Build Coalitions to Fit: Autonomy Expectations,Competence Mobilization,and Job Crafting

Job crafting offers several beneficial organizational outcomes, yet little is known about what makes employees engage in it. In particular, the role of leaders in influencing their subordinates to engage in job crafting has been insufficiently studied. Drawing on role theory, we suggest that the congruence of leader‐subordinate autonomy expectations nurtures subordinates’ experiences of having their competences adequately utilized in their jobs. This experience, which involves the competence mobilization of their work roles, subsequently fosters subordinates’ engagement in job‐crafting behavior. A two‐stage field study of 145 leader‐subordinate dyads using cross‐level polynomial regression and response surface analysis supported the (in)congruence hypotheses. The results also demonstrated that subordinates’ perceived competence mobilization mediates the relationship between autonomy expectation (in)congruence and job crafting. In addition, leader coalition as a moderator strengthens the effect of perceived competence mobilization as a psychological condition for job crafting. Implications for practice and future research are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The market valuation of ethical assets in Spain: an application of the hedonic pricing method

The aim of this paper is to calculate the market valuation of non‐financial characteristics, namely, the social responsibility criteria (social, ethical and environmental) included in the Spanish Socially Responsible Investment Funds. The hedonic price method is applied for this purpose. This method relates the price of Socially Responsible Investment Funds with both financial and social responsibility characteristics. Because of the large number of social responsibility characteristics included in these funds, prior to application of the hedonic price method, the principal components factor analysis technique is used. The data are taken from the prospectus for each fund and from the data provided by the National Securities Market Commission. Results indicate that the Spanish market is sensitive to the social responsibility practices of companies. In particular, the market value practices related to environmental sustainability, the enforcement of labour rights, sustainable production and consumption and non‐abusive market practices.     

Exploring the customer's intention to switch firms: The role of customer‐related antecedents

This study examined the customer‐related antecedents of the customer's intention to switch firms. Customer citizenship behavior was a key element in this study. Scholars have extensively studied the antecedents of customer citizenship behavior. However, the way that customer citizenship behavior relates to other attitudinal variables and the intention to switch has scarcely been analyzed. The proposed hypotheses were verified using partial least squares variance‐based structural equation modeling applied to 947 users of beauty care service firms in five countries. The results suggest that customer citizenship behavior is an antecedent of satisfaction, trust, and attitudinal loyalty. Two of these variables influence customers’ intentions to abandon relationships with the service provider. The implications of these findings enhance managers’ and scholars’ understanding of the determinants of customers’ intentions to switch firms.     

Determinants of corporate social responsibility and business ethics education in Spanish universities

The current economic crisis, unsustainable growth, and financial scandals invite reflection on the role of universities in professional training, particularly those who have to manage businesses. This study analyzes the main factors that might determine the extent to which Spanish organizational management educators use corporate social responsibility (CSR) or business ethics stand‐alone subjects to equip students with alternative views on business. A web content analysis and non‐parametric mean comparison statistics of the curricula of undergraduate degrees in all universities in Spain were conducted. The main conclusion of this paper is related to the Bologna effect in Spanish universities. Comparing our results with prior research in this matter, it is demonstrated that the main reason that explains the increase of CSR and ethical education in Spain is the Bologna process and its adaptation to the European Higher Education Area. Also, private universities in Spain are more likely to require an ethics course than public universities. Other factors, such as size, political orientation, or related to CSR chairs are not statistically explanatory of CSR and ethical education.     

Effects of hiring former employees of multinationals in the absorptive capacity of local firms

The attraction of foreign direct investment seeks, among other things, to increase the productivity of local companies through knowledge spillovers. However, the empirical evidence in this regard is contradictory. One influential factor is the absorptive capacity of the local companies. This article analyzes the effect of the presence of former employees of multinational corporations as employees of local companies, on the absorptive capacity of said companies. The study was done in Costa Rica, a country known for its successful strategy in the subject matter. The data come from a survey applied to 1167 companies by the Observatorio Costarricense de las Pymes in 2011. It was found that the hiring of former employees of multinational corporations by local companies has a positive effect on the index of absorptive capacity of companies in all productive sectors. Specifically, this hiring of former employees increases the index of absorptive capacity by nine percentage points, with differences by sector and the size of the company.     

Public–private wage gap in Latin America (1992–2007): A matching approach

Using matching methods, we estimate the public–private wage gap for urban workers in eleven Latin American countries for the 1992–2007 period. These methods do not require any estimation of earnings equations and hence no validity-out-of-the-support assumptions; furthermore, this approach allows us to estimate not only the average wage gap but also its distribution. Our main findings indicate that the average public sector worker earns more than his/her private counterpart, and that this differential increased over the 1992–2007 period. Important differences along the wage distribution are also shown in the results; in fact, public servants in the highest percentiles of the wage distribution generally earn less than their private sector equivalents. Nonetheless, the percentile at which a positive wage gap becomes a wage penalty shifted over the period as the average wage gap experienced by most countries widened. Still, the most qualified public sector workers do face a wage penalty. Furthermore, indicators of government effectiveness show no relationship with the country ranking according to the public–private wage gap.     

International automotive production networks: how the web comes together

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence for the connections between new trade theory and the spatial distribution of economic activities, considering the results obtained by the literature on New Economic Geography as a starting point. To do this, we apply Social Network Analysis specifically to the World Automotive Trade Network. We explore the structural features of the auto network for the years 1996 and 2009 using data on trade flows for 172 countries. Our findings suggest that the auto network has become denser, more extensive and more integrated over time, depicting a center-periphery structure in which regional clusters play a prominent role. In this configuration, strong agglomeration forces generated by companies’ desire for large and rich market access with minimum transportation costs are balanced by the search for new high-potential markets.     

Intellectual capital drivers of product and managerial innovation in high-tech and low-tech firms

There is widespread understanding that intellectual capital (IC), consisting of the valuable knowledge resources of an organization, is a key enabler of innovation activities; however, little is known about the more specific contingencies impacting the relationship between IC and innovation. Thus, this article examines firm technology level and innovation type as contingency variables. It was argued that because high-tech and low-tech firms differ in terms of several knowledge characteristics (complexity, tacitness and pace of renovation), it is likely that their innovation performance is supported by different combinations of IC components. Furthermore, differences between product/service and managerial innovation could also lead to changes in the degree of relevance of various IC components. To test these contingency hypotheses, a survey dataset collected from 180 Spanish companies is analysed using structural equation modelling. The results demonstrate that both firm's technology level and type of innovation affect how IC influences innovation performance. The findings contribute to a knowledge-based perspective on innovation and pave the way for a more context-sensitive and contingency-mindful approach to understanding innovation and knowledge-based value creation.     

When deeds speak,words are nothing: a study of ethical leadership in Colombia

Using a sample of 124 managers and 248 subordinates, this study examines the mediating effect of subordinates’ job satisfaction in the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate organizational citizenship and counter‐productive work behaviour in the Colombian context. We additionally analyse the effect of ethical leadership on subordinates’ perception of leaders’ performance. Factor analyses of the ethical leadership scale revealed two factors, ethical person (EP) and ethical guidance (EG), which were differentially associated to the outcomes. We offer an explanation from three cultural dimensions (in‐group collectivism, institutional collectivism, and power distance) by which Colombian employees seem to be more willing to follow leaders’ ethical example as a way to strengthen their membership to the leader's group, than leaders ethical disciplining by which norms are imposed. These findings have a number of implications for organizations and managers who aim to improve their employees’ behaviour. Our advice to them is that leaders’ deeds have a greater impact than their ethical words.