The susceptible circle: A taxonomy of followers associated with destructive leadership

While leadership scholars increasingly acknowledge the influence of followers in the leadership process, less attention has been paid to their role in the destructive leadership process. Specifically, the current debate lacks a broad-based understanding of different susceptible follower types that synthesizes related research across academic domains. Expanding on Padilla, Hogan, and Kaiser's (2007) toxic triangle model of destructive leadership, we integrate research and theory across various academic literatures to derive a cohesive taxonomy of vulnerable followers that we call the susceptible circle. We describe the core characteristics of each follower type, drawing on Barbuto's (2000) theory of follower compliance to highlight the psychological processes that motivate each follower to comply with destructive leaders. We then conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications, as well as avenues for future research.     

On the Ghoudi,Khoudraji, and Rivest test for extreme‐value dependence

Ghoudi, Khoudraji & Rivest [The Canadian Journal of Statistics 1998;26:187–197] showed how to test whether the dependence structure of a pair of continuous random variables is characterized by an extreme‐value copula. The test is based on a U‐statistic whose finite‐ and large‐sample variance are determined by the present authors. They propose estimates of this variance which they compare to the jackknife estimate of Ghoudi, Khoudraji & Rivest ( 1998 ) through simulations. They study the finite‐sample and asymptotic power of the test under various alternatives. They illustrate their approach using financial and geological data. The Canadian Journal of Statistics © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

The Career Path Tournament: Developing Awareness of Sociological Barriers to Career Advancement

The author of this article presents the Career Path Tournament, a game for heightening participants' awareness of sociological factors (e.g., race, gender, and discrimination in hiring) influencing career advancement and of the need to anticipate and cope with these factors. The game, which is based on Rosenbaum's (1976, 1981, 1984) Tournament Model, is intended for junior high, high school, and college students in a classroom setting. Undergraduate participants' (N = 74) quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the game are presented as evidence that the game raised awareness of sociological barriers and provided participants with helpful suggestions for adaptively coping with these barriers.     

Restrictive Control and Information Pathologies in Organizations

Although the relation of power to knowledge is an often discussed theme, a psychological and sociological scrutiny of the issue is lacking. A new conceptual and theoretical approach to this issue is presented here that distingushes between restrictive and promotive control. Restrictive control is a form of power exertion in which one actor pushes his wishes through against the interests of another actor. In contrast, if an actor influences the other in line with his or her interests, this is called promotive control. Information pathologies, i.e., avoidable failures of distributed information processing, are introduced as an inverse measure for the quality and quantity of knowledge production. It is hypothesized that restrictive control has negative consequences for the production of new or better knowledge, because it induces information pathologies that in turn lower the effectiveness of joint action. These two hypotheses are tested in a study on 21 successful and 21 unsuccessful innovations with a dual qualitative and quantitative approach. The interpretive analysis of interviews with the main actors of each innovation case as well as the statistical analysis of questionnaire responses by the same actors strongly corroborate both hypotheses. Methodological problems, theoretical perspectives, and practical consequences are discussed.     

Constructing the New Economy: A Discursive Perspective

The rise and fall of the 'New Economy' at the turn of the millennium, most visibly evidenced by the stellar rise and subsequent collapse of the Nasdaq composite index of technology stocks, represents one of the most significant business phenomena in recent times. This paper examines the 'New Economy' phenomenon as a culturally embedded discourse through an analysis of 133 print advertisements collected from the UK edition of the Financial Times between February and December 2000. It investigates the social construction of the concept 'New Economy' in a rapidly changing business environment. The contribution of the paper lies in the empirical study of discursive phenomena in late capitalist societies. From a discursive perspective, the 'New Economy' can be seen as a signifier that points to itself, whose form is its very content. The paper suggests the 'New Economy' must be understood in terms of its ability to accommodate multiple meanings, and it is this very ability which is profoundly ideological, in that it allows essentially socio-historical obsessions and anxieties (e.g. about novelty and change) to appear as seemingly 'natural' or logical behaviour.     

The illusion of independence: Spun-off firms’ risk-taking as a function of status and attachment to the parent firm

This paper examines the post-divestiture behavior of spun-off firms. Drawing on the spin-off literature and middle-status conformity theory, we argue that spun-off firms—as newly independent and publicly traded firms—tend to limit their risk-taking behavior to match the expectations of a crucial audience, i.e., security analysts. Following the logic of middle-status conformity theory, we hypothesize that firms with mid-level status are particularly susceptible to analysts' pressures, whereas high- and low-status firms are free to take greater risks. Crucially, however, we propose that this relationship is less pronounced for spun-off firms that are more attached to their parent firms, as formal and informal linkages between these two types of firms can endure beyond the separation and limit spun-off firms' independence. Using a dataset of 102 spin-off transactions occurring between 1995 and 2010, we find empirical support for a U-shaped relationship between spun-off firms' status and risk-taking. This relationship is attenuated when spun-off firms are more attached to their parents. We contribute to the spin-off literature by demonstrating that a spun-off firm's post-divestiture behavior is determined by the capital market audience's expectations and the attachment to the parent firm. In so doing, we also contribute to the literature on middle-status conformity theory by identifying a boundary condition of the theory. Additionally, we make a methodological contribution by combining ideas from the spin-off and institutional theory literature to develop a particularly comprehensive measure of attachment.     

Different Things Make Different People Happy: Examining Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being by Gender and Parental Status

This paper addresses a number of key challenges in current subjective well-being (SWB) research: A new wave of studies should take into account that different things may make different people happy, thus going beyond a unitary ‘happiness formula’. Furthermore, empirical results need to be connected to broader theoretical narratives. Using a re-examination of the social context of well-being as its case study, this article therefore resorts to sociological theory and fills a gap by investigating how social capital is correlated in different ways with the SWB of men, women, parents, and non-parents. Ordered logit and OLS regression analyses systematically examine slope heterogeneity using UK data from the European Social Survey. It turns out that civic engagement is not at all associated with higher life satisfaction for mothers, while the relationship is positive for men and strongest for childless women. Moreover, informal socialising is positively and more strongly associated with life satisfaction among women, although only when OLS is used. In sum, the social context of well-being varies considerably by gender and parental status. Mothers do not seem to benefit from formal social capital, indicating a “motherhood penalty” (see Correll et al., Am J Sociol 112(5):1297–1338 in 2007) regarding the psychological rewards usually associated with volunteering. Given the high levels of formal social capital among mothers, the findings also highlight the importance of the homo sociologicus concept. Consequently, SWB research can be successfully used to provide new insights into long-standing interdisciplinary theory debates such as the one on homo economicus versus homo sociologicus.     

Simultaneous confidence regions for the parameters of a Poisson INAR(1) model

The INAR(1) model (integer-valued autoregressive) is commonly used to model serially dependent processes of Poisson counts. We propose several asymptotic simultaneous confidence regions for the two parameters of a Poisson INAR(1) model, and investigate their performance and robustness for finite-length time series in a simulation study. Practical recommendations are derived, and the application of the confidence regions is illustrated by a real-data example.     

Labour Market and Labour Market Policy in the Eastern Part of Germany: New Approaches and New Links to Structural Policy

ABSTRACT: After unification, East German GNP dropped severely, total employment fell to about two thirds of the former level. Long-term labour market prospects remain poor. From the very beginning up to now, labour market policy (short-time work, early retirement schemes, work creation measures, further training and retraining) absorbed much of the surplus labour supply. Regulations were changed to allow for‘“mega-measures” (contrasting the traditional individual approach). A new co-financing model links work-creation measures more closely to regional structural policy. A labour market infrastructure was built up in a short time, including new elements such as‘“employment promotion companies” and‘“reconstruction agents“.