Dose safety motivation mediate the effect of psychological contract of safety on flight attendants' safety performance outcomes?: A social exchange perspective

This study proposes and tests a conceptual model that investigates the mediating effect of safety motivation linking psychological contract of safety (PCS) as manifested by employer obligations of safety and employee obligations of safety to safety violations and safety creative performance (SCP). Data were collected from a sample of flight attendants with two weeks time lag in Iran. Underpinned by social exchange theory, the results of structural equation modeling revealed that safety motivation fully mediates the simultaneous effects of PCS indicators on safety violations and SCP. Specifically, indicators of PCS jointly enhance safety motivation. In turn, safety motivation reduces safety violations, while enhancing SCP. Theoretical and practical implications evoked from the results advance existing knowledge of organizationally social interactions in promoting safety and the motivational mechanism through which PCS predicts employees' safety performance outcomes.     

Does the strength of the legal systems matter for trade in insurance and financial services?

This paper investigates if the strength of the legal system impacts on the trade in insurance and financial services in the high-income OECD and developing countries. Our findings reveal a statistically significant positive correlation of rule of law and regulatory quality with the exports and imports of insurance and financial services. Our empirical findings also reveal a negative and statistically significant correlation of contract enforcement with the exports and imports of insurance and financial services. We conclude that strengthening the rule of law and contract enforcement mechanisms can facilitate higher levels of trade in insurance and financial services.     

Impact of contracts in high yielding varieties seed production on profits and yield: The case of Nepal

Nepal’s population continues to grow, but the agricultural sector’s performance remains almost stagnant. This has led to a decline in the per capita availability of food. Increasing agricultural productivity is the key to agricultural growth, and one strategy for increasing agricultural productivity is to use improved seeds. This study investigates the impact of contract farming (CF) in high yielding varieties (HYV) of paddy seed production on costs, yield, and profits of smallholder farms in Nepal. Using farm-level data and a non-parametric propensity score matching estimator, the study finds a significant positive impact of contract HYV seed farming on revenues, profits, and yield, and a significant negative impact on total costs of production. Additionally, very small farms (⩽0.43 ha) with CF in HYV paddy seeds tend to gain the most when it comes to yield per hectare. Our estimates reveal that the average smallholder household in Nepal engaged in CF with input conditions receives higher profits. However, farmers engaged in CF with output conditions tend to have higher yields but smaller profits. Finally, farmers engaged in CF in HYV paddy seeds with both input and output conditions have the highest yield gains and significantly higher profits.     

Motivations to grow energy crops: the role of crop and contract attributes

Perennial energy crops are a promising source of bioenergy whose production involves production risks, long‐term commitment of land and need for crop‐specific investments without the coverage of crop insurance potentially available for conventional crops. We conduct a choice experiment in five states in the Midwestern and South‐central regions of the U.S. to examine the effect of crop‐contract attributes on the joint discrete‐continuous choice decisions to adopt an energy crop and convert acres to it from a status quo use, while controlling for the effect of various farmers’ risk and time preferences, sociodemographic characteristics, and availability of crop insurance for conventional crops. We find robust evidence that high discount rates, high upfront establishment costs and need for crop‐specific investments create disincentives for adoption and allocation of land to energy crop production. The effects of riskiness of returns and risk aversion are less robust across specifications. The effect of conventional crop insurance on the energy crop adoption decision differs across types of insurance; in particular, farmers with revenue insurance are statistically significantly less likely to adopt an energy crop. Our results have implications for the design of effective contracts and policy incentives to induce the production of energy crops.     

Scenario projects in Japanese government: Strategic approaches for overcoming psychological and institutional barriers

Scenario planning in the public sector has significant differences from scenario planning in the corporate world. Scenario planning in the government not only tends to be focused on issues of higher complexity and significance to public policy, but also in comparison to people in the private business, public officials have fundamental psychological and institutional constraints in their scenario thinking. These constraints make it difficult for them to contemplate multiple ‘untidy’ futures and imagine the possibility of policy failure: skills which are essential for successful scenario projects. Based on specific characteristics of scenario planning in the Japanese government, this paper contributes on better understanding the challenges and strategic solutions in providing more successful scenario planning in the public sector. Specifically, this paper argues that possible solutions in overcoming these constraints may be to shake public bureaucrats out of their thinking by providing free and open venues of conversation and more importantly through ‘derailment’ exercises.     

Psychological safety climate and workplace bullying in Vietnam’s public sector

The bureaucratic and impersonal nature of public management can fertilize workplace bullying and risks for psychological health and safety. Psychological safety climate (PSC) is an important indicator to reduce psychological hazards. Yet, there have been few studies conducted to examine the existence of PSC in the public sector in non-Western economies. This study examined the implementation of PSC and its effects on 274 employees from six branches of a Vietnamese public sector organization. The results suggest that senior management in organizations should consider positive work conditions and an effective system of policies, procedures, and practices for the prevention of psychosocial hazards.     

The benefits of the reciprocal grantback clause in patent licensing

This paper shows that a reciprocal grantback clause could potentially be a better licensing provision than a one-way type. There are two benefits associated with the use of a reciprocal grantback clause. First, it improves efficiency by reducing the (minimum) contract compatible royalty rate to zero. As a result, the production becomes efficient because both the licensor and the licensee produce at the same marginal cost. Second, a reciprocal grantback clause is a more effective provision than a one-way grantback clause to guarantee the transfer of superior technology, hence it promotes better technology diffusion.     

The role of talent-perception incongruence in effective talent management

This study examines the effect of talent management (TM) practices, differentiation strategies, and incongruent talent perceptions in terms of psychological-contract fulfillment. The outcomes of the quantitative analysis of 2660 respondents within 21 organizations show the importance of actively attending to talent-perception incongruence. Incongruence occurs in situations where the organization's executives perceive an individual as ‘talent’, but the individual is unaware of this, and also the other way around: the situation in which the organization's executives do not consider an individual as ‘talent’ while the individual believes that they do. Although the increased use of TM practices is related to higher psychological-contract fulfillment, this relationship is negatively affected by incongruent talent perceptions. Our results show the importance of clearly defining talent and communicating this clearly to all employees. This is particularly important when the talent strategy is perceived as exclusive rather than inclusive.     

Psychological ownership as a crisis management advertising appeal – antecedents,outcomes, and moderators

In a crisis communication context, this work examines the impact of Psychological Ownership (PO) appeals on Ad message recipients’ development of feelings of PO. It demonstrates that increased levels of PO influence the managerially relevant outcomes attitude toward the company and purchase intentions. In doing so, it finds new application for the construct. In order to better understand the factors that may contribute to or mitigate PO, this research also investigates environmental consciousness as an additional antecedent and gender, persuasion knowledge, and geographic distance as moderators of individuals’ response to such appeals. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Do development projects crowd-out private sector activities? Evidence from contract farming participation in Northern Ghana

Contract farming (CF) is attractive as a possible private sector-led strategy for improving market coordination and smallholder farmers’ welfare. At the same time, governmental and non-governmental development projects aimed at improving farmers’ welfare continue to be organized. It is not uncommon for CF activities and development projects to take place in the same communities. Yet so far there is no evidence on how development projects affect CF activities. We examine factors affecting entry in and exit from different maize CF schemes in Northern Ghana, and focus specifically on the role of development projects. We find that the presence of agricultural development projects in the community is associated with lower scheme entry, but this not the case for non-agricultural projects. CF exit is more strongly associated with maize projects, but not significantly with non-maize or non-agricultural projects. Thus, our findings do not support concerns of a general moral hazard problem arising from the presence of any development project, but indicate possible negative associations of more closely related agricultural or maize projects with maize CF participation.