Team‐Level Antecedents of Individuals' Knowledge Networks*

Individuals' knowledge networks are widely considered to contribute substantially to the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations. While the positive effects of knowledge networks as a primary driver of social capital have recently received considerable research attention, potential determinants of individuals' network building have not yet been adequately addressed. In this study, we investigate how certain team‐level properties affect team members' development of knowledge networks through the course of a team project. Using data from 430 team leaders and team members pertaining to 145 software development projects, we test cross‐level hypotheses using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). The results indicate that the team's perception of the organizational knowledge‐sharing climate, the team's networking preference, and the team's perceived importance of networking for project success positively affect individuals' network building. Furthermore, a team's perception of the adequacy of its technical competency and a team's perception of the adequacy of its material resources inhibit team members' individual network development. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Employee voice on social media — An affordance lens

Voice mechanisms in organizations provide an opportunity for employees to have a say about their work. As new digital mechanisms, such as social media (SM), are being increasingly adopted by organizations for knowledge sharing, employee engagement and general communication, it is important to consider the extent to which SM may facilitate employee voice. The limited attempts to examine SM and employee voice have mostly focused on identifying the contextual factors that could promote constructive voice on SM. The extant literature does not explore how SM features may (or may not) facilitate all types of voice, such as those which promote employee interests. Adopting an affordance lens, this paper answers the call of voice scholars to explore the potential of SM as a voice mechanism by discussing the perceived value of different SM features for different types of employee voice content. The paper brings together SM and voice literature and explores how different SM affordances may potentially facilitate certain voice content more so over others. In doing so, future directions for research of voice on SM are also discussed.     

Risk–risk governance in a low-carbon future: Exploring institutional,technological, and behavioral tradeoffs in climate geoengineering pathways

Deliberations are underway to utilize increasingly radical technological options to help address climate change and stabilize the climatic system. Collectively, these options are often referred to as “climate geoengineering.” Deployment of such options, however, can create wicked tradeoffs in governance and require adaptive forms of risk management. In this study, we utilize a large and novel set of qualitative expert interview data to more deeply and systematically explore the types of risk–risk tradeoffs that may emerge from the use of 20 different climate geoengineering options, 10 that focus on carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas removal, and 10 that focus on solar radiation management and reflecting sunlight. We specifically consider: What risks does the deployment of these options entail? What types of tradeoffs may emerge through their deployment? We apply a framework that clusters risk–risk tradeoffs into institutional and governance, technological and environmental, and behavioral and temporal dimensions. In doing so, we offer a more complete inventory of risk–risk tradeoffs than those currently available within the respective risk-assessment, energy-systems, and climate-change literatures, and we also point the way toward future research gaps concerning policy, deployment, and risk management.     

Ethical Considerations in Management Research: A ‘Truth’ Seeker''s Guide

Within a growing Knowledge-Management context, it would appear that Management Research calls for researchers to explicitly understand their own values, have increasing capacity for reflexivity and anticipate various ethical dilemmas that emerge from the research endeavour. This paper provides an overview of the philosophy of ethics and focuses on a researcher's ethical reasoning. It provides a framework for understanding causes of ethical dilemmas in the context of management research and provides strategies for a way forward through such dilemmas. The paper, finally, outlines exercises pertinent to research ethics and ‘hands on’ research praxis. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An overview of the Salmonella enteritidis risk assessment for shell eggs and egg products.

This article summarizes a quantitative microbial risk assessment designed to characterize the public health impact of consumption of shell eggs and egg products contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis (SE). This risk assessment's objectives were to: (1) establish the baseline risk of foodborne illness from SE, (2) identify and evaluate potential risk mitigation strategies, and (3) identify data gaps related to future research efforts. The risk assessment model has five modules. The Egg Production module estimates the number of eggs produced that are SE-contaminated. Shell Egg Processing, Egg Products Processing, and Preparation & Consumption modules estimate the increase or decrease in the numbers of SE organisms in eggs or egg products as they pass through storage, transportation, processing, and preparation. A Public Health Outcomes module then calculates the incidence of illnesses and four clinical outcomes, as well as the cases of reactive arthritis associated with SE infection following consumption. The baseline model estimates an average production of 2.3 million SE-contaminated shell eggs/year of the estimated 69 billion produced annually and predicts an average of 661,633, human illnesses per year from consumption of these eggs. The model estimates approximately 94% of these cases recover without medical care, 5% visit a physician, an additional 0.5% are hospitalized, and 0.05% result in death. The contribution of SE from commercially pasteurized egg products was estimated to be negligible. Five mitigation scenarios were selected for comparison of their individual and combined effects on the number of human illnesses. Results suggest that mitigation in only one segment of the farm-to-table continuum will be less effective than several applied in different segments. Key data gaps and areas for future research include the epidemiology of SE on farms, the bacteriology of SE in eggs, human behavior in food handling and preparation, and human responses to SE exposure.     

Coaching für Führungskräfte im Krankenhaus Baustein einer Strategie zum Total Quality Management

Coaching of managers in hospitals as component of a total quality management strategy The author delineates the changed conditions of hospitals at the beginning of the new millenium. In order to be up to date with the growing challenges and the need for change a Total Quality Management (TQM) is necessary. This TQM sees the satisfaction of clients and of employees as crucial for all reorganization processes. The realization in everyday hospital life requires a total personnel development concept, with special regard to the managers and their specific needs for support by supervisors resp. coaches.     

Ethical Considerations in Management Research: A ‘Truth’ Seeker's Guide

Within a growing Knowledge-Management context, it would appear that Management Research calls for researchers to explicitly understand their own values, have increasing capacity for reflexivity and anticipate various ethical dilemmas that emerge from the research endeavour. This paper provides an overview of the philosophy of ethics and focuses on a researcher's ethical reasoning. It provides a framework for understanding causes of ethical dilemmas in the context of management research and provides strategies for a way forward through such dilemmas. The paper, finally, outlines exercises pertinent to research ethics and ‘hands on’ research praxis.     

A Duration‐sensitive Measure of the Unemployment Rate: Theory and Application

The measurement of unemployment, like that of poverty, involves two distinct steps: identification and aggregation. In this two‐step process, the issue of identifying the unemployed has received considerable attention but, once the unemployed have been identified, the aggregation issue has been addressed by simply ‘counting heads’: the unemployment rate is conventionally defined as the proportion of the labour force that, on a given date, is unemployed. This, in particular, leads to differences between individuals, in their unemployment experiences being ignored when the unemployment rate is being computed. This paper — predicated on the proposition that what matters to a person is not just the fact of unemployment but also its duration — proposes a methodology, derived from the measurement of income inequality, for adjusting unemployment rates so as to make them ‘duration‐sensitive’. In consequence, different values of the ‘duration‐sensitive’ rate will, depending upon the degree of inequality in the distribution of unemployment duration, and upon the extent to which society is averse to such inequality, be associated with the same value of the conventionally defined unemployment rate. A numerical example, based on published data for seven major OECD counties, illustrates the methodology.     

Does Market Incompleteness Matter?

This paper argues that incompleteness of intertemporal financial markets has little effect (on welfare, prices, or consumption) in an economy with a single consumption good, provided that traders are long–lived and patient, a riskless bond is traded, shocks are transitory, and there is no aggregate risk. In an economy with aggregate risk, a similar conclusion holds, provided traders share the same CRRA utility function and the right assets are traded. Examples demonstrate that these conclusions need not hold if the wrong assets are traded or if the economy has multiple consumption goods.