Academic literature on the topic 'Incentive measure'

This dissertation examines in depth one of the potential causes of the low performance of foreign aid; in particular, the role incentive structures within international donor agencies could play in leading to “a push” to disburse money. This pressure to disburse money is termed as the “Money-Moving Syndrome”. In this dissertation, the “Money Moving Syndrome” exists when the quantity of foreign aid committed or disbursed becomes, in itself, an important objective side by side or above the effectiveness of aid. The theoretical analysis relies on the principal-agent theory to explore how donor agencies’ institutional incentive systems may affect the characteristics of an optimal and efficient incentive contract and thus give rise to the “Money-Moving Syndrome”. We adapted the basic framework developed in Baker (1992) to fit the organizational settings of international development agencies. The model concludes that the extent to which a performance measure based the amount of aid allocated within a specific period of time would lead to the “Money-Moving Syndrome” and affect aid effectiveness depends on the level of institutional imperatives for survival and growth, the degree of aid agency’s accountability for effectiveness, the level of corruption in recipient countries and the degree of difficulty to evaluate development activities. Due to data unavailability regarding other bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, the empirical framework tests several predictions of the theoretical model by examining whether money moving incentives affect World Bank’s decisions regarding project loan size in developing countries. Overall, the empirical results suggest that there seems to be some degree of “Money-Moving Syndrome” in effect within the World Bank.

In 1997 industrialized nations, the Third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, met in Kyoto, Japan to sign a treaty (the “Kyoto Protocol”) in terms of which industrialized nations would be required to reduce their greenhouse gas emission by at least five percent below 1990 levels by the end of the “first commitment period” 2008-2012. South Africa is not regarded as an industrialized nation, but nonetheless acceded to the Kyoto Protocol in 2002. The literature reviewed in the present research reveals that, although idealistic, the Kyoto Protocol has been problematic. Fourteen meetings of the Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol between 1997 and 2011 have achieved little more than to repeatedly defer and redefine Kyoto obligations. This research was undertaken to document the existing environmental taxation policies employed in selected international jurisdictions with a view to providing a framework for environmental tax policy formation in South Africa to assist this country in meeting its “greenhouse gas” emission targets, while at the same time promoting economic growth. A doctrinal research methodology was adopted in this study as it mainly analysed and interpreted legislation and policy documents and therefore the approach was qualitative in nature. An extensive literature survey was performed to document the various environmental policies that have been legislated in the selected jurisdictions. Comparisons were drawn with proposed tax policy measures for South Africa. The literature indicates that in the selected international jurisdictions carbon taxes achieved less-than-optimal results, largely due to political and industry-competitive agendas. With South Africa planning to introduce a carbon tax, it is submitted that the implementation of a carbon tax regime in isolation will be counter-productive, given South Africa’s economic profile. On the basis of the literature reviewed, it was concluded that South Africa should consider “recycling” carbon tax revenues within the economy to fund a broad-based tax incentive regime that will stimulate the change to non-carbon energy whilst promoting growth through sustainable development

This experiment was performed to assess the interactive effect of incentive strength and task difficulty using measures of behavioral intensity. Subjects faced an easy or difficult task in order to avoid having to listen to aversive radio static. Half of the subjects were to hear a loud noise and half were to hear a soft noise. Prior to task commencement, five measures of behavioral intensity were taken—two timing measures, two counting measures, and one measure involving the amount of error in filling in scantron bubbles. Results showed that one timing measure and three mood adjectives followed the predicted pattern, but not in a statistically significant fashion. The patterns indicated the energization remained low and uniform when subjects heard soft noise, but increased as a function of task difficulty when subjects were exposed to a loud noise. Results are discussed in terms of Brehn’s energization theory of motivation.<br>Department of Psychological Science

This dissertation is thus aiming to create a (1) view on current and historical theoretical and practical approaches of organization economics, (2) to assess their assumptions and implications and explain their contradictions in relation to individual base of the knowledge and motivation. (4) It suggests a framework that might give an economic and theoretical rationale to various managerial measures related to the true ("effective") effort of an individual in a firm that is (5) finally tested in empirical research. For the reasons mentioned above, the overview of often divergent methodological approaches is of a key importance, therefore much attention is dedicated to their description and analysis in the first part of the thesis. It is followed by the introduction of a new framework used in the analysis of various managerial measures applied in the firm, and finally, the hypotheses which test certain assumptions of the framework on empirical data. The "effective effort, cooperation and rivalry framework" is the main output of this thesis, as it explains the roots and influence of direct and indirect managerial measures through the behavior of workers (rivalry, cooperation, rent-seeking) on company's performance. The framework combines three existing independent approaches analyzing the link between managerial measures and company's performance without denying any of the predecessors, and it also brings a new interpretation of the functions of managerial decisions in the firm and the link on material resources. The framework attempts to answer the following research question: Which factors and in a what way influence the effective effort of an individual in the firm? Can this approach be formalized and tested on empirical data? Answering this question would be beneficial for both managers and academia as it would facilitate them to undertake that managerial measures, that would lead to an improvement of firm's long term performance and avoid those actions, which would work contradictory. The empirical analysis focuses on efficiency of several types of incentives and trainings in the medium-sized company on the lowest level of hierarchy (furthermore there is the lack of similar analyses dedicated to an enterprise in Central and Eastern Europe or in such chronological extent in a single firm anywhere in Europe). The extensive data is provided by a leading Czech (mostly retail) betting company operating in a legislatively stable environment not exposed to the currency fluctuations and economic cycle with oligopolistic characteristics. Other industries (besides retail) would hardly provide such high quality data for such a long period suitable for the chosen analysis of the revenues' influence of various managerial measures (training of sale staff, introduction of an upside component of wage, nonmonetary rewards) applied to workers. The results of the empirical analysis show the possible positive effect of increased wage variability on the employee's performance, although the effect of training and nonmonetary rewards was proven as insignificant. These results (positive/negative effect or significance/insignificance) for a low skilled workforce being able to effectively affect the quality of the output (as is the Fortuna case) are in line with the Effective effort, cooperation and rivalry framework.

The research aims to verify if an Italian model of occupation promotion exists, in order to consider its compatibility level with the European social policy. First of all, it is necessary to consider the steps of the EC social policy (from the SEO, to the Lisbona Strategy until the passing of the Europe 2020 Strategy), through the analysis of the suitably provided tools, that is to say the occupation trends issued over the years, and of the opened coordination method (MAC). These supporting documents are useful to give to the member States the directives whom they have to draw inspiration drafting occupation and labour market regulations. From this analysis it comes out that one of the most important occupation goals has been the harmonization of all member States labour policy, in order to create more and better workplaces. The remarkable labour policy part is the active one [Active Labour Market Policy (Almp)], including all services and measures useful to gear job offer features to the job demand ones in order to promote occupation and improve workers and unemployed employability. With reference to our country, in the first instance a particular attention has been paid on employability, then on adaptability (aiming at the increase of the labour market admission tools), finally on the last labour market reform (brought about the law 92/2012), that tried to recover and promote the role of the employment services, considered the main actors who are able to promote employability of all the ones that have to be led in or reinstated in the labour market, definitely changing the relationship between the employment services and their end users, above all if they are receiving unemployment benefits. In the law provisions it is possible to identify three macro areas of intervention: the first one is linked to the employment services and the active labour policy; the second area includes vocational training (rectius permanent learning) vocational and orientation courses; the third and last one concerns employment incentives. Examining the basics of Fornero Reform, it has been made a second reading of the regional rules of the labour market, mostly preceding the 2012, in order to verify their elegibility to discipline the active policy. The object of the analysis has been the active policy tools as the “conditionality”, the concept of “fair” job offer, suspension from unemployment, the different services the employment services have to offer to the unemployed. Fornero reform put attention to the instrumental profile, returning to the deputy legislator the reform of the employment services system, who has to fix a short term (six months) already overdue. Then the observation has been focused on the vocational training, with an in depth-analysis of the institution of vocational and orientation courses, considered pre-eminently the best active policy tool. Alternatively, the Italian system of occupation promotion is the occupation policy that affects the job offer market. Analyzing the administrative and normative material of the matter, it has been tried to find out a process model for the incentive measures conforming to the European one due to the disjointed intervention of our legislator. In the light of this research, we can confirm with great optimism that our country is halfway, waiting to implement the reforms of employment services, vocational training system and employment incentives, already forecasted but never realized. The reasons of the delay are most of all financial ones<br>La ricerca mira a verificare se esiste un modello italiano di promozione dell’occupazione e a valutarne il livello di compatibilità con le politiche sociali europee. A tal fine viene prioritariamente esaminata l’evoluzione della politica sociale dell’Unione europea (dalla SEO, alla Strategia di Lisbona fino a giungere al varo della Strategia Europa 2020) attraverso l’analisi degli strumenti appositamente previsti, ovvero degli orientamenti integrati in materia di occupazione emanati nel corso del tempo, e del metodo di coordinamento aperto (MAC). Attraverso tali documenti vengono impartite agli Stati membri le direttive alle quali gli stessi devono ispirarsi nell’elaborazione delle normative in materia di occupazione e di mercato del lavoro. Dall’analisi è emerso che uno dei principali obiettivi degli orientamenti in materia di occupazione è stato l’armonizzazione delle politiche del lavoro dei vari Paesi membri, onde creare migliori e maggiori posti di lavoro. Parte rilevante delle politiche del lavoro sono le politiche attive [Active Labour Market Policy (Almp)] ovvero tutti quei servizi o misure utili ad adattare le caratteristiche dell’offerta di lavoro alla domanda di lavoro con l’obiettivo di promuovere l’occupazione attraverso il miglioramento dell’occupabilità dei lavoratori e dei disoccupati. Proprio con riferimento al nostro Paese può sostenersi che ad un iniziale periodo di particolare attenzione verso l’occupabilità, ne è seguito un secondo nel quale l’attenzione si è spostata sull’adattabilità (puntando sulla moltiplicazione degli strumenti di ingresso nel mercato del lavoro), fino ad arrivare all’ultima riforma del mercato del lavoro (attuata con la l. 92/2012) che ha voluto recuperare ed incrementare il ruolo dei servizi per l’impiego ritenuti i principali attori in grado di favorire l’occupabilità dei soggetti che devono essere inseriti o reinseriti nel mercato del lavoro, modificando decisamente l’impostazione del rapporto che si crea tra questi ultimi e gli utenti, specie se percettori di trattamenti di disoccupazione. Nell’articolato legislativo sono individuabili tre macro aree di intervento: la prima riguarda i servizi per l’impiego e la politica attiva del lavoro; la seconda ricomprende la formazione professionale (rectius apprendimento permanente) e i tirocini di formazione e di orientamento; la terza ed ultima afferisce agli incentivi alle assunzioni Muovendosi lungo le coordinate fissate dalla Riforma Fornero, si è proceduto ad una rilettura della normativa regionale in tema di mercato del lavoro, per la gran parte antecedente al 2012, onde verificarne la perdurante idoneità a disciplinare la politica attiva. Oggetto di analisi sono stati gli strumenti di politica attiva quali la ‘condizionalità’, la nozione di offerta di lavoro ‘congrua’, la sospensione dello stato di disoccupazione, le tipologie di prestazioni che i Servizi per l’impiego devono offrire ai disoccupati. Come si vede la Riforma Fornero si è occupata del profilo strumentale, rinviando ad un intervento del legislatore delegato la riforma del sistema dei servizi per l’impiego fissando un termine breve (di sei mesi) già scaduto. La riflessione si è poi spostata sulla formazione professionale, con uno specifico approfondimento dell’istituto dei tirocini formativi e di orientamento, ormai divenuto lo strumento di politica attiva per eccellenza. La seconda gamba sulla quale cammina il sistema italiano di promozione dell’occupazione è la politica per l’occupazione che incide sul versante della offerta di lavoro. Attraverso l’analisi del materiale normativo ed amministrativo in materia si è cercato di individuare un modello di sviluppo delle misure di incentivo adeguato ai modelli europei a fronte della frammentarietà dell’intervento del nostro legislatore. Alla luce dell’indagine svolta può affermarsi con buona dose di ottimismo che il nostro Paese è a metà strada del percorso, mancando all’appello le preannunciate, ma non ancora realizzate, riforme dei servizi per l’impiego, del sistema di formazione professionale e di quello degli incentivi all’occupazione. Le ragioni del ritardo sono anche, ma non solo, finanziarie

En état actuel, la philanthropie se présente comme une source de financement alternative pour le développement des sociétés. L’ampleur du phénomène suscite de nombreux travaux de recherche autour de la philanthropie dans les pays du Nord. C’est dans cette mouvance que cette thèse propose de s’intéresser à la philanthropie africaine à partir du cas de la Côte d’Ivoire. Les principaux résultats de l’étude mettent en exergue les potentialités de la philanthropie ivoirienne. Mais, il se trouve que cette potentialité est heurtée à des réalités qui ne permettent pas à celle-ci de contribuer de manière espérée aux causes de l’intérêt général. C’est face à ce problème que la question centrale qui constitue le fil conducteur de la recherche a été formulée comme suit : De quelle manière la philanthropie peut-elle contribuer efficacement au développement de la Côte d’Ivoire ?<br>In its current state, philanthropy presents itself as an alternative source of financing for the development of societies. The scope of this phenomenon has led to numerous research studies on philanthropy in Northern countries. It is in this context that this thesis proposes to focus on African philanthropy based on the case of the Ivory Coast. The main results of the study highlight the potential of Ivorian philanthropy. But, it turns out that this potentiality is faced with realities that do not allow it to contribute in the way hoped for to the causes of the general interest. It is in the face of this problem that the central question that constitutes the thread of the research was formulated as follows : How can philanthropy effectively contribute to the development of Côte d'Ivoire ?

Incentive-based measures are increasingly being employed as a strong motive to encourage conservation yet the evidence that they are generating sustainable resource-use, improving rural livelihoods or aiding biodiversity protection remains inconclusive. To provide empirical evidence to this discourse, in this study the McDermott et al (2013) equity framework is used to explore how different benefit-sharing arrangements have shaped twenty-five years of Integrated Conservation and Development projects (ICDP) neighbouring the Mt. Elgon National Park, Uganda. Applying a self-reported, post-hoc, quasi-experimental design, a time-series of participatory mapping activities revealed that despite the willingness of targeted groups to adopt ‘green’ technologies (distributional equity), maintaining and up-scaling these activities remained limited at the landscape level. Social network analysis uncovered that limited knowledge, restricted access (contextual equity) and the lack of inclusion in decision-making (procedural equity) impeded this development. Tracking the Mt. Elgon Regional Eco-System Conservation Programme (MERECP) as a specific case study, the analyses then showed that wealthier members of society and the political elite were the principle beneficiaries of conservation inputs. In the cases where these institutionalised hierarchies were purposely sidestepped (a measure to ensure marginalised stakeholders gained funds), cases of conflict and resentment arose. Overall, communities that had loose, expansive conservation networks adopted the greatest number of simple technologies. Nevertheless, those that have built a high level of trust both amongst one another and with supporting organisations resulted in the most socially equitable and biologically efficient outcomes. Portraying a future rich in sustainable land-use practises, communities do aspire to protecting their natural resources. Whilst this may be a time-consuming, expensive process, building sound adaptive ‘co-management’ relationships that respect cultural norms, provide suitable alternatives and maximises local knowledge is the key to implementing incentive-based conservation measures across Mt. Elgon.

Energy efficiency is an important question to society as well as to individuals and firms. Improving energy efficiency in the building sector is considered an important means to climate mitigation. For real estate owners energy is also a central expenditure item and reducing energy consumption may directly reduce operation costs while at the same time serve as insurance against future energy price increases. Since new buildings only add a few percent annually to the building stock, the potential to reduce total energy consumption primarily lies within the existing building stock. The building stock is ageing and the post-war part of the stock that is in need of renovation is growing. This has been suggested as a window of opportunity to improve energy efficiency, but so far the results have been few. Several factors have been put forward to explain the so called energy efficiency gap – the difference between actual and optimal energy efficiency – one of which is split incentives. What adds to complexity in this case is that distinct differences have been observed in the level of ambition between the real estate companies that have renovated so far. Some companies have undertaken extensive renovation and energy efficiency measures, whereas other companies have done little more than urgent maintenance measures. It seems that real estate owners in general don´t have strong economic incentives to improve energy efficiency in connection to renovation – but what can then explain the differences between strategies? This licentiate thesis examines the incentives among real estate owners to improve energy efficiency, particularly in post-war, multi-family buildings in need of renovation. The purpose is to add knowledge about decisions concerning measures that improve energy efficiency - in terms of incentives, barriers and different motives for real estate owners’ strategies and actions. Results show that real estate owners lack strong economic incentives to invest in energy efficiency in multi-family buildings and the level of investment is dependent on the different motivations, grouped in three levels of ambition, that real estate companies have. One important conclusion is that the heterogeneity between companies that was exposed in the interviews and survey implies that they will not respond similarly to policy stimuli. The heterogeneity should thus be considered when designing policy measures so that public and company resources can be allocated as efficiently as possible, as there are many challenges facing owners of post-war residential buildings. Another conclusion is that from an economic point of view it is important to take the interaction between different measures into account, e.g. between physical measures and measures focusing on changing household behavior.<br>QC 20110630

Mestrado em Contabilidade, Fiscalidade e Finanças Empresariais<br>Apesar da importância das PMEs na economia portuguesa, tanto em termos de emprego como e do valor criado, a investigação deste tipo de empresas por parte da contabilidade de gestão tem sido escassa (Mitchell & Reid, 2000). Outros autores têm estudado a adopção de SCG (Barron et al 1996, 1999; Hellman & Puri 2002; Davila 2005; Davila & Foster 2007), mas nenhuma evidência foi recolhida acerca da utilização de incentivos financeiros nos contratos de remuneração dos gestores de PMEs. Este estudo contribui para a literatura, analisando i) os determinantes da utilização de incentivos financeiros, definidos como uma percentagem da remuneração total; ii) a relação entre a utilização das variáveis não financeiras e a performance; iii) a relação entre a utilização de incentivos e o desejo de os receber e iv) a relação entre a utilização de incentivos e a importância destes para os seus destinatários. Usando dados de questionários respondidos por 714 CEOs e CFOs de PMEs portuguesas, verificou-se que a percentagem de incentivos recebidos pelos gestores está positivamente associada ao desempenho dos mesmos e das próprias empresas, bem como ao número de SCG utilizados por estas. Foi também encontrada evidência de que existe uma relação positiva e significativa entre o nível de incentivos recebidos e tanto o peso desejado de incentivos como a importância atribuída a estes.<br>Despite the importance of SMEs in the Portuguese economy, both in terms of employment and value created, the investigation of such firms by the management accounting literature has been scarce (Mitchell & Reid, 2000). Other authors have studied the adoption of MCS (Barron et al 1996, 1999; Hellman & Puri 2002; Davila 2005; Davila & Foster 2007), but no evidence was found on the use of financial incentives in the compensation contracts of SMEs' managers. This study contributes to the literature by examining i) the determinants of the use of financial incentives, defined as a percentage of total compensation, ii) the relationship between the use of nonfinancial variables and performance, iii) the relationship between the use of incentives and the desire to receive them and iv) the relationship between the use of incentives and their importance to their recipients. Using data from questionnaires completed by 714 CEOs and CFOs of Portuguese SMEs, it was found that the percentage of incentives received by managers is positively associated with their performance and the performance of the firms, as well as the number of MCS used by them. It was also found that there is a positive and significant relationship between the level of incentives received and both the desired weight of incentives and the importance attributed to them.