What satisfies younger versus older employees,and why? An aging perspective on equity theory to explain interactive effects of employee age,monetary rewards,and task contributions on job satisfaction

In light of increasingly age-diverse workforces, organizations face the challenge of fostering job satisfaction among both younger and older employees. Combining equity theory with an aging perspective, we propose that due to age-related shifts in motives and goals, younger versus older employees’ job satisfaction will depend differently on monetary rewards (outcome side of equity theory), task contributions (input side of equity theory), as well as on imbalances (inequity) in the relationship between monetary rewards and task contributions. In a multisource study with 166 managers, we found that while younger employees were satisfied primarily by monetary rewards, older employees were satisfied primarily by their task contributions. Most importantly, a three-way interaction indicated that younger versus older employees react differently to two types of inequity: Being proportionally over-rewarded (i.e., receiving high monetary rewards for low task contributions) reduced older (but not of younger) employees’ job satisfaction. By contrast, under-reward inequity (i.e., receiving low monetary rewards for high task contributions) decreased younger (but not of older) employees’ job satisfaction. These age-dependent effects of job features on job satisfaction reveal important theoretical as well as practical implications.     

How coviewing reduces the effectiveness of TV advertising

In the present study – a naturalistic laboratory experiment – coviewing of TV commercials reduced their effectiveness (delayed proven ad recall) from 63%, obtained by single viewers, to 43%, for both coviewers. During coviewing, the ‘mere presence of another’ apparently distracts each coviewer's attention from the screen. The reduction in TV ads' effectiveness due to coviewing is equivalent to the loss from channel-change zapping, which reduces ad recall to 45%. More deleterious but less prevalent modes of digital video recorder-enabled ad avoidance are skip-button zapping, which reduces recall to 35%, and moderately fast zipping ( × 8 fast forward), which reduces ad effectiveness almost entirely, leaving only 6% recall. This study concludes with some practical suggestions for improving the effectiveness of TV commercials seen by a coviewing audience.     

Internationalisation and innovation in the knowledge-intensive business services

This paper aims to analyse the link between the distinct degree of internationalisation and the innovation activities of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBSs). The empirical results suggest that there are differences between the groups of KIBS analysed, particularly with regards to their characteristics, innovation activities, use of source of knowledge, use of advanced technologies and value-added practices, and innovation outputs. However, these differences are not always systematic. There is a noticeable tendency for domestic establishments to perform more weakly with regards to innovation-related activities and innovation outputs than international establishments, but also between KIBS that have different degrees of international activities.     

IS THE REVENUE ALLOCATION SCHEME OF FORMULA ONE MOTOR RACING A CASE FOR EUROPEAN COMPETITION POLICY?

Recent allegations from participants of the FIA Formula One World Championship (F1) suggest that its authorities violate European competition law in two ways. First, they allegedly abuse market power by forcing unfavorable contracts on media revenue allocation upon teams as a whole and on smaller teams in particular (vertical allocation of media revenue). Second, they allegedly form a cartel with selected teams to the detriment of smaller teams by providing unjustified extra payments to these teams (horizontal allocation of media revenues). In doing so, the cartel members allegedly secure supracompetitive rents from the authorities and cement an unfair competitive advantage over the outsider teams. Employing concentration measures from empirical economics, we present an assessment of whether the current antitrust allegations against F1 may be considered valid or not. We show that the allocation scheme employed in F1 considerably differs from those in other professional sports championships. We find the empirical picture to be consistent with an anticompetitive interpretation of F1 media revenue structures and policies. We conclude that there is merit in initiating an in‐depth antitrust investigation of Formula One motor racing. (JEL K21, L12, L40, L83, Z20)