) growth and physical development; (2) behavioural and cognitive development; (3) diseases in childhood; and (4) health and healthcare for pregnant women and children. In total, 9,778 mothers with a delivery date from April 2002 until January 2006 were enrolled in the study. General follow-up rates until the age of 4 years exceed 75%. Data collection in mothers, fathers and preschool children included questionnaires, detailed physical and ultrasound examinations, behavioural observations, and biological samples. A genome wide association screen is available in the participating children. Regular detailed hands on assessment are performed from the age of 5 years onwards. Eventually, results forthcoming from the Generation R Study have to contribute to the development of strategies for optimizing health and healthcare for pregnant women and children

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection