Balance in leader and follower perceptions of leader–member exchange: Relationships with performance and work attitudes

Using a sample of 285 matched pairs of employees and supervisors, we explore the extent to which congruence in leader and follower ratings of LMX quality is related to follower job performance and work attitudes. An original conceptual model is introduced that identifies four combinations of leader and follower LMX ratings: balanced/low LMX (low leader and follower LMX), balanced/high LMX (high leader and follower LMX), follower overestimation (low leader LMX/high follower LMX), and follower underestimation (high leader LMX/low follower LMX). As expected, balanced/low (high) LMX relationships were associated with relatively low (high) levels of follower job performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, while the incongruent combinations generally yielded intermediate levels of follower outcomes. However, follower underestimation was also related to high levels of follower job performance, whereas follower overestimation was associated with high levels of follower satisfaction and organizational commitment. Implications of these findings for future LMX research are considered.     

A New Method for Determining Why Length of Life is More Unequal in Some Populations Than in Others

Why is there greater variability in individual longevity in some populations than in others? We propose a decomposition method designed to address that question by quantifying the effects of population differences in the spread, allocation, and timing of the principal causes of death. Applying the method to the United States and Sweden, we find that spread effects account for about two-thirds of the greater variance in age at death among American adults, meaning that two-thirds of the U.S.-Sweden difference would persist if the two countries differed only with respect to within-cause variance among adults. The remainder of the difference is due largely to allocation effects, with the greater incidence of homicides and fatal traffic accidents alone accounting for more than one-fourth of the greater variance in age at death among adults in the United States.     

The flood algorithm—a multivariate, self-organizing-map-based, robust location and covariance estimator

Self-organizing maps (SOMs) introduced by Kohonen (Biol. Cybern. 43(1):59–69, 1982) are well-known in the field of artificial neural networks. The way SOMs are performing is very intuitive, leading to great popularity and numerous applications (related to statistics: classification, clustering). The result of the unsupervised learning process performed by SOMs is a non-linear, low-dimensional projection of the high-dimensional input data, that preserves certain features of the underlying data, e.g. the topology and probability distribution (Lee and Verleysen in Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction, Springer, 2007; Kohonen in Self-organizing Maps, 3rd edn., Springer, 2001).     

Social Participation, Sense of Community and Social Well Being: A Study on American, Italian and Iranian University Students

Aim of the study was to assess the relationship between social participation and Sense of Community in a sample of University students and the impact of such variables on Social well being. A further aim was to assess the generality of the relationships between these constructs across different countries, and specifically, the USA, Italy and Iran. The sample includes 200 Italian, 125 American and 214 Iranian University students, male and female. Results show higher levels of social participation, Sense of Community and Social well being among American students. Sense of Community is positively correlated with social participation in all three samples; however, only among Italian students social participation positively predicts Social well being. Implications of results will be discussed.     

AIRLINE PRICING BEHAVIOR UNDER LIMITED INTER‐MODAL COMPETITION

This paper empirically analyzes airline pricing for short‐haul flights in contexts with no credible threat of inter‐modal competition. To this end, we explore the southern Italian market since it is less accessible by other transport modes and thus fares are the direct outcome of air‐related competition. We show, in fact, that market power matters, depending on the level of intra‐modal competition, and that airlines apply differentiated mark‐ups. Besides, consistent with the implementation of inter‐temporal price discrimination (IPD), we find a non‐monotonic inter‐temporal profile of fares with a turning point included in the interval of the 43rd to 45th days before departure. Finally, we provide evidence that in more competitive markets, airlines are more likely to engage in IPD. (JEL L11, L13, L93)     

A Turning Point in Gender Bias in Mortality? An Update on the Number of Missing Women

Amartya Sen started a debate about gender bias in mortality by estimating the number of “missing women,” which refers to the number of females of any age who have presumably died as a result of discriminatory treatment. Depending on the assumptions made, the combined estimates for countries exhibiting the presence of such gender bias varied between 60 and 107 million. As new population data have become available for these countries, this article examines whether the number of “missing women” has changed in the past decade. The combined estimate of the number of missing women has risen in absolute terms but has fallen slightly in relation to overall population. Considerable improvement is evident in West Asia, North Africa, and parts of South Asia, while only small improvements have occurred in India and a deterioration took place in China. Analyses of the underlying causes of gender bias in mortality suggest that improvements are largely related to improved female education and employment opportunities and rising overall incomes, while deterioration is mostly attributable to the rising incidence of sex‐selective abortions.