Work and social well-being: the impact of employment conditions on quality of life

This paper aims to extend our understanding of the impact of management practises and employment conditions in the contemporary workplace on the broader social realm. The study provides an analytic account of how these employment conditions impact on the social well-being of a representative sample of individuals and households. We assess the propensity of working arrangements that are manifested in various high performance work systems either to enhance or to diminish quality of life. The paper indicates that certain management practises and employment conditions have impacts that extend beyond the workplace and influence the broader well-being of individuals and families.     

Measuring Corporate Environmental Performance: A Methodology for Sustainable Development

Assessing corporate environmental performance (CEP) that is both comprehensive and consistent with sustainable development both for society and companies, while at the same time taking heed of the facts and interests of each stakeholder, is not a simple feat. Due to the multidimensional character of the sustainability concept, several questions must be considered in the evaluation process: (i) the qualitative nature of indicators and the complexity of developing a synthetic index; (ii) the difficulty of choosing properly statistical techniques for aggregation and (iii) the difficulty of introducing stakeholders’ preferences in the assessment models. This paper is an attempt to address this challenge by developing a framework for the assessment of CEP, based on the application of a fuzzy multi‐criterion decision‐making (MCDM) method. To achieve positive scores in a CEP assessment, an organization should be strategically committed and engage in environmental management and governance structures that are translated into good results in terms of both engagement and operational performance. Unless such premises are explicitly incorporated into the assessment criteria, the results would reveal that the CEP measurement could not be brought into a line with an earnest ambition of achieving true sustainable development. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Behind managerial reforms: the French experience

Inspired by new public management (NPM), managerial reforms in many countries from the 1990s onwards focused on three criteria: effectiveness, efficiency and enhancing service quality. These criteria were meant to be given equal weight in measuring performance, but this paper shows that some criteria dominated. The reform experiences of four countries are compared, with a focus on French reforms.     

Product configuration,ambidexterity and firm performance in the context of industrial equipment manufacturing

The practice of configuring products to individual customer orders has found application in a variety of industry contexts, but little is known about the specific capabilities that firms develop to successfully compete when offering configurable products. Our research begins to fill this gap in the context of industrial equipment manufacturing. Drawing from the ambidexterity literature, we argue that firms have to balance dual goals of reducing variation and promoting variation in their product configuration activities by fostering two distinct firm-level capabilities: product configuration effectiveness (PCE) and product configuration intelligence (PCI). Specifically, we hypothesize that the simultaneous presence of PCE and PCI—that is, product configuration ambidexterity (PCA)—drives superior firm responsiveness and, indirectly firm sales and operating margin. However, we also contend that responsiveness gains through PCA can diminish with product complexity and can increase operating cost. We test these hypotheses by collecting both primary and secondary data from a sample of 108 European industrial equipment manufacturing firms. Results from our analyses indicate that PCA has an indirect effect through responsiveness on sales and operating cost but not on operating margin, with this effect diminishing with product complexity. Taken together, our results suggest that investment in developing PCA may represent a conundrum for industrial equipment manufacturing firms, because it translates into market but not financial advantages, and it is intertwined with product design decisions. We conclude this study with a discussion of the findings for theory and practice.     

A fuzzy comprehensive evaluation algorithm for analyzing electronic word-of-mouth

This study evaluates tourism experiences shared through electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) across four Chinese attractions. The objective is to develop a framework for evaluating eWOM by constructing an indicator system and implementing an analytic hierarchy process with the use of a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation algorithm. This framework is achieved by mapping more than 6000 websites related to Chinese tourism attractions and filtering over 200,000 useful reviews to measure service performance. Results indicate that ecological–biological attractions failed to make tourists feel “very satisfied” in various aspects, such as overall evaluation, infrastructure, traffic, natural environment, and social environment. Overall, the study contributes by presenting a framework that can be adopted by tourism researchers and industry practitioners to understand tourist preferences and evaluate service performance to improve service quality.     

基于责任定位法的工业用地集约利用绩效评价 ——以江苏省盐城市为例

研究目的:通过编制盐都区工业用地绩效编码,分析绩效编码的含义对工业用地集约利用现状的解释能力,验证责任定位法是一个科学实用的绩效评价方法。研究方法:归纳分析法和实证检验法。研究结果:(1)责任定位法中每个指标代码能够真实反应相应评价指标的绩效等级,不涉及权重和综合得分问题,克服了综合评分法评价结果可比性低的特点。(2)绩效编码能够客观直观地衡量工业用地的集约利用效果,其含义与原始数据所反映的用地绩效情况相符。研究结论:(1)责任定位法具有科学性,绩效编码没有歪曲、偏离宗地绩效的实际情况。(2)责任定位法给出的宗地绩效信息具有实际使用价值,可以反应宗地绩效高低的直接原因,指导企业和管理部门采取相应措施提升用地绩效或清退低效用地。     

Frontline employees׳ attitudes towards self-service technologies: Threats or opportunity for job performance?

Increasing diffusion of self-service technologies (SSTs) on the points of sale impacts on traditional retailing from several perspectives. For instance, SSTs have direct effect on front-line employees. Indeed, they may cause a potential reduction in personal contacts with clients, reduction of workers, modifying the job conditions and so on. To date, the effect of SSTs on the points of sale has been mainly investigated from a consumers׳ perspective, by mainly focusing on consumers׳ acceptance and usage of these systems. The aim of this paper is to make employees׳ point of view clearly emerge, through a qualitative approach focusing on the investigation of employees׳ perception of the consequences of these technologies on job performance. The content analysis based on exploratory in-depth interviews involves 250 frontline employees. Authors examine the success of technology from employee׳s standpoint by evaluating their attitude and considering the impact on their job performance perception. In this way, the analysis allows defining new variables which are not previously investigated, such as the perception of speed for task completion, which emerged as the most important factor for employees׳ self-evaluation. Hence, this study offers support for evaluating job performance considering the specific case of SSTs in the frontline employees as initial insights rather than definitive understandings.     

When the target may know better: Effects of experience and information asymmetries on value from mergers and acquisitions

Research summary : Extending research on the effect of experience on acquisition outcomes, we examine how the differential in previous M&A experience between the target and the acquirer affects the value they, respectively, obtain when the acquirer takes over the target. Drawing on literature about organizational learning, negotiation, and information economics, we theorize that the party with greater experience will be able to obtain more value. Furthermore, we theorize that the effect of differential M&A experience on value obtained is contingent on the level of information asymmetry the acquirer faces with respect to the target, specifically as a function of the target's product‐market scope and whether the deal is friendly. We test and find support for these predictions in a sample of 1,241 M&As over a 30‐year period. Managerial summary : Corporate strategy is about a firm's scope and development decisions and outcomes, but corporate strategizing is incomplete unless managers anticipate the moves of other economic actors. We demonstrate the importance of these points when it comes to learning to make acquisitions. Using an innovative research design and theory that enables comparison between acquirer and target gains, we show that whatever their firm's acquisition history and capabilities, acquisitive managers should mind the negotiation and other pitfalls that arise when target firms possess ample acquisition experience of their own. We also demonstrate that the effect of experience advantage, whereby the more experienced party benefits, depends on the target firm's scope and whether the deal is friendly—two dimensions that acquirers can and should take into account. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Customer satisfaction and service quality in the Chinese airline industry

This paper focuses on studying the relationship between customer satisfaction, measured by customer complaints, and the service quality of Chinese carriers. By using a quarterly unbalanced panel data set covering twelve large and small carriers, our fixed effect Tobit analysis shows that customer complaints rise with increases in the number of damaged bags, but at a declining rate. By contrast, the on-time performance of scheduled flights has no significant effect on customer complaints. Furthermore, non-state or privately owned carriers receive significantly more customer complaints compared with state-owned carriers, and the largest number of complaints are made in the third quarter, which covers the high season of the summer holidays.     

高绩效工作系统、工作倦怠对员工离职倾向的影响研究

本文基于员工感知的视角，以工作倦怠作为中介变量，探索员工感知的高绩效工作系统对离职倾向的影响机制。通过来自企业256 个有效样本的实证研究发现，员工感知的高绩效工作系统与离职倾向显著负相关；工作倦怠及其子维度情感耗竭、玩世不恭与离职倾向显著正相关，而子维度成就感低落与离职倾向相关性不显著；工作倦怠在员工感知的高绩效工作系统与离职倾向之间起部分中介作用；员工感知的高绩效工作系统可通过影响员工的情感耗竭、玩世不恭情绪，间接对离职倾向产生影响，而成就感低落的中介效应不显著。