Utilization of Mixed Distributions in the Calculation of Polarization: The Case of Spain

Social Indicators Research - This study analyzes the evolution of salary polarization in the Spanish labor market. The paper proposes the use of mixed distributions to examine the consequences of...     

The role of human and social board capital in driving CSR reporting

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the professional, technical and relational background (human and social capital) of outside directors on promoting firm CSR disclosure. Following the Hillman et al. (2000) taxonomy of board members, we classify outside directors as business experts, support specialists and community influential, and examine whether business and technical expertise or political ties in the boardroom affect CSR disclosure.This study confirms that not all outside directors are equally effective in improving CSR disclosure and that only certain kinds of outside directors, those classified as support specialists, help promote it. On the other hand, our findings also show that directors with previous experience as politicians affect CSR disclosure negatively, probably due to their interests in safeguarding their reputation within the company, in avoiding public scrutiny and in protecting their political connections. In addition, our set of analysis with interaction effects reveals that powerful CEOs have the incentive to promote CSR-related strategies and to convince business experts and support specialist directors to enhance profitable sustainability strategies and transparency in CSR disclosure. Nevertheless, the powerful CEO effect is not enough to compensate the negative role of political directors on CSR reporting. Therefore, this paper supports the theories in favor of analyzing the multiple configurations of corporate governance mechanisms by adopting a holistic approach, and the need to combine these configurations in order to analyze their impact on CSR behavior.     

Applying kaizen to the schedule in a concurrent environment

Not only ETO (Engineering to Order), but even serial production industry should know how to deal with projects and their schedule: plant commissioning, shutdown, introducing new products and similar circumstances should be managed with adequate planning and resource allocation techniques to create a schedule useful in decision making during the execution. The current complex reality, with evolving technologies and fierce pressure to reach the market as soon as possible, pushes the project managers to use more advanced techniques than waterfall planning, such as agile or lean. It also requires them to take a holistic view and manage concurrent tasks in complex projects. The contributions of this paper are two: the proposal to control specific parallel groups of waterfall activities under uncertain environments, which can lead to iterations and reworks, as a single concurrent Activity Managed by Kanban Methods (AMKM). This activity can be subsequently embedded into traditional scheduling approaches as CPM-PERT. The second contribution is the feasibility of its application in industrial environments due to the affordability of simulation software. Two use cases are shown as evidence. It is not a disruptive proposal, but a kaizen action based on very mature technologies. Finally, it is suggested some improvements to be implemented in Project Management Software due to this ‘kaizen’ proposal.     

External knowledge search,absorptive capacity and radical innovation in high-technology firms

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm's radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.     

Work overload and intimidation: The moderating role of resilience

Work overload is a critical but understudied stressor at work, particularly for boundary-spanning positions. Recent studies have highlighted the need for more research on the identification of different predictors of the use of intimidation, a type of assertive impression management tactic. Relying on Lazarus's transactional theory, this study hypothesized and investigated a mediated moderation model that includes resilience, work overload, and its outcomes.This paper contributes to the organizational literature by examining the use of intimidation by salespeople as a reaction to stressful circumstances and the association between this tactic and salespeople's performance. The information provided by 248 employee–supervisor dyads confirmed the proposed model. Work overload has a positive association with intimidation, and the direct effect of work overload on intimidation depends on the level of an employee's resilience. Finally, the use of intimidation has a negative association with supervisor-rated performance.     

The Read Feed: Reviews

Abstract

Michelle DeMars reviews Academic Libraries for Commuter Students: Research-Based Strategies. Hayley Moreno reviews Coding with XML for Efficiencies in Cataloging and Metadata: Practical Applications of XSD, XSLT, and XQuery.     

Retracted Article: The victorious counterrevolution: the nationalist effort in the Spanish Civil War

We, the Editors and Publisher of National Identities, have retracted the following book review:

Pedro García-Guirao (2019)

Book Review of The victorious counterrevolution: the nationalist effort in the Spanish Civil War. National Identities, published online on 14^th February 2019, DOI:10.1080/14608944.2018.1563986

The above-mentioned book review contained some inaccuracies in quotations and some statements which may be misleading as to the contents of the book. The book review was subsequently revised and re-published as DOI: 10.1080/14608944.2018.1563986

We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.     

Diagnostics in elliptical regression models with stochastic restrictions applied to econometrics

We propose an influence diagnostic methodology for linear regression models with stochastic restrictions and errors following elliptically contoured distributions. We study how a perturbation may impact on the mixed estimation procedure of parameters in the model. Normal curvatures and slopes for assessing influence under usual schemes are derived, including perturbations of case-weight, response variable, and explanatory variable. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology. An example with real-world economy data is presented as an illustration.