Modelling the impact of performance management practices on firm performance: interaction with human resource management practices

The paper draws on resource orchestration theory to investigate whether and how performance management (PM) practices interact with human resource management (HRM) practices in organisations as well as how this interaction affects firm performance. The proposed theoretical model was tested through a survey of 192 UK firms using Partial Least Squares approach for structural equations modelling. The findings show that the effect of PM practices on firm performance is better explained when the interaction between these practices and other organisational practices is considered. In particular, we examine the extent to which the interaction between PM practices and commitment-based HRM practices affects performance. We find that when HRM practices and PM practices are misaligned, their effect on performance can be negative. This is the first paper in the PM literature that establishes the relationship between PM and HRM practices in organisations and demonstrates the effect of this relationship on firm performance.     

Reclaiming the everyday: the situational dynamics of the 2011 London Riots

This paper examines the situational dynamics of the 2011 London Riots. The empirical contribution is to challenge the dominant explanation of the riots as an outbreak of ‘criminal opportunism’. I use the Metropolitan Police record of all riot-related crimes in London to test several hypotheses and show that this ‘criminal opportunism’ theory cannot account for the riots’ spatial patterning. This opens space for alternative explanatory mechanisms. I then use video footage and testimonies of events on the ground to examine the interactions which made up the London Riots. These suggest that the riots were, in part, a way for people to stake a claim to the public spaces in which they lived, to reclaim the everyday. Theoretically, this builds on Randall Collins’s ‘micro-situational’ approach to violence but extends it by embedding historical and structural factors into that micro-perspective. Specifically, the emotional dynamics of these riot interactions cannot be understood without acknowledging participants’ pre-existing expectations of the police and of the everyday places of the riot.     

Demographic dynamics and long-run development: insights for the secular stagnation debate

This paper takes a global, long-run perspective on the recent debate about secular stagnation, which has so far mainly focused on the short term. The analysis is motivated by observing the interplay between the economic and demographic transition that has occurred in the developed world over the past 150 years. To the extent that high growth rates in the past have partly been the consequence of singular changes during the economic and demographic transition, growth is likely to become more moderate once the transition is completed. At the same time, a similar transition is on its way in most developing countries, with profound consequences for the development prospects in these countries, but also for global comparative development. The evidence presented here suggests that long-run demographic dynamics have potentially important implications for the prospects of human and physical capital accumulation, the evolution of productivity, and the question of secular stagnation.     

Political Participation of Local Publics in the Unemployment Field: A Comparison of Lyon and Turin

This article focuses on political participation of local publics in the unemployment field, examining networks of collective actors in Lyon and Turin. Our main question is: Is the participation of local publics fostered under conditions of more developed governance that increases bottom-up access (formal or informal) to elites and institutions in the policy domain? Drawing upon the most recent developments in literatures on social movement theory, governance and network analysis, this article discusses the main variations in terms of political participation of local publics in Lyon and Turin. It then enquires into the main explanatory factors accounting for these variations, thus showing that the openness of governance does influence the level of political participation of local publics. The main argument is that in an open context participation is low, while in a closed (or underdeveloped) context local publics participate more, with differential access to decision-making according to their resources.     

Implementation with renegotiation when preferences and feasible sets are state dependent

In this paper, we present a model of implementation where infeasible allocations are converted into feasible ones through a process of renegotiation that is represented by a reversion function. We describe the maximal set of Social Choice Correspondences that can be implemented in Nash Equilibrium in a class of reversion functions that punish agents for infeasibilities. This is used to study the implementation of the Walrasian Correspondence and several axiomatic solutions to problems of bargaining and taxation.     

The impact of national culture and social capital on corporate social responsibility attitude among immigrants entrepreneurs

Although significant attention has been given to the phenomenon of immigrant entrepreneurship, little is known about the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in immigrant firms. Beyond the traditional social, cultural and regulatory challenges in the last years immigrant entrepreneurs have had to cope with the wide growing interest towards CSR, with raising expectations about firm’s environmental and social behaviors. This study provides initial insights on this topic by studying the effect of social capital and national culture on the immigrant entrepreneur’s attitude to adopt CSR in three areas: social, health and safety and environment. Sixty semi-structured interviews were conducted among immigrant entrepreneurs in the Italian Province of Milan; the first one for number of immigrant entrepreneurs. Data collected were analyzed through OLS regression. Findings shows that power distance and individualism/collectivism have a negative relation with all the three CSR areas, while uncertainty avoidance is negatively related only to environmental effort. We find out a robust relation between national culture and environmental and social practices and the health and safety area. The study concludes with practical implications and suggestions for future research. The paper is one of the first studies that address the topic of CSR among immigrant entrepreneurs. Understanding the commitment of this firms is relevant for the debate around CSR and SMEs, mainly because immigrant entrepreneurs are increasing their relevance in the developed countries.     

Linear quantile mixed models

Dependent data arise in many studies. Frequently adopted sampling designs, such as cluster, multilevel, spatial, and repeated measures, may induce this dependence, which the analysis of the data needs to take into due account. In a previous publication (Geraci and Bottai in Biostatistics 8:140–154, 2007), we proposed a conditional quantile regression model for continuous responses where subject-specific random intercepts were included to account for within-subject dependence in the context of longitudinal data analysis. The approach hinged upon the link existing between the minimization of weighted absolute deviations, typically used in quantile regression, and the maximization of a Laplace likelihood. Here, we consider an extension of those models to more complex dependence structures in the data, which are modeled by including multiple random effects in the linear conditional quantile functions. We also discuss estimation strategies to reduce the computational burden and inefficiency associated with the Monte Carlo EM algorithm we have proposed previously. In particular, the estimation of the fixed regression coefficients and of the random effects’ covariance matrix is based on a combination of Gaussian quadrature approximations and non-smooth optimization algorithms. Finally, a simulation study and a number of applications of our models are presented.     

Different estimators of the spectral matrix: an empirical comparison testing a new shrinkage estimator

ABSTRACT

In this paper we propose a new non parametric estimator of the spectral matrix of a multivariate stationary stochastic process, with the main goal to locally improve the deficiencies of the smoothed periodogram in terms of mean square error of the estimates. Our estimator is based on a convex linear combination of the frequency averaged periodogram and an estimate of the true mean spectral matrix across frequencies. In a wide simulation study we show that our estimator turns out to be able to markedly improve the frequency averaged periodogram especially at central frequencies.     

The Role of Social Capital in the Start-Up of Non-profit Organisations: The Case of Fondazione Welfare Ambrosiano

This article investigates how a start-up foundation can build its organisational social capital, meaning a network of strategic partnerships with other organisations based on trust relationships, in order to fulfil its mission. Based on a case study analysis of Fondazione Welfare Ambrosiano—an Italian foundation created in partnership with private organisations and local public institutions—we explored whether and how some characteristics of the social capital of the foundation’s members contributed to the organisational social capital. By applying Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (Acad Manag Rev 23(2):242–266, 1998) social capital framework, we discovered that the social capital configuration of the founders and staff, linked to some characteristics of the foundation, had driven the development of the organisational social capital. Our paper contributes to an understanding of what constitutes the best configuration of social capital to allow a start-up foundation to take off.