Approximate Generalizations and Computational Experiments

In this paper I demonstrate how one can generalize finitely many examples to statements about (infinite) classes of economic models. If there exist upper bounds on the number of connected components of one‐dimensional linear subsets of the set of parameters for which a conjecture is true, one can conclude that it is correct for all parameter values in the class considered, except for a small residual set, once one has verified the conjecture for a predetermined finite set of points. I show how to apply this insight to computational experiments and spell out assumptions on the economic fundamentals that ensure that the necessary bounds on the number of connected components exist. I argue that these methods can be fruitfully utilized in applied general equilibrium analysis. I provide general assumptions on preferences and production sets that ensure that economic conjectures define sets with a bounded number of connected components. Using the theoretical results, I give an example of how one can explore qualitative and quantitative implications of general equilibrium models using computational experiments. Finally, I show how random algorithms can be used for generalizing examples in high‐dimensional problems.     

Bending over Backwards? Using a Pluralistic Framework to Explore the Management of Flexible Working in the UK Police Service

Professional reduced-hours working is a form of flexible working that runs counter to the increasing trend of employer-led flexibility, and exemplifies the rise of the so-called 'idiosyncratic' employment deal. Although an emerging body of literature, there is evidence to suggest that despite the claim that professional reduced-hours working provides 'better' part-time employment than usually typifies this pattern, it actually confers considerable costs to both individuals and organizations. Some academics have called for a more strategic approach to the introduction and management of professional reduced-hours working, in order to combat these problems. Utilizing a pluralistic perspective on the employment relationship, I draw on data from research in three metropolitan UK police forces to argue that the needs of the part-time employee and the organization will be difficult to integrate. Showing how the negotiation context of the employment relationship has changed and resulted in a power shift from the manager to the part-timer, I argue that the best that can be achieved is a minimal integration of the needs of both parties, and draw out the theoretical and practical implications of this position.     

NORMS MAKE PREFERENCES SOCIAL

We explore the idea that prosocial behavior in experimental games is driven by social norms imported into the laboratory. Under this view, differences in behavior across subjects is driven by heterogeneity in sensitivity to social norms. We introduce an incentivized method of eliciting individual norm‐sensitivity, and we show how it relates to play in public goods, trust, dictator, and ultimatum games. We show how our observations can be rationalized in a stylized model of norm‐dependent preferences under reasonable assumptions about the nature of social norms. Then we directly elicit norms in these games to test the robustness of our interpretation.     

人力资源经理职业化的发展

职业化是一个行业发展成熟的重要标志,市场环境的变化使得我国的人力资源经理面临着职业化的挑战。人力资源经理职业化的关键在于建立职业化的人力资源经理市场。通过人力资源经理市场,人力资源经理拥有的专业技能能够进行认证、定价、交易和发展。人力资源经理职业化具体表现在:严格的职业资格认定机制、规范化的人力资源管理教育、专业性协会和专业化培训、专业化的人力资源管理人员配置、较高的人力资源管理专业人员薪酬等方面。人力资源管理从业人员的职业资格认证是人力资源职业化发展的重要环节。论文首先探讨人力资源管理职业化的发展及其重要性;进而介绍美国和英国主要的人力资源资格认证制度;最后,作者提出了人力资源经理的职业化对人力资源管理从业人员在教育、技能和职业道德方面一些基本标准要求。     

The right paperwork for the right audiences

Physician executives need to exercise considerable discretion, care, and judgment when they write about their professional accomplishments in the form of a résumé or curriculum vitae (CV). This paperwork is intensely personal. It must be a true reflection of you, your achievements and goals. Others read it to learn more about you. Those you fail to convince, you're likely to lose--along with your chance to meet and charm them in a personal interview. A physician executive's thoughtfully prepared résumé and CV can result in him or her being offered terrific opportunities for career growth. The paperwork is a self-constructed gateway through which you can properly approach hiring organizations--and how it reads is totally under your control. Some suggestions to consider in developing your résumé or CV are: be succinct; don't overstate; use both documents; do your homework; and be ready for the next steps.     

Cultural Chameleons

This paper uses an empirical case study to present a new way of thinking about the dynamics of multicultural relationships within organizations. The paper initially uses subcultural analysis to identify how doctors became clinical directors and how their culture emerged as they learned to cope with problems of external adaptation and internal integration. Clinical directors were unique in working within and between the medical and managerial cultures, mediating the process of cultural learning and balancing the multicultural dynamics of the organization. They sustained this dynamic by becoming 'cultural chameleons' in both the medical and managerial cultures. It is also argued that clinical directors formed a 'cell culture' rather than a 'subculture' as they developed directly from the medical culture but emerged as different from it. The conclusions reveal how the empirical data describe a complex and dynamic pattern of multicultural relationships that are more interdependent than hierarchical. Consequently an alternative concept of cultural coconstitutionality is used to describe how these three cultures exist alongside each other in a relationship of asymmetric complementarity.     

Not more learning logs! A research based perspective on teaching reflective learning within HR professional education

The challenges of teaching reflective learning, whilst not peculiar to the HR profession, assume a poignancy given HR's claim to be the natural custodians of ‘all things learning’. The paper discusses the impact of attempts to enhance the reflective learning curriculum within one professional HR programme. Tensions in terms of the positioning of reflective learning within a predominantly functionalist management curriculum can, in part, be ameliorated. Developing a capability amongst students for reflective dialogue and careful construction of assessment work, for example, can enhance engagement with reflective learning rather than simply ‘knowing’ about it. More problematic is impact beyond the classroom. Research revealed ambivalence in respect of transfer and significance beyond the specifics of the professional programme. HR graduates need a capability that extends beyond individual reflective learning and into creating and supporting reflective learning in organizations. Herein lies the distinctive and fundamental challenge facing tutors of reflective learning within HR professional education.     

Embracing Indeterminacy: On Being a Liminal Professional

The rise of the corporate profession has contributed to a more varied and ambiguous professional terrain that is increasingly seen to be indeterminate and fluid. This paper advances the current debate around the development of corporate professions, exploring how practitioners respond to this environment. Drawing on research with public relations practitioners, the paper shows how the idea of being a liminar facilitates the formation of a professional identity in conditions of high indeterminacy. In taking an individual level of analysis of professions, the paper suggests that indeterminacy is a more resonant feature for corporate professionals than previously suggested in the research, but that this indeterminacy is navigated in professional identity construction through ‘being a liminar’, and thus greater nuance may need to be recognized in the conceptualization of both corporate professions and corporate professionalization. It also demonstrates the use of liminality as a discursive resource in identity construction and with it, challenges the common association of liminality with self‐doubt and existential anxiety. In turn, the paper considers the implications of the liminal professional identity for the future of contemporary professions, and for understanding the liminal experience.     

A Swiss‐Army Knife? A Critical Assessment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Ghana

Within the current global atmosphere where a universally accepted police force is nonexistent, there are several voluntary norms and codes of conduct that exist to guide how corporations behave worldwide. These have come as a result of many years of poor performance in the areas of social, financial, and environmental responsibility. Such norms are expected to prescribe and proscribe certain types of corporate behavior but when one examines the reality on the ground, the story is not that straightforward. This article assesses the effectiveness of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in the Ghanaian context with a focus on the mining sector. Based on primary qualitative data the argument is that even though the EITI is performing some function, it has ways to go before it can become an across‐the‐board viable tool for transparency and proper accountability. Five prevailing weaknesses are discussed to underscore this case.     

Implicit Bias and Accountability Systems: What Must Organizations Do to Prevent Discrimination?

The positions that experts take on whether organizations do enough to ensure equal-opportunity hinge on the assumptions they make about the potency of prejudice. Prominent scholars have challenged the conventional notion that anti-discrimination norms, backed by legal sanctions, can check implicit bias. The strongest form of this argument is that it is impossible to achieve equal opportunity in any society with inequality of result—impossible because objective inequalities inevitably stamp into our minds subjective associations that inevitably contaminate personnel judgments that require the exercise of discretion. We discuss numerous problems with this argument (and the related argument that radical changes to anti-discrimination law are in order) but concede that the debate over what steps, short of quotas, can check implicit prejudice is not resolvable given the paucity of data that clashing camps jointly treat as probative. To avoid a protracted stalemate, we urge adversarial collaborations in which the debaters agree, ex ante, on research designs with the potential to induce both sides to change their minds.     

Efficient Design with Interdependent Valuations

We study efficient, Bayes‐Nash incentive compatible mechanisms in a social choice setting that allows for informational and allocative externalities. We show that such mechanisms exist only if a congruence condition relating private and social rates of information substitution is satisfied. If signals are multi‐dimensional, the congruence condition is determined by an integrability constraint, and it can hold only in nongeneric cases where values are private or a certain symmetry assumption holds. If signals are one‐dimensional, the congruence condition reduces to a monotonicity constraint and it can be generically satisfied. We apply the results to the study of multi‐object auctions, and we discuss why such auctions cannot be reduced to one‐dimensional models without loss of generality.     

Paradigm lost: Reinvigorating the study of organizational culture

In spite of the importance of organizational culture, scholarly advances in our understanding of the construct appear to have stagnated. We review the state of culture research and argue that the ongoing academic debates about what culture is and how to study it have resulted in a lack of unity and precision in defining and measuring culture. This ambiguity has constrained progress in both developing a coherent theory of organizational culture and accreting replicable and valid findings. To make progress we argue that future research should focus on conceptualizing and assessing organizational culture as the norms that characterize a group or organization that if widely shared and strongly held, act as a social control system to shape members’ attitudes and behaviors. We further argue that to accomplish this, researchers need to recognize that norms can be parsed into three distinct dimensions: (1) the content or what is deemed important (e.g., teamwork, accountability, innovation), (2) the consensus or how widely shared norms are held across people, and (3) the intensity of feelings about the importance of the norm (e.g., are people willing to sanction others). From this perspective we suggest how future research might be able to clarify some of the current conflicts and confusion that characterize the current state of the field.     

Enhancing the Practical Relevance of Research

This article seeks to encourage scholars to conduct research that is more relevant to the decisions faced by managers and policymakers, and addresses why research relevance matters, what relevance means in terms of a journal article, and how scholars can increase the relevance of their research. I define relevant research papers as those whose research questions address problems found (or potentially found) in practice and whose hypotheses connect independent variables within the control of practitioners to outcomes they care about using logic they view as feasible. I provide several suggestions for how scholars can enhance research relevance, including engaging practitioners in on‐campus encounters, at managerial conferences, and at crossover workshops; conducting site visits and practitioner interviews; working as a practitioner; and developing a practitioner advisory team. I describe several ways that scholars can convey relevant research insights into practitioners, including presenting at practitioner conferences, writing for practitioners in traditional crossover journals and in shorter pieces like op‐eds and blogs, and attracting the interest of those who write columns, blogs, and articles about research for practitioners. I conclude by describing a few ways that academic institutions can encourage more relevant research, focusing on journals, professional societies, and doctoral programs.     

Supervision im Kontext gesellschaftlicher Wandlungsprozesse

Supervision in the context of social changes In view of institutional changes in the working areas of supervision, increased competition amongst advisory concepts, cuts in further education budgets and great efforts at laying the theoretical and conceptual foundations for professional supervision, I cannot but raise the following question anew: Which questions, goals and learning processes are involved in supervision and who introduces them in the first place? Depending on how it is envisaged, there can be fundamentally varying standards for evaluating the role or significance of supervision. It cannot be taken for granted that experts, the institutional interests of supervision cost providers and the needs of the supervised follow one and the same guiding principle or action-related maxim. Differences and common points alike have to be elicited and utilized for a well-founded, professional understanding of supervision — therein lies the object of my research project on the role of supervision in current working processes.     

Health Risk Communication at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

I have described areas for which ATSDR has responsibilities that we see as involving risk communication. I conclude by indicating, based on our professional experience and from meetings with the public where we have presented health information, what we consider to be five elements required of successful risk communication. The first element we suggest is the credibility of the source. If you have no credibility, no matter how accurate, how truthful, how up-to-date, how important, how dramatic your message is, you are not going to be heard. So you start with credibility. The quality of the message is the second building block of successful risk communication. By quality of the message, I mean whether it is accurate, truthful, up-to-date, and based on current scientific knowledge. The third element is the degree of involvement of the receiver of the message in the shaping of the message. If the receiver has not been involved in the process, then the likelihood of successful risk communication is going to be diminished. Get the receivers involved up front. That means, in the case of community health studies, get those persons involved in the community who have been most concerned about the health issues. To the extent possible, involve community leaders, citizen groups, physicians, the news media, and concerned individual citizens in the design, conduct, and evaluation of community health surveys and studies. The fourth element is the quality of the delivery. If you present the message in government jargon and do not speak with, but to, the audience, you are going to find difficulties in successful communication.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Leading health care into the 21st century.

If there is a consistency in the professional lives of those who manage in the health care field, surely it is characterized by inconsistency. Change. For more nearly two decades now, since the full impact of the Medicare/Medicaid legislation hit, the health care industry has undergone profound, continual, and lasting change. Success can be measured largely in terms of how well a professional or an organization accommodates and manages these changes, making sure that they work for the organization and the career and not against them. The 1990s can be expected to be just as full of change and turmoil as have the past two decades. "What's past is prologue," Shakespeare wrote. The health care field is not apt to see the murderous machinations of The Tempest, but clearly exciting and challenging times lie ahead, and perhaps the outcome will be as positive as Shakespeare's. The scenario that follows provides a glimpse at the issues of change that will occupy the time and energy of physician executives for the coming decade.     

Coaching als Methode und/oder Profession?

Experts are discussing coaching as well as a method and/or as a autonomous profession. The article tries to differentiate and define both versions. It is quite possible, that coaching can be interpreted and used as a method. Therefore coaching could be available for other professions like supervision or therapy. In contrast to this coaching as a profession is a independent part in the rank of other professions in service industries. To become such an own profession coaching has to fulfil a lot of processual criterions. Analyses of current discussions subjecting coaching proved that it is rushed to speak about a consolidated phase of being an own profession. Coaching is rather at the beginning of a promising and successful way to become an autonomous profession in the near future.     

The lost art of planning

The purpose of this article is to present and illustrate planning as a generic and highly skilled activity. Central to this approach is a clear understanding of the objective of planning as reflected in the definition of the problem to be dealt with. It is the ability to make this essential judgement of ends and means that constitutes the ‘lost art’ of planning. Four distinct types of problems are identified: simple problems, compound problems, complex problems and meta-problems. This typology is used to show how the nature of what is to be planned determines how far planning can be expected to help and how best to go about doing it. A detailed example is provided to illustrate how a problem can be made more or less ‘manageable’ and the advantages and disadvantages that this entails. Finally, four different strategies are outlined for dealing with each of the four types of problems.     

Kann denn Coaching Führung sein?

May coaching be leadership? An analysis of literature on the term coaching. An analysis of the German-speaking literature about coaching shows for what the term Coaching or rather the title coach is used in actual publications dealing with the leading manager as a coach. It becomes apparent, that coaching is not seen as a specialized advisory profession. Instead the term is used as an alternative expression for leadership vocabulary as management style or managerial functions. The elaboration of terms and concepts concludes, that semantically it is meant leadership when it comes to the concept of the coaching manager. To be an exception, the management by systemic approach forms a brand-new perspective about organizations. However, to give respects to the German-speaking coaching community there should be a difference between leadership and coaching as well as notions and titles should be used more accurate among professional management coaches.