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.     

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。     

资本要素市场化改革、对外直接投资与技术创新绩效

对外直接投资对母国产业的技术创新具有反哺促进效应,但同时受资本要素市场扭曲的调节作用影响。本文运用2003~2016年的面板数据,设定双因素基准模型并进行东、中、西部地区分样本回归以检验资本要素市场扭曲对OFDI的技术创新的调节作用。结果发现:OFDI通过逆向技术溢出促进了母国的企业技术创新绩效。同时,资本要素市场扭曲抑制了OFDI反哺技术创新绩效的正向作用,且资本要素市场扭曲对OFDI的技术创新的调节效应存在地区差异性。因此,深化要素市场化改革,调整对外直接投资结构和优化营商环境,是实现OFDI协调发展以推动技术创新绩效提升的有效途径。     

Supplier empowerment: Mediating situational factors and perceived performance

The understanding of the behavioral and cognitive factors that affect organizations' performance has attracted increasing attention of scholars and practitioners. Based on the literature of psychological empowerment at the individual and the team levels, this study develops the concept of supplier empowerment in the context of purchasing and supply management. Further, this study proposes a research model that explores the role of supplier empowerment as a cognitive concept in mediating the relationship between situational factors (a supplier's process modularity and the mutual trust with its customers/buyers) and the supplier's perceived performance in its operations and customer service. This model is tested with 208 responses from automotive industry suppliers. The findings highlight the importance of empowered suppliers in decreasing inventory levels and increasing order fulfillment performance.     

Does board gender diversity influence firm profitability? A control function approach

We investigate the relation between board gender diversity and firm profitability using the control function (CF) approach recently suggested by Wooldridge (2015). The CF method takes account of the problem of endogenous explanatory variables that have potential to bias the results. Using a sample of firms that made up the S&P 500 over the period 2004–2015, we find that the presence of women on corporate boards (measured either by the percentage of female directors on corporate boards or the Blau index of heterogeneity) has a positive and significant (at the 1% level) effect on firm profitability (measured by the return on assets). We compare our results to more traditional approaches (such as pooled OLS or the fixed-effects model). Through this study, we shed light on the effect of women on corporate boards on firm performance, as it is still a controversial issue (Post and Byron, 2015).