Employee absence, age and tenure: a study of nonlinear effects and trivariate models

Multiple regression techniques were used to explore the nature of the relationships between age, tenure and absence in 2417 British local government workers drawn from three work groups. The data were collected from organizational records and included measures of both non-certified absence and medically certified absence. Linear and curvilinear associations among age, tenure and absence were examined. The possible moderating or mediating role of tenure in the relationship between age and absence was subsequently analysed. The data revealed linear relationships between age and absence that were negative for non-certified absence and positive for certified absence. In contrast, curvilinear relationships were found between tenure and absence that were U-shaped for noncertified absence and inverse U-shaped for certified absence. Tenure was found to moderate but not to mediate the relationship between age and absence. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of the changing age and career paths of the workforce, and of methodological issues in absence research.     

The Economics of Density: Evidence From the Berlin Wall

This paper develops a quantitative model of internal city structure that features agglomeration and dispersion forces and an arbitrary number of heterogeneous city blocks. The model remains tractable and amenable to empirical analysis because of stochastic shocks to commuting decisions, which yield a gravity equation for commuting flows. To structurally estimate agglomeration and dispersion forces, we use data on thousands of city blocks in Berlin for 1936, 1986, and 2006 and exogenous variation from the city's division and reunification. We estimate substantial and highly localized production and residential externalities. We show that the model with the estimated agglomeration parameters can account both qualitatively and quantitatively for the observed changes in city structure. We show how our quantitative framework can be used to undertake counterfactuals for changes in the organization of economic activity within cities in response, for example, to changes in the transport network.     

Conquering ‘the tyranny of distance’: Australian–European economic and geopolitical relationships past,present and future

Australia today remains a continent adrift in a rapidly transforming world. It is economically dependent on China, aligned militarily with the US and yet socio-culturally still profoundly European in outlook. In this article, we reflect on the trends, challenges and opportunities that are likely to define and redefine Australia's interaction with Europe at a macro-level. We focus on eight key macro-level themes: historical connections, labour and migration, geopolitics and security, macro-economic relations and prospects, business relations and investment, technology and innovation, entrepreneurship, and environment and sustainability. We find that while Europe and Australia remain poles apart regarding several pressing global matters, from military and security alliances to official policy on climate change, there are also areas in which the potential for closer engagement are increasingly promising, including trilateral trading relationships with Asia, foreign direct investment and business-to-business relations, digital business, innovation and entrepreneurship, and business-driven innovation to combat global warming.     

国家层面规划与政策的监测评估——国家规划与政策的监测评估国际研讨会综述

简要介绍了由国家发展和改革委员会和世界银行于2006年10月25日在北京召开的国家规划与政策的监测评估国际研讨会。对国家层面规划监测评估的基本理论、方法以及世界银行和美国、新西兰、澳大利亚等国的相关经验进行了综述。同时,给出了在会上提出的中国“十一五规划”实施的监测评估的初步框架。     

Risks of Ingestion of Aflatoxin-Contaminated Groundnuts in Benin: Scale Measurements, Beliefs, and Socioeconomic Factors

This study evaluates farmers' beliefs and perceived risks of aflatoxin (AF) on the consumption, production, and marketing of groundnuts. A survey was conducted with 181 farmers in Benin to assess their beliefs of AF effects on the marketing of groundnuts, and finally human and animal health. Awareness and action factors were also evaluated. Relationships of the belief and action factors with socioeconomic variables were evaluated using multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) models within a socioeconomic framework using a health belief model (HBM). The results indicate that the scale of the various constructs is reliable and the validity conforms to expectations. The unifactorial models developed in this study provide a satisfactory fit with NFl, CFI, and GFI exceeding 0.90. The results reveal that gender, age, and years of experience in farming significantly impact farmers' action regarding the reduction of AF in groundnut production and marketing. Male farmers are more likely to be aware of AF problems in groundnuts and feel more susceptible to the problems than their female counterparts. Gender and education seem to be dominating factors in the perception of barriers to mitigating the effects of AF, and male and older farmers are more likely to perceive the benefits of producing and marketing good quality groundnuts.     

Paradox versus dilemma mindset: A theory of how women leaders navigate the tensions between agency and communion

A wealth of literature documents that women leaders can face simultaneous and yet conflictual demands for both agency and communion, due to the incongruence of their leader role and gender role demands. However, we still know little about why some women cope with the tensions between agency and communion better than others and what implications are involved. Using a paradox perspective, we develop a theoretical model to explain how women leaders experience and respond to agency-communion tensions, which impacts their intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes. Specifically, we propose that in response to experiencing tensions fueled by the dual demands for agency and communion, women leaders can adopt a paradox mindset that simultaneously embraces agency and communion, or a dilemma mindset that dichotomizes agency and communion. The paradox mindset helps women leaders build psychological resilience, identity coexistence, and leadership effectiveness, whereas those who adopt a dilemma mindset experience depleted resilience, identity separation, and lowered leadership effectiveness. Further, our model highlights individual, interpersonal, and organizational conditions that shape women's experience and stimulate a paradox mindset versus a dilemma mindset. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of our model.     

Bringing the cognitive revolution forward: What can team cognition contribute to our understanding of leadership?

Cognition is a central element of organizational behavior and leaders are seen as key shapers of organizational cognition. Leaders’ influence over organizations often occurs through their influence on the collectives or teams they are leading. Hence, leaders influence organizational outcomes by modeling team cognition. Despite the importance of this relationship for organizational outcomes, there is little integration currently between the leadership and team cognition literatures. To address this gap, we conduct an integrative review. First, we develop a model for leader and team influence based on organizational emergence and leadership complexity theories. Our model makes a distinction between the source of influence over cognition (leader → team, team → leader, reciprocal) and form of cognition emergence (variance reduction, variance enhancement); constraints that shape cognitions that vary in levels (within and between-level, contextual) and focus (individual, interindividual, collective); and leader behaviors (administrative, adaptive, enabling). We apply this model to review and analyze ninety-nine studies in the current literature and then discuss the limitations and future directions drawing on our findings and theoretical model. We contribute a unifying framework of leadership and team emergence that can be expanded and applied to other settings.     

Quality and flexibility performance trade-offs between lean and agile manufacturing firms in the automotive industry

Abstract

Firms operating in the automotive industry have traditionally been ascribed with efficiency and high levels of quality, as lean production has been extensively applied within this context, but given the recent dynamics in the automotive sector, there is also a need for high levels of flexibility, widening our attention to agile production. However, when lean and agile production have been explored simultaneously, the quality and flexibility trade-offs have been mixed and unclear. In order to dispel the lean-agile ambiguity, and given that both high levels of flexibility and quality are required within the automotive industry, the purpose of this study was to: (a) Identify the relationship between flexibility and quality; and (b) Explore the quality and flexibility differences between lean and agile production. Primary quantitative data was obtained via a survey and a total of 140 automotive manufacturing firms within the UK returned the survey. Logistic regressions were utilised as the main mode of analysis. Not only was an inverse relationship found between quality and flexibility, but our findings depict two distinctive Business Models (BMs) existing in the automotive industry, one lean and one agile. We advance the lean-agile debate by asserting that lean and agile firms acquire quality (efficiency) and flexibility strengths respectively, and not vice-versa. Given this, we theoretically side with the notion of performance ‘trade-offs’ and contend the idea that capabilities are cumulatively gained. By incorporating an argument built on the strategy literature on BMs and Dynamic Capabilities, we assert that lean and agile firms have evolved to underpin different kinds of competitive advantage within the same industry, but these advantages are placed at different tiers in the automotive supply chain.     

Job insecurity, coping resources and personality dispositions in occupational strain

This paper presents research on the relationships between the work-related stressor of perceived job insecurity and various indicators of occupational strain, taking into account employees' personality dispositions (trait negative and positive affectivity) and coping resources. Respondents were 222 Australian public servants surveyed during organizational restructuring that involved downsizing and threat to job certainty. The research was formulated within an adaptation of Osipow, Doty, and Spokane's (1985) framework of stress-strain-coping that included the possible direct as well as moderating effects of personality dispositions in reporting occupational strain (Parkes, 1990). Findings from hierarchical regression analyses indicate consistent significant independent effects of personality dispositions, coping resources and perceived job insecurity on various indicators of strain. There was also support for the moderating roles of negative affectivity and self-care in the relation between perceived job insecurity and physical strain. Implications for the role of dispositional factors, especially negative affectivity, and the utility of various coping resources in accounting for occupational strain in times of threatened job security are discussed.     

Criteria for selecting a production control philosophy

Logistic objectives constitute a compromise between having short leadtimes and a low volume of work in progress on the one hand and a high resource loading and due date obligation on the other. Miscellaneous production planning approaches offered today provide different combinations of logistic objectives for satisfying a manufacturing strategy. To combine the strength of the various approaches into a unified system, a new approach based on a dynamic and distributed production planning methodology is proposed. To customize the approach, various analyses and specifications have to be made and for that reason some important characteristics and criteria for analysing production control philosophies will be given.     

Search for Yield

We present a model of the relationship between real interest rates, credit spreads, and the structure and risk of the banking system. Banks intermediate between entrepreneurs and investors, and can monitor entrepreneurs' projects. We characterize the equilibrium for a fixed aggregate supply of savings, showing that safer entrepreneurs will be funded by nonmonitoring banks and riskier entrepreneurs by monitoring banks. We show that an increase in savings reduces interest rates and spreads, and increases the relative size of the nonmonitoring banking system and the probability of failure of monitoring banks. We also show that the dynamic version of the model exhibits endogenous boom and bust cycles, and rationalizes the existence of countercyclical risk premia and the connection between low interest rates, tight credit spreads, and the buildup of risks during booms.     

Chaos and Transformation Theories: A Theoretical Analysis with Implications for Organization Theory and Public Management

Chaos and transformation theories have emerged as new currencies in social sciences in general and in systems design and management, and in futuristic studies in particular. This article analyzes chaos and transformation theories in historical and contemporary perspectives, their contributions to social science in general, and organization theory and public management in particular. The notions of chaos and order, change and continuity, and uncertainty and certainty are analyzed along with the growing realization of complexity and non-linear dynamic features of modern organizations and the hard reality of a constant necessity to acquire new knowledge and learn to manage organizations with flexibility and innovation. Finally, the article addresses some of the limitations of chaos theory and outlines a number of implications for organization theory and public management in the age of globalization.     

Leadership, affect and emotions: A state of the science review

This paper presents a selective, qualitative review of affect, emotions, and emotional competencies in leadership theory and research published in ten management and organizational psychology journals, book chapters and special issues of journals from 1990 to 2010. Three distinct themes emerged from this review: (1) leader affect, follower affect and outcomes, (2) discrete emotions and leadership, and (3) emotional competencies and leadership. Within each of these themes, we examine theory (construct definition and theoretical foundation) and methods (design, measurement and context) and summarize key findings. Our findings indicate that the study of affect and emotions in leadership fares well with regard to construct definitions across the first two themes, but not in the last theme above. Design and measurement issues across all three themes are a little less advanced. One serious gap is in a lack of focus on levels-of-analysis theoretically and methodologically. Our review concludes with recommendations for future theoretical and empirical work in this area.     

“硬件产品+软件服务”视角下的产品定价策略研究——以iOS和Android为例

智能手机通过"硬件产品+软件服务"的方式，影响着越来越多人的生活，如何处理硬件与软件间的关系，已经成为行业亟需妥善处理的问题。通过分析iOS和Android生态系统中，硬件厂商与第三方软件提供商间的关系以及用户对硬件和软件的选择行为，从竞争的角度构建硬件厂商的产品价格优化决策模型，并结合iOS和Android的现实情况和行业发展趋势对模型进行拓展。模型分析结果揭示了硬件免费的基本逻辑：尽管iOS较高的应用内购买服务费会提高用户的软件服务购买成本，使部分用户流失到Android平台，从而降低iOS在软件服务领域的提成收益，在软件服务收益降低的同时，较高的应用内购买服务费会使苹果公司的硬件销售量大幅增加，从而在总体上使苹果公司的收益增加。而Android平台的硬件厂商想要实现对iOS平台硬件产品的逆袭，除了倡导"硬件免费"外，在未来还需要在品牌价值方面有大幅度的超越。     

Comparison of Chemical Screening and Ranking Approaches: The Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool versus Toxic Equivalency Potentials

Chemical screening in the United States is often conducted using scoring and ranking methodologies. Linked models accounting for chemical fate, exposure, and toxicological effects are generally preferred in Europe and in product Life Cycle Assessment. For the first time, a comparison is presented in this article of two of the prominent, but structurally different methodologies adopted to help screen and rank chemicals and chemical emissions data. Results for 250 chemicals are presented, with a focus on 12 chemicals of interest in the United Nations Environment Programme's Persistent Organic Pollutants global treaty negotiations. These results help to illustrate the significance of described structural differences and to assess the correlation between the methodologies. The scope of the comparison was restricted here to human health, although the insights would be equally useful in the context of the health of ecosystems. Illustrating the current types of chemical screening and emissions comparison approaches, the relative significance of the scenario and structural differences of the Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool (WMPT) and the Toxic Equivalency Potential (TEP) methodologies are analyzed. The WMPT facilitates comparison in terms of key physical-chemical properties. Measures for Persistence, Bioaccumulation, and Toxicity (PBT) are calculated. Each PBT measure is scored and then these scores are added to provide a single measure of relative concern. TEPs account for chemical fate, multipathway exposure, and toxicity using a model-based approach. This model structure is sometimes considered to provide a less subjective representation of environmental mechanisms, and, hence, an improved basis for screening. Nevertheless, a strong relationship exists between the two approaches and both have their limitations.     

Systems Resilience for Multihazard Environments: Definition,Metrics, and Valuation for Decision Making

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction reported that the 2011 natural disasters, including the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, resulted in $366 billion in direct damages and 29,782 fatalities worldwide. Storms and floods accounted for up to 70% of the 302 natural disasters worldwide in 2011, with earthquakes producing the greatest number of fatalities. Average annual losses in the United States amount to about $55 billion. Enhancing community and system resilience could lead to massive savings through risk reduction and expeditious recovery. The rational management of such reduction and recovery is facilitated by an appropriate definition of resilience and associated metrics. In this article, a resilience definition is provided that meets a set of requirements with clear relationships to the metrics of the relevant abstract notions of reliability and risk. Those metrics also meet logically consistent requirements drawn from measure theory, and provide a sound basis for the development of effective decision‐making tools for multihazard environments. Improving the resiliency of a system to meet target levels requires the examination of system enhancement alternatives in economic terms, within a decision‐making framework. Relevant decision analysis methods would typically require the examination of resilience based on its valuation by society at large. The article provides methods for valuation and benefit‐cost analysis based on concepts from risk analysis and management.     

Marriage,Labor Supply,and Home Production

We develop a search model of marriage where men and women draw utility from private consumption and leisure, and from a non‐market good that is produced in the home using time resources. We condition individual decisions on wages, education, and an index of family attitudes. A match‐specific, stochastic bliss shock induces variation in matching given wages, education, and family values, and triggers renegotiation and divorce. Using BHPS (1991–2008) data, we take as given changes in wages, education, and family values by gender, and study their impact on marriage decisions and intrahousehold resource allocation. The model allows to evaluate how much of the observed gender differences in labor supply results from wages, education, and family attitudes. We find that family attitudes are a strong determinant of comparative advantages in home production of men and women, whereas education complementarities induce assortative mating through preferences.     

Employees' perceptions of organizational restructuring: the role of social support

Organizational change and restructuring is often perceived as leading to increased occupational stress, impacting negatively on the psychological well-being of employees. This pragmatic study investigates the role of social support and dispositional affect as moderators of role stress post-restructuring for employees in a public utility company. A total of 176 employees, including 37 managers, 60 graded staff and 78 industrial staff completed a self-report questionnaire, approximately 1 year postrestructuring, retrospectively assessing role conflict, ambiguity, overload and positive and negative feedback pre- and post-restructuring. Results suggested that overall role stress increased for managers/ senior officers and graded staff, but not for industrial staff. Social support was linked with lower role stress, more positive feedback and less negative feedback at post-restructuring. For certain role stressors this impact was moderated by dispositional affect, but the effect was not consistent across occupational groups. Positive affect enhanced the effect of manager support in reducing role conflict for graded staff, and the effect of co-worker support in increasing positive feedback and reducing negative feedback for industrial staff. Findings suggest that managers should pay particular attention to support and feedback for employees during periods of chronic occupational stress following organizational restructuring.     

跨部门金融机构系统重要性和共振效应的动态演化研究——基于中国A股市场的实证

金融机构由于其规模性和关联性对金融系统稳定有着举足轻重的作用。本文基于金融机构异质性风险下的收益，通过Granger因果引导关系构建金融部门的关联网络，从机构中心性、关联性和系统紧密性分析不同市场状态下银行、证券、保险和信托部门内和跨部门间的关联网络动态演化，并在关联分析的基础上引入规模指标，对金融机构的系统重要性进行综合评价。研究发现，我国金融系统的整体性和关联性日趋增强，系统内各部门之间和单一部门内金融机构联系都日趋紧密，跨部门间系统共振效应不断增强；银行和证券部门的影响力显著高于保险和信托部门，银行和保险部门的Granger影响力在熊市时相对增强，牛市时相对减弱，证券和信托部门的影响力则恰好相反；从多角度分析金融共振效应，最终给出我国金融机构系统重要性的分层级评价。结果不仅可以为金融机构的监管和系统性风险的控制提供参考依据，也可以对资本市场投资提供借鉴意义。     

Modelling end-of-life product recovery chains - a case study

European Union legislation, and existing national legislation of many European countries, mandates that manufacturers take back and recover their electronic and electrical equipment. If manufacturers are to comply with legislation, models need to be developed for these activities. Whilst infrastructural and technological deficits exist and must be addressed, so too must the organization of recovery, from a business perspective. In this paper, models of resource recovery are presented and a case study described.