Systematic Mortality Improvement Trends and Mortality Heterogeneity: Insights from Individual-Level HRS Data

Providers of life annuities and pensions need to consider both systematic mortality improvement trends and mortality heterogeneity. Although how mortality improvement varies with age and gender at the population level is well studied, how trends vary with risk factors remains relatively unexplored. This article assesses how systematic mortality improvement trends vary with individual risk characteristics using individual-level longitudinal data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study between 1994 and 2009. Initially a Lee-Carter model is used to assess mortality improvement trends by grouping individuals with similar risk characteristics of gender, education, and race. We then fit a longitudinal mortality model to individual-level data allowing for heterogeneity and time trends in individual-level risk factors. Our results show how survey data can provide valuable insights into both mortality heterogeneity and improvement trends more effectively than commonly used aggregate models. We show how mortality improvement differs across individuals with different risk factors. Significantly, at an individual level, mortality improvement trends have been driven by changes in health history such as high blood pressure, cancer, and heart problems rather than risk factors such as education, marital status, body mass index, and smoker status.     

Workplace organization and innovation

Abstract This study uses panel data on Canadian establishments to explore the relationship between the organization of work – in particular decentralization, information‐sharing, and incentive pay schemes – and innovation. Like other studies, ours finds a clear positive link between these factors. However, the data give strong indications that this relationship is not causal. We show that: (1) the correlation between workplace organization and innovation holds for information‐sharing but is much weaker for decentralized decision‐making or incentive pay programs, (2) controls for unobserved heterogeneity significantly weaken results, and (3) lagged variables give no clear evidence that organizational changes predate innovation.     

An empirical test of a correspondence model of expatriate managers' work adjustment

We develop and empirically test a model of expatriate managers' work adjustment. In this model we relate the fit between work-related abilities and needs of expatriate managers as well as the fit between the job requirements of, and incentives associated with, an international assignment to the level of expatriate managers' work adjustment. We test this model with data gathered by means of an electronic survey among 118 German expatriate managers. The empirical findings largely support our theoretical model. The paper enhances our understanding of expatriate managers' work adjustment and its antecedents and contributes to the theoretical and empirical basis of research into expatriate management.     

The effects of corporate social responsibility and price on consumer responses

This experiment examined the influence of corporate social responsibility and price on consumer responses. Scenarios were created to manipulate corporate social responsibility and price across two domains (environment and philanthropy). Results from a national sample of adults indicate that corporate social responsibility in both domains had a positive impact on evaluation of the company and purchase intent. Furthermore, in the environmental domain corporate social responsibility affected purchase intent more strongly than price did.     

Sampling Minority Business Owners and Their Families: The Understudied Entrepreneurial Experience*

We here review and critique prior research on minority entrepreneurship, paying particular attention to the contributions and limitations of deployed sampling techniques and research methodologies. As based on this review, we then introduce the 2003 and 2005 National Minority Business Owner Surveys—a comprehensive and primary data collection effort that used varied methodologies to secure in‐depth information about random national samples of African American, Korean American, and Mexican American populations as well as a comparison sample of nonminority business owners. We present the initial business ownership profiles developed with these recent data, in part, as a benchmark of the U.S. entrepreneurial experience, and compare the profiles with those presented in prior research. These profiles document similarities and differences across the four groups and provide an empirical foundation for understanding the origin of those similarities and differences. No longer can we ignore the in‐depth study of minority businesses and their owning families nor can we simply assume that all businesses are the same, regardless of minority status or ethnicity.     

Buzz marketing for movies

In today's dynamic entertainment environment, movies are struggling to stay afloat and remain profitable. Challenges such as piracy, digital theft, competition, overlapping movie campaigns, media fragmentation, and audience saturation are forcing marketers to stretch their film budgets and make every dollar as effective as possible. With more and more entertainment options crowding peoples' lives, marketers must search for innovative ways to reach movie audiences. By breaking through the daily clutter and noise, and capturing peoples' attention to the point that talking about a movie becomes an enjoyable experience to share, buzz marketing is one such promotional posture that drives audiences to theaters. In order to achieve success with buzz marketing, however, marketers must recognize the role it plays in the context of movie differentiation strategies to support the company's overall approach. To that end, this article analyzes buzz marketing as it pertains to six movie differentiation strategies (differentiation with cosmetic movie features, differentiation to reach market segments, growing a movie segment, positioning to support the movie image, positioning to extend the movie image, and differentiation via non-traditional channels) and offers steps for its successful implementation.     

Training and Performance of a Diverse Workforce

The moderating role of work contracts on the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and the self‐reported performance of 1,311 permanent and 924 temporary employees across three sectors was studied using a multilevel design in 103 organizations in three European countries. The HR practice examined was training and its allocation to the different workforce groups. The relationship between training for permanent employees and performance was moderated by work contract as well as country. In the Spanish sample, the performance of temporary employees was more negatively related to training for permanent employees as compared to the Dutch and the Swedish sample. Unexpectedly, in the Dutch sample, training provision was negatively related to the workforce group it was provided for. It is the temporary employees that seemed to be the cause of the interactions, underlining the call for special treatment of this workforce. Results indicate a considerable role of the interplay of job dependence and labor market conditions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Resource Dependence Role of Corporate Directors: Strategic Adaptation of Board Composition in Response to Environmental Change

Most research on corporate directors has focused on two roles: agency and resource dependence. While these two roles are theoretically and practically distinct, previous research has used the same classification scheme for measuring board composition regardless of role examined. Our paper examines the resource dependence role of directors and posits that the widely used insider/outsider categorizations do not adequately capture this role of directors. A taxonomy of directors is presented specifically for studying the resource dependence role. We then apply the taxonomy to a sample of US airline firms undergoing deregulation, and examine how board composition changes parallel the changing resource dependence needs of the firms. We conclude that the board's function as a link to the external environment is an important one, and that firms respond to significant changes in their external environment by altering board composition.     

How does perceived underemployment influence expatriate job-related outcomes? A moderated mediation study

Abstract

Although research has investigated the consequences of underemployment in domestic settings, research on the effects of underemployment among expatriates remains limited and has yielded inconsistent results. From a theoretical perspective, there is a need for a better understanding of the mechanisms through which underemployment affects various work-related outcomes and to account for potential contingencies. Drawing on the person-job fit literature and research on organizational identification, we theorise and empirically examine how and under what conditions underemployment influences expatriate performance. Using an original primary data-set of 103 Japanese expatriate managers in the UK, we find that underemployment affects expatriate work outcomes by increasing expatriates’ maladjustment and that this effect is moderated by the level to which expatriates identify with their organization.