Social Loafing: A Field Investigation

Social loafing was investigated by testing a multilevel model among 23 intact work groups comprised of 168 employees representing two organizations. Results demonstrated that as hypothesized at the individual level, increases in task interdependence and decreases in task visibility and distributive justice were associated with greater occurrence of social loafing. At the group level, increased group size and decreased cohesiveness were related to increased levels of social loafing. Of particular interest was the finding that group member perceptions of perceived coworker loafing was associated with reduced social loafing, opposite of our predictions. We suggested that this unexpected finding may provide evidence of a social compensation effect.     

Volatility-based Effects on Shareholder Value: Alliance Activity in the Computing Industry

We use an event-study analysis to understand how alliance activity affects firm risk. The risk measure is the implied volatility of a firm’s stock price and the events are alliance announcements to the market. We build on the previous event-studies in the alliance literature that focus on the change in shareholder value by taking the first step in delineating what part of that value arises from the changes in the firm’s risk. The analysis reveals that a number of factors within a firm’s control can be used to manipulate risk exposure in an alliance, including the similarity of the firm’s and the alliance’s core activities, the governance form of the alliance, and the function of the alliance.     

The Applicability of Porter’s Generic Strategies in the Digital Age: Assumptions, Conjectures, and Suggestions

Because current management theories evolved in the context of brick-and-mortar firms, this paper examines three key questions raised by the advent of e-business: (1) Will the strategy types found among e-business firms resemble Porter’s (1980) generic strategies? (2) Will we find performance differences among e-business firms pursuing different types of strategies? (3) Will we find differences in the strategy-performance relationships of pure online firms (pure plays) and firms with both online and offline operations (clicks-and-bricks)? We conclude that integrated strategies that combine elements of cost leadership and differentiation will outperform cost leadership or differentiation strategies. We also argue that, regardless of business strategy type, clicks-and-bricks firms that closely integrate their on- and offline operations will enjoy performance advantages over their pure play counterparts.     

完善我国社会保障制度若干问题的思考

社会保障制度是现代工业文明和市场经济发展的产物。建立符合中国国情的社会保障法律体系 ,必须突出社会保障制度的重点 ,明确改革目标。社会保障立法必须注意与经济发展水平相适应 ,将主体的普遍性与平等性相结合 ,坚持主体权利与义务相统一的原则     

百年中国社会变迁与全球化过程中的“文化自觉”——在“21世纪人类生存与发展国际人类学学术研讨会”上的讲话

百年中国经历了农业社会、工业社会和信息社会的变迁。经济社会形态的演化不是简单的单线,远比我们想象的直线历史上升的过程要复杂得多。信息社会出现后,农业社会和工业社会仍在延续。中华民族多元一体格局所体现的文化关系,是在悠久的中国文明史进程中发展起来的,与近代以来中国的民族国家建设走过的特殊道路,有着难以分割的密切关系,也与世界的历史进程分不开。全球化过程中的“文化自觉”,指的就是世界范围文化关系的多元一体格局的建立,即全球范围内实行和确定“和而不同”的文化关系。     

Internet Technology in Service of Personal Health Care Management: Patient Perspective

Internet technology has become an informational resource for most health care consumers. Online information, discussion, and support groups, in the form of message boards, listservs, and chat rooms are emerging as parts of virtual self-health-care network. This paper examines the extent to which participation in online health discussion groups was reported to be helpful in increasing medical knowledge and in enhancing the participatory patient role of health care consumers in interaction with health care service professionals. Data for this study was collected from 350 patients who participated in Internet discussion groups for cancer patients. The findings of the study indicated the important impact of Internet health discussion groups on health care management practices as perceived by health care consumers, including empowerment through knowledge and proactive participation in cancer care management. This research contributes to understanding the patient perspective and assesses the perceived importance of Internet groups by health care consumers.     

Life with and without heart disease among women and men over 50

This article uses a demographic approach and data from the Health and Retirement Survey, a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population, to investigate sex differences in the length of life lived with heart disease and after a heart attack for persons in the United States age 50 and older. On average, women live longer than men with heart disease. At age 50 women can expect to live 7.9 years and men 6.7 years with heart disease. The average woman experiences heart disease onset three years older and heart attacks 4.4 years older than men.     

CHAINED CREDIT CONTRACTS AND FINANCIAL ACCELERATORS

Sufficiently high net worth of financial intermediaries (FIs) is considered a necessary condition for financial and macroeconomic stability. In this paper, we explore why the net worth of FIs is important as compared to that of nonfinancial firms using a dynamic general equilibrium model, in which both FIs and nonfinancial firms rely on costly external debt. We find that an exogenous disruption of the FIs' net worth has a greater aggregate impact than does the same‐sized disruption of the nonfinancial firms' net worth. The key reason is that the net worth of the FIs in the United States is small. (JEL E22, E44, G21)