Business models in health care: Accounting for the sustainability of palliative and end of life care provision by voluntary hospices' in England

This study evaluates the sustainability of palliative and end of life care provision by voluntary hospices in England. Using a mixed methods, inductive approach, we construct a ‘descriptive business model’ for hospices which is grounded in analysis of relevant accounting information, and supported by narratives extracted from interviews with senior clinical and non clinical managers from four large and medium sized hospices. The study reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the hospice business model and evaluates its robustness against forthcoming challenges. Our findings highlight the gradual transition from a basic voluntary sector business model to a complex, highly sophisticated, and institutionalized care establishment, sharing many of the characteristics found in large private and public organizations. The sustainability however of the business model is threatened due to its exposure to a number of contradictory forces. Whilst demand for palliative and end of life care going forward is set to increase, due to both demographic and regulatory factors, hospices' voluntary income is highly volatile. Dependency on sustaining a complex network of stakeholder groups to underwrite income, challenges the hospice business model’s ability to cope with the anticipated challenges

Reference-dependent preferences in the public and private sectors: A nonlinear perspective

Although existing studies in the strategic management literature examine the importance of reference points in the context of managerial decisions vis-à-vis organizational performance, there is surprisingly little evidence on how reference earnings affect employees' wellbeing and behavior. The present study closes this gap by investigating adaptation dynamics towards reference earnings in the context of employees’ behavioral responses to social comparisons. We argue that a wedge between actual and aspiration-level earnings causes discontent that spurs employees into action to materialize their aspirations. The robustness of such action depends on the size of the wedge in a nonlinear fashion, a hypothesis supported by our findings. Nevertheless, heterogeneity in behavioral responses is evident across the public and private sectors and across gender and educational attainment. Such heterogeneity could be partially attributed to differences in public service motivation among public and private sector employees, to the different weights that employees place on pecuniary vs. non-pecuniary rewards, and whether reference earnings are likely to trigger behavioral responses through a 'jealousy' or through an 'ambition' channel. These findings have implications for the design of strategic human resource management policies to establish reward structures encouraging employees to adopt risk attitudes that are consistent with an overall business strategic plan

Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?

Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we examine the link between income and subjective well-being. We find that, for the whole sample of nineteen European countries, although income is positively correlated with both happiness and life satisfaction, reference income exerts a negative effect on individual well-being, a result consistent with the relative utility hypothesis. Performing separate analyses for some Eastern European countries, we also find some evidence of a ‘tunnel effect’, in that reference income has a positive impact on subjective well-being. Our findings support the view that in environments with stable income and employment, reference income serves as a basis for social comparisons, whereas in relatively volatile environments, it is used as a source of information for forming expectations about future status

Ascertaining the impact of endogenous and exogenous factors on the performance of students taking non-specialist accounting courses

This study aims to evaluate the potential determinants of academic performance of non-specialist accounting students. Considering both actual and initially expected performance, in conjunction with students’ learning styles and preferences, we use two econometric methods - Ordinal Probit and Ordinary Least Squared - in order to investigate and assess the impact of endogenous and the exogenous factors on the students’ academic achievement. Eventually, based on the results of our estimations, and by dividing the non-specialist students into segments, according to their demographic characteristics, we run a series of simulations to estimate empirically the likelihood of the students to report an academic performance weaker, in line, better, and considerably better than what they expected

An Empirical Investigation of Big Data Analytics: The Financial Performance of Users versus Vendors

In the age of digitisation and globalisation, businesses have shifted online and are investing in big data analytics (BDA) to respond to changing market conditions and sustain their performance. Our study shifts the focus from the adoption of BDA to the impact of BDA on financial performance. We explore the financial performance of both BDA-vendors (business-to-business) and BDA-clients (business-to-customer). We distinguish between the five BDA-technologies (big-data-as-a-service (BDaaS), descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics) and discuss them individually. Further, we use four perspectives (internal business process, learning and growth, customer, and finance) and discuss the significance of how each of the five BDA-technologies affect the performance measures of these four perspectives. We also present the analysis of employee engagement, average turnover, average net income, and average net assets for BDA-clients and BDA-vendors. Our study also explores the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on business continuity for both BDA-vendors and BDA-clients

An empirical evaluation of the impact of agency conflicts on the association between corporate governance and firm financial performance

Purpose: The study aims to predict and understand the conditions under which the association between corporate governance and a company's financial performance is positive or meaningful by empirically accounting for agency conflicts. This study is motivated by the fact that the separation between ownership and control creates agency conflicts between company owners and managers. Therefore, strong corporate governance systems are expected to align the interests of conflicting parties whereby companies become more likely to improve their financial performance. However, previous research did not yield consistent results in this regard. Design/methodology/approach: Given the latent nature of corporate governance and agency conflicts, this study uses principal component and exploratory factor analyses to proxy for corporate governance and agency conflicts, respectively. Using dynamic panel data modelling, the authors estimate the change in the relationship between corporate governance and a company's financial performance as a function of the change in the level of agency conflict using data from the UK on 78 non-financial companies listed in the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 (FTSE100) index between 1999 and 2014. Findings: The corporate governance quality of companies is significantly differed. Moreover, companies operating at high levels of agency conflict outperform the companies' counterparts operating in low levels of agency conflict only when the former improves the corporate governance quality. This implies that financial performance improves by approximately 11% if companies improve corporate governance quality due to an increase in the level of agency conflicts. Research limitations/implications: Lack of data on ownership structure for the study period (1999–2014) was the main reason the authors excluded it from the analysis. Additionally, the lack of reliable and quantifiable corporate governance data on small-medium sized enterprises limits findings on large non-financial companies. Practical implications: The authors propose a framework/tool for the impact of the level of corporate governance compliance on financial performance conditional upon the level of agency conflicts whose importance has largely been neglected by the empirical literature. By providing the right “lens” to de-fragmentise the corporate governance mechanisms and estimate empirically the unobserved agency conflicts, researchers, practitioners and investors are able to get further insights on the composing elements of financial performance and evaluate it more objectively. Managers can allocate companies' resources more efficiently and thus improve financial performance. The auditors can get further background information when they compile their report on company's directors. The study's findings offer valuable suggestions for accounting and corporate governance regulators to further put forward and improve accounting standards so as to enhance existing regulations and internal mechanisms which, in turn, could decrease the scope for managerial opportunistic behaviour as the latter can be empirically estimated through our framework. Social implications: The findings point out the need for a revised framework accounting for the principal-agent (mis)alignment and the engrained information asymmetries. By acknowledging the level of corporate governance compliance and agency conflict, managers and shareholders should actively strive for the effectiveness of companies, the efficiency of the stock markets and the minimisation of the agency costs. Furthermore, policymakers can look into the development of a code of corporate governance to effectively regulate firms rather than enforcing rigid laws that may not be value relevant. With all these settings in place, the likelihood of corporate failures, corporate scandals as well as corporate violations with the ensuing penalties is set to be reduced. Hence, valuable resources, social capital and effort can be directed into more productive activities. Originality/value: This study adds to the existing literature by offering empirical and explicit evidence on the dynamic association between corporate governance, agency conflicts and financial performance against a backdrop of high demand for strong corporate governance practices/codes. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study that has yet empirically examined the moderating effect of the level of agency conflicts, given the level of corporate governance compliance on financial performance for listed and internationally aligned companies

Relative income gains and losses and subjective well-being in Europe

An earlier version was presented at the International Confederation for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics and Economic Psychology, University of Cologne, 5-8, September, 2010. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by the authors. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and conditions invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be re-posted without the explicit permission of the copyright holdersThis study aims to shed further light on the mechanisms of how relative income influences people’s subjective wellbeing using four waves of data in the European Social Survey (ESS). The correspondents to the ESS are classified into finer sub-groups according to their income positions relative to the national average and their respective occupational group average earnings. A series of pooled cross-sectional ordered-probit models are estimated for the sub-groups and our results reveal hitherto new contrasting patterns of the influence of relative income on subjective wellbeing. Perhaps the most significant finding is that whilst relative gains have no significant impact on wellbeing in any group, relative losses do matter. Moreover, the low-income losers form the largest sub-group in society and the magnitude of their relative loss is positively associated with their subjective wellbeing. Therefore, the ‘social comparison’ effect is particularly evident amongst this group and could have significant implications for social mobility and economic dynamismFinal Published versio

Does the day of the week effect persist once transaction costs have been accounted for? Evidence from the UK

Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713684415 Copyright Informa / Taylor and Francis Group. DOI: 10.1080/0960310042000187388Peer reviewe

Bio-pharma: a financialized business model

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10452354 Copyright Elsevier Ltd.In this paper, we construct a complementary financialized business model of SME bio-pharma that reveals how the product innovation and development process conjoins with speculative forces in capital markets. To conceptualise this descriptive business model we employ three organising elements: narratives about pipeline progress that may (or may not) lead to additional funding from equity investors or other investing partners, capital market conditions that impact on the supply of funding and market valuations and the variable motivations of equity investors who are not in a development marathon but a relay race anxious to pass on ownership and extract higher returns on invested capital through realised market value. Bio-pharmas are, in effect, constituted as investment portfolios of innovations where products in pipeline and firms trade for shareholder value. In this speculative innovation, capital market liquidity business model complementary narratives and favourable capital market conditions are required to keep it all going.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Identifying the adopters and non-adopters of broadband amongst silver surfers : using the BHPS

Original article can be found at: http://www.metapress.com/ Copyright InderscienceThe aim of this paper is to identify the adopters and non-adopters of Broadband within the silver surfer group. This was achieved using the British Household Panel Survey, a large scale survey used to collect data from UK households. The data was analysed using statistical tools, such as, SPSS v. 15. The conclusions drawn are that Broadband will be adopted in nuclear households (no presence of elderly) with silver surfers who have children aged between 12 and 18 without ignoring the role played by a relatively level of education. This research offers contributions for academics by providing an objective viewpoint of the factors leading to Broadband adoption within silver surfers, a group of immense, current interest. For industry, this research offers an intensive identification of socio-economic factors that are considered important when marketing a product or service within the market.Peer reviewe