Assessing the Utility of Stochastic Employee Movements

This article illustrates the substantial effects employee movements (i.e., movements due to employee promotions, transfers, and separations) have on the value of a human resource intervention. Two methods for estimating differential employee movements are presented and their resulting utility estimates are contrasted and compared. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of each procedure are discussed as well as the value such information provides to organizational decision makers.     

Reduce rework,improve safety: an empirical inquiry into the precursors to error in construction

A positive association between rework and safety events that arise during the construction process has been identified. In-depth semi-structured interviews with operational and project-related employees from an Australian construction organisation were undertaken to determine the precursors to rework and safety events. The analysis enabled the precursors of error to examined under the auspices of: (1) People, (2) Organisation, and (3) Project. It is revealed that the precursors to error for rework and safety incidents were similar. A conceptual framework to simultaneously reduce rework and safety incidents is proposed. It is acknowledged that there is no panacea that can be used to prevent rework from occurring, but from the findings presented indicate that a shift from a position of ‘preventing’ to ‘managing’ errors is required to enable learning to become an embedded feature of an organisation’s culture. As a consequence, this will contribute to productivity and performance improvements being realised.     

Assassination of political leaders: The role of social conflict

Given human aggression and warfare are often described as the most pressing behavioral problems of our time, we focus on a related phenomenon, with large-scale social, political, and economic consequences: assassination of political leaders. We explore the role of social conflict as a predictor of political assassination and use historiometric methods and an extensive archival dataset to identify and code for contextual factors associated with social conflict and political homicide. Our results indicate an increase in social conflict increases the likelihood of assassination; moreover, environmental constraints and traditional culture predict leader assassination through social conflict. We discuss implications of these findings and suggest future research on contextual factors, assassination of political leaders, and their collective-level impact.     

Congestion games with mixed objectives

We study a new class of games which generalizes congestion games and its bottleneck variant. We introduce congestion games with mixed objectives to model network scenarios in which players seek to optimize for latency and bandwidths alike. We characterize the (non-)existence of pure Nash equilibria (PNE), the convergence of improvement dynamics, the quality of equilibria and show the complexity of the decision problem. For games that do not possess PNE we give bounds on the approximation ratio of approximate pure Nash equilibria.     

Between the village and the global city: the production and decay of translocal spaces of Thai migrant workers in Singapore

This paper explores the mobilities and structural moorings of Thai labour migrants in Singapore from a translocal perspective. We argue that combining the mobilities paradigm with the concept of translocality offers a fruitful avenue of investigation not only of the production of translocal spaces, but also of their temporality and mutability. Through a multi-sited research approach we shed light on the genesis as well as the decay of translocal connections. This paper shows that translocal structures are important moorings of migration, and raises the question of what happens to translocal spaces when migration flows dissolve.     

Midwives and clinical investigation: A review of the literature

Background

An allegation of negligence or an adverse outcome during childbirth can lead to clinical investigation of a midwife’s practice. Anecdotal evidence suggests midwives find this stressful and disturbing.

Maternal Affective Expression and Adolescents' Subjective Experience of Positive Affect in Natural Settings

This study investigated the association between maternal affective expression during laboratory‐based interaction tasks and adolescents' experience of positive affect (PA) in natural settings. Participants were 80 healthy adolescents and their mothers. Durations of maternal positive (PA) and negative affective (NA) expressions were observed during a conflict resolution task and a positive event planning interaction task. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) procedures were employed to assess adolescents' momentary and peak experience of PA in daily life. Results indicated that maternal NA, but not maternal PA, was related to adolescents' EMA‐reported PA. Adolescents whose mothers expressed more NA experienced less PA in daily environments. Results suggest that adolescents' exposure to maternal negative affective behavior is associated with adolescents' subjective daily well‐being.     

Mediating Role of Psychological Capital in the Relationship between Social Support and Wellbeing of Refugees

This study examines the relationship between social support from work and non‐work domains and the wellbeing of refugee employees. In addition, it examines the mediating influence of psychological capital on these relationships. Using data from 190 refugee employees living in Australia, we find that while perceived organizational support and perceived family support are positively related to the wellbeing of refugee employees, the relationship between perceived supervisor support and wellbeing is not significant. Additionally, while we find that PsyCap fully mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and wellbeing, it only partially mediates the relationship between perceived family support and wellbeing.     

Attitudes Toward Aging and Retirement Homes Before and After Entry Into a Retirement Home

The change of one's habitual living conditions in favor of institutionalized living in a retirement home can be a stressful event. Therefore, the question arises: How does entry into a retirement home affect attitudes toward one's life and aging and toward retirement homes? In order to answer this question, we used longitudinal data from 53 older individuals who were surveyed before and after entry into a retirement home. The data revealed that attitudes toward one's life and aging changed negatively and attitudes toward retirement homes changed positively; however, there are gains and losses in both attitudes.     

Bildungschancen von Grundschülern: Die Bedeutung des Klassen- und Schulkontextes am Übergang auf die Sekundarstufe I

Do context characteristics of class and school have an impact on elementary school pupils’ educational opportunities in addition to the confirmed individual effects of social origin and academic performance? The paper investigates the influence of the contextual performance- and SES-level as well as of the ethnic composition of the context on the probability of (1) obtaining a recommendation for higher secondary schools (Gymnasium) and (2) effectively attending a higher secondary school. To this end, we base our theoretical framework on the distinction between primary and secondary effects, as introduced by Boudon (1974), and extend it by a contextual perspective, as well as the related decisions of parents and teachers. The analyses are based on a survey of all 4^th graders of elementary schools in the city of Wiesbaden (Germany) during the school year 2006/07. The context effects are modelled by using logistic multilevel models. The results show that the affiliation to both school- and class context explains about 10 per cent of the total variance of academic achievement. Additionally, there is evidence that the context effects significantly influence the individual educational opportunities in particular when the individual marks are controlled for (secondary context effects). Furthermore, especially the SES-related context composition influences the educational outcomes when controlling for relevant individual variables. With respect to the accomplished transitions to the Gymnasium, the performance level of the school also has significant impact. Contrary to previous studies, we could not detect any effect of the ethnic composition of the context when SES is controlled for. While there are effects of the class context as well as of the school context with the educational recommendation as dependent variable, only the school context is of relevance concerning the effectively attained school transition.