团队成员交换、社会因素策略与新员工社会化

团队工作方式在组织中日益普遍,团队成员成为影响新员工社会化的重要因素。探讨团队成员交换对新员工社会化结果的影响及其作用机制,尤其是社会因素策略这一组织社会化策略在其中的中介作用,选取201个入职时间在一年半以内的销售人员为调查样本,运用结构方程模型路径分析方法对研究模型进行检验。研究结果表明,团队成员交换对新员工社会化结果产生显著影响;新员工感知的社会因素策略在团队成员交换与任务掌握、角色清晰、工作满意度之间起部分中介作用,在团队成员交换与离职倾向之间起完全中介作用。这表明高质量的团队成员交换关系可以促进新员工感知更多来自组织的正向社会支持以及组织内部人的角色模范作用,最终帮助他们成功社会化。     

A multicriteria decision analysis model for faculty evaluation

In the context of increasing demands for social and financial accountability of universities, the required implementation of transparent faculty evaluation systems constitutes a challenge and an opportunity for universities strategically aligning the activity of academic staff with the university goals. However, despite growing interest in the performance appraisal of faculty, only a few reported studies propose models that cover the full range of academic activities and the models in use are typically based on ad hoc scoring systems that lack theoretical soundness. This article approaches faculty evaluation from an innovative comprehensive perspective. Based on the concepts and methods of multiple criteria value measurement, it proposes a new faculty evaluation model that addresses the whole range of academic activities and can be applied within and across distinct scientific areas, while respecting their specificities. Constructed through a socio-technical process, the model was designed for and adopted by the Instituto Superior Técnico, the engineering school of the Technical University of Lisbon. The model has a two-level hierarchical additive structure, with top-level evaluation areas specified by second-level evaluation criteria. A bottom non-additive third level accounts for the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of academic activity related to each evaluation criterion. The model allows (a) the comparison of the performance of academic staff with performance targets reflecting the strategic policy concerns of university management; (b) the definition of the multicriteria value profile of each faculty member at the top level of the evaluation areas; (c) the computation of an overall value score for each faculty member, through an optimisation procedure that makes use of a flexible system of weights and (d) the assignment of faculty members to rating categories.     

Leveraging middle managers’ brokerage for corporate entrepreneurship: The role of multilevel social capital configurations

Building on recent efforts to bring a socio-political perspective to social capital research, we develop and test a multilevel framework that explains why middle managers who occupy brokerage positions differ in their ability and willingness to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. More specifically, we provide a contextualized understanding of the links among middle managers' brokerage, their political-support ties, and their personal initiative. Results derived from data on 383 middle managers and 72 top managers in 34 business units indicate that political-support ties with top managers strengthen the relationship between middle managers’ brokerage and personal initiative. However, this positive effect depends on the social capital resources available in the focal business unit. It is attenuated in business units with a supportive and trusting social context and amplified in business units with high levels of internal connectedness. By uncovering these incompatibilities and complementarities, our study demonstrates the value of accounting for different social capital configurations and the interplay of their inherent social capital resources when examining the effects of brokerage on corporate entrepreneurship.     

The relationship between presenteeism and job satisfaction: A mediated moderation model using work engagement and perceived organizational support

Research on presenteeism has largely focused on its prevalence, determinants and consequences on the health of both employees and organizations. To date, few studies have examined the influence of presenteeism on workers’ attitudinal and motivational responses. Based on the Effort–Recovery Theory, this study evaluates the mediating effect of work engagement in the relationship between presenteeism and job satisfaction. Building on previous work, this study also proposes to consider perceived organizational support as a moderator of the work engagement–job satisfaction relationship. Presented in the form of a mediated moderation model, the results of bootstrapped regression analyses show three main results. First, presenteeism is negatively associated with work engagement and job satisfaction. Secondly, work engagement is one of the factors through which presenteeism influences job satisfaction. Thirdly, perceived organizational support moderates the association between work engagement and job satisfaction so that, at a low level of work engagement, feeling supported by the organization makes a difference on job satisfaction. Overall, this research is part of the limited number of studies that have focused on the interplay existing between presenteeism and its consequences in terms of job attitudes.     

基于交通量风险的PPP交通项目再融资产品设计

交通PPP项目的投资大、风险高。政府作为发起方,需要为项目提供担保以吸引社会资本方的参与,但过度依赖政府担保意味着：一旦发生数额较大的债务违约将会给财政造成巨大的负担,因此有必要谋求适宜的市场化融资渠道。为了协调PPP项目相关者的利益,本文在项目收益债的基础上嵌入了与项目未来收益挂钩的或有条款,并运用结构化方法中的Merton模型在风险中性情景下对融资产品进行了定价。最后,以某PPP交通项目为例,进行了具体的融资产品设计,计算了相应的产品价格和风险价差,并对某些关键条款进行了敏感性分析,结果表明该产品能够在有效减轻政府担保的基础上降低融资成本。     

基于柔性资源约束的前摄性项目调度优化研究

不确定环境中,项目进度计划鲁棒性的高低直接影响项目能否顺利实施。本文研究了具有随机活动工期的柔性资源约束下的前摄性项目调度优化问题,目标是在柔性资源和项目工期的约束下,借助对活动开始时间合理的进行安排进而得到拥有最大鲁棒性的进度计划。首先对研究问题进行界定;随后构建优化模型,并根据问题NP-hard属性和模型特点设计了双层嵌套禁忌搜索启发式算法,通过内外两层交互搜索寻找满意解;最后通过一个实际案例对本文研究进行说明,并分析关键参数对进度计划鲁棒性的影响,得到如下结论:相对于资源无柔性情况下的项目进度计划而言,资源具备柔性后得到的项目进度计划的鲁棒性更高,具有更强的抗干扰能力,能够保证项目稳定执行;同时,项目进度计划鲁棒性分别随着项目工期的延长、资源可用量的增加或资源柔性的提高而上升。     

The Aversion to Tampering with Nature (ATN) Scale: Individual Differences in (Dis)comfort with Altering the Natural World

People differ in their comfort with tampering with the natural world. Although some see altering nature as a sign of human progress, others see it as dangerous or hubristic. Across four studies, we investigate discomfort with tampering with the natural world. To do so, we develop the Aversion to Tampering with Nature (ATN) Scale, a short scale that is the first to directly measure this discomfort. We identify six activities that people believe tamper with nature (geoengineering, genetically modified organisms, pesticides, cloning, gene therapy, and nanoparticles) and show that ATN scores are associated with opposition to these activities. Furthermore, the ATN Scale predicts actual behavior: donations to an anti-tampering cause. We demonstrate that ATN is related to previously identified constructs including trust in technology, naturalness bias, purity values, disgust sensitivity, aversion to playing God, and environmental beliefs and values. By illuminating who is concerned about tampering with nature and what predicts these beliefs, the ATN Scale provides opportunities to better understand public opposition to technological innovations, consumer preferences for “natural” products, and strategies for science communication.     

LEGISLATING LOVE: The Effect of Child Support and Welfare Policies on Father–child Contact

Reducing non-marital childbearing and making nonresidential fathers take greater responsibility for their children were identified as goals of numerous policy changes since the 1980s. Child-support award rates for children born to unmarried parents have been quite low historically, leading lawmakers to focus on increasing both award and payment rates for this group. Nonmarital fathers are also much less likely to have contact with their children. Although evidence suggests that policy efforts increase child support awards and receipt, the link between child support policies, child support outcomes, and father-child contact has received less attention. This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation on children born between 1985–1997 to investigate the relationship between child-support award and receipt and the amount of contact that fathers have with their non-residential children. Since it is likely that both of these behaviors are, in part, determined by unobservable characteristics of the father, we estimate an instrumental variables Tobit model. The model is identified by our assumption that child support policy variables can impact child support awards and payments, but father-child contact cannot be directly legislated. Our results suggest that there are unintended, but desirable effects of child support establishment and collection. Policies to collect child support not only increase financial resources to families, but through their impact on payments increase visitation and contact between these children and their fathers. The estimated impact of receiving child support on contact is more than 27 days per year.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Economic Association, Washington DC, January 2003 and the Annual Meetings of the Association of Public Policy and Management, November 2003. Support from NICHD Grant # HD30944 is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Suzann Eshleman for excellent computer programming and James Scully for providing us with data on genetic testing laws.     

A graph coloring approach for image segmentation

In this paper we develop a segmentation scheme for digital images based upon an iterative binary coloring technique that takes into account changing behavior of adjacent pixels. The output is a hierarchical structure of images which allows a better understanding of complex images. In particular, we propose two algorithms that should be considered as image preprocessing techniques.