Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

Workers engaging in voluntary and unrewarded environmental actions that go above and beyond their job requirements in an organizational setting can crucially contribute to a reduced environmental impact of organizations. This research investigates some of the factors that may contribute to the emergence of such organizational citizenship behaviour directed towards the environment (OCBE). The hypotheses predicted employees' concern for the environment, employees' perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and organizational commitment as antecedents of OCBE. Employees from two organizations (n = 547) completed an online survey. Controlling for organizational tenure, a significant relationship between (a) employees' concern for their environment and OCBE, (b) perceived organizational support for environment efforts and OCBE and (c) organizational commitment and OCBE were found. Furthermore, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and OCBE, but not environmental concern. This study's insights into the factors that can drive employees' engagement in small, voluntary environmental actions at work can guide organizations wishing to encourage such behaviours. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Time,space and accounting at Nonantola Abbey (1350–1449)

Accounting historians have provided several accounts of monastic life and accounting's role in it, considering important settings such as Montecassino and San Pietro abbeys in Italy and Durham Cathedral Priory in England. Research has shown how their governance arrangements and common values enabled the Benedictines to manage their monasteries in an efficient manner which was essential in tackling the misappropriation of resources by organisational actors, including abbots. Other studies have shed light on the use of practical and effective accounting practices by the Benedictines to manage their considerable wealth and pursue their spiritual and temporal goals. Nevertheless, this body of literature is yet to explicitly consider the dimensions of time and space and their relationship with accounting practices. This study begins to address this oversight by analysing the surviving accounting records of the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola in northern Italy from 1350 to 1449. In the accounting books of Nonantola Abbey linear and cyclical conceptions of time coexisted and had an impact on the way in which transactions were reflected in the accounts. At the same time, the abbey was at the centre of a complex network of accountabilities which included lay accountants, farmers and the lessees of the abbey's properties. The main characteristic of this system was not the accuracy of the records in detailing the assets, liabilities, expenses and revenue of the abbey but the maintenance of a control system to administer an extensive agricultural network and the identification of the relationships between the abbey and the stakeholders inhabiting its space.     

REGULATION STRATEGIES FOR THE PROVISION OF PATERNALISTIC GOODS

In this study, we analyze the regulation of markets for the provision of services whose costs are subsidized for paternalistic reasons. We model the choice of a benevolent regulator who wants to maximize consumer welfare in a setting where quality cannot be verified and the good provided is fully subsidized. The choice is thus made between two types of providers (profit maximizers and altruistic providers) and two frameworks (monopoly franchise and quality competition). Our analysis shows that in this environment the performance of mixed markets is always dominated by pure forms. Moreover, although making efficient providers compete for the market minimizes cost, the choice of quality competition with altruistic providers may be preferable from a welfare point of view whenever service quality is relevant and the productivity differential is not substantial.     

Examining the relationship between academic performance and workplace position: does the glass ceiling exist among graduates from the same university?

This study examines the relationship between academic performance and workplace position. Academic performance is measured by undergraduate grade point average (GPA). A series of ordered probit regression models are estimated to isolate the impact of undergraduate GPA on the probability that female and male graduates from the same university hold middle or upper management jobs within their companies. After all potential heterogeneity and explanatory variables are controlled for, results of the pooled regression models suggest that women are less likely to hold both middle and upper management positions. Further analysis also suggests that lower GPA significantly decreases the probability that women hold these positions, while GPA seems to have no significant impact on workplace position for men. Moreover, most factors which positively impact the probability that women attain these positions also benefit men more at the highest level.     

Externalities of National Pharmaceutical Policy when Markets are Integrated through Parallel Trade

This paper studies externalities of nationally determined cost‐sharing systems, in particular coinsurance rates, under pharmaceutical parallel trade in a two‐country model with a vertical distributor relationship. Parallel trade generates a price‐decreasing competition effect in the destination country of the parallel import and a price‐increasing double marginalization effect in the source country. An increase of the coinsurance rate in the destination country mitigates the double marginalization effect in the source country. An increase of the coinsurance rate in the source country reinforces the competition effect in the destination country. This may be a case for policy coordination in the European Union.     

MORE THAN A FEELING: CONFIDENCE,UNCERTAINTY, AND MACROECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS

Economists, observers, and policy-makers often emphasize the role of sentiment as a potential driver of the business cycle. In this paper, we provide three contributions to this debate. First, we give an overview of the recent literature on the nexus between sentiment (considering both confidence and uncertainty) and economic activity. Second, we review existing empirical measures of sentiment, in particular consumer confidence, stock market volatility (SMV) and Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU), on monthly data for 27 countries, 1985–2016. Third, we identify some new stylized facts based on international evidence. While different measures are surprisingly lowly correlated on average in each country, they are typically highly positively correlated across countries, suggesting the existence of a global factor or sizeable international spillovers of sentiment. Consumer confidence has the closest co-movement with economic and financial variables, and most of the correlations are contemporaneous or forward-looking, consistent with the view that economic sentiment is indeed a driver of activity.