The downside of organizational identification: Relations between identification,workaholism and well-being

Abstract

Employee organizational identification has been proposed and found to be positively related to employee health and well-being. The empirical evidence, however, is not unequivocal, and some authors have suggested possible downsides of identification with the organization as a whole or with a group within it. The potential negative effect of over-identification was tested empirically for the first time in the present paper. Two studies were conducted; Study 1 was cross-sectional and used a sample of Italian law court clerks (N=195) and Study 2 was longitudinal and employed a sample of Italian teachers (N=140 at T2). We proposed a curvilinear mediation model with identification curvilinearly predicting workaholism, and workaholism, in turn, negatively affecting employee well-being. This curvilinear link between organizational identification and workaholism means that workaholism at first decreases with growing identification, but when identification becomes too strong, workaholism increases. The results confirmed our hypotheses, and we discuss theoretical and practical implications.     

Matching on the Estimated Propensity Score

Propensity score matching estimators (Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983)) are widely used in evaluation research to estimate average treatment effects. In this article, we derive the large sample distribution of propensity score matching estimators. Our derivations take into account that the propensity score is itself estimated in a first step, prior to matching. We prove that first step estimation of the propensity score affects the large sample distribution of propensity score matching estimators, and derive adjustments to the large sample variances of propensity score matching estimators of the average treatment effect (ATE) and the average treatment effect on the treated (ATET). The adjustment for the ATE estimator is negative (or zero in some special cases), implying that matching on the estimated propensity score is more efficient than matching on the true propensity score in large samples. However, for the ATET estimator, the sign of the adjustment term depends on the data generating process, and ignoring the estimation error in the propensity score may lead to confidence intervals that are either too large or too small.     

Robust, accurate confidence intervals with a weak instrument: quarter of birth and education

Summary.  An instrument or instrumental variable manipulates a treatment and affects the outcome only indirectly through its manipulation of the treatment. For instance, encouragement to exercise might increase cardiovascular fitness, but only indirectly to the extent that it increases exercise. If instrument levels are randomly assigned to individuals, then the instrument may permit consistent estimation of the effects caused by the treatment, even though the treatment assignment itself is far from random. For instance, one can conduct a randomized experiment assigning some subjects to 'encouragement to exercise' and others to 'no encouragement' but, for reasons of habit or taste, some subjects will not exercise when encouraged and others will exercise without encouragement; none-the-less, such an instrument aids in estimating the effect of exercise. Instruments that are weak, i.e. instruments that have only a slight effect on the treatment, present inferential problems. We evaluate a recent proposal for permutation inference with an instrumental variable in four ways: using Angrist and Krueger's data on the effects of education on earnings using quarter of birth as an instrument, following Bound, Jaeger and Baker in using simulated independent observations in place of the instrument in Angrist and Krueger's data, using entirely simulated data in which correct answers are known and finally using statistical theory to show that only permutation inferences maintain correct coverage rates. The permutation inferences perform well in both easy and hard cases, with weak instruments, as well as with long-tailed responses.     

Understanding the concept of food sovereignty using the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP)

This article deepens the understanding of the emerging food sovereignty concept using a case study of a home-grown school feeding programme that promotes local food demand – supply linkages. A school feeding programme in four selected districts in Ghana is analysed with respect to community involvement in programme implementation and management as well as its socio-economic impacts. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches was used in data collection and analysis. Results showed a significant improvement in household food access and months of adequate household food provisioning, which were used as measurement proxies for food sovereignty, as a result of access to local market created by the Ghana School Feeding Programme. However, the study recommends more empirical evidence from research to support the claim that using locally produced food for school feeding actually reduces poverty and malnutrition in rural farming communities.     

Workers’ Perception of Chemical Risks: A Focus Group Study

Workers’ perceptions with respect to health and safety at work are rarely taken into account when considering the development of prevention programs. The aim of this study was to explore workers’ perceptions of chemical risks at the workplace, in order to investigate the prerequisites for a workplace health program. A qualitative study was conducted involving seven focus groups of 5–10 participants (blue‐collar workers) each. All groups were homogeneous in terms of sex, work status, language, and company membership. Results showed that several factors have an important influence on workers’ perception of chemical risks. Workers assess risks by means of both sensory and empirical diagnosis and are concerned about the long‐term health consequences. They perceive the threat of chemical risks as high. Despite this, they are resigned to accepting the risks. Existing formal sources of information are rarely consulted because they are judged to be difficult to understand and not user friendly. Instead, workers tend to obtain information from informal sources. Communication problems with and lack of trust in prevention advisers and hierarchy are frequently mentioned. Workers feel that their specific knowledge of their working conditions and their proposals for practical, cost‐effective solutions to improve health and safety at the workplace are insufficiently taken into account. The use of focus groups yielded a useful insight into workers’ perceptions of chemical risks. Our findings suggest that training programs for prevention advisers should include topics such as understanding of workers’ perceptions, usefulness of a participatory approach, and communication and education skills.     

Cultural tourism and temporary art exhibitions in Italy: a panel data analysis

The main aim of this work is to study the relationship between cultural tourism and temporary art exhibitions by means of a panel data analysis. In literature, the capability of cultural attractions, e.g. art exhibitions, of increasing the tourist flow has not been investigated yet and we start to fill this gap. Our data set consists of monthly observed variables on 52 Italian provinces over the period 2003–2007. Our response variable is the amount of hotel arrivals and the set of covariates includes the amount of visitors of temporary exhibitions of ancient, modern and contemporary art plus a set of variables that contribute to tourist arrivals, like the kind of destination, the attraction capability of each province and so on. Of particular interest is to discover the art sector that has the strongest influence on the tourist flow towards Italy by keeping into account both the temporal dynamic and the heterogeneity of the Italian provinces. To this aim, we discuss the static and dynamic error component regression models from both the theoretical and practical point of view. The estimated two-way fixed effects regression models suggest that all the three sectors contribute to the tourist flow but in a quite different fashion. On the basis of our analysis we derive some indications for the policy maker in the field of cultural tourism.     

Liquidity and Trading Dynamics

In this paper, we build a model where the presence of liquidity constraints tends to magnify the economy's response to aggregate shocks. We consider a decentralized model of trade, where agents may use money or credit to buy goods. When agents do not have access to credit and the real value of money balances is low, agents are more likely to be liquidity constrained. This makes them more concerned about their short‐term earning prospects when making their consumption decisions and about their short‐term spending opportunities when making their production decisions. This generates a coordination element in spending and production which leads to greater aggregate volatility and greater comovement across producers.     

Semiparametric Estimates of Monetary Policy Effects: String Theory Revisited

We develop flexible semiparametric time series methods for the estimation of the causal effect of monetary policy on macroeconomic aggregates. Our estimator captures the average causal response to discrete policy interventions in a macrodynamic setting, without the need for assumptions about the process generating macroeconomic outcomes. The proposed estimation strategy, based on propensity score weighting, easily accommodates asymmetric and nonlinear responses. Using this estimator, we show that monetary tightening has clear effects on the yield curve and on economic activity. Monetary accommodation, however, appears to generate less pronounced responses from both. Estimates for recent financial crisis years display a similarly dampened response to monetary accommodation.     

Modeling of interventions for reducing external Enterobacteriaceae contamination of broiler carcasses during processing

This article presents a mathematical model for the Enterobacteriaceae count on the surface of broiler chicken during slaughter and how it may be affected by different processing technologies. The model is based on a model originally developed for Campylobacter and has been adapted for Enterobacteriaceae using a Bayesian updating approach and hitherto unpublished data gathered from German abattoirs. The slaughter process in the model consists of five stages: input, scalding, defeathering, evisceration, washing, and chilling. The impact of various processing technologies along the broiler processing line on the Enterobacteriaceae count on the carcasses’ surface has been determined from literature data. The model is implemented in the software R and equipped with a graphical user interface which allows interactively to choose among different processing technologies for each stage along the processing line. Based on the choice of processing technologies the model estimates the Enterobacteriaceae count on the surface of each broiler chicken at each stage of processing. This result is then compared to a so-called baseline model which simulates a processing line with a fixed set of processing technologies. The model calculations showed how even very effective removal of bacteria on the exterior of the carcass in a previous step will be undone by the cross-contamination with leaked feces, if feces contain high concentrations of bacteria.