What do we really know about EAPs?

The time has come to make a comprehensive, critical assessment of the increasingly popular EAPs. To date, with very few exceptions, only glowing reports in the literature are available. This EAP literature is reinterpreted and methodological flaws are identified in analyzing usage patterns, legal issues, success rates, and cost-benefit calculations. The real and potential weaknesses and limitations need to be recognized in order to make EAPs more effective for the 1990s.     

Advancing the field of employee assistance programs research and practice: A systematic review of quantitative studies and future research agenda

The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of organizational support for the workforce. An employee assistance program (EAP) represents an inclusive strategy which organizations adopt to provide supportive and empathic care to help employees overcome undesirable situations. To date, we have limited knowledge of what EAP issues have been researched from the human resource management (HRM) perspective and what theoretical underpinning these studies have used. This article systematically reviews quantitative empirical studies on EAPs. Drawing upon 115 articles from 72 journals across 40 years (1981–2020), we trace the evolutionary trend of the construct of EAP and shed light on the internal link of EAP with HRM. After summarizing research themes, methods, theories, and approaches to the evaluation of EAPs, we identify pitfalls in the current research and contribute to extending the field by proposing several research agendas for future investigation.     

EAPs (employee assistance programs): dawning of a new age

New EAPs are being developed to cope with a wide range of employee problems. A plan focused on compassion can meet employees' needs and favorably affect the bottom line.     

Evaluating the prevalence and distribution of dependent self‐employment: some lessons from the European Working Conditions Survey

This article advances understanding of the prevalence and distribution of dependent self‐employment. Analysing the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey of 35,765 employees in 28 European countries, the dependent self‐employed are found to comprise 4.3% (1 in 23) of the EU workforce, 47% of all those reporting themselves as self‐employed without employees and 31% of all self‐employed. The prevalence of dependent self‐employment, however, is found to have decreased since the previous 2010 survey, is not found to be concentrated among marginalised population groups and is significantly more likely in agriculture, forestry and fishing, arts, entertainment, recreation and other service activities, and the household services sector. The implications for theorising and tackling dependent self‐employment are discussed.     

Work–family conflict,family satisfaction and employee well‐being: a comparative study of Australian and Indian social workers

Work‐to‐family conflict and family‐to‐work conflict have been widely investigated as antecedents of well‐being in various employee groups. However, these studies have largely been performed in Western countries, and only a few studies have investigated the phenomenon using both Western and non‐Western samples. The present study contributes to the literature by investigating work–family conflict experiences of social workers in Australia and India. More specifically, it explores the impact of work‐to‐family conflict and family‐to‐work conflict on well‐being and the mediating role of family satisfaction in this relationship. Our findings reveal the direct negative effects of work‐to‐family conflict on well‐being and family satisfaction in both groups and of family‐to‐work conflict on well‐being of Indian social workers. There is evidence that family satisfaction mediates work–family conflict and well‐being relationships in both samples. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings for HRM policies in social service agencies of both countries.     

Housing Allowances and Economic Efficiency

Housing allowances aim to make rental housing affordable for the recipients. Whether affordability for tenants is achieved in an economically efficient way is the question that is discussed in this essay. Three aspects of efficiency are focused on: disincentives to work, over‐consumption of housing and horizontal inefficiency. These topics are tackled through a discussion that focuses mainly on the principles, but also on some of the outcomes, of the means‐tested housing allowance systems in six Western countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden. Conclusions concern the apparent unimportance of the poverty trap or the unemployment trap specifically for rental housing, the concept of notional rent used to tackle over‐consumption, and the frequent existence of some form of horizontal inefficiency.     

State Rescaling in Non‐Western Contexts

State rescaling is the subject of a continuously growing literature that provides valuable insights into our current understandings of globalization, the spatiality of the capitalist state and urban and regional development. There have been, however, growing concerns about the wider applicability of this literature. Since the bulk of state rescaling studies have focused on North American and European examples, the existing literature is limited in its conceptualization of the diverse and concrete ways in which the spatial and scalar restructuring of capitalist states takes place in different historical, political and social contexts beyond North America and Western Europe. This symposium provides the literature with a valuable opportunity to transcend this limitation. The articles in this collection discuss the processes of state rescaling in non‐Western countries such as Japan, Korea, Brazil and Turkey. By providing detailed explanations of state rescaling and the associated politico‐economic processes in non‐Western countries and regions, they not only show that state‐rescaling literature is more widely applicable and meaningful beyond Western politico‐economic contexts, but also point out what is missing in the existing corpus.     

Human Capital Investment and Work Incentives

Traditional human capital theory based on the work by Gary Becker shows that firms do not invest in general human capital but offer firm‐specific training that is only useful for the training firm. I extend the traditional approach by adding two natural assumptions—workers cannot be forced to acquire new knowledge, and they exert unobservable effort to produce valuable output for their employer. I show under which conditions firms do not offer firm‐specific training but invest in general human capital, which increases the workers' outside option. This investment behavior is well in line with the documented prevalence of industry‐specific and occupation‐specific human capital over firm‐specific human capital.     

Real and Accrual‐Based Earnings Management in the Pre‐ and Post‐IFRS Periods: Evidence from China

The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of both accrual‐ and activities‐based earnings management for Chinese A‐share firms surrounding the adoption of substantially IFRS‐convergent accounting standards. Since 2007, all listed A‐share firms in China have been required to comply with a new set of accounting standards that have substantially conformed to IFRS. The new reform also produced a set of new auditing standards and internal control reporting requirements. Based on a sample of 4,050 firm‐year observations from 2002 to 2011, we find that Chinese firms in the post‐IFRS period (2007–2011) are less likely to engage in accrual‐based earnings management. The magnitude of discretionary accruals also declines after IFRS adoption. In response, we see firms turning to real activities manipulation as a substitute for upward earnings management. The reduction in accrual‐based earnings management could stem from higher quality accounting standards associated with IFRS adoption and/or concurrent changes in the governance regimes introduced with the IFRS mandate. A further analysis, however, indicates that the benefits of IFRS adoption in curbing upward accrual‐based earnings manipulation are not evenly distributed across firms. Specifically, the benefit diminishes for firms that are controlled by Chinese central or local governments, are located in less developed regions, and that have weak financial performance and therefore subject to delisting status. We also find that the benefit is less pronounced for manufacturing firms than for their non‐manufacturing counterparts.     

International corruption and its impacts across entrepreneurship types

Using a large cross‐country sample, this paper examines the impact of corruption on entrepreneurial activities by uniquely addressing two questions: (a) Does the impact of corruption on entrepreneurship vary across entrepreneurship type? (b) How does the effect of corruption differ across nations with varying prevalence of entrepreneurship? Considering three dimensions of entrepreneurship, nascent entrepreneurship, new business owners, and established new business owners, results, accounting for possible two‐way causality, show that entrepreneurship is negatively affected by corruption across entrepreneurship types, with differences in the relative magnitudes of effects. This sanding effect of corruption, however, varies across the prevalence of corruption and switches to greasing for nascent entrepreneurs.     

Explaining cross‐national variations in the prevalence of envelope wages: some lessons from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey

The aim of this article is to evaluate competing theories that variously explain the greater prevalence of envelope wages in some countries either as: a legacy of under‐development (modernisation thesis); due to high taxes, state corruption and burdensome regulations and controls (neo‐liberal thesis), or a result of inadequate state intervention in work and welfare arrangements, which leaves workers less than fully protected (political economy thesis). Reporting a 2013 survey of cross‐national variations in the prevalence of envelope wages, the finding is that the results refute the neo‐liberal thesis but support both the modernisation and political economy theses, revealing that this illegitimate wage practice is more common in poorer, less equal countries with lower taxation and social protection levels and less effective redistribution via social transfers. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed.     

Nonlinear effects of government spending shocks in the USA: Evidence from state‐level data

This paper uses state‐level data to estimate the effect of government spending shocks during expansions and recessions. By employing a mixed‐frequency framework, we are able to include a long span of annual state‐level government spending data in our nonlinear quarterly panel VAR model. We find evidence that for the average state the fiscal multiplier is larger during recessions. However, there is substantial heterogeneity across the cross‐section. The degree of nonlinearity in the effect of spending shocks is larger in states that are subject to a higher degree of financial frictions. In contrast, states with a prevalence of manufacturing, mining and agricultural industries tend to have multipliers that are more similar across business cycle phases.     

Brinksmanship Redux: Employee Assistance Programs’ Precursors and Prospects

Originating in the U.S. 70 years ago as industrial alcoholism programs, and promoted for decades by R. Brinkley “Brink” Smithers, these programs finally gained popularity during the 1970s and 1980s, when they were renamed “employee assistance programs” and given a broader mission than identifying alcoholics. Attempting to change their image as instruments of coercion, EAPs added a variety of social work functions to their portfolios but, now primarily operating as external contractors, have seen cash flows fall dramatically in the face of intense competition from similar services. EAP practitioners have called for restoring the approach promoted by academics supported by Smithers, who aggressively maintain that eliminating behavioral health problems is the responsibility of employees rather than employers. This article compares the evidence addressing the efficacy of that approach with that of alternatives, being developed outside of the U.S., that expand employee rights.     

Stochastic differential equation modeling the prevalence of rare chronic diseases with an application to systemic lupus erythematosus

In this article we describe a system of stochastic differential equations to model the age‐specific prevalence of rare chronic diseases from incidence and mortality rates. As an application, the age profile of the prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus in England and Wales in1995 is calculated. The results are in good agreement with the observed epidemiological measures.     

INEQUALITY AND HAPPINESS

In recent years there has been an accumulation of empirical evidence suggesting that individuals dislike inequality. The literature has built upon estimating the degree of this dislike as well as its causes. The use of self‐reported measures of satisfaction or well‐being as a proxy for utility has been one of the empirical strategies used to this end. In this survey, we review the papers that estimate or examine the relationship between inequality and self‐reported happiness to conclude that inequality correlates negatively with happiness in Western societies. Some of the surveyed papers identify particular sources of heterogeneity on preferences over inequality. The evidence for non‐Western societies is more mixed and less reliable. Notwithstanding that, trust in the institutions seems to play an important role in shaping the relationship between income inequality and subjective well‐being. We conclude with suggestions for further research.     

Service Offshoring and the Skill Composition of Labour Demand*

This article studies the effects of service offshoring on the skill composition of labour demand, using novel comparable data for nine Western European countries between 1990 and 2004. The results show that service offshoring raises the relative demand for high‐ and medium‐skilled workers. Its effects are qualitatively identical, and quantitatively similar, to those of material offshoring. Additional evidence suggests, however, that the two types of offshoring may work through different channels: complementarity between imported services and domestic skills in the case of service offshoring, substitution of low‐skilled labour in the case of material offshoring. Overall, the effects are not large in economic terms.     

The role of leadership in successful international mergers and acquisitions: Why Renault‐Nissan succeeded and DaimlerChrysler‐Mitsubishi failed

This article compares and contrasts the Renault‐Nissan and DaimlerChrysler‐Mitsubishi mergers to consider the relative and combined effects of national and organizational culture on the performance of Nissan and Mitsubishi. It also examines the reasons why the Renault‐Nissan merger was successful and the DaimlerChrysler‐Mitsubishi merger failed. It finds that Japanese national culture influenced organizational culture and HRM practices, which created organizations that had no sense of urgency, profit orientation, or accountability and led to poor market and financial performance. It also finds that leadership was a major factor impacting on the success of the turnaround efforts of these two organizations. These findings have implications for leaders and human resource management practitioners engaged in international business and are of particular relevance to Western organizations working with organizations in high‐context countries with a collectivist rather than individualist orientation. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Monopoly and Anti‐Monopoly in China Today

For three decades after liberation in 1949, the Chinese economy consisted almost entirely of state monopolies. Economic reforms, starting in 1979, sought to increase the efficiency of the economy by introducing competitive practices in many sectors of the economy. But the Chinese economy has been partially administered by the state for over two millennia. As a result, both state‐managed and private monopolies are still an intrinsic part of the Chinese economy today. Despite two decades of anti‐monopoly reforms, state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) continue to dominate key sectors of the economy, particularly in resource extraction and financial services. The government is aware of the inefficiencies and corruption caused by monopolies, both public and private. But Chinese tradition takes a balanced view of social harms and weighs the damage caused by monopoly against the stability that SOEs have provided China in recent decades. There is less reason for China to tolerate private monopolies, but most of them have arisen in conjunction with digital technology because of its distinctive cost structure (high entry costs, low marginal costs). China has made some use of antitrust law, but most economic regulation in China is administrative. Thus the anti‐monopoly activities that are used to restrain monopoly power in China are different from Western practices.     

Modelling the effect of climate change on prevalence of malaria in western Africa

Malaria is a leading cause of infectious disease and death worldwide. As a common example of a vector‐borne disease, malaria could be greatly affected by the influence of climate change. Climate impacts the transmission of malaria in several ways, affecting all stages of the disease's development. Using various weather‐related factors that influence climate change, this study utilizes statistical analysis to determine the effect of climate change on reported malaria rates in an African region with endemic malaria. It examines the relationship between malaria prevalence and climate in western Africa using spatial regression modeling and tests for correlation. Our analysis suggests that minimal correlation exists between reported malaria rates and climate in western Africa. This analysis further contradicts the prevailing theory that climate and malaria prevalence are closely linked and negates the idea that climate change will increase malaria transmission in this region.     

Ending an Era of Population Control in China: Was the One‐Child Policy Ever Needed?

The one‐child policy of China, which was initiated in 1980 and was reversed in 2015, has been conceived of as a decision made independently and arbitrarily or a product of impulsive decision making. Therefore, it has received a great deal of criticism from Western democracies. Of course, China faced internal problems related to population, such as the Great Famine of 1958–1961. This might be deemed the direct cause of the one‐child policy. However, the more powerful factors were indirect and of foreign origin. China's one‐child policy was deeply influenced by the West, especially by Western population science. Since the May 4^th Movement in 1919, China has had a tendency to worship science because of the Chinese obsession with Western‐style modernization. In other words, China's one‐child policy is a product of blind imitation of Western population science. The action has resulted in serious negative consequences such as an imbalance of the sex ratio, elder‐care problems, human rights violations, undermining of traditional values, and even endangering the regime. Those problems caused China to reverse its one‐child policy. The authors believe that China should develop a postmodern population policy with Chinese character, based on organic thinking, which takes human feelings seriously and empowers people and allows them to act as subjects or agents in decisions about their families, including the size of their family and the selection of gender.