HRD research and practice after ‘The Great COVID-19 Pause’: the time is now for bold,critical, research

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life as we knew it and created an unprecedented opportunity to pause and assess ‘normal’ life and work. We have an opportunity to create a new ‘normal.’ What possibility does the chance to show up differently in our lives and work hold? The pandemic has caused significant shifts in values that will affect individuals, organizations, communities, and nations. This article challenges HRD scholars and practitioners to imagine how HRD might create a new normal through bold, critical research inquiry that interrogates exclusion, pursues organization and social justice, and creates humanly sustainable organizations and communities.     

Other Aspects of BSE Issues in East Asian Countries

Scientific risk estimates of BSE can be the same internationally; however, socioeconomic backgrounds, such as food supply (e.g., beef import status) and dietary life, are different between East Asian countries (i.e., in this article, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) and Western countries, which may account for differences in risk perception of people. Since political and social backgrounds also differ among these East Asian countries, they will also influence people's attitudes toward food safety. Psychological factors such as “dread” and the “unknown” are considered to be important in risk perception, but socioeconomic, and in some cases political, situations (e.g., attitudes of politicians and political pressures in trade) may strongly influence the perception and acceptance of various risks by citizens. With regard to the BSE issues, latter aspects may contribute a lot to risk perception, but have not been examined in depth until now. Although protection of health is the key element to food safety, sometimes business factors can overwhelm safety issues in international trade. Appropriate risk governance in food safety issues, such as BSE, can be attained not only through application of outputs of scientific assessment, but also through deliberation of various aspects, that may have strong influence on people's risk perception, and improved communication among stakeholders and also among countries.     

The nature of action learning

Action Learning has developed to such an extent that there is now a demand to ‘know’ what it is. There is one way, and one way alone, of getting to ‘know’ what action learning is, and that is by doing it. For those who most clamour to ‘know’ what something might be are usually the victims of an educational system that leaves the vast majority who pass through it ignorant of the meaning of the verb to ‘know’ .... If, for example, I am asked “Do you know that woman?”, it is most probable that the questioner does not ‘know’ what he is asking me. Does he mean “Do I know her name? Or where she lives? Or am I able to introduce him to her? Or what she does for a living? Or do I recognise her by sight? Or have I been to bed with her? And, if so, what progress did I make?...” Thus, with action learning: “Have I read a book about it? Or attended a seminar at which somebody was trying to sell places on an action learning programme? Or visited a set of participants meeting as part of such a programme? Or tried to organise real persons tackling real problems in real time, and trying thereby to learn with and from each other? Or been an active participant myself in such a programme?...” To ‘know’ what action learning is, one must have been responsibly involved in it; since this cannot have been done merely by reading about action learning, it is impossible in this, or any other, note to convey more than the vaguest impression of what this educational approach may be. The day action learning becomes explicable in words alone will be the day to abandon the practice of it.     

Emotion cycles: On the social influence of emotion in organizations

Human emotion is typically studied as a within-person, one-direction, non-repetitive phenomenon; focus has traditionally been on how one individual feels in reaction to various stimuli at a certain point of time. But people recognize and inevitably react emotionally and otherwise to expressions of emotion of other people. We propose that organizational dyads and groups inhabit emotion cycles: Emotions of an individual influence the emotions, thoughts and behaviors of others; others’ reactions can then influence their future interactions with the individual expressing the original emotion, as well as that individual's future emotions and behaviors. People can mimic the emotions of others, thereby extending the social presence of a specific emotion, but can also respond to others’ emotions, extending the range of emotions present. People can also draw attributions and extract meanings from others’ emotions. Emotion cycles can involve both intended targets of or partners to an original emotion and third parties who were not the intended targets or partners. Emotion cycles are sensitive to various moderating factors, including demographic variables (e.g., gender or race) and situational variables (e.g., relative power of participants). Pertinent organizational and psychological research that supports the idea of emotion cycles is reviewed and shown to suggest a wide arena for future research.     

Philosophical speculations on systems design

Belief in the value of the scientific method as a means of implementing improvement in social systems (here called “systems design”—SD) raises important philosophical questions concerning, inter alia, the meaning of “scientific method”, of “improvement”, and of social reality. One underlying problem is that of the “self reflecting paradox”; e.g. the content and validity of the scientific method can only be discovered by the application of the scientific method. Similarly, SD has its own “social reality” through which it perceives that of its client. “Improvement” is bound up with ethics but ethics does not admit the limitation of obligation to one sub-system, therefore improvement requires the recognition of sub-system linkages. Paradoxically, again, the “improver” is himself part of the total system and bears its impress. Implementation (of improvement) meets the paradox that SD on SD is needed to judge the worth of the SD proposal. The pragmatic escape from the paradox identifies SD with a heuristic role in social progress but presupposes the possibility of progress. “Implementation” secures the possibility of such progress. The second major problem is that SD requires a social reality in which individuals have visible goals; but the “inner world” of individual goals is unknown and cannot be tracked from observable responses. In any case, Kant's moral precept requires that individuals be valued as ends rather than means. Much of SD uses them as means. Though SD is and must be practised, such philosophical speculation raises SD's self knowledge and points the neat paradox of its technical precision won at the price of its fundamental woolliness.     

Hedonism versus accuracy: the influence of motivation and affect on the evaluation of multiple gains and losses

The perceived value of multiple gains and losses may be influenced by a perceiver’s goals or affective state. In this research, insights from prospect theory were combined with the heuristic-systematic model to shed light on the information-processing strategies that underlie motivated and affect-related preference formation in the context of valuating multiple gains and losses. Specifically, findings from two experiments examine the influence of motivation and affect on preferences for segregated versus integrated gains and losses. In the first experiment—consistent with hypotheses—accuracy motivation was found to induce systematic processing for gains. The mixed results in the loss condition are explained with the influence of negative affect. Overall, the evidence supports the notion that people’s value functions might be more flexible than predicted by prospect theory, depending on people’s current goals. The second experiment substantiates these findings, identifying the influence of negative versus positive affect on the valuation of gains and losses. The results suggest that mood-management determines information processing and preferences depending on the congruence of the valence of affect (e.g. negative such as sadness) and the valence event (e.g. a positive event such as a gain). From a managerial perspective these studies add to practical knowledge on price communication, bundling, surcharges, or sequences of payments. When setting prices, salaries or other compensation schemes managers should consider whether their target group tends to be more accuracy or more feeling motivated.     

Work and the good life: How work contributes to meaning in life

Many people expect their work to provide meaning to their lives, yet the specific organizational factors that can promote meaning in life are not clearly delineated. Drawing on the basic science of meaning in life, in this paper we propose that work entails a host of experiences that foster meaning in life. We begin by defining meaning in life, noting its placement within the broader well-being literature and dispelling common myths about its rarity in people’s lives. After highlighting the myriad benefits of meaning for individuals and organizations, we describe several established sources of meaning in life and their relevance to work. We then examine how work orientations and social demographic factors influence the propensity to seek meaning through work. We conclude with a discussion of future research directions that can better illuminate the predictors and functions of meaningfulness at work.     

Will 1990 mark the end of the will to work—or the right to manage?

The environment of the 1980s is not likely to be as comfortable as the 1970s. The combination of new technology, new economics and new social forces is likely to trigger a drastic drop in the number of jobs as well. At the same time, our education systems, the media and every other element affecting people's expectations seem to be combining to foster something that might be called the ‘more syndrome’—people demand more pay, more secure jobs, more amenities and more control over their working lives—but appear unwilling to commit themselves, to exhibit loyalty to an employer, or even to move in search of work. The challenge is international, the goal must be convergence between social policies, between the expectations and the realities, between the new technology and the new values. The end of the decade is likely to see the end of the work ethic and the beginning of the real post-industrial society.     

An integrated framework of mimetic pressures,quality and environmental management,and firm performances

Abstract

Manufacturers have extensively recognised the strategic importance of quality and environmental management. However, there is little guidance on how they adopt and exercise both management practices in a way that enhances firms’ performance outcomes. To fill the research gap, this paper empirically investigates the relationships among mimetic pressures, a firm’s quality management practices (QMPs), environmental management system (EMS), and environmental and financial performances. By using a data set collected from 212?U.S. manufacturing firms, this study examines the proposed hypotheses. Our major findings are: first, mimetic pressures are a driving factor for EMS but do not motivate the adoption of QMPs; second, QMPs are an important enabler not only for enhancing firms’ financial performance but also for promoting EMS and environmental performance; and finally, EMS does not influence firms’ financial performance directly, but indirectly does so through enhancing environmental performance. This study contributes to the literature of quality and environmental management and provides practical implications by addressing motivating factors of both QMPs and EMS, and identifying factors for successful environmental management practices.     

Leadership in the digital era: A review of who,what, when,where, and why

Leadership as a social influence process has always involved a complex set of phenomena that demands an interdisciplinary lens. Leadership scholarship has now entered into a digital era. In a digital era, the overall phenomenon is changing, as are the tools through which we study it, demanding a new “lens” through which we view leadership. Yet, this raises the question, to what extent is leadership different in a digital era? In acknowledgement of this trend, a special issue was commissioned at The Leadership Quarterly that sought to stimulate the imagination of leadership scholars and practitioners. In the current work, we begin with a brief review of who, what, when, where and why of digital leadership. We cover leadership in informal contexts (e.g., social media), generalization from face-to-face to virtual contexts, computational modeling, the leveraging of technology (e.g., machine learning; Big Data), as well methodological how-to guides. We then plot a path forward for leadership scholars in the dawn of the digital era.     

The Inverse Relation Between Risks and Benefits: The Role of Affect and Expertise

Although risk and benefits of risky activities are positively correlated in the real world, empirical results indicate that people perceive them as negatively correlated. The common explanation is that confounding benefits and losses stems from affect. In this article, we address the issue that has not been clearly established in studies on the affect heuristic: to what extent boundary conditions, such as judgments’ generality and expertise, influence the presence of the inverse relation in judgments of hazards. These conditions were examined in four studies in which respondents evaluated general or specific benefits and risks of “affect‐rich” and “affect‐poor” hazards (ranging from investments to applications of stem cell research). In line with previous research, affect is defined as good or bad feelings integral to a stimulus. In contrast to previous research, affect is considered as related both to personal feelings and to social controversies associated with a hazard. Expertise is related to personal knowledge (laypersons vs. experts) as well as to objective knowledge (targets well vs. poorly known to science). The direct comparison of the input from personal and objective ignorance into the inverse relation has not been investigated previously. It was found that affect invoked by a hazard guides general but not specific judgments of its benefits and risks. Technical expertise helps to avoid simplified evaluations of consequences as long as they are well known to science. For new, poorly understood hazards (e.g., stem cell research), expertise does not protect from the perception of the inverse relation between benefits and risks.     

绿色研发补贴、成本分担契约与收益共享契约研究

成本分担契约与收益共享契约是提高供应链整体协调的两大工具。基于绿色消费市场背景,本文引入绿色研发补贴政策,研究成本分担契约与收益共享契约对供应链的影响。研究表明,成本分担契约与收益共享契约对政府研发补贴政策具有一定的替代作用。同时,在绿色研发补贴政策下,成本分担契约的签订并不会带来产业链整体利润水平以及社会福利水平的提升,而收益共享契约则可以实现产业链利润水平以及社会福利水平提升的目的。进一步,当契约由供应链中企业通过谈判决定时,上述结果依然成立。     

Explaining Citizens’ E-Participation Use: the Role of Perceived Advantages

This article analyzes some of the reasons people choose e-participation over traditional involvement forums as a way of having public policy input. The research aimed to see whether people perceived that e-participation has time, cost, quality, and transparency advantages over traditional participation channels which some researchers have suggested is the case. The study also wanted to investigate whether perceiving one or more of these advantages has an impact on whether a person uses e-participation. Using data from the 2012 EU eGovernment Benchmark-User survey we found that people who perceive these advantages are more likely to use e-participation but the various advantages have different impacts. Saving time has the strongest impact on use. Perceiving quality and transparency advantages also impacts use, but a perceived cost advantage does not. In addition, we found that people are more likely to use e-participation if they are satisfied with a jurisdiction’s website and application design. These findings have implications for how governments should design and market websites if they want to increase e-participation.     

Social Amplification of Wildfire Risk: The Role of Social Interactions and Information Sources

Wildfire is a persistent and growing threat across much of the western United States. Understanding how people living in fire‐prone areas perceive this threat is essential to the design of effective risk management policies. Drawing on the social amplification of risk framework, we develop a conceptual model of wildfire risk perceptions that incorporates the social processes that likely shape how individuals in fire‐prone areas come to understand this risk, highlighting the role of information sources and social interactions. We classify information sources as expert or nonexpert, and group social interactions according to two dimensions: formal versus informal, and generic versus fire‐specific. Using survey data from two Colorado counties, we empirically examine how information sources and social interactions relate to the perceived probability and perceived consequences of a wildfire. Our results suggest that social amplification processes play a role in shaping how individuals in this area perceive wildfire risk. A key finding is that both “vertical” (i.e., expert information sources and formal social interactions) and “horizontal” (i.e., nonexpert information and informal interactions) interactions are associated with perceived risk of experiencing a wildfire. We also find evidence of perceived “risk interdependency”—that is, homeowners’ perceptions of risk are higher when vegetation on neighboring properties is perceived to be dense. Incorporating social amplification processes into community‐based wildfire education programs and evaluating these programs’ effectiveness constitutes an area for future inquiry.     

Die Modellschule Graz 2000

The ?Modellschule Graz“ in the year 2000 The ?Modellschule Graz“, founded in 1982, is presented with the basic concepts: to promote the intellectual as well as the personal and social development of the pupils. Correspondingly, the basis of the pedagogical work is the personal and social development of the teacher’s personalities, which should be achieved by the means of continuous education, supervision, organizational counseling and regular self-organized weeks for reflection. This highly demanding concept comes up against limiting factors, because the requirement and the social and political circumstances constantly change. The continual process of adaptation requires a lot of time and energy and may also be linked with intense conflicts. The coping of these conflicts is supported by external counseling.     

An individual-based model of information diffusion combining friends’ influence

In many real-world scenarios, an individual accepts a new piece of information based on her intrinsic interest as well as friends’ influence. However, in most of the previous works, the factor of individual’s interest does not receive great attention from researchers. Here, we propose a new model which attaches importance to individual’s interest including friends’ influence. We formulate the problem of maximizing the acceptance of information (MAI) as: launch a seed set of acceptors to trigger a cascade such that the number of final acceptors under a time constraint T in a social network is maximized. We then prove that MAI is NP-hard, and for time \(T = 1,2\) , the objective function for information acceptance is sub-modular when the function for friends’ influence is sub-linear in the number of friends who have accepted the information (referred to as active friends). Therefore, an approximation ratio \((1-\frac{1}{e})\) for MAI problem is guaranteed by the greedy algorithm. Moreover, we also prove that when the function for friends’ influence is not sub-linear in the number of active friends, the objective function is not sub-modular.     

Resurrecting organization without renouncing society: A response to Ahrne,Brunsson and Seidl

In a recent article in this journal, Ahrne, Brunsson, and Seidl (2016) suggest a definition of organization as a ‘decided social order’ composed of five elements (membership, rules, hierarchies, monitoring, and sanctions) which rest on decisions. ‘Partial organization’ uses only one or a few of these decidable elements while ‘complete organization’ uses them all. Such decided orders may also occur outside formal organizations, as the authors observe. Although we appreciate the idea of improving our understanding of organization(s) in modern society, we believe that Ahrne, Brunsson, and Seidl's suggestion jeopardizes the concept of organization by blurring its specific meaning. As the authors already draw on the work of Niklas Luhmann, we propose taking this exploration a step further and the potential of systems theory more seriously. Organizational analysis would then be able to retain a distinctive notion of formal organization on the one hand while benefiting from an encompassing theory of modern society on the other. With this extended conceptual framework, we would expect to gain a deeper understanding of how organizations implement and shape different societal realms as well as mediate between their particular logics, and, not least, how they are related to non-organizational social forms (e.g. families).     

Does the capital of social capital matter? Relational resources of the board and the performance of Brazilian companies

Based on theories of social capital, in this study, we seek to assess the impact of a board’s social capital on the market value of companies listed on the Brazilian stock exchange. As our indicator of social capital, we use the relational resources identified in the direct, indirect and heterogeneous ties of the board. Employing panel data from 508 observations, our results indicate that heterogeneous relational resources have a stronger and more significant influence than the resources available from board members’ direct relationships. Additionally, as the effects of board interlock are endogenously determined by several factors related to the firm level, we seek to mitigate the endogeneity problem using models of instrumental variables and simultaneous equations. Our hypotheses were consistent after controlling for endogeneity. We also check whether the board’s social capital could present a U-inverted effect on the market value. This relationship was only plausible in social capital by indirect ties. Finally, we isolate the effect of relational resources within and between industries on Tobin’s Q. There was no significant effect through interlocks within the same industry. However, ties with companies in several other industries were significant.     

TOWARD A “NEW ARCHITECTURE” FOR POM

The field of POM is steadily expanding its scope. This allows us to pursue interesting new fields of inquiry and makes us ever more relevant to the needs of practitioners. But it also increases the risk that over time our efforts will become fragmented and unfocused, causing us to slowly lose our sense of community and break up into separate camps. In this paper I ask, “What kind of new organizing framework, or ‘architecture,’ will allow us to maintain our sense of community as our interests diverge?” I describe the experience of one academic organization that faced a similar problem several years ago and how the situation was resolved. This experience leads us to propose a possible solution to Pom's emerging problem: engage with real operations managers and focus our efforts on helping them deal with the actual problems they are facing in today's complex and fast‐changing world.     

Altruistic Preferences for Life-Saving Public Programs: Do Baseline Risks Matter?

Cost-benefit analyses of life-saving public programs typically focus on the number of expected deaths avoided (statistical lives saved) as the metric for evaluating benefits. Although this measure of population risk is clearly important, it ignores the distribution of underlying individual risks. A similar number of lives can be saved by protecting relatively large populations with relatively low baseline risk as can be saved by protecting smaller populations faced with higher baseline risks. Should the value of saving a statistical life be sensitive to the baseline levels of risk to exposed individuals? This paper addresses this issue by focusing specifically on individuals’ altruistic values with regard to life-saving programs. Using results from a survey, this study finds that when individuals are asked to state their preference for equally costly life-saving programs that will only affect others’ level of risk, they prefer those that save more lives. More importantly, however, controlling for the number of lives saved, they also prefer programs that affect smaller populations facing higher levels of baseline risk. Furthermore, the results suggest that each order-of-magnitude increase in the level of baseline risk to others approximately doubles the altruistic value component of a statistical life saved.