Abstract

This study investigates the impact of organizational commitment and job engagement on service quality, while integrating the influences of organizational climate and emotional labor. Utilizing data from 427 participants, acquired via structured questionnaires, the research employed the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for analysis. The findings reveal that heightened job engagement and organizational commitment significantly enhance service quality, primarily through reinforcing employees’ trust in their organization. A favorable organizational climate is instrumental in strengthening employees’ affiliation with their organization, consequently leading to superior service provision. Furthermore, the capability to effectively regulate emotions emerges as a critical factor in both job engagement and the quality of service. The study advocates for augmenting job engagement and organizational commitment, cultivating a supportive workplace atmosphere, and equipping employees with resources for efficient emotional management. These strategies are proposed to substantially improve service quality. The insights derived from this research provide essential directives for managers striving to achieve service excellence.

Introduction

Over the years, scholars have thoroughly examined the complex interplay between organizational commitment, climate, and job involvement in determining job performance. Studies by Refs. [1,2] underscored the fundamental role organizational commitment plays in influencing both an individual’s performance and the broader success of an organization. However, the challenge of fostering and maintaining this commitment persists, leading organizations to continually seek effective strategies to ensure a dedicated workforce [3]. Particularly in the business industry, where employees are pivotal for gaining a competitive edge, it’s recognized that employee commitment can be enhanced through a combination of a strong service ethos, managerial support, and a positive organizational environment [[4], [5], [6], [7], [8]].

One dimension that’s essential is job involvement, characterized by the depth of emotional connection an employee feels towards their workplace. Such involvement is crucial for strengthening organizational commitment and subsequently influencing performance outcomes [9]. To optimize these outcomes, it is vital for organizations to focus on talent development and create a supportive organizational environment [10]. In business industry, engaging in emotional labor — the effort to manage one’s emotions to produce a desired emotional response in customers — is believed to boost job satisfaction and improve the overall customer experience [11].

However, a glaring gap in scholarly work is the investigation of how emotional labor interacts with job involvement, service quality, and organizational commitment. While Wang [12] began to explore how organizational commitment influences service quality, our research takes a broader approach. We aim to understand the intricate relationships among organizational commitment, job involvement, emotional labor, organizational climate, and performance or service quality outcomes. What sets our study apart is its focus on the previously unexplored impact of emotional labor on job involvement, service quality, and the dynamics of organizational commitment.

Results

4.1. Statistical analysis of basic information
Participants were enlisted from March through April 2019. Out of the 450 questionnaires disseminated, 427 were returned completed and valid, yielding a response rate of 94.88 %. Gender-based statistical analysis revealed that the total effective sample size of the questionnaire was 427, comprising 206 males and 221 females. Age-related statistics indicate that 135 respondents fell within the 30–39 year age group, accounting for 31.6 % of the total sample size, while 110 respondents were above 50 years of age. With respect to academic qualifications, 143 respondents (33.5 %) possessed 2-year college degrees, while 199 respondents held Bachelor’s degrees. Out of all the occupational responses, 95 individuals or 22.3 % work in the service industry, while the hotel industry employs 83 individuals. The postal and warehousing industry comes in third with 50 individuals. Please see Table 1.

Abstract

     This article addresses the negative implications of neutrality in bureaucratic systems and public service. Neutrality employs a sameness approach that reinforces impartiality, invisibility, and indifference, resulting in what we term discriminatory blindness. After a brief illustrative review of neutrality in public service, we critique neutrality as an organizational impediment based on its veiled negative implications and disparate outcomes that fail to center the human experience and treat people based on how they are situated to ensure equity in outcomes. We propose a framework to forge ahead with eight actionable types of initiatives and learning constructs to raise the consciousness of public practitioners. We conclude with an action-oriented and learning-focused approach.

THE PROBLEM WITH NEUTRALITY

     Neutrality fortifies organizational impediments in public service and obscures an unequal relationship, detachment from disparate outcomes, and tensions between human interactions (Gooden, 2015). Frederickson (2010) asked, “for whom is the organization well managed? For whom is the organization efficient? For whom is the organization economical? For whom are public services more or less fairly delivered?” (Frederickson, 2010, p. xv). Scholars have challenged the ideal of neutrality based on its veiled implications for vulnerable, minoritized, and marginalized communities (Blessett & Gaynor, 2021; Frederickson, 1991, 2005; Gaynor & Wilson, 2020; Gooden, 2015; Guy, 2021; Herd & Moynihan, 2018; Hooks, 2013; Portillo et al., 2020; Stivers, 2015).

Neutrality veils a bureaucratic apparatus protecting the status quo of discriminatory legislative practices (Caiden, 1996; Gooden, 2015; Huber, 1991). The veil of neutrality refers to the belief that neutrality’s evenhandedness is altruistic and a public good. The veil obscures legitimized biases, internal processes, assumptions, and disparate outcomes. The veil of neutrality is referred to in the literature as a rationalized myth that masks disparities in the equitable distribution of public services (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Portillo et al., 2020). Hooks (2013) argued White supremacist thinking and practice remain ingrained in the political foundations and systems within the U.S. She referred to this as “imperialist White supremacist capitalist patriarchy” which demanded obedience, subservience, submissiveness, and docile participation in an interlocking system (Hooks, 2013, p. 4).

CONCLUSION

     Public administration faces a shifting paradigm that challenges neutrality as a bedrock. In this research, we adapted a framework to forge ahead with eight actionable types of cultural competence initiatives and learning constructs to mitigate disparate aspects of neutrality in public service. This article focused on the performative illusion of neutrality as an organizational learning impediment that preserves and promotes disparities, inequities, and exclusion based on the premise of objectivity. It’s time to move beyond the performative illusion of neutrality to rebalance and recalibrate public service mechanisms. To disrupt the deep entrenchment of neutrality that veils how the evenhandedness of efficiency reinforces exploitation, control, power, and dominance, it requires us to disentangle ourselves and unlearn what we have been socialized to adopt as norms.

     Public practitioners must become skilled at navigating and disarming the ubiquitous minefields of public service once boots hit the ground. Development of cultural competence requires work at the individual, collective, and organizational levels embedded in empathy, ethics, engagement, and equity (Meyer et al., 2022). Starke et al. (2018) argued it is the ethical responsibility of public administration programs to educate and prepare students to become culturally competent administrators. By default, failure to prioritize cultural competence would perpetuate dominant biased perspectives. The development of cultural competence requires reconstituting long-standing traditional modes of doing business as value hierarchies. Such a reconstitution can ensure that organizations intentionally and meaningfully engage with proposed changes and articulate an ethical commitment and responsibility to raise the consciousness of public practitioners.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the intersection between organizational learning (OL) and knowledge management (KM) in the tourism and hospitality sector by conducting a bibliometric analysis. A total of 628 publications from 293 various sources and 1468 different authors were included in the analysis between 2001 and 2021. Open-source statistical R software was utilized to conduct the bibliometric analysis, specifically, the Bibliometrix R library and the Biblioshiny version. The VOSviewer program was also used to display the keyword co-occurrence network. The findings show that the implication of KM and OL has been widely recognized as critical learning facilitators and as strategic tools for gaining competitive advantage that recognizes opportunities and threats for possible alignment with environmental change. Organizational learning and KM are particularly relevant for sustainable tourism and hospitality solutions, cutting-edge technologies, and organizational service innovations. Four research clusters were identified that provide critical future research paths.

Introduction

Tourism and hospitality are important economic sectors in terms of overall contribution to GDP and employment (López-Bonilla & López-Bonilla, 2021). Although tourism and hospitality have been investigated from a variety of research perspectives (Harrison, 2007), knowledge management (KM) and organizational learning (OL) are relatively new to tourism studies (Ghaderi & Paraskevas, 2021). This late adoption originates from multiple constraints in the sector, such as the substantial presence of small and family businesses with limited managerial expertise, heterogeneity of supply, a large short-term and seasonal workforce, and a high rate of business and workforce turnover (Cooper, 2006; 2015; 2018). Nevertheless, there is a growing recognition of the importance of knowledge to the success and competitive advantage of enterprises (Paraskevas et al., 2013). The knowledge economy emerged in the 1990s (Cooper, 2015), where knowledge management and organizational learning was recognized as one of the most crucial resources and capabilities of firms to achieve competitive advantage (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Grant, 1996). The knowledge economy differs from conventional economic theory because it is based upon innovation and intellectual capital to generate value, recognizing that knowledge is more than simply information: rather it is a resource to be valued and managed (OECD, 1996). Since the 1990s, knowledge as an intangible resource, and KM itself, has attracted the interest of business management researchers (Gaviria-Marin et al., 2019) and led to the emergence of learning organizations. These are firms that successfully implement and integrate KM and OL capabilities to achieve competitive advantage and superior performance (Pemberton & Stonehouse, 2000; Sun & Scott, 2003). In addition, KM has helped hospitality organizations to internationalize as this could enhance their learning competences related to organizational ambidexterity and positively influence performance (Ubeda-Garcia et al., 2021).

Discussion and conclusions

This study implemented bibliometric methods to investigate the intersection between OL and KM in tourism and hospitality research over two decades. From the results, several conclusions can be extracted. First, while these fields of research have been well-established in other disciplines, our findings point to the immaturity of the tourism, and hospitality field with fewer citations in tourism and hospitality up until a growth stage from 2017 onwards (almost 17% annually). In other words, research on KM and OL emerged relatively late in tourism and hospitality. This is likely explained by the growing understanding of the significant role of KM and OL in enhancing organizations’ performance and competitive advantage (Hassi, 2019), organizational innovation and sustainability, and crisis management practices. These topics have been at the frontline of much research, especially in the second decade of the Second, as discussed, social capital is highlighted as a key organizational success factor that is significantly attributed to the application of KM and OL through network creation and knowledge sharing (Kim & Shim, 2018; Paraskevas et al., 2013). Both OL and KM can boost social capital and improve human resource capabilities.

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Materials and Methods

4. Hypotheses, Research Model and Methodology

5. Results

6. Conclusions

7. Limitations of the Proposal

8. Future Lines of Research

References

Abstract

Organizational culture (OC) is one of the key factors that enables the development of innovation. A great deal of research has analyzed the characteristics that make up an innovation-focused OC; however, none have unified them. This article analyzes and integrates the literature on the characteristics of an innovation OC. Its objective was to test whether there is a specific set of distinctive characteristics of an innovation-focused OC that, once identified, can be implemented and developed by firms. To this end, this study proposed and tested a model for measuring the innovation orientation of an OC. This study collected samples from small- and medium-sized companies from the oil-producing states of Mexico, obtaining information from 176 companies. To determine the group of characteristics that make up an organizational culture of innovation (OCI), the authors applied non-experimental, descriptive, transactional research with a quantitative approach. Results were obtained through the application of the following statistical techniques: Bonnet test, KMO index, Bartlett’s sphericity, Chi-square, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, principal component analysis and structural equations, which made it possible to measure the level of innovation of the OCI of these companies and to determine the characteristics that comprise it. The proposed model allowed us to identify the existence of a specific group of behavioral characteristics that emanate from a company’s personnel and another group of characteristics that arise from the company itself. Both integrated groups determine whether the OC is focused on innovation. The results also confirmed that the level of innovation of a company depends greatly on its personnel. The authors found no previous work that analyzed these characteristics from the joint perspectives of employees, middle managers and managers. This research considered the opinions of these agents, which confers greater veracity to the findings obtained. The limitations and implications are listed at the end of the study.

 1. Introduction

Due to the current trend of globalization, organizations are immersed in a changing environment, where competitive advantages are difficult to maintain. Therefore, it is important to identify, renew and combine resources and capabilities so that companies can consider alternatives that guarantee their survival and success [1], as well as the integration of permanent innovation as a strategy to face this unstable environment [2,3]. Therefore, the analysis and management of the development of innovation within companies are essential. In this sense, Schumpeter [4] emphasized the importance of organizations focusing on innovation, stating that a country without innovative organizations is condemned to technological and economic backwardness and, therefore, to poverty.

Research carried out in recent decades to determine the factors that focus a company on innovation have all assigned a prominent role to OC (organizational culture) [5,6]. Along these lines, Souto [7] affirmed that by focusing OC on innovation, companies can achieve success and, at the same time, surpass the competition in the development of opportunities.

A review of the literature shows that since the formal study of OCI (organizational culture of innovation) began in 1978 with the work of Roger Harrison [8], many researchers have focused on analyzing the behavioral characteristics that make it up [5,9]. However, there is still no epistemology regarding them [10].

Innovation is increasingly important in growth processes, in facing the economic crisis derived from market globalization and, even more so, in the process leading to economic development and social welfare. According to the National Survey on Productivity and Competitiveness of Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises [11], 97.6% of the approximately 4 million enterprises in Mexico are microenterprises, which account for 75.4% of the economically active population, followed by small enterprises, which account for 2.0% and 0.4% of workers, while medium-sized enterprises account for 13.5% and have 11.1% of the total number of current workers. Of all of them, only 35% invest less than 2% of their revenue into innovation initiatives, 32% between 2% and 5%, and 21% between 6% and 10% of the company’s revenues [12].

Abstract

The aim of this article was to assess the efficiency of the utilization of public funds for climate neutrality. It was concluded that the data gathered in public statistics are not adapted to current challenges and hinder the direct measurement of climate policy objective implementation progress. Due to that, an innovative approach to public intervention efficiency analysis was proposed for the sake of decreasing CO2 emission in 27 European Union (EU) countries, based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and soft modeling. Statistical data are derived from the Eurostat database and pertain to the years 2005–2019. It was demonstrated that activity efficiency of the particular EU countries on climate neutrality varied and that together with the increase in public funds spent on environmental protection, the growth of effects in the field of reaching climate neutrality objectives was not observed. The greatest positive impact on achieving climate neutrality objectives was revealed for activities connected with building renewable sources of energy (RES) and there was no correlation detected for expenditures connected with transport infrastructure, which means that public funds used for their construction did not influence climate neutrality. It was established that, in the analyzed period, the decisions on allocating public funds were not taken on the basis of the expected amount of reduction in relation to the volume of outlays. In order to track the reasons for detected inefficiency, 52 projects were analyzed within the case study, which covered 3738 investments in the replacement of heating sources in one region of Poland. It was revealed that the efficiency of those investments varies; however, due to the full availability of data of the acquired results and outlays devoted to them, a synthetic index of efficiency measurement was established that presents the amount of CO2 reduction for EUR 1. When comparing the analyses carried out on macro and micro scales, it was observed that on the scale of the EU, there is a lack of uniform measurements or benchmarks of projects in the field of CO2 emissions reduction. Meanwhile, from the whole EU’s perspective, it should be reasonable to undertake projects with the highest economic efficiency, irrespective of political and geographical aspects. The results obtained should be utilized by decision-makers to elaborate reference methodologies and good practices in order to successfully implement climate objectives and especially the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). What should be established are universal, on the EU scale, measurements and rules for gathering and counting data as well as benchmarks for the particular project types.

Introduction

The reasons for climate change and biodiversity loss are of a global character. The most significant source of them is unsustainable consumption, i.e., lack of full reflection of environmental deterioration and nonrenewable resource consumption in the prices of goods and services. The prices of many products are too low, even when the negative impact of products on the environment, ecosystems, or human health is well documented. This pertains mainly to the utilization of fossil fuels for such purposes as heating buildings, transport, and industrial production. Including all the social and environmental costs in product prices would demand global agreement on the so-called carbon tax or adoption of the global emissions trading system. Not all countries currently agree on this kind of solution. Some countries, such as the EU ones, are not waiting for the implementation of a global agreement and are undertaking activities that lie within the scope of their possibilities. The administrative activities usually concentrate on intervention activities, i.e., on providing public funding for changing the means of management that decrease the emissivity of goods and services. However, as a result of such public intervention, the goods and services are even cheaper than they should be, because due to public funding their prices are lower (if not for the intervention of public funds, all the social costs would have to be included by the producer). Additionally, lower price increases consumption scale, and that drives the mechanism of unsustainable consumption.

Conclusions

The aim of the article was to examine the efficiency of the spending of public funds on climate neutrality in the European Union countries. Twenty-seven countries were selected as a research field. The objective was fully met with the use of the DEA method and soft modeling as well as a case study. Conducted research revealed that most EU countries had low efficiency of utilization of public funds for climate neutrality. This results, to a great extent, from the fact that those expenditures mostly focus on activities related to environmental protection, not climate protection. The efficiency of particular countries’ activities strongly varies. There are countries assessed as efficient because they obtained little, but also did not spend much. Today, in particular countries, decisions are taken on the basis of the expected amount of anticipated level of reduction, without including the amount of outlays necessary to reach it.

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Research methodology

3. Research themes

4. Market entry and internationalization

5. Political strategy

6. Multinational technology and innovation strategies

7. Multinational CSR

8. Multinational headquarters–subsidiary relationships

9. International HRM

10. Future research directions

11. Conclusion

Appendix A. Supplementary data

References

Abstract

We review and analyze the growing body of literature that addresses the institutional context of international strategy. By examining articles in eleven major journals from January 2008 to July 2020, we identify six major categories of international strategies and implementation approaches: market entry and internationalization, political strategies, multinational technology and innovation, multinational corporate social responsibility, multinational headquarters and subsidiary relationships, and international human resources management. A parallel analysis of the relevant institutional variables categorizes institutions into eight types: economic institutions, political institutions, regulatory institutions, normative institutions, administrative institutions, cultural/cognitive institutions, demographic institutions, and knowledge institutions. These eight categories allow us to contextualize the institutional environment in which the six international strategies and implementation approaches are employed.

1. Introduction

Attempts to identify and understand the influence of institutions on international strategies started gaining traction in the 1990s (Dunning and Lundan, 2008). The number of studies on this topic has grown exponentially since then. Indeed, institutional differences between host and home countries are considered to be significant factors in the formulation and implementation of international strategies (Hennart and Larimo, 1998; Kostova, 1999; Shenkar et al., 2008; Xu and Shenkar, 2002). Studies in this area generally examine and deepen our understanding of specific institutions, international strategies, and/or research settings. However, comparing and contrasting these research findings across disciplinary boundaries, geographic locations, and/or temporal periods often uncovers contradictions and discontinuities.

1- Introduction

2- Literature

3- Narrative account

4- Time series evidence

5- Role of inflation expectations for the recovery

6- Implications and future directions

References

Abstract

A regime shift toward increased inflation expectations is credited with jump-starting the recovery from the Great Depression in the United States. What role did inflation expectations play in Germany that experienced a similarly successful economic upturn in the 1930s? We study inflation expectations in the German recovery across several methods: we conduct a narrative study of media sources; we estimate inflation expectations from a factor-augmented vector autoregression model, real interest rate forecasts, and quantitative news series. Consistently across these approaches, we do not find a shift to increased expected inflation. This recovery was different, and its causes lie elsewhere.

Introduction

Inflation expectations play a central role in explanations for the recovery from the Great Depression in the United States . Central bankers frequently refer to the historical precedent for this policy prescription: President Roosevelt made a credible commitment to inflate the economy in the Spring of 1933, which is regarded as a regime change that marks the beginning of the successful recovery of the U.S. economy (e.g. Eggertsson (2008)).1 Figure 1 shows the recovery paths for the United States and Germany. U.S. industrial production increased dramatically following the Roosevelt regime shift in the second quarter of 1933. The recovery in Germany that started in 1932 proceeded at roughly the same rate, starting off slowly in the beginning, but at a higher and steady pace thereafter. We observe similar patterns for prices (Figure 2). Although the U.S. price index of industrial finished goods jumped upward along with industrial production, the German price index increased at a much slower pace.

1- Introduction

2- Related literature

3- Commitment issues with innovation prizes

4- The model

5-Innovation policies

6- Comparing the different policy regimes

7- Diverting resources toward low-welfare investments

8- Concluding remarks

References

Abstract

This paper compares the performance of a variety of innovation policy instruments when the government cannot commit to transfer cash rewards to an innovator and has the option to divert resources to alternative investments. In a dynamic environment in which government’s investment opportunities evolve stochastically, we provide conditions under which the optimal mechanism is a price regulation system where the inventor owns intellectual property and receives a cash transfer when price equals marginal cost. We illustrate how a dynamic complementarity between cash rewards and intellectual property may arises when the government’s budget is limited and monopoly distortions are not too severe. We discuss how other forms of complementarity between cash transfers and intellectual property may emerge, with patent rights serving as a discipline device that ensures the payment of the reward.

Introduction

A central class of problems in the economics of innovation literature examines the role of government policies to incentivize R&D investments and the development of new products. Traditionally, the literature has studied this issue comparing a variety of policy tools in situations where the innovator has an information advantage over the government in understanding the quality of new products (Scotchmer, 1999; Shavell and Ypersele, 2001). This paper departs from this standard modelling approach and focuses instead on situations where the government faces a commitment problem. Specifically, we examine the performance of innovation policies in a model where the planner cannot commit to transferring resources to the innovator and faces the option to divert its budget to alternative welfare-generating projects. The use of innovation prizes has increased substantially during the past decade with a large number of philanthropists entering the business of rewarding innovators (McKinsey, 2009). The Gates Foundation, Qualcomm and Nokia have offered multi-million dollar prizes for children immunization and the development of affordable medical devices. In the public sector, one of the most important examples of innovation prizes is the 2004 Darpa Grand-Challenge in which a $1 million prize was offered to the team that built a self-driving car that drove 150 miles through the Mojave Desert the fastest.

1- Introduction

2- Literature review and hypotheses

3- Description of data

4-  Empirical results

5- Conclusion

References

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of political uncertainty on the choice of debt sources. We find a positive relationship between political uncertainty stemming from elections and the proportion of bank loans over total debts, especially when elections are closely contested. Furthermore, this relationship is stronger in opaque firms and more financially constrained firms as well as firms from countries with weaker shareholder rights, labor protection, creditor rights and national governance.

Introduction

Political outcomes affect the regulatory policies that shape the external environment under which firms operate. As documented in a large strand of literature, political uncertainty, such as a change in government policy and national leadership, is one of the principal means by which politics affects corporate decisions. Prior research studied the effect of political uncertainty on investment (e.g., Durnev, 2014; Jens, 2017), dividend payouts (Huang et al., 2015), foreign direct investments (FDI – Nguyen et al., 2018), leverage ratio (Cao et al., 2013), corporate credit risk (Liu and Zhong, 2017; Kaviani et al., 2017), industry return volatility (Boutchkova et al., 2012), stock price and equity risk premia (Pastor and Veronesi, 2012, 2013), IPO activity (e.g., Colak et al., 2017), option pricing (Kelly et al., 2016), stock price crash risk (e.g., Li et al., 2018). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the relationship between political uncertainty and the choice of debt source yet. Examining debt choice rather than the amount of total debt is important because while the total amount of debt may not change over time, its composition (i.e., the allocation of debt between a bank and public debt) may change.

1- Introduction

2- Theoretical discussion

3- Labour internationalism through the Public Services International (PSI)

4- Strategic rationales in the internationalism of public sector workers

5- Concluding discussion

References

Abstract

This paper sets out the need to conceptualise labour internationalism in the public sector, given its distinct political character and orientation. Our analysis adds to a literature on labour internationalism that hitherto has mainly depicted strategies of unions in private sector industries. To better understand the reasons for upscaling trade union efforts in a sector where the main employer remains the institutional apparatus of the nation-state, we have interviewed office bearers in the most important global union federation organising across different public services – Public Services International (PSI) – asking them to explain their political and strategic considerations. We find that the distinct role of the nation state as an employer, the public character of work and specific relations between public sector workers and the users of services, are all determinants in shaping labour transnationalism in the public sector. This in turn leads to a greater emphasis on alliances with social movements and oppositional campaigns, representing a radical global political unionism. Neoliberal austerity and privatisation measures have reinforced the importance of such political relationships and power, but also challenged their organisational foundations. However, alliance-building is not PSI’s sole strategy. We find that office bearers at the transnational level combines three strategic rationales through orientations that we have labelled the political-institutional, the movement-popular and the industrial-corporate. We also suggest that employing these sensitising concepts can bolster the scholarly treatment of understanding labour internationalism and its strategy repertoires more generally.

Introduction

Why do workers in the public sector, whose main employer is still the institutional apparatus of the nation-state, decide to pursue strategies of labour internationalism? And are these strategies differently motivated than transnational labour activism in private sector industries? The election of Italian trade unionist Rosa Pavanelli as elected general secretary of the Public Services International (PSI) in 2012 represents an interesting entry point from which to address these questions. PSI is a global union federation (GUF) organising 20 million public services workers in 163 countries. Pavanelli’s election signalled a shift in leadership towards a more social movement and activist unionism tradition. In the global surge of civil society protests since 2010 (Della Porta, 2015; Ortiz, Burke, Berrada, & Cortes, 2013), public sector unions have been central. Austerity measures and neoliberal policies have arguably restated the case for alliance-building between public sector workers and services users, even though solidarity between these groups are often riddled with tensions (Peck, 2012; Ross & Savage, 2013). Both subjects are concerned with the quality of services, the integrity of the public sector workforce and the legitimacy of salaries in the sector. This entails that the realisation of workers’ interests in public sector unions increasingly depends on their relationship with other citizens. It ultimately requires the building of political capital, in order to countervail what is seen as an unprecedented global attack on workers and welfare alike. Faced with both neoliberal austerity and a growing right-populist discourse emerging transnationally in the context of economic crisis, Thomas and Tufts (2016) argue that unions need to construct a broader political alternative through alliances with community groups and wider segments of the working class. Sharing a mistrust in national governments from both the left and the right, such an alliance could also find common ground in global issues like free trade, structural austerity programs or the leaks surrounding global tax havens and unjust tax practices.

1- Introduction

2- Theory: Predictions

3- Methods

4- Results

5- Conclusions

References

Abstract

We analyze the effect on inflation of doubling the minimum wage and cutting the value-added tax in half. Annual inflation decreased by 1.8 percentage points, suggesting that the minimum wage increase had a limited or even null effect on prices.

Introduction

Mexico elected a new government in the summer of 2018, in a context of high levels of violence in municipalities on the U.S. border and throughout the country, and of growing antiimmigration rhetoric in the U.S. For these reasons, and also because of concerns about migration from Central American countries, the newly-elected president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced his intention to generate better working conditions at the border to reduce incentives to cross to the U.S. The new government implemented a set of place-based policies that went into effect in the bordering municipalities beginning in January 2019. These included doubling the nominal minimum wage, halving the value-added tax (VAT) from 16 to 8 percent, reducing the corporate income tax by one-third, and adjusting the price of energy goods to make them comparable to those in bordering counties in the U.S. This set of policies is one of the boldest recent place-based policies in the world. In this paper, we restrict our analysis to the effects of these policies on inflation, taking advantage of their regional variation to estimate their joint effect. In particular, by using a rich dataset that includes the prices of goods with and without VAT in different cities throughout Mexico, we are able to shed some light on the magnitude of the effect on prices of doubling the minimum wage.