All work intensity is not created equal: Effort motives,job satisfaction and quit intentions at a grocery chain

Prior research has shown that the well-being of employees engaged in intensive work can vary with the discretion their jobs afford regarding how and when to carry out the work. This article explores a different avenue. It argues that well-being also varies with employees’ individual motives for working intensively. The article introduces self-determination theory to the domain of work intensity and focuses on two hypotheses. The first is whether intensive work driven by explicit or implicit incentives is more positively associated with an employee's job satisfaction than intensive work driven by job demands. The second is whether intensive work driven by intrinsic motives is more positively associated with job satisfaction than that driven by explicit or implicit incentives. In both these cases, the article also examines whether equivalent effects exist on (reduced) quit intentions. Original data from a major Greek grocery chain provide corroborative evidence that is robust to a rich set of covariates, including increasingly demanding adjustments for job discretion. The findings contribute to a more complete understanding of why differences in well-being exist among employees performing intensive work, with implications for workers and employers.     

The importance of consumer multihoming (joint purchases) for market performance: Mergers and entry in media markets

Consumer “multihoming” (watching two TV channels, or buying two news magazines) has surprisingly important effects on market equilibrium and performance in (two‐sided) media markets. We show this by introducing consumer multihoming and advertising finance into the classic circle model of product differentiation. When consumers multihome (attend more than one platform), media platforms can charge only incremental value prices to advertisers. Entry or merger leaves consumer prices unchanged under consumer multihoming, but leaves advertiser prices unchanged under single‐homing: Multihoming flips the side of the market on which platforms compete. In contrast to standard circle results, equilibrium product variety can be insufficient under multihoming.     

Real Incentive Effects of Soft Information

Both soft, noncontractible, and hard, contractible, information are informative about managerial ability and future firm performance. If a manager's future compensation depends on expectations of ability or future performance, then the manager has implicit incentives to affect the information. We examine the real incentive effects of soft information in a dynamic agency with limited commitment. When long-term contracts are renegotiated, the rewards for future performance inherent in long-term contracts allow the principal partial control over the implicit incentives. This is because the soft information affects the basis for contract renegotiation. With short-term contracts, the principal has no control over the basis for contract negotiation, and thus long-term contracts generally dominate short-term contracts. With long-term contracts, the principal's control over implicit incentives is characterized in terms of effective contracting on an implicit aggregation of the soft information that arises from predicting (forming expectations of) future performance. We provide sufficient conditions for soft information to have no real incentive effects. In general, implicit incentives not controllable by the principal include fixed effects, such as career concerns driven by labor markets external to the agency. When controllable incentives span the fixed effects of career concerns, the latter have no real effects with regard to total managerial incentives—they would optimally be the same with or without career concerns. Our analysis suggests empirical tests for estimating career concerns that should explicitly incorporate noncontractible information.     

Is the institutionalization of urban movements inevitable? A comparison of the opportunities for sustained squatting in New York City and Amsterdam

In this article the opportunity structures of New York City and Amsterdam for organized squatting are compared. New York City knew two distinct squatting waves, with an intermission of several years. The literature on US urban movements predicts transformation through cooptation and repression. Only the first wave, in which housing activists used squatting as a tactic, fits this prediction. The second wave of squatting in New York City, and squatting in Amsterdam in general, escaped cooptation because they involved a squatters' movement proper, in which squatting was not only a tactic but also central to its existence. Compared to Amsterdam, squatting in New York was hampered by technical difficulties and political isolation. Stricter protection of private property made New York squatters restrict themselves to publicly‐owned abandoned buildings. Turf conflicts tended to develop on the neighbourhood level when these buildings were later claimed for the development of low‐income housing. In Amsterdam this type of conflict was rare because of the broad support for low‐income (re)development. Instead, Amsterdam saw citywide protest directed at the real estate sector and municipal authorities. Cet article compare la structure des opportunités des villes de New York et Amsterdam concernant les squats organisés. New York a connu deux vagues de squattage séparées de plusieurs années. Les textes sur les mouvements urbains aux Etats‐Unis prévoient une mutation par cooptation et répression. Seule la première vague, pour laquelle les militants en faveur du logement ont utilisé le squattage comme tactique, répond à cette prédiction. La seconde vague d'opérations à New York, et celles d'Amsterdam en général, ont échappéà la cooptation, car il s'agissait de mouvements de squatters à proprement parler, où le squat n'était pas seulement une tactique mais surtout un fondement de leur existence. Comparéà Amsterdam, le squattage à New York s'est heurtéà des problèmes techniques et à un isolement politique. La protection plus stricte de la propriété privée a forcé les squatters new‐yorkais à se limiter aux bâtiments publics abandonnés. Des luttes de territoires ont eu tendance à se développer entre voisins lorsque ces bâtiments ont ensuite été réclamés pour aménager des logements à faible loyer. A Amsterdam, rare fut ce genre de conflit grâce au vaste soutien favorable au (ré)aménagement social; au contraire, une protestation générale s'est élevée à l'encontre du secteur immobilier et des autorités municipales.     

Qualitätserwartungen und ethischer Anspruch bei der Lektüre von Blogs und von Tageszeitungen

Besides classical journalistic products, media users increasingly tend to read texts on the internet published by other users, as in weblogs. How do users navigate among these offers, how do they evaluate the quality, and which standards in terms of media ethics do they apply when reading weblogs compared to newspaper articles? Two empirical studies address these questions. In a survey, 702 internet users rated their theoretical expectations in terms of journalistic quality and compliance with ethical standards, comparing weblogs and daily newspapers. In a consecutive 2 × 2 experimental design, 120 participants read a journalistic text with varying source information (weblog/daily newspaper) and varying degree of adherence to ethical standards (ethically questionable/neutral). Participants then rated the quality of the text and its ethical standards. Results indicate that daily newspapers more than blogs are expected to deliver journalistic quality. But when read, texts are evaluated according to their content rather than their source. Ethically questionable texts in newspapers are disapproved as much as ethically questionable blog postings.     

Accounting Policies in Agencies with Moral Hazard and Renegotiation

We emphasize the role of accounting policies, and their audit, in an earnings management setting. We use a two–period agency in which three frictions interact: the agent privately observes action (or effort) supply and output, and the initial contract is subject to renegotiation. This creates a setting in which both players' behavior is of concern, and, importantly, information rationing is efficient. Moreover, this information rationing is directly interpretable as being produced by an accounting policy whose application is ensured by an auditor.