Organicity and performance in excellent HRM organizations: the importance of organizational learning capability

Organizational learning capability is a key element in organizational performance. This issue spurs interest to discover how to generate environments with high organizational learning capability. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between the degree of organicity of the structure, organizational performance and organizational learning capability. A total of 251 firms with demonstrated excellence in human resource management took part in the study. Results suggest that the degree of organicity of the structure has a positive relationship with performance perceptions and this relationship is fully mediated by organizational learning capability.     

Condom use self‐efficacy among U.S.‐ and foreign‐born Latinos in Texas

The objective of this study was to assess the influence of condom use self‐efficacy on the reported condom use of Latinos. We conducted a rapid needs assessment study among U.S. and foreign‐born Latinos living in Houston, TX, to identify behavioral and psychosocial factors that influence their risk for HIV. Bilingual Latino interviewers conducted confidential face‐to‐face interviews with individuals living in apartment complexes or residential areas primarily populated by Latinos. A total of 152 participants completed the survey. Regression results indicate that education and gender influenced condom use self‐efficacy, which in turn influenced condom use in the last sexual encounter and with the primary sexual partner. However, gender and relationship risk were stronger predictors of condom use. Study results indicate that there are differences in condom use self‐efficacy and sexual risk behaviors between Latino men and women that need further exploration.     

On projection-based tests for directional and compositional data

A new class of nonparametric tests, based on random projections, is proposed. They can be used for several null hypotheses of practical interest, including uniformity for spherical (directional) and compositional data, sphericity of the underlying distribution and homogeneity in two-sample problems on the sphere or the simplex. The proposed procedures have a number of advantages, mostly associated with their flexibility (for example, they also work to test “partial uniformity” in a subset of the sphere), computational simplicity and ease of application even in high-dimensional cases.     

A geometrically motivated parametric model in manifold estimation

The general aim of manifold estimation is reconstructing, by statistical methods, an m-dimensional compact manifold S on ^d (with m≤d) or estimating some relevant quantities related to the geometric properties of S. Focussing on the cases d=2 and d=3, with m=d or m=d?1, we will assume that the data are given by the distances to S from points randomly chosen on a band surrounding S. The aim of this paper is to show that, if S belongs to a wide class of compact sets (which we call sets with polynomial volume), the proposed statistical model leads to a relatively simple parametric formulation. In this setup, standard methodologies (method of moments, maximum likelihood) can be used to estimate some interesting geometric parameters, including curvatures and Euler characteristic. We will particularly focus on the estimation of the (d?1)-dimensional boundary measure (in Minkowski's sense) of S. It turns out, however, that the estimation problem is not straightforward since the standard estimators show a remarkably pathological behaviour: while they are consistent and asymptotically normal, their expectations are infinite. The theoretical and practical consequences of this fact are discussed in some detail.     

Location estimators based on linear combinations of modified order statistics

Let Xj,…, X be i.i.d random variables with common distribution function F(x-0), and let a(u) be a function defined on [0,1], For each t$$$R define the t-order statistics as: X. (t) = X. if there in k exist exactly (i- 1) X. !s such that |X.-t|greater|X.-t| and define the variable T (t) = n 2. , a(i/n) X, (t) . We consider estimates of 8 defined as solutions of the eauaticn T (8) =6 , and     

Semiparametric Modeling of the Spatial Distribution of Occupational Accident Risk in the Casual Labor Market, Piracicaba, Southeast Brazil

The objective of this study was to estimate the spatial distribution of work accident risk in the informal work market in the urban zone of an industrialized city in southeast Brazil and to examine concomitant effects of age, gender, and type of occupation after controlling for spatial risk variation. The basic methodology adopted was that of a population-based case-control study with particular interest focused on the spatial location of work. Cases were all casual workers in the city suffering work accidents during a one-year period; controls were selected from the source population of casual laborers by systematic random sampling of urban homes. The spatial distribution of work accidents was estimated via a semiparametric generalized additive model with a nonparametric bidimensional spline of the geographical coordinates of cases and controls as the nonlinear spatial component, and including age, gender, and occupation as linear predictive variables in the parametric component. We analyzed 1,918 cases and 2,245 controls between 1/11/2003 and 31/10/2004 in Piracicaba, Brazil. Areas of significantly high and low accident risk were identified in relation to mean risk in the study region (p < 0.01). Work accident risk for informal workers varied significantly in the study area. Significant age, gender, and occupational group effects on accident risk were identified after correcting for this spatial variation. A good understanding of high-risk groups and high-risk regions underpins the formulation of hypotheses concerning accident causality and the development of effective public accident prevention policies.     

Population, Nomadic Pastoralism and the Environment in the Mongolian Plateau

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between population, economic activity and the environment in the Mongolian Plateau. This analysis provides a valuable case study for several reasons. First, it elucidates a specific ecosystem—the steppe—that has not received much attention in the literature and a traditional economic activity consistent with such environment: nomadic pastoralism. Second, the Mongolian Plateau is shared by two entities, with two different economic and social organisation: the Republic of Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Third, these two entities have also experienced two different population dynamics that have resulted in different population densities and population pressure on natural resources. Fourth, environmental degradation does not seem to be a problem in the Republic of Mongolia, while in Inner Mongolia the quantity and quality of the grasslands are in decline.The argument discussed here is that the difference in resource depletion and environmental degradation between the two regions is mainly the result of different population dynamics, which has resulted in different human and animal population densities.     

Chronopolitics: What Time Do People Vote?

Insights from time-budget studies are applied to reassess previouswork on factors conditioning the time of day when people vote.In sharp contrast to expectations raised by the literature,the findings reveal weak multivariate effects of attitudinal,behavioral, and situational conditioning factors.     

Quality of Life in Macau,China

We report the initial findings of an ongoing, long-term investigation into subjective quality of life in Macau, a Special Administrative Region of China. Data were collected via quarterly public surveys (2007 to 2009; n = 8,230), as part of the Macau Quality of Life Report. The main aims of the study were to: (a) ascertain the public’s satisfaction with life and with the regional situation in Macau; (b) confirm the utility of the International Wellbeing Index (IWI) as a measure of subjective life quality; and (c) contribute to ongoing discussion in the literature on quality of life in China. The data indicated moderate levels of personal (PWI = 64.4; range 63–66.7) and national (NWI = 59.7; 57.4–63.7) wellbeing across the study period, which implies that residents in Macau are generally satisfied with life. The lowest scores were reported in the first quarter of 2009, a period of great economic uncertainty in Macau and the world, but were positioned within the normative range. The IWI demonstrated good psychometric performance, consistent with previous studies in China and the West, which confirmed its utility. These findings are discussed in relation to the IWI’s theoretical underpinnings and the literature.     

Classification of Higher-order Data with Separable Covariance and Structured Multiplicative or Additive Mean Models

Although devised in 1936 by Fisher, discriminant analysis is still rapidly evolving, as the complexity of contemporary data sets grows exponentially. Our classification rules explore these complexities by modeling various correlations in higher-order data. Moreover, our classification rules are suitable to data sets where the number of response variables is comparable or larger than the number of observations. We assume that the higher-order observations have a separable variance-covariance matrix and two different Kronecker product structures on the mean vector. In this article, we develop quadratic classification rules among g different populations where each individual has κth order (κ ≥2) measurements. We also provide the computational algorithms to compute the maximum likelihood estimates for the model parameters and eventually the sample classification rules.