On the Merits of Vertical Divestiture

This paper demonstrates that vertical divestiture may increase consumer welfare even when the divestiture eliminates substantial scope economies and precludes only limited sabotage. More generally, the merits of vertical divestiture are shown to vary with: (1) the type and the intensity of competition in the retail market; (2) the locus of scope economies under vertical integration; and (3) the relative social values of consumers’ surplus and profit.     

Team production,endogenous learning about abilities and career concerns

This paper studies career concerns in teams where the support a worker receives depends on fellow team members׳ efforts and abilities. In this setting, by exerting effort and providing support, a worker can influence her own and her teammates׳ project outputs in order to bias the learning process in her favor. To manipulate the market׳s assessment, we argue that in equilibrium, a worker has incentives to help or even sabotage her colleagues in order to signal that she is of higher ability. In a multiperiod stationary framework, we show that the stationary level of work effort is above and help effort is below their efficient levels.     

Service sabotage: The dark side of service dynamics

While many aspects of services research assume that employees are largely compliant to management prescribed service standards, a number of recent studies have highlighted the deliberate sabotage by service workers as a key issue. We contend that service sabotage is important not simply because of the pervasiveness of such behaviors, but also because of the impact that such acts can have on firm growth and profitability. Consequently, we seek to achieve three inter-linked objectives in this article. First, we highlight how service saboteurs harm customers’ service experiences and negatively affect the performance of the firm. Second, in order to assist managers in recognizing these behaviors, we identify the most common types of service saboteurs and forms of sabotage. Specifically, we classify and describe four main types of service saboteurs: Thrill Seekers, Apathetics, Customer Revengers, and Money Grabbers. Finally, and most importantly, we provide a series of suggestions regarding how managers might effectively address service sabotage in their firms. These include gathering information and exploiting existing data to establish the extent and nature of sabotage, recruiting the right quality of service staff, training and rewarding employees, enriching and empowering employees, developing a service culture, and initiating better monitoring systems and procedures.     

Moderating effect of work–family conflict on the relationship between leader–member exchange and relative deprivation: Links to behavioral outcomes

This study intends to explore the moderator of work–family conflict on the relationship between leader–member exchange and relative deprivation, and simultaneously examine the impact of relative deprivation on employees' behavior (including effort behavior and service sabotage). Questionnaire survey was conducted in 14 international tourist hotels in Taipei. Of the returned sample, 379 questionnaires are effective. The result indicates that high quality leader–member exchange relationship has negative impact on employees' relative deprivation. Also, relative deprivation has significant impact on effort behavior, and service sabotage. Furthermore, work–family conflict is found to have moderating effect on the relationship between leader–member exchange and relative deprivation. This study fills the research gap in the hospitality literature regarding the effect of work–family conflict on the relationships among leader–member exchange, employees' relative deprivation, and work behaviors. It also sheds the light on work–family conflict literature by extending leader–member exchange theory to leader–employee relationship.     

Motives for service sabotage: an empirical study of front-line workers

Although researchers have called for a greater understanding of front-line employee behaviour during service encounters, few studies have been directed at the topic of service sabotage in general, and at the motives of such behaviours in particular. This paper presents systematic empirical insights into the motives of employee sabotage in the service sector. The evidence suggests varying motives for forms of service sabotage ranging from the benign, to the recalcitrant, to the, significantly less common, malicious. The findings of the study indicate the necessity for studies of employee work-based behaviours to incorporate a more complex but more comprehensive conceptualization of employee motivations for both sabotage and resistance-related activities.     

Self-Sabotage

We analyze the incentives of a vertically-integrated producer (VIP) to engage in self-sabotage.Self-sabotage occurs when a VIP intentionally increases its upstream costs and/or reduces the quality of its upstream product. We identify conditions under which self-sabotage is profitable for the VIP even though it raises symmetrically the cost of the upstream product to all downstream producers and/or reduces symmetrically the quality of all downstream products. Under specified conditions, self-sabotage can enable a VIP to disadvantage downstream rivals differentially without violating parity requirements.We are grateful to David Mandy and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Recent developments in the analysis of fires,explosions, and production disruption incidents in chemical plants and oil refineries

Significant changes in computing power, regulatory climate, safety culture and globalization of business ventures have occurred since the original publication of MTI Publication No. 30, Guidelines for Assessing Fire and Explosion Damage. The implications of these changes are reviewed with regard to the work of investigators charged with the analysis of fires, explosions and major production disruption incidents in chemical processing plants and refineries. A review of advances in computer modeling of large-scale energy release events is presented. Storm damage assessment and the analysis of incidents involving sabotage are discussed. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009     

Sabotage in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Contestants: Empirical Evidence from the Soccer Pitch

In this paper, we address the problem of sabotage in tournaments with heterogeneous contestants. In a first step, we develop a formal model, which yields the prediction that favorites exert higher productive effort, while underdogs are more tempted to engage in destructive actions (sabotage). This is because favorites have a higher return on productive effort and both types of effort are substitutes. In a second step, we use data from German professional soccer to test this prediction. In line with the model, we find that favorite teams win more tackles in a fair way, while underdog teams commit more fouls.     

Greening the airline pilot: HRM and the green performance of airlines in the UK

This paper investigates the potential for human resource management (HRM) to influence the green performance of airlines. The focus is on the management of airline pilots, in particular, who have unparalleled opportunities to affect green performance through their control of the machines that directly impact the industry's carbon footprint. As a result it is vital that the HR function finds ways to engage them in the greening of the organization and works to reduce the triggers to actions that have the potential to sabotage the green aims of the airline industry. To this end, the paper discusses first the indirect effects of HRM in terms of its influence on employee job satisfaction, commitment and involvement in the airline, which can reduce the propensity of pilots to engage in actions detrimental to the green performance of the airline. Second, it explores the nature and purpose of direct green HRM initiatives and airline pilot responses to these. It concludes that the role HR managers can play via their management of the employment relationship on the green performance of airlines in the UK is crucial but that they face considerable challenges.     

Nonexclusionary input prices under quantity competition: vertical integration,foreclosure and sabotage

A vertically integrated provider is a monopoly supplier of an input essential for its rival to produce downstream output. Market exclusion in the form of inefficient foreclosure or sabotage can arise when input prices are, respectively, ‘too high’ or ‘too low’ relative to the downstream price. The range of nonexclusionary input prices within which neither form of market exclusion arises is determined by displacement ratios. The safe harbour range of downstream-to-upstream ‘price-cost’ margin ratios is decreasing in the degree of product homogeneity and approaches a single ratio in the limit as the products become perfectly homogeneous. The bounds of nonexclusionary input prices are markedly wider under Bertrand–Nash competition than they are under Stackelberg competition.