Ethical and despotic leadership, relationships with leader's social responsibility, top management team effectiveness and subordinates' optimism: A multi-method study

In this multi-method study, we examined the relationships of leader's social responsibility with different aspects of ethical leadership (morality and fairness, role clarification, and power sharing) as well as with despotic leadership. We also investigated how these leadership behaviors relate to effectiveness and optimism, using multiple-source ratings. Interviews with CEOs (N = 73) were coded for the presence of leader's social responsibility and its facets. Also, using questionnaires, direct reports rated each CEOs' leader behavior (n = 130) and a second group of direct reports (n = 119) rated effectiveness and optimism. As expected, leaders high on social responsibility were rated higher on ethical leadership and lower on despotic leadership. Ethical leadership was also positively related to perceived top management team effectiveness and subordinates' optimism about the future of the organization and their own place within it.     

Increases in Female Labour Force Participation in Europe: Similarities and Differences

Low educational levels and the effect of children are recognized as the most important factors for low female participation rates. Over the last decades female labour supply in Europe has shown a large increase. This may be related to changes in the level of education or fertility. It is also possible that it is due to changes in behaviour, as influenced by the social and institutional context. Our results show that increases in the participation rates cannot be explained by changes in either educational level nor in the number and timing of children. Female labour supply increases at all educational levels for women with and without children. In other words, it is mainly changes in behaviour that drive the increase in participation rates over the last decades.     

Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together: Age and Sex-Specific Estimates of Migration amongst Countries in the EU/EFTA, 2002–2007

Because of inconsistencies in the reported migration flows and large amounts of missing data, our knowledge of international migration patterns in the Europe is limited. Methods for overcoming data obstacles and harmonising international migration data, however, are improving. In this article, we provide a methodology for integrating various pieces of incomplete information together, including a partial set of harmonised migration flows, to estimate a complete set of migration flows by origin, destination, age and sex for the 31 countries in the European Union and European Free Trade Association from 2002 to 2007. The results represent a synthetic data base that can be used to inform population projections, policy decisions and migration theory.     

Projecting age-specific fertility rates by using time-series methods

This paper discusses twostochastic time-series models developed recently for projecting age-specific fertility rates: the CARIMA model and the APC-ARIMA model. The forecasting performance of both models is examined using Dutch data. Alternatively, adeterministic time-series model is presented in which the age pattern of changes in the age-specific fertility rates between successive years is described by a cubic spline function. The model is capable of describing widely varying patterns. The model is applied to age-specific fertility rates for four countries: the Netherlands, England and Wales, Sweden and Australia.Cet article traite de deux modèles stochastiques qui utilisent des séries chronologiques: le modèle CARIMA et le modèle APC-ARIMA qui ont été développés récemment pour projeter les taux de fécondité par âge. La qualité des projections réalisées avec ces deux modèles est testée sur des données hollandaises. Simultanément, un modèle déterministe est présenté dans lequel les changements des taux de fécondité par âge entre années successives sont décrits par une fonction du troisième degré. Ce modèle est capable de décrire des situations qui varient dans un très large domaine. Il est appliqué aux taux de fécondité par âge de quatre pays: la Hollande, l'Angleterre et le Pays de Galles, la Suède et l'Australie.

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The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics.     

Research on leadership in a cross-cultural context: Making progress, and raising new questions

It is almost cliché to say that there has been an explosion in the amount of research on leadership in a cross-cultural context. In this review, we describe major advances and emerging patterns in this research domain over the last several years. Our starting point for this update is roughly 1996–1997, since those are the dates of two important reviews of the cross-cultural leadership literature [specifically, House, Wright, and Aditya (House, R. J., Wright, N. S., & Aditya, R. N. (1997). Cross-cultural research on organizational leadership: A critical analysis and a proposed theory. In: P. C. Earley, & M. Erez (Eds.), New perspectives on international industrial/organizational psychology (pp. 535–625). San Francisco, CA) and Dorfman (Dorfman, P. W. (1996). International and cross-cultural leadership research. In: B. J. Punnett, & O. Shenkar (Eds.), Handbook for international management research, pp. 267–349, Oxford, UK: Blackwell)]. We describe the beginnings of the decline in the quest for universal leadership principles that apply equivalently across all cultures, and we focus on the increasing application of the dimensions of culture identified by Hofstede [Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values (Abridged ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage] and others to describe variation in leadership styles, practices, and preferences. We also note the emergence of the field of cross-cultural leadership as a legitimate and independent field of endeavor, as reflected in the emergence of publication outlets for this research, and the establishment of long-term multinational multi-investigator research programs on the topic. We conclude with a discussion of progress made since the two pieces that were our departure point, and of progress yet to be made.     

Prey or host searching behavior that leads to a sigmoid functional response in invertebrate predators and parasitoids

Summary Invertebrate predators and parasitoids have long been characterized as having a hyperbolic (Type 2) functional response. Modifications were made to Holling's sand paper disc experiment which consisted of limiting the initial period of search during which a host must be contacted. Failure to contact a host during this initial period causes the predator to emigrate from the search area. The modification generated a sigmoid (Type 3) functional response. This response resulted from the low probability of encountering a host during the initial period of search at low host densities in the time allotted. A limited period of search has been found in several insect parasitoids. Such a strategy would minimize the time (energy) spent per offspring produced by minimizing the time invested in searching microhabitats in which hosts are scarce or absent. The work was supported in part by NSF Grant DEB-75-04223 and by a grant from the Netherlands Dranization for the Advancement of Pure Research (ZWO).     

Managing an Aging Workforce and a Tight Labor Market: Views Held by Dutch Employers

Population Research and Policy Review -     

Charisma and rhetoric: Communicative techniques of international business leaders

Although powerful rhetoric is often associated with charismatic leadership, little explanation is available of why leader rhetoric is related to charisma. One of the first studies to explicitly address this topic focused on speech content (Shamir. Arthur & House, 1994). Other elements contributing to the strong motivational and emotive effects of charismatic rhetoric are construction of the message, style and delivery. CEOs play an important part in creating and dispersing organizational values and visions to organization members and the external environment. Their speeches within and outside the company are important to motivate others and gain support for their vision. The CEOs in this study are from companies seeking different degrees and types of international involvement. Their corporate visions reflect different international business mentalities. This study explores how these charismatic CEOs rhetorically construct message content in their speeches, focusing on how their attitude towards internationalization and international business strategy is reflected. First, international strategy and attitudes towards internationalization as well as vision, charisma and rhetoric are discussed. Discourse analysis is described and examples of rhetorical devices are given from the analyzed speeches of the CEO's. Finally, part of a more extensive analysis of examples from speeches showing the rhetorical construction of messages reflecting their international strategy and management mentality are presented.     

Predictability of demographic variables in the short run

In assessing the performance of population forecasts, it is useful to have a standard with which the forecast errors can be compared. Univariate time series models may provide such a standard. Mean forecast errors of time series models indicate to what extent the movement of a variable could have been predicted from its own past. These errors show the degree of predictability that is attainable, at least in a given period. In this paper three times series methods (exponential smoothing, Box-Jenkins method, and structural time series models) are applied to Dutch data on births, deaths, marriages, immigrants, and emigrants. The variability of prediction errors between different periods is examined. The possibility that univariate predictions can be improved by using quarterly or monthly data instead of annual data is tested.     

The cross-national pattern of happiness: Test of predictions implied in three theories of happiness

Predictions about level and dispersion of happiness in nations are derived from three theories of happiness: comparison-theory, folklore-theory and livability-theory. The predictions are tested on two cross national data-sets: a comparative survey among university students in 38 nations in 1985 and a collection of comparable general population surveys in 28 nations around 1980. Most predictions of comparison-theory and folklore-theory are defied by the data. The predictions of livability-theory are all confirmed.