Do not say a word! Conceptualizing employee silence in a long-term crisis context

Abstract

Although research has emphasized the organizational and individual factors that influence employee voice and silence at work, it is less known how employee voice/silence is affected by the economic context, particularly when this context is one of intensive and long-term economic crisis in a country with weak institutional bases. In this study, we explore how employee silence is formulated in long-term turbulent economic environments and in more vulnerable organizational settings like those of small enterprises. The study draws on qualitative data gathered from 63 interviews with employees in a total of 48 small enterprises in Greece in two periods of time (2009 and 2015). This study suggests a new type of employee silence, social empathy silence, and offers a conceptual framework for understanding the development of silence over time in particular contexts of long-term turbulence and crisis.     

XBRL for Financial Reporting: Evidence on Italian GAAP versus IFRS

The systematic adoption of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for financial reporting represents a great challenge. Worldwide, a large number of regulators are making an effort to promote the adoption of this standard to simplify and enhance the communication of financial information. This requires the definition of well‐structured taxonomies that can standardize and accommodate the content of financial reports prepared by firms. This study aims to analyze the regulator‐led adoption of XBRL for financial reporting. It examines the XBRL taxonomies used by Italian firms to reflect their financial reporting under rule‐based Italian GAAP and principles‐based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We compare the alignment of the Italian GAAP taxonomy and the IFRS taxonomy with Italian companies' financial statements and find two different levels of fit. The results offer useful insights for regulators and policy makers in prescribing or establishing appropriate taxonomies. We illustrate the potential impacts of the different taxonomies on the quality of financial reporting in terms of comparability and potential loss of information.     

Uncommitted Deliberation? Discussing Regulatory Gaps by Comparing GRI 3.1 to GRI 4.0 in a Political CSR Perspective

In this paper, we compare the two Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting standards, G3.1, and the most current version G4.0. We do this through the lens of political corporate social responsibility (CSR) theory, which describes the broadened understanding of corporate responsibility in a globalized world building on Habermas’ notion of deliberative democracy and ethical discourse. As the regulatory power of nation states is fading, regulatory gaps occur as side effects of transnational business. As a result, corporations are also understood to play a “political role” to fill regulatory gaps and contribute to a global governance system by voluntarily engaging in self-regulation. Such corporate political action, however, is not always legitimate as it suffers from a democratic deficit (corporations/managers are not democratically elected or controlled). Consistent with scholars in the field of political CSR, this paper argues that only by means of communication and discourse can this drawback be avoided. That is why CSR reporting and guidelines for standardizing the disclosed CSR information is key for political CSR. By comparing the GRI standards from a political CSR perspective, one can see whether these often-used reporting guidelines fulfill the communicative requirements and whether they are adequate tools to face the challenges of the twenty-first century. We present results from a theory-derived and criteria-driven comparison of the two guidelines. Indication of the effectiveness of voluntary self-regulation is, for example, important considering the 2014 directive of the European Union to make CSR reporting mandatory. We offer a guideline-based view on current CSR theory as well as CSR reporting practice. We discuss implications for CSR theory, particularly the appropriateness of (idealized) deliberation in the Habermasian sense, which is the basis of political CSR theory. We do so by introducing the notion of “uncommitted deliberation” with regard to the refined concept of materiality in GRI 4.0, which induces subjectivity and reduces data-driven comparability. Finally, we address the limitations of this research as well as research questions for future studies.     

NEW EVIDENCE ON THE HECKMAN CURVE

The Heckman Curve characterizes the rate of return to public investments in human capital as rapidly diminishing with age. For the disadvantaged, it describes investments early in the life course as having significantly higher rates of return compared to later in life. This paper assesses the Heckman Curve using estimates of program benefit cost ratios from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. We find no support for the claim that social policy programs targeted early in the life course have the largest benefit cost ratios, or that on average the benefits of adult programs are less than the cost of the intervention.     

Wildlife management practices at western Canadian airports

A survey of 38 airports in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, is used to document and explore differences in use of Airport Wildlife Management Plans; common wildlife attractants; wildlife countermeasure usage and outcomes; and animal strike record keeping systems. Hazardous activities and practices for managing waste and agricultural crops commonly occurred within 8 km of airports, but also occasionally airside or groundside. Maintaining long grass was the most routinely used countermeasure, but there are conflicting responses regarding the most appropriate grass length to deter wildlife. Removal of diverse habitat had the highest success ranking among listed countermeasures. Over 75% of airports kept strike records, but less than 7% used them to measure the outcomes of countermeasure implementation.     

论中西部增长极战略布局及其政策选择

以非均衡的发展思路审视现行的中西部发展战略,包括“西部开发”、“东北振兴”、“中部崛起”三大战略还存在许多问题和不足,必须转而实施新的中西部四大增长极战略。实施中西部增长极战略要重点解决两个问题,一是战略布局问题,即从中西部实际出发,需要构建几个增长极,这些增长极应该建在何处才是必要与可行的;二是面对中西部的特殊困难和复杂情况,中央及地方各级政府在一个较长时期内,以怎样的政策取向组织实施这一战略才是富有成效的。