Business Commons^™

Submission To The Future Of The Media Commission, Brendan K. O'Rourke, Joseph K. Fitzgerald

Reports

Dr. Brendan K. O’Rourke is a Senior Lecturer at Technological University Dublin, where he focuses on learning in the area of discourses of the economy, in particular examining enterprise, policy and public discourses on the economy. His scholarly work has been widely published as chapters in edited volumes, encyclopedia / handbook entries and in over 20 peer-reviewed academic journals such the Critical Discourse Studies, Politics and Social Semiotics. More information on his work is available on www.brendankorourke.com . Dr. Joseph K. FitzGerald lectures in international strategy at Technological University Dublin and has published on topics such as how young men …

Media Discourses On The Economy In Ireland: Framing The Policy Possibilities, Brendan K. O'Rourke

Books/Book Chapters

Ireland suffered a lot economically in the Great Recession, yet its policies continued on a neoliberal trajectory, making Irish neoliberalism less a non-dead Zombie and more like a reinvigorated Frankenstein’s monster, with ordoliberal transplants from Germany grafted into an Anglo-American neoliberal composite body. Yet along with these continuities come much change. There was political change in party strengths and personnel. There was change in the Irish state’s capacity for policy analysis (MacCarthaigh, 2017) an increase in the number of Ireland’s policy analysts and their specialisms, and an increased stress on evidence-based policy-making. How can we explain both these continuities and …

Unconditional Quantile Regression Analysis Of Uk Inbound Tourist Expenditures, Abhijit Sharma, Richard Woodward, Stefano Grillini

Articles

Using International Passenger Survey (2017) data, this paper employs unconditional quantile regression (UQR) to analyse the determinants of tourist expenditure amongst inbound tourists to the United Kingdom. UQR allows us to estimate heterogeneous effects at any quantile of the distribution of the dependent variable. It overcomes the econometric limitations of ordinary least squares and quantile regression based estimates typically used to investigate tourism expenditures. However, our results reveal that the effects of our explanatory variables change across the distribution of tourist expenditure. This has important implications for those tasked with devising policies to enhance the UK’s tourist flows and expenditures.

Governance In A Globalised World, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

Discussions surrounding the sources of power and authority that govern the social world have taken place since ancient times. Finally, in the latter half of the twentieth century, it appeared that this debate had been decisively resolved in favour of the view that governance was the preserve of governments. This was a consequence of the ascendance in the social sciences of methodologies that presupposed human activities to correspond to the territorial boundaries of sovereign states. The privileging of sovereign territoriality did not reflect a poverty of scholarly thinking but was a by-product of their social world. (Taylor, 1996). By the …

Austerity For All Seasons: Communicating On The Economy In Ireland, Brendan O'Rourke, John Hogan, Joseph K. Fitzgerald

Conference papers

What is clear is that in Ireland it has been a good crisis for economists, in the sense that the status and power of the profession has increased, especially in public discourse and state bureaucracy. This is not to deny that the academic critique and public questioning of the status of economics, that has followed the failure of the profession internationally prior to the crisis. It would be interesting to see if the rise of economists status has taken place in other countries and if there is a pattern to the profession’s fortunes in its different fields across, for example …

Visions Of The Future In Budgetary Discourse, Ewan Macdonald, Brendan O'Rourke, John Hogan

Conference papers

Whilst there is ample precedent to argue against the common-sense notion that the ideological leanings of political parties are congruent with their implementation of fiscal policy (Boix, 2000; Garrett & Lange, 1991; Hibbs, 1977; Liargovas & Manolas, 2007), there is a relative dearth of research on the role of discourse in shaping fiscal policy with one notable exception by Maatsch (2014). With this in mind, we approach the issue of examining fiscal policy through a fixed, contested and subverted within particular texts” (Howarth, 2005, p. 341). This paper examines how the future is constructed in Irish budget speeches delivered between …

The Evolution Of The International Corporate Tax Regime, 1920-2008, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Taxation For Whom?:A Diachronic Analysis Of Taxation In Ireland And The United Kingdom From 1970-2015., Ewan Macdonald, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Other

This paper explores the discursive development of taxation within budget speeches in two countries, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, from 1970 to 2015 by means of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis. We ask the following questions; how have discourses of taxation developed diachronically in both countries, what are the similarities and differences in the observable discourses across both countries, and for whom and how are these discourses legitimised? In answering these questions, this paper makes use of Corpus linguistics, a methodological approach which utilises computational analysis of large bodies of text to draw statistically significant conclusions about the …

A Strange Revolution: Mock Compliance And The Failure Of The Oecd’S International Tax Transparency Regime, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Religious Heritages As Tools For Sustainable Economic Development: The Case Of Ireland’S Ecclesiastical Settlement Glendalough, Vreny Enongene, Kevin Griffin

Conference papers

Accelerating the shift towards a more sustainable sector are the priorities for the tourism industry (UNWTO, 2015). Therefore, it is against this background, that the United Nations general assembly has approved the adoption of 2017 as the international year of sustainable tourism for development, with the unique opportunity to advance the contribution of the tourism sector to the three pillars of sustainability, while raising awareness of the true dimensions of the sector which is often undervalued (UNWTO, 2015), in which the religious tourism sector is no exception. Nonetheless, within the religious tourism scholarship, the role tourism to religious heritages might …

The Pragmatics Of Economics Experts’ Engagement With Non-Specialists, Brendan O'Rourke, Jens Maesse

Other

A Call for Papers for Panel on Economics and Language Use: The pragmatics of economics experts’ engagement with non-specialists, 15th International Pragmatics Conference (IPrA2017) to be held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 16-21 July 2017.

Beyond Beautiful*- Why Citizens Are Comparatively Happier, More Prosperous, More Peaceful, More Democratically Engaged And Less Selfish Living In Smaller States, Anthony Paul Buckley

Other

Half of all sovereign states in the world have a population of less than 6.2m (World Bank, 2014). The mainstream literature in most academic disciplines has chosen, by accident or design, to neglect the unique determinants of small state growth and development (Armstrong & Read, 2003; Read, 2014). These are extraordinary omissions when the collective evidence on the performance of smaller states on a wide range of economic, political, cultural and social indices is considered. Apart from the disproportionate representation that small states enjoy in the World Banks Upper-Middle and High Income categories, many small states also feature in the …

Analysing The Performance Of Economic Discourses, Joseph Fitzgerald, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We focus on the methods used in analyzing broadcast interviews with economists on Morning Ireland, a prominent Irish radio news programme. Few would doubt that economists have taken a prominent role as experts on policy issues (Carrick-Hagenbarth and Epstein 2012, p.45) and some contend that no other social science discipline has gained such prominence (Schneider and Kirchgassner 2009, p.324). This paper comes from a larger research project, which uses a tailored methodological approach, incorporating a number of analytical methods. Keller (2011, p.63) has argued that a tailored methodological approach is often required to give special consideration to the ‘knowledge side’ …

Renting Trouble: Current Government Policy Of Relying On The Private Rented Sector To Deliver Social Housing Is Unlikely To Succeed, Tom Dunne

Reports

A review of the history of housing in Ireland shows that owner occupancy and social housing were policy choices by successive governments. Owner occupancy was heavily supported through a system of grants and tax breaks and social housing was directly provided through local authorities at subsidised rents. In recent years policy has changed and tenure neutrality is now guiding the government’s attitude to housing. This is a significant change which has not been sufficiently discussed and has consequences which are not appreciated. Relying on the market to provide rental housing for people on low incomes and who may be in …

Conference Presentation: The Power Of Words In Tension: Enterprise/Strategy As A Dilemma In Neoliberalism’S Persistence., Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We address how enterprise is related to, another important discourse, strategy. From a discourse analysis of the talk of small firm owner-managers, emerges a view of strategy and enterprise as a single, integrated entity, bound together by some commonalities but more importantly by paired opposites reminiscent of ideological dilemmas (Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton & Radley, 1988). This dilemmatic nature of enterprise/strategy discourse adds to explanations for the persistence of the neoliberal form of enterprise, with the entrepreneur as the heroic saviour of all, based on the entrepreneur as an empty signifier (Jones & Spicer, 2009; Kenny & …

Exploring Economists & Society: Constructing Expert Identity, Joseph Fitzgerald, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

The recent economic crisis has created a heightened interest in economics and greater demand for economics experts. The media has played an important role in meeting this demand as mediated expertise is relied upon to understand the complex relationships within society (Albaek, Christiansen and Togeby 2003; Beck 1992; Boyce 2006; Giddens 1990). Such interactions of experts with media are a key element of the knowledge flows within society (Sturdy et al. 2009) and so have attracted research attention (Ekstrom and Lundell 2011; Hutchby 2006; Montgomery 2008). This paper contributes to this literature by focusing on the under-researched area of the …

Words Worth Price And Value, Tom Dunne

Articles

TOM DUNNE explains the terms used in relation to the valuation of property, and the need for common understanding among all parties using those terms. -

How Foreign Firms Transformed Ireland’S Domestic Economy, Paul Donnelly

Articles

Today, Ireland is host to 1,033 multinational corporations. They directly employ 152,785 and account for 70 per cent or €122.5bn of exports. It’s a story that has its roots in the 1940s.

Link Levy To Services- Not Urban Middle Class Assets, Tom Dunne

Articles

Paying any tax is an unwelcome burden, but in Ireland many have a particular aversion to taxes on their homes. We are not alone in this. Elsewhere, taxes on homes are also unpopular; witness the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation which forced the California state government to cut property taxes. Nevertheless, residential property taxes remain an almost universal feature of developed countries because of compelling economic arguments for them. Also, local property taxes are regarded as the best means of funding local government.

Rarely, it seems to me, is there such a distance between what the public wants and …

Internationalisation By Idiosyncrasy: Resource Commitments And Competencies For Professional Service Firm Internationalisation, Deirdre Mcquillan, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

Conference papers

Using a behavioral process approach within the field of international business theory, this study adopts a resource based lens to examine an area exhibiting exceptional growth, the internationalisation of professional service firms (PSFs). An in-depth qualitative study of the internationalisation process of five architectural firms expanding to multiple international markets was conducted. The paper’s main contribution is the identification of the interplay between the learning process and resource commitments for internationalisation. We reveal how these PSFs can be classified along a continuum whereby they adopt either a project learning or a market learning approach which drives the development and acquisition …

How Professional Service Firms Internationalise: Resource Commitments And Competencies For Internationalisation, Deirdre Mcquillan, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

Conference papers

Departing from traditional economic and behavioural approaches, this study adopts a resource based lens to examine an area exhibiting exceptional growth, the internationalisation of professional service firms (PSFs). An in-depth qualitative study of the internationalisation process of five architectural firms expanding to multiple international markets was conducted. The paper’s main contribution is the identification of the interplay between PSF competencies and the firm’s approach to internationalisation. We reveal how these PSFs can be classified along a continuum ranging from artistic to engineering orientation depending on the firm’s relative emphasis on technical or management competencies when internationalising. Implications for PSFs when …

Avoiding The Mistakes Of The Past, Tom Dunne

Articles

Tom Dunne explores the long term drivers of dysfunction in Ireland's housing markets and what a more sustainable housing system would look like.

Tax Facts, Tom Dunne

Articles

Tom Dunne Clarifies the issues surrounding different forms of property tax

From Boom To Doom To Boom: Offshore Financial Centres And Development In Small States, Richard Woodward

Articles

During the 1990s tax havens and offshore financial centres (OFCs) were subject to a string of initiatives designed to raise their tax and regulatory regimes to accepted international standards. Many commentators forecast that this would lead to the demise of OFCs, a worry for the many small states whose economic well being depended heavily on the provision of offshore financial services. Despite this regulatory onslaught many small state OFCs have prospered in the new millennium. This paper seeks to explain this apparent paradox by arguing that (1) international initiatives were riddled with loopholes and exceptions that have been gleefully seized …

Forex Trading Using Metatrader 4 With The Fractal Market Hypothesis, Jonathan Blackledge, Kieran Murphy

Conference papers

This paper reports on the results of a research and development programme concerned with the analysis of currency pair exchange time series for Forex trading in an intensive applications and services environment. In particular, we present some of the preliminary results obtained for Forex trading using MetaTrader 4 with a new set of trend indicators deigned using a mathematical model that is based on the Fractal Market Hypothesis. This includes examples of various currency pair exchange rates considered over different time intervals and use of the indicators in a live trading environment to place a buy/sell order.

Discourse At The Edge: Enterprise Discourse In Ireland, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

Ireland is an economy, society and culture at the edge. It is at the edge of Europe and at the edge of both USA/UK and more mainland European or EU variants of capitalism. More recently it has been at the edge of economic crisis. Yet enterprise discourse is still central in Ireland. Enterprise discourse in Ireland is influenced by global and European Union (EU) developments. However, Irish enterprise discourse is not merely a ‘local adoption’. For example, high Irish economic growth rates during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ period have coincided with the development of the EU’s enterprise policy, thus giving the …

Site Value Tax, Tom Dunne

Articles

Tom Dunne discusses some of the issues surrounding property taxation in Ireland

Geo-Politics, The ‘War On Terror’ And The Competitiveness Of The City Of London, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Offshore Strategies In Global Political Economy: Small Islands And The Case Of The Eu And Oecd Harmful Tax Competition Initiatives, Richard Woodward

Articles

This article investigates how recent attempts by the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to clamp down on harmful tax competition will affect small island economies with offshore financial centres (OFCs). It argues that although there are legitimate concerns about the initiatives, the likelihood that small island OFCs will disappear is remote. A confluence of factors have forced the EU and OECD to dilute their original proposals to the extent that while some marginal OFCs may be driven out of existence, more sophisticated OFCs will be unharmed and may even benefit from this supposed …

Indexing Change In Lis Work: Implications For Recruiting Managers, John Cullen, Allison Kavanagh

Articles

Purpose: This paper reports on three periods of library and information service (LIS) recruitment data collected over a six-year timeframe with the aim of developing a tool for indexing change in the recruitment and labour market for workers in the field. Methodology / Approach: The recruitment data was collected in an Irish context over three distinct 12-month timeframes (1999, 2001-2002 and 2005). The two earlier annual sets of data have already been reported and discussed (the latter in Library Management in 2004a), and the most recent set (2005) is presented here. The data over the three timeframes is compared here, …