International Migration Dynamics: The Role of Experience and Social Networks

This paper tests the dynamic implications of cumulative causation and network theory on the self‐sustaining nature of the migration process. A sequential migration model is derived and estimated with a panel of Mexican household heads for the years 1980–89. Consistently with cumulative causation and network theory, the empirical results show that, after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, previous migration experience and migration‐related variables are the strongest predictors of current migration decisions. This persistence in migration patterns implies that immigration policies inducing small changes in expected costs and benefits of US work fail to prevent entry into, or encourage exit from, the US labor market by experienced migrants. However, large temporary disruptions such as the 1994 Mexican peso devaluation may permanently increase migratory flows by inducing new migrants to enter the US labor market.     

Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy: The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies

In the Netherlands, new accountability arrangements are created as remedies for the accountability deficit of agencies. These arrangements are of a ‘horizontal’ nature, as the agencies account for their behaviour towards accountees that are not their hierarchical superiors: clients, stakeholders or peers. This paper provides an inventory and qualitative assessment of horizontal accountability arrangements. It is argued that they have added value because they stimulate learning. However, horizontal accountability is not a substitute for hierarchical accountability. Horizontal accountability arrangements operate ‘in the shadow of hierarchy’: they gain significance through complex interactions with traditional forms of accountability.

The Role of Operational Interdependence and Supervisory Experience on Management Assessments of Resource Planning Systems

Greater interdependence among workers and activities not only increases the need for internal communication, but it also imposes complications and barriers to effective information exchange. Intraorganizational communication capabilities of certain information systems can help overcome these barriers. However, the extent to which certain systems are promoted as communication tools depends largely on management's interpretation of their usefulness, which in turn may be largely dependent on operational context and managerial experience. We use a controlled experimental approach to study how these issues interact to impact managerial assessments of resource planning systems. Results show that managers value the communication capabilities of resource planning systems more so in highly task‐interdependent contexts and that these assessments are still more positive among managers with greater supervisory experience. As a result, these findings pose direct implications regarding the management support of technology use.     

人力资源中介组织与中介市场的发展

本文以我国人力资源中介组织与中介市场的发展为主线,探讨在新的外部环境下企业管理职能的“外包化”与人力资源中介市场形成的关系,我国人力资源中介组织的发展现状、特征与主要问题,以及完善我国人力资源中介市场的途径与对策等。     

The Speed of Experience: The Co‐narrative Method in Experience Economy Education

This paper proposes a management learning technique called the co‐narrative method. This approach is seen as a useful means of capturing the subtler nuances of experience economy interactions, as well as learning ethics and corporate social responsibility, by nurturing empathy and compassion. A method is presented based on the example of the idea of slow as fast side of organizational and festival experiences, which is explored through autoethnographic studies of participation in experience economy events. It builds upon insights into improving management education through the use of the humanistic approach. The so‐called co‐narrative method is based on a syzygic mode uniting the two oppositions (while preserving their inherent contradictions). It encourages its users to exercise understanding of the experience of the Other, while teaching about concrete cases and events.     

The Impact of Social Media and Digital Platforms Experience on SME International Orientation: The Moderating Role of COVID-19 Pandemic

Drawing on network learning theory, it investigates the effect of small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) experience of using foreign and domestic social network services (SNS) and foreign and domestic platforms (such as B2B digital platforms) on their international orientation. We further examine the moderating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between digital experience and international orientation. Empirical results from a sample of 373 observations from 250 Chinese SMEs show that their use of foreign SNS and B2B digital platforms has a stronger positive impact on their international orientation than their use of domestic SNS and B2B digital platforms. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs' use of foreign SNS still has a stronger positive impact on their international orientation than their use of domestic SNS. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic mitigates the positive impact of their use of both foreign and domestic platforms on their international orientation. This study presents some interesting theoretical and practical implications for SMEs' digitalization and internationalization.     

A Risk Analysis Approach to Prioritizing Epidemics: Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa as a Case Study

The 2014 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak affected several countries worldwide, including six West African countries. It was the largest Ebola epidemic in the history and the first to affect multiple countries simultaneously. Significant national and international delay in response to the epidemic resulted in 28,652 cases and 11,325 deaths. The aim of this study was to develop a risk analysis framework to prioritize rapid response for situations of high risk. Based on findings from the literature, sociodemographic features of the affected countries, and documented epidemic data, a risk scoring framework using 18 criteria was developed. The framework includes measures of socioeconomics, health systems, geographical factors, cultural beliefs, and traditional practices. The three worst affected West African countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia) had the highest risk scores. The scores were much lower in developed countries that experienced Ebola compared to West African countries. A more complex risk analysis framework using 18 measures was compared with a simpler one with 10 measures, and both predicted risk equally well. A simple risk scoring system can incorporate measures of hazard and impact that may otherwise be neglected in prioritizing outbreak response. This framework can be used by public health personnel as a tool to prioritize outbreak investigation and flag outbreaks with potentially catastrophic outcomes for urgent response. Such a tool could mitigate costly delays in epidemic response.     

Thinking About Stakeholders of Public Agencies: The Georgia Department of Transportation Stakeholder Audit

Practitioners and scholars have grown increasingly interested in recent decades in how public administrators should and can work with the constituencies they serve. To date, most of this conversation has focused on citizens and broader communities rather than on stakeholders more generally, but these other stakeholders, ranging from oversight policy-making bodies to private sector and nonprofit contractors to governmental partners, are no less important than the general public. The purpose of this paper is to propose a first step that many agencies might take in thinking about their range of stakeholders, a step that we term a “stakeholder audit.” A stakeholder audit entails (1) mapping the universe of an agency’s stakeholders, (2) assessing the agency’s perceived needs for additional information relative to various stakeholder groups, and (3) developing suggestions on how to obtain that information. After first discussing the more general idea of stakeholder analyses, we describe the stakeholder audit technique, and illustrate how it has been applied to a particular agency, the State of Georgia’s Department of Transportation. We conclude by considering how a stakeholder audit could represent a first step for an agency in improving relationships with its stakeholders.

The Role of Language in Knowledge Transfer to Geographically Dispersed Manufacturing Operations

This study proposes a model of the effects of language on knowledge transfer to geographically dispersed operations. Rather than focusing on the distance between two language groups, we look at the commonalities between their languages, introducing the construct of linguistic relatedness as a way to measure the overlap in the structural features of the dominant languages at play between firms and their overseas manufacturing operations. We focus on the structural aspects of language (e.g., grammar, pronunciation, and word formation), rather than the functional aspects that deal with usage and interpretation. This allows us to separate the effects of language from those of culture and test whether linguistic distance may be more or at least differently relevant in communication-related tasks. We test our model of knowledge transfer and linguistic relatedness through a survey of international operations managers representing US-owned multinational enterprises with manufacturing plants in 22 countries. While linguistic relatedness shows the expected positive relationships with ease of knowledge communication and normative integration, it is negatively related to knowledge understanding — an echo of the psychic distance paradox and a reminder that distance can sometimes be beneficial, as it signals the need for attention to complex processes such as communication of knowledge.     

慎用警力处置群体性事件

群体性治安事件是当前较为突出的问题,领导者在妥善处置这类事件时调动和使用警力是一个重要手段。但警力用得好,能平息事态;用得不好,就可能于事无补,甚至激化矛盾。因此,在处置群体性治安事件中……     

The Property Rights Approach to Nonprofit Organization: The Role of Intrinsic Motivation

The standard property rights approach to nonprofit organization claims that attenuation of property rights in the form of nondistribution constraint stimulates managerial shirking in nonprofit firms and thereby makes them less efficient than for-profit firms. This paper argues that this view neglects the important role played by intrinsic motivation in nonprofit organization. Intrinsically motivated stakeholders provide resources to nonprofit firms and thereby facilitate their economic survival. However, intrinsic motivation is subject to the crowding-out effect, i.e., the danger of being displaced by the use of extrinsic (monetary and administrative) incentives. The property rights structure in nonprofit organization is designed to minimize the crowding-out effect by dampening monetary and administrative incentives through nondistribution constraint and self-governance orientation, respectively. This facilitates not only economic survival of nonprofit firms but also maximization of utility of their intrinsically motivated stakeholders.

Using a Consultant Workshop Model to Improve Performance Management in Chinese Autism Agencies: A Preliminary Study

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the outcomes of using a consultant workshop model to help implement performance management (PM) methods in selected Chinese autism agencies. A need for improvement of educational services in Chinese autism agencies was identified. However, the theory and methods of organizational behavior management (OBM) in general and PM in particular are still foreign in the Chinese autism community. The primary research question of the current study was whether first-line teacher performance in Chinese autism agencies could be improved by the use of a consultant workshop model to train management staff to implement a PM system. Four autism agencies in different Chinese provinces participated in this study. Results demonstrated that after the implementation of the PM system through a consultant workshop model in the participating agencies, the performance of first-line teachers in these agencies improved in several important areas. The intervention appeared modestly effective. Implications of the outcome data and future directions for practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

The Role of Emotions in Risk Communication

We present two experiments investigating the role of emotions concerning technological and natural hazards. In the first experiment, technological hazards aroused stronger emotions, and were considered to be riskier than natural hazards. No differences were found between the texts versus audio presentations. However, the presence of pictures aroused stronger emotions and increased the perceived risk. Emotions play a mediating role between hazard types and perceived risk, as well as between pictures and perceived risk. The second experiment adopted real‐world materials from webpages and TV. Emotions again play a mediating role between pictorial information and risk perception. Moreover, specific emotions were found to be associated with different types of action tendencies. For example, loss‐based emotions (e.g., fear, regret) tend to lead to prevention strategies, whereas ethical emotions (e.g., anger) lead to aggressive behavior. We also find that loss‐based emotions in the technical hazard scenario trigger more coping strategies (from prevention to retaliation) than in the natural hazard scenario.     

The Role of Community in Migration Dynamics

Abstract. In this paper, I have presented a theoretical model that investigates the observable hysteresis process in migration dynamics. In the model the migration choice depends not only on wage differential, but also on a U‐shaped benefit function of a community of homogenous ethnic individuals, according to the ‘theory of clubs’. The results, based on real option theory, explain that observable ‘jumps’ in migration flows could depend not only on exogenous shocks, but also on two endogenous variables: the number of coordinated immigrants and the dimension of the community. Indeed, migration choice is delayed until a critical mass of immigrants is reached and possible rigidities of optimal district size could magnify this hysteresis process.     

The Role of Strategic Agility in Acquisitions

The aim of the present study is to examine the role of strategic agility as a component of the acquisition process by investigating its constituent elements and effects on knowledge transfer in the context of acquisitions. The study also elaborates on the relationship between knowledge transfer and performance in acquisitions. We test our theoretical model on a quantitative data set of acquisitions conducted by Finnish companies.     

Getting New Staff to Stay: The Mediating Role of Organizational Identification

Newcomer turnover is a major cost to organizations, and the quality of new employees' experiences in the first few months is critical in determining whether they decide to stay or leave. In a study that focused on the first stage of newcomer socialization, we investigate the impact of perceptions of social validation from the team and the team leader, and perceived fairness of treatment on newcomers' identification with their work team and the organization, specifically measuring the group self‐investment components of identification. The mediating role of these levels of group self‐investment and of the imbalance (i.e. difference) between levels of self‐investment on turnover intentions was also tested. New staff (N=569) joining a large public‐sector organization completed a questionnaire about their socialization experiences in their first 6 months of their employment. Structural equation modelling revealed that social validation by the team and team leaders, and fairness of treatment, predict increased investment with the organization and with the team. Organizational‐level self‐investment and an imbalance in favour of investment with the organization over that of the team mediated decreases in turnover intentions. We conclude that organizations should provide newcomers with validation that promotes identification with their organization during this critical stage of socialization.     

The Role of Knowledge in Resource Allocation to Exploration versus Exploitation in Technologically Oriented Organizations*

Decisions regarding research and development (R&D) activities of an organization greatly affect the fiscal and market outcomes of technologically oriented firms. Yet, the resource allocation choices between these two activities are tied strongly to an organization's technology knowledge. Technological knowledge is itself a resource that the firm can manage to achieve strategic and competitive advantage. In this paper, the authors present a system dynamics view of the decomposition of R&D efforts into explorative and exploitive activities and the resultant knowledge‐specific and performance outcomes from the decision to focus on one type of activity or another. Four factors are shown to affect the relative value of innovative knowledge to the organization: resource availability, exogenous competition, aging of knowledge bases, and adaptive capacity, a firm's ability to adapt to its environment. A variety of long‐ and short‐term strategic issues are discussed in relation to these forces.