Determinants of County-Level Voting Patterns In the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Elections

ABSTRACT

County-level data are used to estimate the incumbent-party share of the two-party vote in the 2012 and the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Using a ‘seemingly unrelated estimation’ procedure the regression results for the two elections show that there were some clear differences in the size of marginal effects for several key covariates. For example, income inequality, the size of the black male and black female populations, the size of the Hispanic male population and percent of the population with a college degree all had significantly larger coefficients in 2016 than in 2012, producing a larger marginal effect in favour of the Democratic candidate’s vote share. On the other hand, counties with increased poverty rates and counties located on the periphery of urban centres had a significantly larger marginal effect favouring the Republican’s vote share in 2016 compared to 2012. Finally, the regression results show that the effects of third-party vote shares, though not statistically different across the two elections, had a positive impact on the Democratic vote share in both elections.     

No such thing as a global manager

With the continuing growth of globalization, companies need to pay careful attention to selecting and managing people who may become their “global managers.” The best way to achieve this is by coming up with a clear concept of what constitutes such a manager. But the examination of a wide set of possible characteristics indicates that there seems to be no distinct set of such individual qualities, so there is no consistent way to point out what a global manager is. What we are left with is the search for good “conventional” managers with a global mindset who could succeed in the international marketplace.     

An agency theory perspective of the Israeli labor market segmentation: Past,present, and future

In this paper we use agency theory to present a process of the dichotomization of the Israeli workforce into two structures, each representing distinct organizational cultures. The first structure is the private sector, led by the high-tech industry; a model where the principal has strong control over the activities of the agent. The second is the public sector, an opposing model in which the principal has virtually no control over the activities of the agents and as a result, the effectiveness within this sector deteriorates. We argue that such conflicting systems cannot exist side by side without affecting each other and we suggest a role for human resource management (HRM) in future developments. Within the public sector it is the responsibility of the principal, the Israeli government, to gain more control over the agent and employ professional HRM systems for this purpose.     

Gun lobbies and gun control: Senate voting patterns on the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban

This paper uses an econometric model to analyze the political and economic factors affecting the Senate voting patterns on the 1993 Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban. Results of a logit estimation procedure support the hypothesis that the political activities and presence of the National Rifle Association (measured as relative campaign contributions and membership) had a significant impact on the voting patterns by Senators on both bills.     

The Effectiveness of Gun Control Laws:

ABSTRACT In the July, 1998 issue of The American Journal of Economics and Sociology Professor Tomislav V. Kovandzic strongly criticized the 1997 work on gun control by Kwon, Scott, Safranski and Bae, which appears in the same journal. A rejoinder by Kwon et al. refuted Kovnanzic's criticisms and the authors stand by their published results. The purpose of this comment is to reconsider some of the points raised by Kovandzic and to consider other issues not raised in the original exchange. The bottom line is that several of the criticisms by Kovandzic are valid and, in fact, other serious econometric problems may plague the original paper by Kwon et al.     

Expatriation and repatriation in MNCs: a taxonomy

The challenge of the management of expatriates and repatriates has never been more timely nor urgent: globalization has forced expatriation into the corporate agenda, confronting us with an array of questions on HRM strategy and practice. We propose that a wide range of current thinking and practice may be conveniently grouped into a taxonomy of five organizational options, each advancing a different set of expatriation relationships: Global, Emissary, Peripheral, Professional, and Expedient. A framework outlining the main configurations of these options generates a generic model for expatriation at the organizational level. This forms the principal part of the article, followed by a comprehensive discussion and implications for practice. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Effect of Educational Background On Performance and Organisational Commitment

In this research note Gedaliahu Harel, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the Israel Institute of Technology, and Yehuda Baruch, Visiting Fellow at the City University Business School, explore the effects of a special educational and training programme that affects the backgrounds of employees in technical jobs measured by variables such as level of performance, professionalism, and organisational commitment. the results are considered in terms of the particular population examined and the implications discussed for the use of special vocational education and training.     

Team learning: The missing construct from a cross-cultural examination of higher education

Team learning should be an important construct in organizational management research because team learning can enhance organizational learning and overall performance. However, there is limited understanding of how team learning works in different cultural contexts. Using an international comparative research approach, we developed a framework of antecedents and outcomes in the higher education context and tested it with samples from the UK and Vietnam. The results show that a common framework is applicable in the two different contexts, subject to slight modifications. However, this study does not find that team learning (measured via the proxy of “attitude towards team learning”) exhibits any statistically significant relationship as a predictor of the proposed outcomes. Other findings from this study on educational contexts are important not only to scholars in this field, but also for practicing managers, particularly those who study and operate in the extensive global market.