Are More Competent Workers More Satisfied?

Abstract. In this paper, we analyse the relationship between workers' competencies and their job satisfaction in the context of dual (i.e. vocational versus communicative) skill demands. We analyse the effects of workers' competencies on their overall, intrinsic, and extrinsic job satisfaction. We focus on pharmacy assistants who need both pharmaceutical and communicative competencies in their work. Results from a linked employer–employee survey show that assistants with more communicative competencies are more satisfied with their job, whereas assistants with more pharmaceutical competencies are not more satisfied than the less competent assistants. In addition, workers who perform tasks below their level of competence are more dissatisfied with both their remuneration and career prospects and the content of their job as such, than were other workers. Our results indicate that the demand shift from vocational towards communication skills, which occurs in many professions, can affect the job satisfaction of the most competent workers.     

Will More Purchasing Options Benefit Customers?

This paper considers the sale of a seasonal product in the face of strategic customers. At the beginning of the selling season, the retailer announces both the price p_h at which the product will be sold during the selling season and the post‐season clearance price p<p_h for unsold items. We analyze two operating regimes: The “no reservation regime” allows a buyer either to purchase the product at price p_h when he arrives or to enter a lottery to purchase at price p if the product remains unsold. The “reservation regime” offers each buyer one extra option than the no reservation regime: reserve the product for purchase at the clearance price p. If the buyer reserves the product under the reservation regime and if it remains unsold at the end of the selling season, then he is obligated to purchase it at price p. We consider a situation in which heterogeneous customers with probabilistic valuation arrive in accord with a Poisson process. We characterize the rational purchasing behavior wherein each arriving customer is strategic; each customer takes other customers' purchasing behavior into consideration. By considering the Nash equilibrium of this game, we show that strategic customer behavior can render the customer to be worse off and the retailer to be better off under the reservation regime, despite the fact that this regime offers one extra option (reservation) to a customer. Hence, more purchasing options do not necessarily benefit customers.     

Paying More than Necessary? The Wage Cushion in Germany

In Germany, more than 40 per cent of plants covered by collective agreements pay wages above the level stipulated in the agreement, giving rise to a wage cushion between actual and contractual wages. Cross‐sectional and fixed‐effects estimations indicate that the wage cushion mainly varies with the profit situation of the plant and with indicators of labour shortage and the business cycle. Whereas plants bound by multi‐employer agreements seem to pay wage premiums in order to overcome the restrictions imposed by the rather centralized bargaining system in (western) Germany, plants that use single‐employer agreements are significantly less likely to have wage cushions.     

Looks and Labor: Do Attractive People Work More?

Using the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) 2008, I investigate how looks affect an individual's labor supply decision. My results are, by and large, in line with predictions derived from the neoclassical model of labor supply. Applying regular probit, bivariate probit, Tobit and Heckman selection regression models, I find that good looks go hand in hand with higher employment probabilities and more hours of market work. Furthermore, physical attractiveness is positively associated with spousal income and spousal employment. Hence, beauty appears to affect labor supply decisions both directly and through the marriage market.     

Does Higher Transparency Lead to More Search in Online Auctions?

In a controlled field experiment, we examine pairs of auctions for identical items under different conditions. We find that auction design features that are under the control of the auctioneer—including information transparency, number of simultaneous auctions, and the degree of overlap between simultaneous auctions—affect bidder search and choice. Clickstream data show that a significant relationship between information transparency and price dispersion can be linked to search. Specifically, the effect of information transparency on price dispersion is fully mediated by lookup behavior. Combining these findings, we make auction design recommendations regarding the provision of product and value information.     

Supplier Capacity and Intermediary Profits: Can Less Be More?

We identify market conditions under which intermediaries can thrive in retailer‐driven supply chains. Our main finding is that, as a consequence of the retailers’ leadership position, intermediaries prefer products for which the supply base (existing production capacity) is neither too narrow nor too broad; that is, less existing capacity can result in more intermediary profit. We also show that our main finding is robust to (i) the presence of horizontal competition among retailers and intermediaries, (ii) the existence of exclusive suppliers, and (iii) the ability of the retailers to source directly from the suppliers. Nevertheless, we find that horizontal competition between intermediaries encourages them to carry products with relatively smaller production capacity, whereas exclusive suppliers and direct sourcing encourage intermediaries to carry products with relatively larger installed capacity.     

More Jobs Through Less Employment Protection? Evidence for West Germany

ABSTRACT: In reaction to growing criticism of the allegedly negative employment effects of job protection regulations (lay-off and dismissal restraints), the West German government in 1985 introduced new legislation facilitating the conclusion of temporary (i.e. fixed-term) work contracts in order to stimulate employment growth (‘Employment Promotion Act 1985‘AZPA). The research unit ‘Labour Market and Employment‘ at the WZB has evaluated the employment and labour market impact of the new legislation for the period 1985-1988, and apart from providing a detailed analysis of the socio-economic and institutional diversity of job arrangements covered by the category of temporary (i.e. fixed-term) employment, the project‘s focus has been on the impact of minor changes in the institutional frame- work as effected by the EPA on firms‘ employment policies, as well as on the overall level of employment. Results show that like in most other European countries the temporary work force in Germany has considerably grown over the past years in both absolute and relative terms, this increase, however, being largely due to cyclical factors as well as medium-term structural changes on the supply and demand side of the labour market rather than to changes in the regulatory framework as effected by the EPA. The impact of the new regulations on firms‘ hiring decisions and on the overall number of hirings in the total economy have to be regarded as rather modest, in fact amounting to not more than an estimated 25,000 additional hires per year or roughly 0.5|X% of all employment contracts concluded in the private sector. This marginal positive impact on firms‘ employment decisions, however, is counterbalanced by unintended substitution effects and an increase in involuntary quits arising from them when labour demand declines. Even under the overall positive employment development given in the period under investigation the net employment effects of the EPA temporary work legislation thus are shown to be at best marginal. In case of a deterioration of the overall economic situation, however, the increase in temporary job arrangements supported by the new legislation is likely to lead to accelerated workforce adjustments by firms and thus over time to result in a depression of the overall level of employment. From a theoretical point of view, the findings suggest that measures aiming at de-regulating labour relations such as the EPA largely fail to modify essential behavioral parameters of economic actors in economic environments which for decades have adjusted to a relatively high level of welfare state regulation, as has been the case in Western Germany.     

Are Married Women in Turkey More Likely to Become Added or Discouraged Workers?

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to examine the labour market outcomes of married couples to find out which of the added and discouraged worker effects is dominant in urban Turkish families. Using household labour force survey and province‐level data from 1988 and 1994, we look for evidence regarding the dependency of the labour force participation decisions of wives and the employment status of their husbands. On yearly and pooled samples of married couples in their prime ages, bivariate probit estimates indicate that the two decisions are negatively correlated. However, the correlation is found to be statistically significant only in the economic crisis year of 1994. We interpret this finding to mean that the added worker effect dominates the discouraged worker effect.     

Are Adult Patients More Tolerant of Treatment Risks Than Parents of Juvenile Patients?

Understanding patient-specific differences in risk tolerance for new treatments that offer improved efficacy can assist in making difficult regulatory and clinical decisions for new treatments that offer both the potential for greater effectiveness in relieving disease symptoms, but also risks of disabling or fatal side effects. The aim of this study is to elicit benefit-risk trade-off preferences for hypothetical treatments with varying efficacy and risk levels using a stated-choice (SC) survey. We derive estimates of "maximum acceptable risk" (MAR) that can help decisionmakers identify welfare-enhancing alternatives. In the case of children, parent caregivers are responsible for treatment decisions and their risk tolerance may be quite different than adult patients' own tolerance for treatment-related risks. We estimated and compared the willingness of Crohn's disease (CD) patients and parents of juvenile CD patients to accept serious adverse event (SAE) risks in exchange for symptom relief. The analyzed data were from 345 patients over the age of 18 and 150 parents of children under the age of 18. The estimation results provide strong evidence that adult patients and parents of juvenile patients are willing to accept tradeoffs between treatment efficacy and risks of SAEs. Parents of juvenile CD patients are about as risk tolerant for their children as adult CD patients are for themselves for improved treatment efficacy. SC surveys provide a systematic method for eliciting preferences for benefit-risk tradeoffs. Understanding patients' own risk perceptions and their willingness to accept risks in return for treatment benefits can help inform risk management decision making.     

The Digital Challenge for Multinational Mobile Network Operators. More marginalization or rejuvenation?

Multinational mobile network operators (MNOs) rapidly emerged in the early 1990s and for a decade and a half were the dominant actors in their industry. We analyze the development and competitiveness of a typical MNO, Telenor. With the introduction of 4G in 2010, we show that Telenor, like other MNOs largely failed to respond to the opportunity that connectivity provided to develop digital services. Instead, these were developed by technology platform companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Telenor became a marginalized supplier of standardized internet connectivity. We argue that the ‘decade of lost opportunity’ (2010–2020) for Telenor was a product of a lack of ‘recombinant firm-specific advantages’ (FSARs). With the launch of 5G, an emerging global digital infrastructure, this sidelining is set to intensify unless Telenor responds to this new opportunity by developing B2B digital services. We analyze the FSARs that are necessary for a successful transition of capturing the value that 5G provides and the degree to which they are present, or potentially present, in Telenor.     

Who is it that Would Make Business Schools More Critical? A Response to Tatli

Our short paper, as a response to Tatli's recent comment on our work, provides the opportunity to develop further an exploration of problems that both Tatli and ourselves identify in critical management studies (CMS). Here, we articulate ideas that we shied away from in our original paper, notably regarding an unreflexive masculinity that dominates some aspects of CMS. We suggest that many of Dr Tatli's concerns resonate with our own. This response therefore aims to generate further debate about CMS and how it may be perpetuating some of those very practices it abhors in management and organizations.     

Who is it That Would Make Business Schools More Critical? Critical Reflections on Critical Management Studies

We suggest in this paper that whilst exploring how to make business schools more critical we must also turn a critical and reflexive lens upon ourselves, critical management thinkers. Our endeavour is outlined here as a 'reflexive journey' in which we turn upon ourselves, academics who identify as 'critical' thinkers, the theories we use to analyse others. Our focus is upon critical management education. We use three vignettes drawn from our previous research. One is of graduands from the postgraduate programmes on which two of us teach, the second an analysis of knowledge transfer programmes in which we have participated, and the third a study of the construction of academic identities. The first study shows the academic teacher may become an internalized, judgemental gaze, the second that what we see as a critical approach may be construed by our students as another 'truth' that fails to encompass the complexities of organizations and management, and the third encourages us to ask some questions about our own positions. This causes us to ask some uncomfortable questions about our own positions as critical management scholars and the ways in which we conceptualize business schools and our colleagues who work in them.     

Should Acquiring Firms Pursue More Than One Value Creation Strategy? An Empirical Test of Acquisition Performance

Drawing on the configuration literature, we argue that the deployment of different value creation strategies requires different and specific organizational structures, processes and implementation capabilities, and therefore corporate acquirers may be more successful if they adhere to a single value creation strategy. We test our argument within a sample of 130 horizontal European acquisitions and find that those which employed a single value creating strategy of either reconfiguration or leverage performed significantly better than those which sought to implement both reconfiguration and leverage simultaneously. In addition to lending empirical support to the configuration argument our results provide implications for both acquiring firm executives and future researchers.     

Covid and Public Funds: More Opportunities for a Misuse? The Case of the Intermediate Governments of Galicia

Public Organization Review - Corruption and inefficiency of public funds pose a risk in public administrations. This paper analyses the corruption risk at the local level by analysing indicators of...     

More (new) products,more problems? A systems perspective on increased capability deployment and organizational errors

The capabilities-based view postulates that organizational capabilities are a key driver of competitive advantage. However, while increasing the pace of deploying organizational capabilities, such as new product development (NPD), may enable alignment with changing environments, it may also have unintended consequences. In this study, we advance theory on these unintended consequences by investigating how the increased deployment of NPD capability leads to organizational errors. Borrowing from organizational research employing systems theory, we argue that an increase in NPD deployment may increase the likelihood of routine discoordination and, thus, the incidence of intra-firm and interfirm errors. However, we also proffer that firms can mitigate errors from increases in NPD capability deployment by engaging in distinct internal and external activities that enable the accumulation of knowledge on how to coordinate systemic change. We distinguish between internal and external errors, demonstrating that in the context of increased NPD deployments, internal voluntary investigations ameliorate internal manufacturing errors, while supplier alliances mitigate outsourced component errors. We find support for our predictions using data from new product introductions and recalls in the U.S. automotive industry. This study sheds light on the tension inherent to accelerating the deployment of patterned organizational activities and suggests that the outcomes of deploying an organizational capability are best viewed holistically within the milieu of organizational systems the capability spans.     

Are Some Risk Comparisons More Effective Under Conflict?: A Replication and Extension of Roth et al.

Despite many claims for and against the use of risk comparisons in risk communication, few empirical studies have explored their effect. Only one study, published by Roth et al. in this journal in 1990, has tested the 1988 predictions by Covello et al. as to the public's relative preferences for 14 kinds of risk comparisons as they might be used by a factory manager to explain risks of his ethylene oxide plant. That study found no correlations between the Covello predictions and seven different measures of "acceptability" of Covello's examples of each type of comparison. However, two critics of the Roth study, as well as its own authors, suggested that a scenario involving local risks, a conflict-ridden situation, and a plant manager unknown to the townspeople might better evoke Covello-like preferences than the distant, calm, friends-involving scenario used by Roth. The research reported here replicated the Roth study using the same scenario, risk comparison examples, and evaluation measures, and added a second scenario intended to replicate the conditions suggested by critics. Over 200 New Jersey residents answered the study questionnaire. The replication scenario reproduced Roth's results, and the conflict scenario also evoked no rankings correlated with Covello's predictions. Furthermore, neither agreement nor disagreement with five statements representing "conflict"--respondents' reports that the industrial-plant scenario made them angry, they lived near industry, they were concerned about industrial risks, people in their home town were angry about industrial pollution, and they worried "frequently" about long-term effects of pollution--correlated with Covello's predictions. Over half of all ratings ascribed to the comparisons in aggregate were positive, and most detailed comments offered by respondents also were positive, despite many criticisms and suggestions for their improvement. The wide variability in individuals' rankings also undermines the notion of any single ranking of preferred comparisons. These findings have implications for use of risk comparisons, but also reveal the inaccuracy of the field's assumptions about public reaction to industrial risk information, including risk comparison.     

Doing More with Less? Employee Reactions to Psychological Contract Breach via Target Similarity or Spillover during Public Sector Organizational Change

Many countries are facing the twin pressures of austerity and recession following the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. This paper uses the UK public sector and a major national announcement of budget cuts signalling extensive organizational cutbacks as its setting. We examine (a) whether organizational changes following the national announcement affect public sector employees' psychological contract breach, (b) whether employee reactions to psychological contract breach are consistent with the target similarity model and vary across foci, namely the organization, co‐workers and public service users, and (c) whether some of these relationships are moderated by job insecurity or public sector commitment. We collected longitudinal survey data before and after the announcement of budget cuts, using a sample of 340 employees from a range of public organizations and locations. Results largely confirm the hypotheses. Increases in organizational change predicted psychological contract breach, which in turn predicted decreases in contributions towards the organization; however, contributions towards co‐workers and public service users were unaffected, which can be explained with a target similarity, rather than a spillover, model. Furthermore, the relationship between breach and employee behaviours directed toward the public was moderated by job insecurity and public sector commitment.     

4 Towards a “Fairer” Conception of Process Fairness: Why,When and How More may not Always be Better than Less

Abstract

Process fairness refers to people’s perceptions of how fairly they are treated in the course of interacting with another party. Conceptually distinct from outcome fairness, it subsumes procedural fairness, interpersonal fairness, and the like. As recipients of decisions, we generally want to be treated with more rather than with less process fairness. As agents of decisions, we often would rather plan and implement them with more rather than with less process fairness. Whereas the organizational justice literature generally extols the virtues of high process fairness, recent theory and research suggest that when it comes to process fairness, more is not always better than less. We discuss why, when, and how people’s general tendency to desire higher process fairness over lower process fairness may be attenuated, eliminated, or even reversed. Our analysis is organized by the notion that under some conditions, receiving or acting with high process fairness prevents people from satisfying some of their basic psychological motives, such as their needs to feel good about themselves or to maintain a sense of control. Future research directions also are considered.