Examining the relationship between strategic HRM and hospital employees’ work attitudes: an analysis across occupational groups in public and private hospitals

Abstract

As human resource challenges have increased, strategic human resource management (SHRM) in hospitals has evolved into an important management task. Accompanying its growing relevance, there is an evolving research stream on the impact of SHRM on organizational and individual-level outcomes in the hospital context. We aim to address two remaining research gaps by investigating variations in the use of SHRM across organizations (public vs. private ownership types) and differences in the relationship between SHRM and employee attitudes within organizations (for the occupational groups of nurses and physicians). This study is based on a sample of 179 German acute care hospitals. We employ ANOVA and logistic regression analyses, and our results corroborate previous research findings showing that SHRM has positive effects on employee attitudes. However, the effects vary in significance and magnitude, depending on whether nurses or physicians are targets. Further, we reveal significant SHRM differences in public- vs. private-sector organizations.     

Social housing in France: A permanent and multifaceted challenge for public policies

This paper examines the dynamics of the overwhelmingly generous social housing in France that covers a wide spectrum of recipients. Being influenced by electoral power of rotating ruling parties and social ideals, policy formulations are often reflected by idealistic politics which tends to over-stretch the nation’s budget and restrict its scope in reaching its target groups. From the 1990s, fund availability has been further hit by economic globalization causing falling business profitability and high unemployment rates affecting notably ethnic minorities. Upcoming social crisis has been met with public response via a series of technical-led remedial acts to promote social integration in housing and by identifying social ills and polarization in sensitive and problematic urban quarters. New technical and financial measures in coping with the complexity and magnitude of social housing are expected to remain highly challenging in the French parliamentary politics.     

Advocacy and political convergence under preference uncertainty

We study the formation of advocacy groups and how they can impact policy outcomes by revealing information about voters׳ preferences to uninformed political candidates. We conduct a laboratory experiment based on a two-candidate spatial electoral competition setting where the policy preferences of voters are (initially) unknown and change over time. In the control treatment candidates learn about the preferred policy of the median voter through the voting outcome of elections. In the advocacy treatments, voters can organize themselves into advocacy groups in order to reveal their policy preferences. We find that voters often overcome the collective action problem of forming an advocacy group. In fact, we observe the formation of both informative advocacy groups, which convey new information, and uninformative advocacy groups, which do not. Overall, advocacy groups significantly speed up the convergence to the preferred policy of the median voter. However, advocacy does not lead to higher earnings as the gains from faster convergence are offset by the costs of group formation.     

Effects of Ownership Structure on Capital Structure of Indian Listed Firms: Role of Business Groups vis-à-vis Stand-Alone Firms

The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between promoter ownership and capital structure of firms’ using a sample of Indian publicly listed firms for the period from 2006 to 2013. We find that the relationship between promoter ownership and leverage is inversely U-shaped in group-affiliated firms, whereas in stand-alone firms there is a U-shaped relationship. We argue that a substantial presence of family owners and the selection of managers from within the family play some role for such relationship in group-affiliated firms. On the other hand, the argument for observed relationship in stand-alone firms follows from alignment hypothesis, entrenchment hypothesis, managerial risk aversion hypothesis, and active monitoring hypothesis.     

Politically connected boards,family and business group affiliations,and cost of capital: Evidence from Indonesia

We investigate the effect of politically connected boards (both supervisory boards [SBs] and boards of directors [BODs]) on cost of debt and equity capital of listed companies in Indonesia which has established a two-tier corporate governance system. The results, based on 250 firms, suggest that companies with politically connected SBs experience lower cost of debt and equity capital, whereas politically connected BODs have no association with cost of either debt or equity. Furthermore, we find that family firms and firms belonging to business groups with politically connected SBs enjoy lower cost of debt and equity capital. Our main results are robust to alternative measures and to tests for endogeneity.     

Gender and age distribution of motorcycle crashes in Spain

This study analysed motorcycle crashes in Spain. Ninety-nine thousand three hundred and four motorcycle crash reports filed in the years 2006–2011 were extracted from the Directorate General of Traffic database of crashes with victims. These data were analysed in terms of gender, age groups, trip purpose, type of crash, speed violation, day of the week, harm caused, use of helmet and psychophysical conditions of the driver to study the characteristics of motorcycle crashes in Spain and to assess the differences between male and female motorcycle drivers in these crashes. Significant differences were found in all the variables considered in the study, which implies gender differences in the profile of the injured motorcycle driver. The severity of motorcycle crashes suffered by male drivers is higher than that of women. These results corroborate the need to develop measures differentiated by gender, based on their profile.     

A comparative efficiency analysis of Spanish and Turkish airports

AENA in Spain and DHMI in Turkey operate a large majority of the airports in their respective countries. These two airport operators share some similar characteristics, but also present many differences with respect to their management strategies. For instance, the Turkish DHMI introduced a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model and concession agreements, which enables active private participation in airport management. In contrast, management and operation responsibilities at all airports in Spain –with a few exceptions-have remained with AENA. This paper utilizes a data envelopment analysis (DEA) to compare the relative efficiency of airports within AENA and DHMI for the years between 2009 and 2011. Based on the efficiency scores, it further identifies the sources of inefficiencies resulting from various management strategies and other external factors. The results indicate higher average efficiency levels at Spanish airports, but private involvement enhances efficiency at Turkish airports. The majority of the airports in Spain and Turkey operate under increasing returns to scale. Certain policy options, including a higher private involvement and improvement of the airport network by closing some inefficient airports, should be considered in order to increase the airport efficiency in both countries.     

浅谈班组安全管理工作

班组安全管理是建筑施工企业安全生产管理的基础和根本。人的不安全行为是造成安全事故的直接原因,本文从培养安全意识、安全行为、安全习惯等方面入手,通过教育、制度等途径及时进行引导和约束,规避不安全行为,实现班组安全生产。     

Can China escape the middle-income trap?

Can China continue its relatively rapid economic growth and rise to the high-income status in the coming decade? In this article we address this question by examining three issues. One, is the current slowdown mainly a cyclical or a structural phenomenon? Two, can China successfully transform its growth model? And, three, what does China need to do to foster its capability of technological innovation and industrial upgrading? We conclude that, with necessary reforms, such as improvement in the education and research capability, liberalization of the financial system and introduction of a more transparent and accountable political system, China will most likely be able to escape the middle-income trap in the next 10 years.