Productivity Dispersion and Measurement Error

Several reasons have been put forward to explain the high dispersion of productivity across establishments: quality of management, different input usage and market distortions, to name but a few. Although it is acknowledged that a sizable portion of productivity dispersion may also be due to measurement error, little research has been devoted to identifying how much they contribute. We outline a novel procedure for identifying the role of measurement error in explaining the empirical dispersion of productivity across establishments. The starting point of our framework is the errors-in-variable model consisting of a measurement equation and a structural equation for latent productivity. We estimate the variance of the measurement error and subsequently estimate the variance of the latent productivity variable, which is not contaminated by measurement error. Using Norwegian data on the manufacture of food products, we find that about one percent of the measured dispersion stems from measurement error.     

The Role of Dialectical Interrogation in Review Studies: Theorizing from What We See Rather Than What We Have Already Seen

Review-centric works receive increasing attention for generating insightful contributions to management and organization studies. Despite this, the literature on theory building has taken little note of their place in the theorizing process. This deserves attention, however, given the challenges reviews face in theorizing in the absence of new empirical observations. Accordingly, these works run the risk of merely summarizing ‘what we have already seen’, instead of ‘maximizing what we see’. Drawing on the strategies of theorizing from similarities and theorizing from anomalies, we propose dialectical interrogation as a critical step in theorizing through which review scholars imaginatively engage in a back and forth inquiry between the phenomenal world of a given field and existing theory. By analysing selected review studies from top management journals, we reveal that theorizing outcomes occur through two ways of dialectical interrogation (consolidative and disruptive). We contribute by demonstrating that review scholars can enter into powerful theorizing through the consolidative or disruptive interrogation of the review data with extant theory to detect emergence and novelty alongside puzzles, conflicts and paradoxes. Dialectical interrogation can address the shortcomings of current theorizing in review-centric works and bears potential for advancing theories of management and organization studies.     

When is Effort Contagious in New Venture Management Teams? Understanding the Contingencies of Social Motivation Theory

Consistent with social motivation theory, prior research on managerial motivation suggests that effort is contagious across management team members. In this study, we draw on belongingness theory to develop a model on important boundary conditions to social motivation theory in the management team context. The model predicts that new venture managers react to their teammates’ higher effort levels by investing higher effort levels themselves primarily when they are confronted with a threat – namely, low venture performance and high environmental hostility – but that effort is less contagious when managers face little threat. We test our model with a sample of 103 new venture managers nested in 51 management teams in a longitudinal setting capturing managerial effort over 26 weeks. While we do not find a direct relationship between teammates’ effort and a new venture manager’s subsequent effort, we find support for the crucial role of threat in triggering the contagion of managerial effort. We discuss the contributions of our study for research on management teams, performance feedback, and entrepreneurial effort in new ventures.     

Acting Intuition into Sense: How Film Crews Make Sense with Embodied Ways of Knowing

This study contributes to a holistic understanding of sensemaking by going beyond the mind–body dualism. To do so, we focus analytically on a phenomenon that operates at the nexus of mind and body: intuition. By observing four film crews, we unpack how people act their intuition into sense – that is, how they transform, through action, an initial sense (intuition) that is tacit, intimate, and complex into one that is publicly displayed, simpler, and ordered (i.e., a developed sense). Our model identifies two sensemaking trajectories, each of which involves several bodily actions (e.g., displaying feelings, working hands-on, speaking assertively). These actions enable intuition to express a facet of itself and acquire new properties. This study makes three important contributions. First, it develops the holistic-relational character of sensemaking by locating it in the relations among multiple loci (cognition, language, body, and materiality) rather than in each one disjunctively. Second, it theorizes embodied sensemaking as a transformative process entailing a rich repertoire of bodily actions. Third, it extends sensemaking research by attending to the physicality and materiality of language in embodied sensemaking.     

Measuring destocking performance of the Chinese real estate industry: A DEA-Malmquist approach

This paper aims to measure the evolution of destocking performance of the Chinese Real Estate Industry based on a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)-Malmquist approach, which is seldom used in this industry in existing literature. In 2016, the Chinese government introduced a unified national destocking policy to reduce real estate inventory to save the downturn in the real estate market, but the effect was less than expected and led to soaring house prices in first-tier cities. By analysing the destocking performance over the period from 2005 to 2015, we find the following: (1) It is impossible to use a unified policy to effectively address the national destocking issue because of the difference of DMUs' destocking efficiency, input redundancy and total factor productivity score changes. (2) With the current destocking performance and investment status, the government is still ignoring the existing commercial real estate problems. (3) The redundancy of firm assets and staff indicates that zombie firms may exist and risk future unemployment in the real estate industry. (4) Despite the recently repeated government interventions in this industry, destocking performance remains falling since 2008, and problems in other regions is more severe than in central cities. (5) The financial crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis has had a great impact on China's real estate industry. The destocking performance dropped sharply in 2008, forcing the Chinese government to introduce policies to stimulate the real estate market. Policy recommendations are also put forward based on the findings.     

Application of evidential reasoning approach and OWA operator weights in road safety evaluation considering the best and worst practice frontiers

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has recently become relatively popular with road safety experts. Therefore, various decision-making units (DMUs), such as EU countries, have been assessed in terms of road safety performance (RSP). However, the DEA has been criticized because it evaluates DMUs based only on the concept of self-assessment, and, therefore does not provide a unique ranking for DMUs. Therefore, cross efficiency method (CEM) was developed to overcome this shortcoming. Peer-evaluations in addition to self-evaluation have made the CEM to be recognized as an effective method for ranking DMUs. The traditional CEM is based only on the standard CCR (Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes) model, and it evaluates DMUs according to their position relative to the best practice frontier while neglecting the worst practice frontier. However, the DMUs can also be assessed based on their position relative to the worst practice frontier. In this regard, the present study aims to provide a double-frontier CEM for assessing RSP by taking into account the best and worst frontiers simultaneously. For this purpose, the cross efficiency and cross anti-efficiency matrices are generated.Even though a weighted average method (WAM) is most frequently used for cross efficiency aggregation, the decision maker's (DM) preference structure may not be reflected. For this reason, the present study mainly focuses on the evidential reasoning approach (ERA), as a nonlinear aggregation method, rather than the linear WAM. Equal weights are often used for cross efficiency aggregation; consequently, the effect of the DM's subjective judgments in obtaining the overall efficiency is ignored. In this respect, the minimax entropy approach (MEA) and the maximum disparity approach (MMDA) are applied for determining the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator weights for cross efficiency aggregation. The weighted cross efficiencies and cross anti-efficiencies are then aggregated using the ERA. Finally, the proposed method, called DF-CEM-ERA, is used to evaluate the RSP of EU countries as well as Serbian police departments (PDs).     

Linking employer branding orientation and firm performance: Testing a dual mediation route of recruitment efficiency and positive affective climate

Faced with competitive labor markets, firms increasingly use employer branding to build a qualified workforce and engage their employees. However, our understanding of the impact of employer branding orientation on firm performance and the theoretical firm-level mechanisms underlying this potential impact is very limited. To address this gap, we integrate brand marketing theory with human resource management (HRM) research to develop a model explicating how employer branding orientation is linked to firm performance through a dual route by enhancing both recruitment efficiency (i.e., external route: applicants) and positive affective climate (i.e., internal route: incumbent employees). The results of a multisource study (i.e., top management, human resource managers, employees) with 93 firms show employer branding orientation is positively related to firm performance through positive affective climate but not recruitment efficiency. Using a brand equity approach to HRM, our results advance the literature by demonstrating the generalizability of employer branding effects independent of concrete brand attributes and explaining the firm-level mediating mechanisms linking it to firm performance.     

市场环境、企业社会责任与基金安全投资转移

当市场环境不好以及不确定性增加时，基金进行安全投资转移。企业积极履行社会责任所形成的声誉资本具有“类保险”作用，在面临负面事件或不确定性环境冲击时能够防止股价大幅下跌和市值损失；基金是否会在市场环境不好时将投资组合转向社会责任绩效更高的股票进行安全投资转移呢？使用2010—2017年开放式基金样本，实证检验了企业社会责任、市场环境与安全投资转移之间的关系。研究发现，在市场环境表现不佳时，基金避险需求增加，倾向将投资组合更多地转向社会责任绩效高的股票进行安全投资转移；进一步研究发现基金和基金经理特征影响基金的安全投资转移行为，净资金流入较少、历史业绩差、经理选股能力差的基金根据企业社会责任进行安全投资转移的程度大。研究还发现，基金的安全投资转移行为对基金业绩和基金收益波动产生了积极影响。     

低碳视角下多式联运经济性能实例分析--以郑明物流为例

为了进一步研究铁路运输与其他运输方式开展多式联运的经济性能,在阐述多种运输方式性能差异的基础上,以郑明物流为例,通过分析其特定运输路线现有运输方式的能源消耗、碳排放量和运输过路费等指标,提出在不同月份和不同时期的多式联运优化方案,为物流企业开展多式联运提供借鉴。     

工作满意度、组织承诺与工作绩效之间的实证研究

在现代高强度的工作环境下,企业竞争越来越依靠于人才的配置。为了吸引和留住人才,越来越多的企业更加关注公司员工的感受和需求,在提高员工满意度的同时提高员工的工作绩效,保障企业的高效低成本运作。员工满意度、组织承诺、工作绩效是企业能否长时间留住人才的主要指标,对于企业人力资源管理有着重要意义。从理论上来说,通过实证研究可以具体量化三者之间的关系;从实践上来说,对三者之间影响关系的清楚认识可以为企业人力资源部门提供制度和政策上的指导,从而降低企业的人力成本、提高企业运作的效率。研究的主要内容为通过问卷收集的方法,以各类企业员工为研究对象,探究员工满意度、组织承诺和工作绩效之间的相关关系,建立员工满意度、组织承诺和工作绩效三者之间的量化研究模型。根据研究结果,给企业人力资源管理部门提出具有建设性的建议,以在减少成本的同时促进企业的高效运作,使企业更具凝聚力。