Balancing academia and family life: The gendered strains and struggles between the UK and China compared

Purpose: This paper aims to explore and compare academics’ experiences of managing work-life balance (WLB) in the British and Chinese contexts. The authors have three specific purposes. Firstly, to investigate whether there are marked gender differences in either context, given female and male academics’ work is considered fully comparable. Secondly, to examine contextual factors contributing to gender differences that influence and shape decisions in WLB and career paths. Thirdly, to explore the gendered consequences and implications. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-national and multilevel analytical approach to WLB was chosen to unpick and explore gender land contextual differences and their influence on individual academics’ coping strategies. To reflect the exploratory nature of uncovering individual experience and perceptions, the authors used in-depth, semi-structured interviews. In total, 37 academics participated in the study, comprised of 18 participants from 6 universities in the UK and 19 participants from 6 universities in China. Findings: This study reveals gendered differences in both the British and Chinese contexts in three main aspects, namely, sourcing support; managing emotions; and making choices, but more distinct differences in the latter context. Most significantly, it highlights that individual academics’ capacity in cultivating and using coping strategies was shaped simultaneously by multi-layered factors at the country level, the HE institutional level and the individual academics’ level. Originality/value: Very few cross-cultural WLB studies explore gender differences. This cross-national comparative study is of particular value in making the “invisible visible” in terms of the gendered nature of choices and decisions within the context of WLB. The study has significant implications for female academics exercising individual scope in carving out a career, and for academic managers and institutions, in terms of support, structure and policy

Corporate finance and option theory: an extension model of rao and stevens (2007)

El objetivo planteado es contribuir a la teoría y práctica de la valoración financiera de la empresa estudiando la influencia que sobre dicha valoración ejercen integradamente gobierno, accionistas, acreedores, empleados y clientes. La necesaria flexibilidad de la vida empresarial se modeliza usando la metodología de las opciones, tanto ordinarias como reales. Las principales novedades se hallan en los dos ámbitos siguientes: 1) de carácter instrumental, que consiste en la forma de utilizar las opciones; 2) en la introducción y cuantificación del papel que empleados y clientes desempeñan en la creación de valor por parte de la firma. Este planteamiento pretende dar un paso adelante en la línea de evaluación de la remuneración de los empleados (lo que podría permitir la mejora de los esquemas de remuneración actualmente utilizados) así como en la de clasificar la clientela de acuerdo al valor añadido que estos dos grupos de personas (stakeholders) hayan aportado durante el ejercicio económico La investigación realizada abre importantes líneas de avance para el futuro, muchas de ellas reseñadas en la Tesis, que indudablemente servirán como hoja de ruta para ir completando el marco de trabajo aquí establecido. El actual estado de desarrollo de nuestros sistemas económicos necesitan nuevos enfoques, siendo muy prometedor el aquí planteado y utilizado.This thesis focuses on the field of market valuation of relatively large firms and it refers markets with “normal” behavior, where classical assumptions apply, such as rationality and dynamical stability, in an attempt to investigate the firm's value creation so as to reveal the contribution of all possible stakeholders that might be involved in the formation of the market value of a firm. The literature review related to valuation models, especially the DCF model, has shown that the conceptual frame of Modigliani and Miller, to determine the market value of a firm as it is understood today, is too restricted because only three types of stakeholders (shareholders, debtholders and government) are considered. This work contributes to build an extending valuation model which incorporates some other stakeholders (different from shareholders, debtholders and government), such as employees and clients so as to reflect their influence on the firm's market value. Based upon the work of Rao and Stevens (2007) which reflects the role of the three types of stakeholders with a special emphasis on the role of government, real options theory is applied here to quantify the value created through a major degree of loyalty and capture policies for both employees and clients. One fundamental option is proposed when building the model and it is related to the employees' and clients' portfolio of a firm, which has options to improve returns by driving up the motivations of employees, the fidelity of clients, the capture of talents, the information campaigns to clients and/or investors. Through applying real options theory, this thesis finds an appropriate way for treating the uncertainty and integrating the risks associated with it in valuation models, along with considering the flexibility as an ingredient of value in managerial decisions, increasing the capability to give alternative actions. The approach in this thesis is almost theoretical with a possible scheme for empirical experiments suggested for future research. The results achieved attempt to suggest that there exists communication vehicles for the information about an increase of the satisfaction degree of employees and customers in such way to be truly transmitted to investors and thus to be converted into an increase of the firm's market value