Application of the controllability principle and managerial performance: The role of role perceptions

The controllability principle stipulates that the evaluation of a manager should be based only on elements that are under the manager's control. Arguments for and against its application are theoretically well understood, but empirical evidence based on the evaluation of the perceptions of managers and their implications for managerial performance is scarce. By empirically analyzing the effects on managerial performance, this paper explores managers’ responses to the application of the controllability principle. We draw on role theory and analyze how role ambiguity and role conflict mediate this basic relationship. Moreover, we test whether application of the controllability principle equally affects role perceptions of top-level managers and those of lower and middle-level managers. Empirical analysis of survey responses from 440 managers reveals that role perceptions completely mediate the effect of application of the controllability principle on managerial performance. This effect is insignificant in the group of top-level managers, who appear to cope with uncontrollable factors more effectively.     

Marginal Abatement Cost Curves for UK Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This article addresses the challenge of developing a ‘bottom‐up’ marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from UK agriculture. An MACC illustrates the costs of specific crop, soil and livestock abatement measures against a ‘business as usual’ scenario. The results indicate that in 2022 under a specific policy scenario, around 5.38 Mt CO₂ equivalent (e) could be abated at negative or zero cost. A further 17% of agricultural GHG emissions (7.85 Mt CO₂e) could be abated at a lower unit cost than the UK Government’s 2022 shadow price of carbon [£34 (tCO₂e)^?1]. The article discusses a range of methodological hurdles that complicate cost‐effectiveness appraisal of abatement in agriculture relative to other sectors.     

Resisting hybridisation between modes of clinical risk management: Contradiction,contest, and the production of intractable conflict

This article explores and explains escalating contradictions between two modes of clinical risk management which resisted hybridisation. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective, these two modes – ethics-orientated and rules-based – are firstly characterised in an original heuristic we develop to analyse clinical risk management systems. Some recent sociologically orientated accounting literature is introduced, exploring interactions between accountability and risk management regimes in corporate and organisational settings; much of this literature suggests these systems are complementary or may easily form hybrids. This theoretical literature is then moved into the related domain of clinical risk management systems, which has been under-explored from this analytic perspective. We note the rise of rules-based clinical risk management in UK mental health services as a distinct logic from ethics-orientated clinical self-regulation. Longitudinal case study data is presented, showing contradiction and escalating contest between ethics-orientated and rules-based systems in a high-commitment mental health setting, triggering a crisis and organisational closure. We explore theoretically why perverse contradictions emerged, rather than complementarity and hybridisation suggested by existing literature. Interactions between local conditions of strong ideological loading, high emotional and personal involvement, and rising rules-based risk management are seen as producing this contest and its dynamics of escalating and intractable conflict. The article contributes to the general literature on interactions between different risk management regimes, and reveals specific aspects arising in clinically based forms of risk management. It concludes by considering some strengths and weaknesses of this Foucauldian framing.     

What motivates professional service firm employees to nurture client dialogues?

Dialogues between professionals and their clients are at the core of relationship marketing of professional service firms. To nurture dialogues, professionals need to extend the scope of the dialogue to new issues that impact the client organization's performance. We develop and examine (N?=?431) a model grounded in the theory of planned behavior to highlight factors that impact the willingness of professionals to initiate the extension of client dialogues. Three main results are found. First, affective and instrumental attitudes are distinct and different motivational antecedents that simultaneously impact willingness. Second, affective and instrumental attitude are intermediate psychological considerations shaped by extrinsic rewards, reciprocal relationships, and client relationship quality. Third, organizational pressure operates indirectly by instilling a personal professional norm to extend client dialogues.     

Alcohol Prohibition and Pricing at the Pump*

Firms often sell a transparent base product and a valuable add-on. If only some consumers are aware of the latter, the add-on's effect on the base product's price will be ambiguous. Cross-subsidization between products to bait uninformed consumers might lower, intrinsic utility from the add-on for informed consumers might raise the price. We study this trade-off in the gasoline market by exploiting an alcohol sales prohibition at stations as an exogenous shifter of add-on availability. Gasoline margins drop by 5% during the prohibition. The effect is mediated by shop variety and competition. Using traffic data, we unveil sizeable consumer-side reactions.     

An empirical analysis of multivariate copula models

Since the pioneering work of Embrechts and co-authors in 1999, copula models have enjoyed steadily increasing popularity in finance. Whereas copulas are well studied in the bivariate case, the higher-dimensional case still offers several open issues and it is far from clear how to construct copulas which sufficiently capture the characteristics of financial returns. For this reason, elliptical copulas (i.e. Gaussian and Student-t copula) still dominate both empirical and practical applications. On the other hand, several attractive construction schemes have appeared in the recent literature promising flexible but still manageable dependence models. The aim of this work is to empirically investigate whether these models are really capable of outperforming its benchmark, i.e. the Student-t copula and, in addition, to compare the fit of these different copula classes among themselves.     

New development: First steps towards an evaluation of the North East Transformation System

The North East Transformation System (NETS) is a programme that aims to engage the elements of NHS North East in a common vision, reshape the clinician/employer compact, and use Lean methodology to redesign work processes. After initial implementation in pathfinder sites, NETS is now to encompass other trusts in the region.     

On the inadequacy of newswire reports for empirical research on foreign exchange interventions

Reuters news reports have become an accepted tool for empirical studies analyzing informational asymmetries in FX markets. This paper tests the accuracy of the Reuters reports for Swiss interventions in the foreign exchange market. The evidence finds that the time stamp of the Reuters reports does not always lie near the recorded time of the first intervention trade as is commonly assumed in market microstructure studies. The standard deviation of the time difference is measured in hours and not in minutes. These and other regression results question the accuracy of Reuters reports for Swiss interventions.