Phases of Cost Cutting: Downsizing is Dead; Long Live the Downsizing Phenomenon

This downsizing research article presents a phase typology of job cutting which includes three distinct phases and three levels of argument. Conceptually, the paper draws heavily upon the seminal work of Littler and Gandolfi (2008) seeking to expand and update their 2008 Academy of Management (AOM) Conference paper. The paper culminates with a contemporary discussion of current downsizing practices showcasing that the strategy of downsizing has remained a popular restructuring method on a global scale.downsizing; cost cutting; phase; strategy.

Organic Fruit Production in Europe

PART I: SHORT HISTORY OF ORGANIC FARMING The organic fruit production in Europe is not only a matter of statistics, regulations and tables but also has a meaningful historical background. So as an introduction, we can take a brief excursion back to the roots and the evolution of organic farming. (The following text is closely—but not entirely—based on an overview article of Gunter Vogt, 2000a). Organic farming’s origins in the first decades of the 20th century need to be understood in the context of five main aspects

Explicit Decomposition Theorem for special Schubert varieties

We give a short and self-contained proof of the Decomposition Theorem for the non-small resolution of a Special Schubert variety. We also provide an explicit description of the perverse cohomology sheaves. As a by-product of our approach, we obtain a simple proof of the Relative Hard Lefschetz Theorem.Comment: This is an extensively revised version of my previous paper, taking care of the referee's comment

Recursion Operators and Frobenius Manifolds

In this note I exhibit a "discrete homotopy" which joins the category of F-manifolds to the category of Poisson-Nijenhuis manifolds, passing through the category of Frobenius manifolds

Nonsingular Promises from Born-Infeld Gravity

Born-Infeld determinantal gravity formulated in Weitzenbock spacetime is discussed in the context of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmologies. It is shown how the standard model big bang singularity is absent in certain spatially flat FRW spacetimes, where the high energy regime is characterized by a de Sitter inflationary stage of geometrical character, i.e., without the presence of the inflaton field. This taming of the initial singularity is also achieved for some spatially curved FRW manifolds where the singularity is replaced by a de Sitter stage or a big bounce of the scale factor depending on certain combinations of free parameters appearing in the action. Unlike other Born-Infeld-like theories in vogue, the one here presented is also capable of deforming vacuum general relativistic solutions.Comment: 5 pages, no figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter