Unions, Safety Committees and Workplace Injuries

This paper exploits the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey from 1990 (WIRS3) to examine the determinants of workplace injuries for a sample of manufacturing establishments in the UK. A key focus of this paper is an assessment of the role played by union-appointed safety representatives and joint health and safety consultative committees in reducing the frequency of workplace accidents. We find that joint consultative committees, with all employee representatives appointed by unions, significantly reduce workplace injuries relative to those establishments where the management alone determine health and safety arrangements. However, an important role is also found for those joint consultative commitees where no employee representatives are appointed by unions.     

I know something you don't know!: The role of linking pin directors in monitoring and incentive alignment

Increasing regulatory pressures have created specialization within boards, with more requirements and responsibilities being refocused to the committee level. Using data from S&P 1,500 firms, we find that board committee overlap associated with linking pin directors (i.e., those serving simultaneously on the audit and compensation committees) is an important conduit for knowledge transfer between boards' monitoring and incentive alignment functions. These directors are associated with lower executive compensation and influence pay mix. In studying the dynamics behind this process, we find that newly created linking pins improve monitoring effectiveness whereas recently dissolved linking pins decrease it. We also find that linking pins are all the more important when managers make less conservative accounting choices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Real Estate Political Action Committees on Congressional Voting and Elections

This study examines the effectiveness of 1977–78 Real Estate Political Action Committee (REPAC) contributions in influencing voting patterns on real estate legislation. A simultaneous twenty-one equation model is built to test relationships among the endogenous variables of votes, electoral margin, PAC contributions, and constituent and congressional ideology. The results indicate that REPAC was only minimally successful in influencing real estate votes. Results further indicate that other PAC groups were more successful in influencing voting patterns, suggesting that REPAC contribution allocation procedures could be more effective.     

The Impact of Industrial Design Effectiveness on Corporate Financial Performance*

Despite the growing recognition of industrial design's value in creating sustainable competitive advantage, few studies have attempted to quantify the contribution that design makes to company financial performance. This article examines the relationship between industrial design and company financial performance in order to assess industrial design's contribution to this performance. Effective industrial design was evaluated by asking a panel of 138 industrial design experts to rank the industrial design effectiveness of publicly traded firms within nine selected manufacturing industries; the ranking process yielded 93 firms. Based on the rankings, firms within each industry were divided into two groups: those judged as exhibiting high design effectiveness versus those judged as low in design effectiveness. Audited financial data reported to the SEC across a seven‐year period from 1995 to 2001 were used to evaluate financial performance. Using traditional financial ratios senior managers consider essential performance measures, those firms with high design effectiveness were hypothesized to have higher returns on sales, returns on assets, and growth rates of sales, net income, and cash flow than firms with low design effectiveness. High design effectiveness firms further were hypothesized to have higher stock market returns. These comprehensive, corporate financial measures incorporate expenditures made on industrial design (industrial designers' salaries, design consultants' fees, computer‐aided industrial design equipment) and expenditures that designers influence through their design choices (material costs, manufacturing equipment). This analysis reveals that firms rated as having “good” design were stronger on all measures except growth rate measures. These results provide strong evidence that good industrial design is related to corporate financial performance and stock market performance even after considering expenditures on industrial design. Further, the patterns of financial performance over the seven‐year horizon suggest that these effects are persistent.     

The Determinants of Disciplinary System Effectiveness: A Line-Management Perspective

This study examines how characteristics of an organization and its disciplinary system affect line-management perceptions of disciplinary system effectiveness. Using responses from 418 organizations, we found a curvilinear relationship between disciplinary system restrictiveness and perceptions of disciplinary system effectiveness. Results also indicate that monitoring costs, investment in training, grievance systems, unionization, and pressure to perform are significantly related to perceptions of disciplinary system effectiveness.     

Employee Participation in Health and Safety in the Australian Steel Industry, 1935–2006

Occupational health and safety (OHS) representatives and committees are the principal form of employee participation mandated by legislation in Anglo‐Saxon countries, and therefore have a strong base. However, their existence precedes legislation in some significant cases. This article undertakes a 70‐year historical analysis of the effectiveness and operations of one significant example of pre‐legislative OHS committees in an Australian steelworks. The study finds that effectiveness of the committees as a form of participation depended on a complex complementarity of variables, including relationship with unions, the nature of management commitment, the organizational industrial relations climate and the political and institutional macro environment, consistent with ‘favourable conjunctures’ theory.     

Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness in China: The Mediating Role of Justice

Although increasingly relied upon, teams can be ineffective and frustrating. Recent research suggests that conflict management contributes to team effectiveness but the value of conflict has not been considered to apply to China and other collectivist societies. However, collectivist values can make developing justice particularly important. This study investigates how conflict management can contribute to team effectiveness by developing justice. Structural equation analysis of data provided by 126 MBA student respondents involved in group projects in China supports the model that a cooperative approach to conflict leads to distributive, procedural, and interactive forms of justice which in turn promote team effectiveness. In contrast, an avoiding approach was found to predict injustice and team ineffectiveness. Unexpectedly, a competitive approach was not as consistently related to injustice as avoiding conflict. Findings were interpreted as suggesting that orienting members to manage conflict cooperatively can strengthen justice and effectiveness in teams in China.     

The New Approach to Assessing the Marketing Effectiveness of Korean Firms

This study attempted to revise Philip Kotler's marketing effectiveness model to diagnose and offer managerial implications for Korean marketing practices. Nineteen Korean firms, divided into ten manufacturing and nine service sectors, were examined to assess their level of marketing effectiveness. By industry, these firms were further divided into five categories; electronics, machinery, chemicals, finance, and service-oriented. The five marketing effectiveness attributes — strategy, organization, operations, personnel, and information system — along with accompanying factor components were incorporated into the measurement of the marketing effectiveness. The findings showed that manufacturing sector firms were less effective in marketing operations than the service sector firms. In both sectors, relative to the predetermined factor importance weights, the Korean firms were found to underperform in planning and controlling functions. Managerial implications regarding the underperforming marketing functions and future recommendations are offered.     

Effectiveness in marketing planning

This paper is concerned with the assessment of effectiveness, despite the problems involved in its determination. The conventional approach to assessment is considered first. This is based upon a determination of the success of the planning in achieving its objectives. However, the problem here is that it does not consider the actual nature of the planning. A multidimensional approach is then considered, which attempts to overcome this problem, by measuring effectiveness within the planning system. The paper concludes that there are two types of effectiveness to be measured. However, although it recognizes the value of the conventional approach, the multidimensional approach is only seen to be useful in being an indicator to certain factors.     

质量规制有效性和消费者信任的市场均衡效应

产品质量规制有效性和消费者信任对市场均衡具有重要影响,引入预期产品质量水平和能够检测出假冒高质量产品概率两个变量,分别表示消费者对产品质量信任状况和产品质量规制有效性,研究产品质量规制有效性和消费者对产品质量信任对产品均衡价格和数量的影响.结果表明无论是国内市场还是出口市场,消费者对产品质量信任状况对高质量产品市场均衡价格和均衡数量都有正向影响;而质量规制有效性对高质量产品市场均衡价格有正向影响,对均衡数量有负向影响.     

Reputational Effectiveness in Cross-Functional Working Relationships

The work of innovation management involves cross‐functional coordination among specialists and managers with different work orientations, time horizons, professional backgrounds, and values ( Ford and Randolph, 1992 ). While strong connections across functions are critical for new product development success ( Green et al., 2000 ), some managers may be more adept at fostering effective cross‐functional relationships than others. In this article, the authors empirically examine the factors that distinguish reputationally effective innovation workers from their less effective peers. Drawing on the work of Tsui (1984, 1994) , reputational effectiveness is defined as the degree to which a manager has been responsive to the needs and expectations of constituents. This research examines the relational skills and interaction patterns of more (versus less) reputationally effective managers. A large business unit of a Fortune 500 telecommunications firm provided the context for our study. Using a two‐phase approach, the authors first captured the social network patterns of 268 managers from marketing, research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and other business functions that were involved in the new product development process. In addition, the reputational effectiveness of each person who was identified as a member of the network was measured. In the second phase, the authors examined the relational competencies (e.g., role‐taking ability, interpersonal control, openness) of the managers who participated in Phase I of the research. As predicted, the results indicate that role‐taking ability is related positively to a manager's reputational effectiveness. No support, however, was found for the relationship between interpersonal control and reputational effectiveness. Interestingly, the authors found evidence of an inverse relationship between openness and effectiveness. By sharing too much information—or alternatively information that does not relate to the task at hand—the reputational effectiveness of a manager is damaged. Importantly, the results reveal that the social network characteristics of a reputationally effective manager differ from those of less effective managers. Closeness centrality, a measure of the degree of access one has to other organizational members, was associated strongly with reputational effectiveness. The results demonstrate that managers who are successful in working across functions appreciate the cognitive and emotional perspectives of diverse constituents and develop relationship ties that provide them with ready access to others across the organization.     

PSM system upgrade in response to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration NEP inspection

This article presents a brief analysis of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Petroleum Refinery Process Safety Management National Emphasis Program (NEP) citation results as of early 2009. It includes trends distilled from the OSHA inspections performed to date. Recommendations for preparing for PSM NEP level inspections are provided. A proven approach to designing and implementing an upgrade project for OSHA process safety management systems and EPA risk management program is described. The model presented can be targeted to a facility's NEP specific citations or used for a general PSM system effectiveness upgrade. This article includes recommendations for improving PSM as a result of an NEP inspection. The recommendations are for the PSM elements that routinely have major OSHA citations; that is: Operating Procedures, Mechanical Integrity, Process Hazards Analysis, Process Safety Information, Management of Change, and Incident Investigations. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009     

Information Technology, US Union Organizing and Union Effectiveness

This paper examines the effects of information technology (IT) on organizing and union effectiveness in US national unions. Original survey data and data from government and independent sources are combined to model outcomes including membership growth, success in representation elections, and union leaders' assessments of effectiveness as a product of environmental and organizational characteristics. The results suggest that the practical impact of IT use on organizing outcomes can be quite important. Evidence regarding the impact of IT on overall effectiveness (i.e. organizational or union effectiveness) is more mixed.     

Influences on Trade Union Organizing Effectiveness in Britain

Do British trade unions vary in their effectiveness in maintaining organization and membership in workplaces where they have an established bargaining presence? Do highly developed national union recruitment strategies and innovation in recruitment strategy boost consolidatory organizing and recruitment effectiveness (CORE)? Results suggest that (1) there is some variation in internal organising effectiveness between unions, and (2) national union innovation in recruitment policy is positively associated with internal organizing effectiveness where unions organize blue‐collar workers, but negatively associated with internal organizing effectiveness where unions organize white‐collar workers.     

Effectiveness of Individual and Aggregate Compensation Strategies

Based on a sample of 175 scientists and engineers, this study shows that individual-based rewards (either in the form of merit pay or individual bonuses) are perceived as less effective than aggregate incentive strategies for R & D workers. The pay effectiveness measures used here include pay satisfaction, propensity to leave, project performance, and individual performance. All things considered, team-based bonuses are perceived as the most effective rewards in an R & D setting. The findings also indicate that employees with a low willingness to take risks are more likely to experience withdrawal cognition if they work for a firm that relies on variable compensation.     

对油田物资供应质量控制有效性的思考

通过对物资供应质量控制有效性的研究思考,从物资供应的全过程详细阐述了质量控制有效性的途径,这将对物资供应工作的优质高效运作和发展产生积极的影响,对全面提升油田物资供应质量管理水平起到积极的促进作用。     

The R&D Effectiveness Index: A Metric for Product Development Performance

Measuring the overall success of product development efforts has been frustrating because there is no generally recognized metric to measure effectiveness. The R&D Effectiveness Index is introduced to address this need. It measures effectiveness by comparing the profit from new products to the investment in new product development. The article provides the details for calculating the index along with alternative interpretations. Michael McGrath and Michael Romeri report that this index was validated through a study of 45 electronic systems companies. They found a strong relationship between the R&D Effectiveness Index and other performance factors and believe that the R&D Effectiveness Index can be used to compare performance, measure improvement, and evaluate business units. Its application is illustrated in a case study.     

Effectiveness of Mediation Strategies in Collective Bargaining

Effectiveness of mediation strategies is analyzed in two different types of collective labor conflicts: rights conflicts and conflicts of interests. The sample consists of 106 professional labor mediators who completed a questionnaire about the strategies they used and the outcomes they achieved in their most recent mediation intervention. Results from regression analysis indicate that while the use of substantive and contextual strategies is positively related to effectiveness in both types of conflict, the use of reflexive strategies is negatively related to effectiveness, particularly in rights conflicts.     

提升质量管理有效性的途径

结合石油企业实际,就如何提升质量管理的有效性,从质量体系建设、过程控制、质量监督、质量考核、质量文化建设等方面进行了分折和探讨,进而通过提升质量管理的有效性,提高产品、工程和服务质量水平,推动石油企业各项业务快速健康发展。     

石油企业质量监督有效性探讨

近年来,石油企业不断规范质量监督管理,强化产品质量监督抽查工作,采购物资和自产产品质量得到了较为有效的控制。根据石油企业的行业特点,针对产品质量特性要求,就如何提高石油企业质量监督的有效性,以及制度建设、抽查计划、抽查重点、验证采购、不合格处理等环节进行了分析和探讨。