Have we studied,should we study,and can we study the development of commitment? Methodological issues and the developmental study of work-related commitment

The study of developmental trajectories involves examining how and why a measure or index of behavior changes over time. Within the huge body of work devoted to different forms of work commitment, very little has directly and explicitly addressed developmental issues. Theory suggests that some forms of work commitment develop prior to actual experience of the focus of the commitment (e.g., normative commitment and work ethic). For affective and continuance commitment, however, it has been hypothesized that experience is essential. In most instances, this experience is gained after entry into the work force and, specifically, into an organization. Therefore, understanding how these types of commitment develop and highlighting the factors related to tenure that cause changes in commitment will not only fill a gap in the empirical work and strengthen commitment theory, but will help managers to optimize the commitment of their employees. This paper outlines the current understanding of changes in commitment with time and describes a research method, taken from the developmental psychology literature, that overcomes some of the problems inherent to the approaches most frequently used to imply developmental change in organizational psychology. It concludes with suggestions for future research incorporating this method.     

说走就走 here we go 我们爱旅行

"不会休闲的人就不会工作"。如今的新睿一族,不再相信工作狂,也不再信奉"事业至上",休闲娱乐与工作一样是他们生活的重点,而正是这种超脱的心态,让新睿族的生活多姿多彩。就像每逢春暖花开,他们绝不甘于宅在家中,美丽大自然才是他们的归属。而旅行者们往往会做好充分准备,才会踏上愉快的旅程。     

Health care and philanthropy: where are we headed?

Peering into health-care's future means examining social, economic and political issues. Knowing what's coming will help development professionals deal with this new world.     

“Yes，we can!”——真的吗？

“美元保卫战”势将成为2009之后美国与全球绝大多数国家“斗争”的主战场。事关双方巨大利益，厮杀必然激烈。     

Can we identify Balassa-Samuelson effects with measures of product variety?

The Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis - i.e. that real exchange rates between each pair of countries increase with the tradables sector productivities ratio between these countries, and decrease with their non-tradables sector productivities ratio - has been one of the most prominent frameworks in open economy macroeconomics for more than 40 years. However, empirical studies have often been unable to confirm it. We argue that this might at least in part be due to measurement errors leading to downward-biased estimates. We test the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis with innovative trade-based variety measures to differentiate between tradables and non-tradables sector productivities that do not suffer from such errors-in-variables. Using a pairwise regression approach, we find stable and very robust Balassa-Samuelson effects over all our specifications.     

Are we there yet? On the convergence of financial reforms

Since the 1970s, there have been substantial financial reforms across the world, however little research has been devoted to studying the convergence path of these reforms. While Abiad and Mody (Am Econ Rev 95:66–88, 2005) find that there is movement towards a global ‘norm’ of financial reform, their findings are based upon a cross-sectional approach that has been widely criticized in the literature. In this paper we offer new time-series evidence on the convergence of financial reforms both across and within regions, which can also act as a metric to measure the degree of globalization among countries’ financial systems. We find that some regions of the world have fully converged, but the advanced economies and Sub-Saharan Africa are not converging. In addition, while most countries have fully converged within their own region, notable exceptions are also identified. These results suggest that while financial reforms have largely become homogenized, important distinctions still remain.     

Together we share? Competitive and collaborative supplier interests in product development

While supplier involvement in product development projects can contribute with valuable knowledge and expertise, such involvement also poses organizational and managerial challenges, particularly if several rival suppliers are involved. This paper explores these challenges in the wind turbine industry, based on two interrelated Danish case studies. The analysis results in three propositions regarding how supplier rivalry and technological specialization influences roles, coordination patterns and communication between actors in distributed product development projects.     

What do we [not] know about technology entrepreneurship research?

This study aims to review what we do (and do not) know about technology entrepreneurship (TE) research to date. Based on a categorized bibliometric analysis resulting from a systematic review of 135 scientific articles published in refereed journals over the past 27 years (1986–2013), we identify the core domains of TE, its intellectual structure, the scientific journals with a major impact in this field of research, and the affiliation and collaboration networks within it. Specifically, through a detailed analysis of article co-citations within the TE area, this study provides co-citation networks of authors, journals, and their respective clusters, revealing their rankings in terms of contributions to the TE literature. This comprehensive analysis can be used to enhance our understanding of TE and support further research in this field.     

Unbounded exchange economies with satiation: How far can we go?

We unify and generalize the existence results in Werner [Werner, J., 1987. Arbitrage and the existence of competitive equilibrium. Econometrica 55 (6), 1403–1418], Dana et al. [Dana, R.-A., Le Van, C., Magnien, F., 1999. On the different notions of arbitrage and existence of equilibrium. Journal of Economic Theory 87 (1), 169–193], Allouch et al. [Allouch, N., Le Van, C., Page Jr., F.H., 2006. Arbitrage and equilibrium in unbounded exchange economies with satiation. Journal of Mathematical Economics 42 (6), 661–674], Allouch and Le Van [Allouch, N., Le Van, C., 2008. Erratum to “Walras and dividends equilibrium with possibly satiated consumers”. Journal of Mathematical Economics 45 (3–4), 320–328]. We also show that, in terms of weakening the set of assumptions, we cannot go too far.     

Secular stagnation ‐ are we stuck in Summers' long winter?

• Stunningly low global long‐term bond yields provide some credence to a secular stagnation view of the world. We present an analytical framework – culminating in a simple scorecard – for assessing the extent to which purported drivers and manifestations of secular stagnation match global economic and financial developments and we compare with a complementary narrative focusing on balance sheet boom and bust. We find some support for each, but think global rates will not stay as low for as long as markets price in.
• Larry Summers has used the term to refer to a situation where demand and supply for savings deliver very low equilibrium real interest rates. The bulge in middle‐aged savers, falling prices of investment goods, and flows of savings ‘uphill’ from emerging markets may have all led to real rates trending much lower in recent decades.
• Another version of the story is that slow technical progress depresses demand for borrowing, and pushes down on real rates. This is less compelling, and based more on anecdote than anything else. There are as many reasons to be optimistic, as pessimistic, about the supply side.
• There are holes in the secular stagnation narrative. Until very recently, G7 savings rates have trended down rather than up, partly because of another decades‐long trend of financial innovation. Furthermore, few economists, nor the Fed or the BoE, expect policy rates in the US or UK to stay low for as long as is priced in to markets.
• A complementary narrative would stress the role of the credit‐fuelled mega‐boom and subsequent balance sheet blow out and Great Recession, and then the long road to financial repair. This is more consistent with the path of savings rates over recent decades, and the policy response – including QE – can explain much of the rest.
• We see the two explanations as complementary and reinforcing. In global terms, they appear no better or worse than each other. Comparing across countries, Japan comes closest to resembling secular stagnation, followed by EZ, US and UK, according to our scorecard.
• We think ultra‐low long rates will not be borne out by the future path of short rates, but acknowledge a significant risk they might, for example, if monetary policy remains too tight on average because of zero bound effects on interest rates and limited scope for fiscal accommodation.

     

Secular stagnation – are we stuck in Summers' long winter?

• We estimate that the UK has a relatively large output gap of around 2¾% of potential output. With the legacy of the financial crisis fading, the UK should see healthy growth in potential output of around 2.1% a year from 2015–24. Usually this would drive a period of strong economic growth, but we expect GDP growth to average a relatively underwhelming 2.4% a year over this period, largely due to the drag from aggressive fiscal consolidation.
• There is significant disagreement amongst economists about the size of the output gap. Estimation of the output gap has been problematic since the financial crisis because of the depth of the recession and relatively slow pace of the subsequent recovery, while sizeable revisions to the national accounts data have been an added complication. Our estimate of the output gap is towards the top of the range of independent forecasters surveyed by HM Treasury, but it is consistent with the literature on the impact of financial crises on potential output.
• We expect potential output growth of 2.1% a year from 2015–24, a faster pace than that seen since the financial crisis, but some way short of the experience of the pre‐crisis decade. The shortfall relative to the pre‐crisis period is largely due to a smaller contribution from growth in labour supply, which reflects the impact of an ageing population. However, labour is set to make a much stronger contribution to potential output growth in the UK than in most other major European countries over the next decade.
• The combination of a large output gap and healthy growth in potential output will provide the conditions for firm growth and low inflation over the medium term, with GDP growth expected to average 2.4% a year from 2015 to 2024. Growth could be stronger were it not for the sizeable drag from fiscal consolidation over the next four years and the dampening effect that this will have on activity. This will ensure that the output gap closes very slowly. The government's fiscal plans are heavily influenced by the OBR's view that there is limited scope for stronger growth to drive an improvement in the public finances. But if our view turns out to be correct, it will become apparent that the government has pursued a more austere path than is strictly necessary in order to comply with its fiscal rules.

     

Who says we don't? The perspective from a small Catholic liberal arts college

“Although American higher education can justifiably take pride in its capacity to develop the student's ability to manipulate the material world through its programs in science, medicine, technology, and commerce, it has paid relatively little attention to the student's “inner” development—the sphere of values and beliefs, emotional maturity, moral development, spirituality, and self‐understanding.” —from the Foreword to Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education by Alexander W. Astin and Helen S. Astin     

Exchange rates and monetary fundamentals: what do we learn from long-horizon regressions?

The use of a new bootstrap method for small-sample inference in long-horizon regressions is illustrated by analysing the long-horizon predictability of four major exchange rates, and the findings are reconciled with those of an earlier study by Mark ( 1995 ). While there is some evidence of exchange rate predictability, contrary to earlier studies, no evidence is found of higher predictability at longer horizons. Additional evidence is presented that the linear VEC model framework underlying the empirical study is likely to be misspecified, and that the methodology for constructing bootstrap p-values for long-horizon regression tests may be fundamentally flawed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using fear appeals to promote cancer screening—are we scaring the wrong people?

• There is debate regarding the use of fear appeals (emphasizing severe threats to health) in social marketing, to encourage preventive behaviours, such as screening for breast cancer. While it has been found that fear appeals may result in attitude and behaviour change there is also the risk of inciting inappropriate levels of fear, motivating the wrong audience or instigating maladaptive behaviour in the target group such as denial or defensive avoidance. This study examined the impact of an experimental threat manipulation for mammography screening on a group of women in regional Australia. The study found that varying the level of threat had no impact on stated intentions of the women to undergo mammographic screening. However, it also found that high-threat messages resulted in stronger negative emotional reactions and greater perceived susceptibility among younger women who are not the target group for screening in Australia. The results of this study emphasize the importance of limiting the use of high levels of threat in social marketing campaigns, and ensuring that campaigns are appropriately designed to specifically impact upon and motivate the target group.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Forecasting consumer credit card adoption: what can we learn about the utility function?

How to accurately predict customers’ adoption behavior is becoming more important and challenging to many credit card marketers as competition increases. This calls for more knowledge about the consumer utility function and the corresponding decision behavior. In this study, we challenge the commonly used logit model which implies linear utility function and constant marginal rate of substitution (MRS) with a neural network model that can accommodate nonlinear utility function and changing MRS between card attributes. Using the data from a national survey of credit card usage, we find that the neural network model significantly outperforms the logit in predicting consumer card adoption decisions. Our results indicate that consumers do not make linear tradeoffs between card attributes and the MRS between card features does not remain constant even within the same demographic group.