Pension fund finance and sponsoring companies: Empirical evidence on theoretical hypotheses

This study presents empirical evidence on the influence of sponsoring companies on the funding and portfolio allocation of pension funds, an issue on which most extant literature is theoretical. We use a unique microdataset of 550 Dutch defined benefit company pension funds and 100 sponsoring firms over 1996-2005 to test the relevance of the main theoretical hypotheses, the first paper to do so in a comprehensive manner. We find that pension funds have lower cover ratios when (1) their sponsoring company is highly leveraged, (2) the fund’s return on assets is relatively low, and (3) the sponsoring firm is small. Further, defined benefit pension funds are found to invest more in shares when their sponsoring companies are highly leveraged. These links in general suggest higher risk in the sponsor leads to correspondingly higher risk in the fund, and warrant close attention by regulators

Conceptualising the adoption of sustainable procurement: An institutional theory perspective

Sustainable procurement and supply chain management studies are growing; however several scholars have criticised the lack of theoretical development accompanying this literature. Sustainable procurement and supply chain management activities form part of an organisation's path to adopt sustainability. Some scholars have suggested examining the application of management theories to describe the introduction of corporate sustainability to address this gap. Institutional theory is frequently used to describe how new practices are adopted in organisations and has also been applied to several corporate social responsibility studies. This conceptual paper examines the applicability of institutional theory to describe the adoption of sustainable procurement and concludes by presenting three theoretical propositions to explain sustainable procurement adoption. © 2014 Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand Inc

Vorgehensmodelle bei der Entwicklung von CAL-Software

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Controllingkonzeptionen

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Erwartungen der Praxis an CAL:Ergebnisse einer Expertenbefragung

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Semi-formale Darstellung des Prozessmodells von VOFI

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Dynamic plate osteosynthesis for fracture stabilization: how to do it

Plate osteosynthesis is one treatment option for the stabilization of long bones. It is widely accepted to achieve bone healing with a dynamic and biological fixation where the perfusion of the bone is left intact and micromotion at the fracture gap is allowed. The indications for a dynamic plate osteosynthesis include distal tibial and femoral fractures, some midshaft fractures, and adolescent tibial and femoral fractures with not fully closed growth plates. Although many lower limb shaft fractures are managed successfully with intramedullary nails, there are some important advantages of open-reduction-and-plate fixation: the risk of malalignment, anterior knee pain, or nonunion seems to be lower. The surgeon performing a plate osteosynthesis has the possibility to influence fixation strength and micromotion at the fracture gap. Long plates and oblique screws at the plate ends increase fixation strength. However, the number of screws does influence stiffness and stability. Lag screws and screws close to the fracture site reduce micromotion dramatically

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Roughness and multiscaling of planar crack fronts

We consider numerically the roughness of a planar crack front within the long-range elastic string model, with a tunable disorder correlation length $\xi$. The problem is shown to have two important length scales, $\xi$ and the Larkin length $L_c$. Multiscaling of the crack front is observed for scales below $\xi$, provided that the disorder is strong enough. The asymptotic scaling with a roughness exponent $\zeta \approx 0.39$ is recovered for scales larger than both $\xi$ and $L_c$. If $L_c > \xi$, these regimes are separated by a third regime characterized by the Larkin exponent $\zeta_L \approx 0.5$. We discuss the experimental implications of our results.Comment: 8 pages, two figure