Perceived Trustworthiness of Supervisors,Employee Satisfaction and Cooperation

Abstract

This study examines the value of trustworthiness of supervisors within US federal agencies. Although public administration scholars have paid attention to trust as a managerial resource, more empirical evidence is still needed. The authors test whether perceived trustworthiness of supervisors works as a valuable managerial resource within federal agencies. Following Mayer et al. (1995 Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H. and Schoorman, D. 1995. An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3): 709–34. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), this study assumes trustworthiness as a multi-dimensional concept composed of ability, benevolence and integrity. Drawing on data from a large-scale survey of US federal employees, the research first tests whether these factors constitute the elements of supervisory trustworthiness of federal agencies by second-order confirmatory factor analysis. Then, using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, the research examines whether trustworthiness has positive associations with employee satisfaction and cooperation within work units. The analyses confirm that the three factors constitute trustworthiness as Mayer et al. (1995 Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H. and Schoorman, D. 1995. An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3): 709–34. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggest and that supervisory trustworthiness is substantially associated with the two outcomes.     

The effects of HRM practices and antecedents on organizational commitment among university employees

This paper examines which factors affect organizational commitment among Dutch university employees in two faculties with different academic identities (separatist versus hegemonist, Stiles, 2004 Stiles, D. 2004. Narcissus Revisited: The Values of Management Academics and their Role in Business School Strategies in the UK and Canada. British Journal of Management, 15(2): 157–75. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The analyses of Web survey data reveal that in the separatist faculty decentralization, compensation, training/development, positional tenure and career mobility have significant effects. Age, organizational tenure, level of autonomy, working hours, social involvement and personal importance significantly affect the employees' organizational commitment in the hegemonist faculty. Participation, social interactions and job level are factors that are important in both faculties. The findings indicate that the set of factors affecting the organizational commitment of employees differs between the separatist and hegemonist faculties. The findings empirically support the argument that different configurations or ‘bundles’ of HRM practices (Delery and Doty, 1996 Delery, J.E. and Doty, D.H. 1996. Modes of Theorizing in Strategic Human Resource Management: Tests of Universalistic, Contingency, and Configurational Performance Predictions. Academy of Management Journal, 39(4): 802–35. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Guest, 1997 Guest, D.E. 1997. Human Resource Management and Performance: A Review and Research Agenda. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 8(3): 263–76. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) are suited for organizations with different identities. Explanations for the observed relationships, implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Augmenting the Input–Output Framework for ‘Common Pool’ Resources: Operationalising the Full Leontief Environmental Model

In its initial formulation, the full Leontief (1970) Leontief, W. 1970. Environmental repercussions and the economic structure: an input–output approach. Review of Economics and Statistics, 52: 262–277. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] environmental model augments the conventional Input–Output (IO) table by introducing pollution generation and separately identified pollution elimination sectors. Essentially it extends IO analysis to incorporate the use of a ‘common pool’ resource. Subsequent literature has either been analytical in nature or has concentrated on pollution generation but not cleaning activity. In this paper we generate an empirical full Leontief environmental IO system, based on augmenting the existing Scottish IO tables through endogenising waste generation and waste disposal activity. Due to weaknesses in data, our empirical results need to be treated with some caution. However, the construction of the extended IO system and the interpretation of the output and price multiplier results raise a number of interesting practical and conceptual issues. The analysis undertaken here can be extended to other ‘common pool’ resources such as the use of highways and irrigation systems.     

Experiential regret in service failure: The role of service justices

ABSTRACT

Regret is so common as to be the second most frequently named emotion in a study of the use of emotions in everyday language (Shimanoff, 1984 Shimanoff, S. B. (1984). Commonly named emotions in everyday conversations. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 58, 514. doi:10.2466/pms.1984.58.2.514[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Regret is a negative, cognitively based emotion that we experience when realizing or imagining that our present situation would have been better had we acted differently (Zeelenberg, 1999 Zeelenberg, M. (1999). The use of crying over spilled milk: A note on the rationality and functionality of regret. Philosophical Psychology, 12, 325–340. doi:10.1080/095150899105800[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Meanwhile, complaint handling takes an important role in raising the retention rate of the customers who experience service problems (Hart, Heskett, & Sasser, 1990 Hart, C. W. L., Heskett, J. L., & Sasser, W. E., Jr. (1990). The profitable art of service recovery. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 148–156.[PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Customers anticipate that enterprises will remedy their service failure. The complaining process enhances the relationship between dissatisfied customers and enterprises (Chebat & Slusarczyk, 2005 Chebat, J. C., & Slusarczyk, W. (2005). How emotions mediate the effects of perceived justice on loyalty in service recovery situations: An empirical study. Journal of Business Research, 58, 664–673. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2003.09.005[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). One of the strategies to retain customers is to recover justice from failures (Blodgett, Hill, & Tax, 1997 Blodgett, J. G., Hill, D. J., & Tax, S. S. (1997). The effects of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice on postcomplaint behavior. Journal of Retailing, 73(2), 185–210. doi:10.1016/s0022-4359(97)90003-8[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This study intended to explore the impact of customers’ experiential regret in service failure on customers’ behavioral intention and investigate whether the service justice perceived by customers moderates the relationship between these two.     

Average employee tenure,voluntary turnover ratio,and labour productivity: evidence from Japanese firms

Using Japanese firms' data, this study shows that voluntary turnover ratio is negatively related to firm labour productivity. While recent studies have reported the negative influence of turnover on organizational performance (Kacmar et al., 2006 Kacmar, K.M., Andrews, M.C., van Rooy, D.L., Steilberg, R.C. and Cerrone, S. 2006. Sure Everyone can be Replaced… But at What Cost? Turnover as a Predictor of Unit-Level Performance. Academy of Management Journal, 49: 133–44. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Shaw et al., 2005a Shaw, J.D., Gupta, N. and Delery, J.E. 2005a. Alternative Conceptualizations of the Relationship between Voluntary Turnover and Organizational Performance. Academy of Management Journal, 48: 50–68. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), they analysed only US samples. Our study contributes to researchers' efforts to generalize the relationship between voluntary turnover and organizational performance. Turnover is detrimental to labour productivity as it reduces the stock of firm-specific human capital that a firm retains. Findings suggest that firm average employee tenure mediates the relationship between voluntary turnover and labour productivity.     

Special Issue on Tax Research

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the links that continue to be forged between security pricing and accounting, building on recent findings that firms tend to be asymmetrically conservative in the timeliness of earnings recognition. The evidence is that firms in the European Union tend to recognise unrealised losses more quickly in their earnings than unrealised gains (Giner and Rees, 2001 Giner, B. and Rees, W. 2001. On the asymmetric recognition of good and bad news in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 28(9/10): 1285–1331.  [Google Scholar]; Raonic et al., forthcoming), and there is evidence of even greater accounting conservatism in the USA (Basu, 1997 Basu, S. 1997. The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24: 3–37. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Ball et al., 2000 Ball, R., Kothari, S. P. and Robin, A. 2000. The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 1–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Givoly and Hayn, 2000 Givoly, D. and Hayn, C. 2000. The changing time-series properties of earnings, cash flows and accruals: has financial reporting become more conservative?. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 287–320. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This paper investigates whether the Czech market exhibits conformity with the behaviour that has been documented elsewhere by examining the earnings/returns relationship, focusing to begin with on the impact of losses on earnings response coefficients and then considering the asymmetric timeliness of income recognition in the Czech market. The findings indicate that the Czech market is similar to more developed markets, at least in one respect: there is statistically significant evidence of different market effects of profits and losses, in that profits are more persistent than losses. However, contrary to the findings in more developed markets, there is no statistically significant evidence of earnings conservatism in the Czech market. These results are most probably due to the continuing influence of restrictive tax regulations that mitigate any tendency towards conservatism, as well as the transitional nature of the economy. A further reason is likely to be that the regulatory environment in the Czech Republic is close to the kind of stakeholder corporatism that is described by Ball et al. (2000) Ball, R., Kothari, S. P. and Robin, A. 2000. The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 1–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], who show that conservatism tends to be less pronounced in such regimes where there are fewer managerial incentives to bias current earnings. In conclusion, if changes in market prices signal good news and bad news about future risky outcomes, there is no evidence of asymmetry in the Czech market in accounting for such risks.     

Variability in the Organizational Climate of Government Offices and Affective Organizational Commitment

Abstract

This study examined the shared perceptions of 739 professional and technical employees regarding organizational climate and the strength of affective commitment in fifty-one geographically dispersed offices of an agency of state government. The results indicated that the level of affective commitment in these offices could be predicted reliably (adjusted R 2 2James and colleagues (James et al., 1978 James, L. R., Hater, J. J., Gent, M. J. and Bruni, J. R. 1978. Psychological Climate: Implications fromCognitive Social Learning Theory and Interactional Psychology. Personnel Psychology, 31: 783–813. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Jones and James, 1979 Jones, A. P. and James, L. R. 1979. Psychological Climate: Dimensions and Relationships of Individual andAggregated Work Environment Perceptions. Organization Behavior and Human Performance, 23: 201–50. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) initially identified five domains of climate, but in subsequent work they included only four domains. Aspects of the fifth domain, organizational and subsystem attributes, were included in the first (i.e. role stress and lack of harmony) and fourth domains (i.e. social environment characteristics) of their model.  = .75) from three of the eight dimensions of organizational climate included in the study: goal ambiguity, social cohesion and fairness and equity. Implications of these results with respect to developing effective human resource management strategies in public sector organizations are discussed in detail.     

When knowledge management meets HR strategy: an exploration of personalization-retention and codification-recruitment configurations

The resource-based view and the knowledge-based view are important developments in strategic management theory, and ‘knowledge management’ has exploded in the popular management literature. There is, however, little empirical literature that explores the connections between firms' attempts at knowledge management and their HR strategies. In this paper, we focus particularly on links between knowledge management and staffing practices. High-technology manufacturing was selected as the site of our research, as high-technology firms rely on highly skilled employees to innovate and develop new products and are therefore an ideal environment for exploring the strategies employed for both managing knowledge, and recruiting and retaining employees. Drawing particularly on the work of Hansen et al. (1999 Hansen, M.T., Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. 1999. What's Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge?. Harvard Business Review, March–April:, : 106–16. [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), this paper identifies and explores two fits between knowledge management and HR strategy or what we call KM-HR configurations: ‘personalization-retention’ and ‘codification-recruitment’. We argue that there is no one way to manage knowledge and its links to HRM and build a simple framework of potential KM-HR configurations with propositions for future research.     

Estimating the impact of enterprise resource planning project management decisions on post-implementation maintenance costs: a case study using simulation modelling

Organisations often make implementation decisions with little consideration for the maintenance phase of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, resulting in significant recurring maintenance costs. Poor cost estimations are likely related to the lack of an appropriate framework for enterprise-wide pre-packaged software maintenance, which requires an ongoing relationship with the software vendor (Markus, M.L., Tanis, C., and Fenema, P.C., 2000 Markus, M. L., Tanis, C. and Fenema, P. C. 2000. Multisite ERP implementation. CACM, 43(4): 42–46. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Multisite ERP implementation. CACM, 43 (4), 42–46). The end result is that critical project decisions are made with little empirical data, resulting in substantial long-term cost impacts. The product of this research is a formal dynamic simulation model that enables theory testing, scenario exploration and policy analysis. The simulation model ERPMAINT1 was developed by combining and extending existing frameworks in several research domains, and by incorporating quantitative and qualitative case study data. The ERPMAINT1 model evaluates tradeoffs between different ERP project management decisions and their impact on post-implementation total cost of ownership (TCO). Through model simulations a variety of dynamic insights were revealed that could assist ERP project managers. Major findings from the simulation show that upfront investments in mentoring and system exposure translate to long-term cost savings. The findings also indicate that in addition to customisations, add-ons have a significant impact on TCO.     

ADDING SUPPLY-DRIVEN CONSUMPTION MAKES THE GHOSH MODEL EVEN MORE IMPLAUSIBLE

Guerra and Sancho (2011) Guerra, A.-I. and Sancho, F. 2011. Revisiting the Original Ghosh Model: Can It Be Made More Plausible?. Economic Systems Research, 23: 319–328. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] argue that adding a supply-driven consumption function to the Ghosh model diminishes its implausibility in the case of centrally planned economies. Extending the Leontief model with a demand-driven consumption function does make that model more realistic. Extending the Ghosh model, however, makes it even more implausible in the case of a market economy, while it becomes even more problematic as a guide for a centrally planned economy. The prime reason is that complementarities between inputs are negated, not only for firms, but now also for households. Consequently, industry and aggregate output may now increase, while corresponding value added decreases, and vice versa.     

Coordination Costs and the Geography of Production

In a model à la Venables of 1996 Venables, A. J. (1996) Equilibrium locations of vertically linked industries, International Economic review, 37, 341–359. doi: 10.2307/2527327[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], we distinguish two kinds of intermediate goods: complex goods that entail endogenous coordination costs, and simple goods that do not. Coordination costs depend on geographical distance and the number of intermediate goods used in the production process. In the final stage of integration, there are two possible spatial configurations: (1) a symmetric configuration and (2) a partial core–periphery equilibrium, comprised of a core region that produces the final and complex intermediate goods, and a periphery that produces simple intermediate goods. We discuss some policy implications of this multiple-equilibria outcome.

Les coûts de coordination et la géographie de la production     

Cultural distance in international business and management: from mean-based to variance-based measures

Extant practice in international management is to measure cultural distance as a nation-to-nation comparison of country means on cultural values, thereby ignoring the cultural variation that exists within countries. We argue that these traditional mean-based measures of cultural distance should take within-country cultural variation into account. Therefore, we propose the use of variance-based measures of cultural distance. To illustrate our argument, we examine total US foreign affiliate sales in more than 40 host countries over the 1983–2008 period, complemented with data from the World Values Survey. We analyze the effects of three cultural distance measures: the Kogut and Singh (1988 Kogut, B., and Singh, H. (1988), ‘The Effect of National Culture on the Choice of Entry Mode,’ Journal of International Business Studies, 19, 411–432.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) mean-based index of cultural distance, the Kogut and Singh (1988 Kogut, B., and Singh, H. (1988), ‘The Effect of National Culture on the Choice of Entry Mode,’ Journal of International Business Studies, 19, 411–432.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) index conditioned by host-country cultural variation and a variance-based measure that takes into account both home- and host-country cultural variation. Our findings indicate that, when within-country cultural variation is taken into account, the explanatory power of the Kogut and Singh (1988 Kogut, B., and Singh, H. (1988), ‘The Effect of National Culture on the Choice of Entry Mode,’ Journal of International Business Studies, 19, 411–432.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) index is substantially decreased. In addition, our variance-based measure of cultural distance outperforms the Kogut and Singh (1988 Kogut, B., and Singh, H. (1988), ‘The Effect of National Culture on the Choice of Entry Mode,’ Journal of International Business Studies, 19, 411–432.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) measure in the explanation of foreign US sales. We therefore suggest to move from mean-based to variance-based measures of cultural distance, thereby taking the cultural variation within countries into account.     

A GRAS VARIANT SOLVING FOR MINIMUM INFORMATION LOSS

The fundamental idea in Junius and Oosterhaven (2003) Junius, T. and Oosterhaven, J. 2003. The Solution of Updating or Regionalizing a Matrix with both Positive and Negative Entries. Economic Systems Research, 15: 87–96. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] is to break down the information contained in the a priori data into two parts: algebraic signs, and absolute values. This approach is well grounded in information theory, and provides a basis on which to solve the problem of adjusting matrices with negative entries. However, Junius and Oosterhaven (2003) Junius, T. and Oosterhaven, J. 2003. The Solution of Updating or Regionalizing a Matrix with both Positive and Negative Entries. Economic Systems Research, 15: 87–96. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] have formulated a target function that is not equivalent to the Kullback and Leibler (1951) Kullback, S. and Leibler, R. A. 1951. On Information and Sufficiency. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 4: 99–111.  [Google Scholar] cross-entropy measure, and so is not a representation of the minimum information loss principle. Neither is the alternative target function proposed by Lenzen et al. (2007) Lenzen, M., Wood, R. and Gallego, B. 2007. Some Comments on the GRAS Method. Economic Systems Research, 19: 461–465. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]. This paper develops the exact Kullback and Leibler cross-entropy measure. In addition, following the constrained optimization approach, this paper applies the same principle to solve adjustment problems where row-sums, column-sums or both are constrained to zero.     

GRAS versus minimizing absolute and squared differences: a comment

Junius and Oosterhaven (2003) Junius, T. and Oosterhaven, J. 2003. The solution of updating or regionalizing a matrix with both positive and negative entries. Economic Systems Research, 15: 87–96. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] developed the GRAS algorithm that minimizes the information gain when updating input–output tables with both positive and negative signs. Jackson and Murray (2004) Jackson, R. W. and Murray, A. T. 2004. Alternative input–output matrix updating formulations. Economic Systems Research, 16: 135–148. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar], however, claim that minimizing squared differences in coefficients produces a smaller information gain, which is theoretically impossible. In this comment, calculation errors are sorted out from differences in measures, and it is shown that the information gain needs to be taken in absolute terms when increasing and decreasing cell values occur together. The numerical results show that GRAS outperforms both sign-preserving alternatives in all but one comparison of lesser economic importance. Moreover, as opposed to the result of Jackson and Murray, they show that minimizing absolute differences consistently outperforms minimizing squared differences, which overweighs large errors in small coefficients.     

The contribution of corporate social responsibility to organizational commitment

This study investigates the relationship between organizational commitment and employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within a model that draws on social identity theory. Specifically, we examine the impact of three aspects of socially responsible behaviour on organizational commitment: employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility in the community, procedural justice in the organization and the provision of employee training. The relationship between organizational commitment and each aspect of CSR is investigated within a model that distinguishes between genders and includes a set of control variables that is drawn from the commitment literature (Meyer et al., 2002 Meyer, J.P., Stanley, D.J., Herscovitch, L. and Topolnytsky, L. 2002. Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment to the Organization: A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents, Correlates, and Consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61: 20–52. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The analysis is based on a sample of 4,712 employees drawn from a financial services company. The results emphasize the importance of gender variation and suggest both that external CSR is positively related to organizational commitment and that the contribution of CSR to organizational commitment is at least as great as job satisfaction.     

Some Comments on the GRAS Method

Junius and Oosterhaven (2003) Junius, T. and Oosterhaven, J. 2003. The solution of updating or regionalizing a matrix with both positive and negative entries. Economic Systems Research, 15: 87–96. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] present a RAS matrix balancing variant that can incorporate negative elements in the balancing. There are, however, a couple of issues in the approach described – the first being the handling of zeros in the initial estimate, and the second being the formulation of their minimum-information principle. We present a corrected exposition of GRAS.     

The Role of Firm-Specific Incentives and Country Factors in Explaining Voluntary IAS Adoptions: Evidence from Private Firms

Abstract

This paper investigates voluntary adoptions of International Accounting Standards (IAS) by private enterprises, and builds on prior research which posits that higher quality financial reports through IAS adoption can reduce information asymmetry and facilitate contracting with external parties. Specifically, we pursue the following questions. First, do firm-specific incentives matter in the IAS adoption decision after controlling for country-level institutional factors? Second, does the relative importance of firm vs. country factors vary across institutional settings? Using a sample of 3,722 small and medium-sized private enterprises from 56 countries, we report two primary findings. First, both firm and country factors matter in the voluntary IAS adoption decision. Second, when we focus on sub-samples of countries partitioned by the level of economic development, we find that firm factors dominate country factors in more developed countries, while in less developed countries, country factors dominate firm factors in explaining IAS adoptions. This result is consistent with the argument in Doidge et al. (Journal of Financial Economics, 86(1), pp. 1–39, 2007 Doidge, C., Karolyi, A. and Stulz, R. 2007. Why do countries matter so much for corporate governance?. Journal of Financial Economics, 86(1): 1–39. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) that firm incentives are more important in explaining governance choices (including accounting) in more developed countries where the benefits from better governance are more likely to exceed the attendant costs. Collectively, our results suggest that less developed countries can enhance the benefits from IAS adoptions by developing institutions which facilitate private contracting.     

The influence of cross-cultural differences on job interview selection decisions

How the interview process affects foreign-born job candidates has received scant attention in recent research literature (Huffcutt 2011 Huffcutt, A.I. (2011), ‘An Empirical Review of the Employment Interview Construct Literature,’ International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19, 62–81.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), even though the issue should be growing in importance given the massive influx of qualified migrants entering developed countries. This paper examines the job interview through the lens of national culture and argues that cross-cultural differences between interviewer and interviewee can affect interview judgement and evaluation. Drawing upon the literatures in cross-cultural research and social psychology, this paper presents a model of cross-cultural differences on interview outcomes. In so doing, this conceptual study advances theory that underpins the employment selection process of foreign-born job candidates, and also provides a platform on which future empirical research may be based.     

Mobley revisited: dynamism in the process of employee turnover

In the employee turnover literature, studies of antecedents at static points prior to the ‘stay versus leave’ decision have generally not exhibited great predictive power. Mobley (1982 Mobley, W.H. 1982. Some Unanswered Questions in Turnover and Withdrawal Research. Academy of Management Review, 7(1): 111–6. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) suggests that such studies require the inclusion of change, time, actions and operations. A study is accordingly reported here in which employee recall of satisfaction, commitment and withdrawal intentions at three periods prior to the stay/leave decision is examined. Measures recalled at a single time (static) are found to be unreliable or even contrary to expectation. Alternately, change in variables is found to be significantly more predictive of final turnover than static measurements of these variables, especially over a year. Different antecedents appear to dominate in the turnover process at different times. Furthermore, antecedents differ over demographic groups, suggesting that movement capital may affect turnover.