Professional blinders? The novel as an eye-opener in organizational analysis

ABSTRACT

Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our experiences to the growing literature about using fiction in scholarly work and discuss the potential of such genre-bending work when we bring in flesh and blood into the analyses.     

Inequality Assessment by Probabilistic Development Indices

Social Indicators Research - This paper analyses the Human Development Index (HDI) time series from 2010 to 2017. An alternative index is studied, which combines the same components of the HDI by...     

如何成为"最佳雇主"--访翰威特咨询公司

随着社会发展，越来越多的企业意识到“人才”是企业最宝贵的无形资产，吸引和留用具有一技之长的员工已经成为一个棘手的问题。为此，著名的全球HR管理咨询公司———翰威特咨询公司在２００１年推出了“亚洲最佳雇主”调研活动，２００２年他们再次进行了评选活动。争当“最佳雇主”成为企业竞争的一个大方向。如何才能成为“最佳雇主”？这个评选是怎么进行的？评选活动对现实有什么意义？带着这些问题，记者采访了翰威特公司北京地区负责人林靖小姐及其资询顾问。记：据了解，翰威特２００１年在中国开展“最佳雇主”的调研还是第一次…     

Testing symmetry under a skew Laplace model

We develop tests of hypothesis about symmetry based on samples from possibly asymmetric Laplace distributions and present exact and limiting distribution of the test statistics. We postulate that the test statistic derived under the Laplace model is a rational choice as a measure of skewness and can be used in testing symmetry for other, quite general classes of skew distributions. Our results are applied to foreign exchange rates for 15 currencies.     

Educational Issues for Children and Young People in Families Living in Emergency Accommodation—An Irish Perspective

The article explores how homelessness may impact on the educational participation of children and young people in families living in emergency accommodation in Dublin. Many difficulties arise in terms of maintaining consistent schooling for children when they are part of a homeless family, including problems getting to and from school if living at a distance from their original schools, frequent changes in school and inadequate facilities and overcrowding in their temporary accommodation. Despite the many difficulties involved in maintaining children's regular school attendance, it is evident that school may represent the only stability for a child in an otherwise insecure and changing routine. Copyright © 2006 Children's Research Centre.     

A Review of Kyoto Protocol Adoption in Russia: Joint Implementation in Focus

Russia’s role in ‘animation’ of the Kyoto Protocol was crucial. Its initial vacillation on ratification was predominantly due to political bargaining with the EU. Domestic economic rationales [i.e. impacts of emission trading and Joint Implementation (JI) projects] were important to a much lesser extent and environmental motives did not seem to play any role in the decision. Since the Protocol entered into force, there have been significant delays in complete establishment of policy implementation frameworks, which are necessary for Russia to start benefiting from JI and emission trading. Only recently, in 2007, have GHG inventories and a national registry been established and the responsibilities for implementation of the Protocol and JI among the government departments have been distributed only to a certain extent. Some constraints hindering JI projects, such as vague legislation, an unfavourable economic climate, lack of commitment to JI projects, corruption, xenophobia, state and agency ‘capture’ still remain.      

An experimental investigation of the impact of ambiguity on the valuationof self-insurance and self-protection

We build two experimental markets to examine individual valuations of risk reductions with two risk-management tools: self-insurance and self-protection. We find no positive evidence that the risk-reducing mechanisms constitute a “frame.” Ambiguity in the probability on average affects valuation only weakly, and changes in the representation of ambiguity do not alter valuation. Finally, unlike the results obtained by Hogarth and Kunreuther for the case of market insurance, our findings do not provide a strong support for the “Anchoring and Adjustment” ambiguity model.     

Governance Structures,Coordination Mechanisms and Cognitive Models

This paper criticizes the current prevailing ways ofmodelling governance alternatives, and advocates theopportunity and feasibility of a reconceptualizationof governance forms as mixes or configurations ofsimpler and potentially disentangleablecomponents. These components are constituted by abundle of property rights and by a set of coordinationmechanisms. The paper draws on a previous effort atintegrating economic, organizational and sociologicaltheories of governance in a cognitive perspective(Grandori 1995a) and explicitates how some cognitivefoundations of organization theory can be revised tosustain a more fine-grained view of governance. Theimplications for organization design are illustratedin the final section through the solution of someempirical design problems, as well as through areinterpretation of known hybrid arrangements.     

Discount Rates in Risk Versus Money and Money Versus Money Tradeoffs

We use data from a survey of residents of five Italian cities conducted in late spring 2004 to estimate the discount rates implicit in (1) money versus future risk reductions and (2) money versus money tradeoffs. We find that the mean personal discount rate is 0.3-1.7% in (1) and 8.7% in (2). The latter is lower than the discount rates estimated in comparable situations in many recent studies, greater than market interest rates in Italy at the time, and exhibits modest variation with age and gender. The discount rate implicit in money versus risk tradeoffs is within the range of estimates from studies in the United States and Europe, and does not depend on observable individual characteristics. We use split samples to investigate whether a completely abstract risk reduction - one where the risk reduction delivery has been stripped of all specifics, so that respondents should focus on the risks without being distracted by details - results in WTP and discount figures comparable to those from an identified delivery mechanism (a medical test). We find that while WTP for an immediate risk reduction is 42-73% higher with the abstract risk reduction, the discount rate in the money versus risk tradeoffs and the variance of the error term in the WTP equation are the same across the two variants of the questionnaire.