Developing social capital through the SLU leadership development program

This report is one of several reports within the GOLD research project at SNF. The research project aims to identify tools and techniques applied by Norwegian-based multinational companies that seek to develop a competitive advantage based on extensive knowledge sharing across multinational divisions in the company. The project explicitly focuses on how development of social capital enhances knowledge sharing. Four organizations participate in the project: Veidekke, Rieber and Søn, Yara and AFF. This report assesses the effects of Veidekke’s leadership program (SLU) with a particular focus on whether the program has generated social capital and enhanced knowledge sharing in the corporation. Several sources of information have been used including documentation of the SLU program, interviews with the CEO and corporate managers, progress reports and interviews with SLU participants, as well as responses to a survey that was administered to all previous SLU participants. We would like to thank our informants in Veidekke for their time, effort and willingness in providing valuable information

External shocks and enterprises' dynamic capabilities in a time of regional distress

We study if dynamic capabilities alleviate enterprises' revenue losses after an external shock. Contextually, we study Norwegian enterprises before and after the price decline of crude oil in 2014, which strongly affected economic activities across industries in some regions, while others were practically unaffected. Empirically, we combine data of regional oil dependency and enterprise- and person-level data before the decline and enterprise-level revenues before and after the decline. Analyses of 4,060 enterprises in 51 labor market regions show that unrelated education diversity alleviates revenue losses for enterprises in strongly affected regions, while related education diversity has an opposite negative effect. R&D investments and innovation alter revenue growth, but as the effects are consistent across more or less affected regions, the concepts are static enterprise resources and not dynamic capabilities.publishedVersio

Offentlige evalueringer som styringsinstrumenter : kravspesifikasjoner og kontrollproblemer

Tittelen "Offentlige evalueringer som styringsinstrumenter" antyder at evalueringer skal tjene politikkens mål. Rapporten drøfter evalueringsinstituttets forutsetninger som styringsinstrument. Ikledd en slik gammelmodig juridisk sjargong er det enkelt å konstatere at evalueringer ikke har noen legal status i Norge, men må betraktes som å ha en slags uavklart tilrådende funksjon basert på faglig legitimitet. Uavklart status kan gi gode fleksible løsninger, men kan også skape problemer. Undertittelen kravspesifikasjoner og kontrollproblemer henvender seg til henholdsvis fagmiljøene og offentlige myndigheter. Den antyder at den faglige legitimiteten må styrkes og at interesser knyttet til utfallet av evalueringer kan gi opportunistisk adferd og skape kontrollproblemer. Kravspesifikasjoner gjelder i denne sammenheng først og fremst forskningsmetodikk. Grunnlaget for konklusjoner er i mange evalueringer påfallende svakt i forhold til den samfunnsmessige betydningen av at påstander er velbegrunnet og riktige. Kontrollproblemer drøftes i hovedsak som et spørsmål om organiseringen av evalueringsfunksjonen. Faren for at faglig legitimitet kompromitteres av lite hensiktsmessige organisasjonsformer ved evalueringer kan reduseres om en tenker bedre gjennom hvordan involverte parter kan tenkes å reagere under ulike konfigurasjoner av evalueringsfunksjonen. Rapporten fremmer en del konkrete forslag om hvordan kompetanse for evalueringer kan styrkes gjennom nye utdanningstiltak

Three papers on evaluations : the "what if" in the evaluation of public programs

SUMMARY: The “What if” in the evaluation of public programs: An appraisal of methodologies and practices Three papers on related topics concerning methodologies and practices of the evaluations of public programs constitute the dissertation. The first paper demonstrates the applicability of observational methods for the assessment of the program level contributions of two Financial Schemes and two Governmental intervention programs from the prede- cessors of Innovation Norway in the early nineties: The Regional Venture Capital Loans program aims at compensating presumed regional funding disadvantages, the Investment Grants at stimulating physical investments in buildings, machinery, and equipment. The FRAM program aims at enhancing leadership skills while the Network program tries to encourage cooperation between companies. The raison d’être for all four initiatives is a presumed market failure and the public benefits from compensating an assumed funding gap when positive externalities are expected. The paper is based upon the view that matching routines are nonparametric pre- processing methods that facilitate further analysis. A combination of covariate matching and difference-in-differences analysis is employed for finding the best possible estimates for the effects of the programs under scrutiny. The analyses suggest that at least two of the four initiatives produce positive contribu- tions and produce lasting impacts that are observable for a considerable period following par- ticipation. The second paper concerns a leadership-training program for SME’s. Over a period of eight to fourteen years after key managers completed the program we have traced the effects of the program on the performance of participating firms. Transition rate methods are applied in order to assess the survival of participating firms. The key findings are that the impact of the training program with respect to survival is negligible and that this overall effect can be decomposed into a positive impact upon the mature participating firms and a catastrophic negative effect on the newcomers; the newly established firms that participated. The third paper discusses the methodological cleavages within the evaluation commu- nity. The history of evaluation has produced a number of sub-fields based on different parent disciplines. Strong paradigmatic commitment to own sub-discipline and corresponding rejec- tion of competing world-views may lower the overall trust in evaluations. Since New Public Management predominantly is based on a popular notion of economics, this is the story of how pluralism meets monism. The conclusion is that the methodological heterogeneity of evaluation research may be deteriorating with respect to public trust in social science based evaluations

Has the popularity of battery electric vehicles in Norway affected total new car sales? A synthetic control method study

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have gained popularity in Norway, chiefly due to generous tax incentives. Using the synthetic control method, we study if BEVs’ popularity has complemented or substituted for conventional new car sales. Comparing Norway with weighed control units from a donor pool of 16 other European countries between 1990 and 2018 as a counterfactual, we find that conventional new car sales since 2011 have fallen steeply in the country. Analyses also indicate that total new car sales have decreased since 2011. We conclude that BEVs substitute for conventional cars and probably even subtract total new car sales. An implication is that tax revenue loss from BEVs is probably higher than previously estimated, and the fleet of cars in Norway is probably older than in the absence of BEVs’ generous tax incentives

Related and unrelated variety in a tourism context

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.Although the topic of destination development has received much attention (Haugland, Ness, Grønseth, & Aarstad, 2011), there has been a limited focus on how the composition of an industry structure can influence growth in a tourism region. In this research note we will argue that a tourism destination in a region with abundant related variety (where firms operate in different industries sharing similarities), yet with limited unrelated variety (where firms operate in different industries sharing few similarities), is optimal for growth and development. We will further aim to exemplify how related and unrelated variety can be studied in tourism research

Is There a Link between the 2021 COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake in Europe and 2022 Excess All-Cause Mortality?

Purpose: We primarily study a possible link between 2021 COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Europe and monthly 2022 excess all-cause mortality, that is, mortality higher than before the pandemic. Methods and Results: Analyses of 31 countries weighted by population size show that all-cause mortality during the first 9 months of 2022 increased more the higher the 2021 vaccination uptake; a one percentage point increase in 2021 vaccination uptake was associated with a monthly mortality increase in 2022 by 0.105% (95% CI, 0.075–0.134). When controlling for alternative explanations, the association remained robust, and we discuss the result emphasizing causality as well as potential ecological fallacy. Furthermore, the study shows that 2021 all-cause mortality was lower the higher the vaccination uptake, but this association became non-significant when controlling for alternative explanations. Conclusion: Despite a possible preventive effect in 2021, we cannot rule out that COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Europe has led to increasing 2022 all-cause mortality between January and September

Effect of Long-Term Absenteeism on the Operating Revenues, Productivity, and Employment of Enterprises

(1) Background: Previous studies have shown that absenteeism is negatively associated with employee-level performance, but we do not know how exactly absenteeism affects enterprise-level performance. To bridge this knowledge gap, we investigate how average long-term absenteeism affects Norwegian enterprises’ operating revenues and productivity. Also, we investigate if absenteeism decreases employment and whether operating revenues mediate the association. (2) Methods: We performed an enterprise-level dynamic unconditional quasi-maximum likelihood fixed-effects panel regression. (3) Results: The average share of long-term absenteeism nonlinearly decreases operating revenues and overall productivity at an increasing rate. The nonlinear effect may indicate deteriorating value creation among the share of employees largely not absent, but their productivity actually increases at an increasing rate. Thus, the overall findings indicate that the least productive employees first tend to opt out of the workforce, and as absenteeism increases, those subsequently opting out are otherwise increasingly productive. In parallel, those remaining in the workforce are increasingly productive. Absenteeism, moreover, decreases employment the following year, which is partly explained by revenue losses. However, enterprises cut their workforce due to factors beyond the impact of absenteeism on revenues

Do New Firms Recruit Employees From Small or Large Firms, and Do Small or Large Firms Recruit Employees From Firms That Cease to Operate?

Panel data of Norwegian industries show that when they increase in the number of firms, firm size inequality in employees decreases. Decreasing firm size inequality implies that large firms become smaller in employees, and an increasing number of firms in an industry implies that more new firms are established than closed, i.e., ceasing to operate and going out of business. Thus, new firms chiefly recruit employees from large firms. Similarly, the data show that when industries decrease in the number of firms, firm size inequality in employees increases. Increasing firm size inequality implies that large firms become larger in employees, and a decreasing number of firms in an industry implies that more firms are closed than established. Thus, large firms chiefly recruit employees from firms that cease to operate. An implication of our findings is that large firms are crucial in recruiting employees to new firms and in recruiting employees from firms that cease to operate

An unexpected external shock and enterprises’ innovation performance

Previous research has shown that competition can affect innovation, but we do not know if an unexpected external economic shock, as it decreases demand that increases competition, also affects innovation. Responding to this knowledge gap, we study Norwegian enterprises before and after the sudden and unexpected price decline of crude oil by the midyear of 2014. In some regions, due to their dependency on the petroleum sector, it strongly affected enterprises operating across many industries, while other regions were practically unaffected. Among enterprises that were innovative before the decline, we find a borderline significant inverted U-relationship between regional oil dependency before the decline and enterprises’ product innovation performance after the decline. Among enterprises that were not innovative before the decline, we find a robust significant positive linear relationship. The results can be a function of increased competition but particularly concerning the latter finding also better access to resources released in affected regions