Wrongful termination: Balancing employer and employee rights—A summary with recommendations

The employer's right to terminate for any cause has been seriously constrained. Recent court rulings and discrimination legislation make employee termination a hazardous undertaking. The prevailing logic is based on the concept of just cause. This concept attempts to balance employer, employee, and society's rights and fit action to the situation. Recommended management action involves little more than careful management of human resources as practiced by well managed firms for many years.     

Are human resource practices linked to employee misconduct?: A rational choice perspective

This paper explains how well intended HR practices associated with performance appraisal and compensation can be linked to employee misconduct. Based on a rational choice perspective to ethical behavior, different types of HR configurations are likely to either increase the perceived costs or benefits of employee misconduct. This paper links specific HR configurations with both perceived costs and benefits of employee misconduct. Finally, this paper concludes with recommendations that are designed to promote both effective job performance and minimize problems of employee misconduct.     

Are emergers a threat to the global recovery?

Last year the emergers led the global recovery with the advanced economies lagging, but in recent months there has been a range of positive indicators across the advanced economies, most notably the PMI surveys, with the US non‐manufacturing index reaching an eight‐year high in August and the UK composite index recording its highest ever reading in the same month. By contrast, the indicators from emerging economies have been more mixed and while some of the Chinese data have been better in recent months, the PMI surveys point to stagnation or contraction across a number of other emergers. While emerging economies will continue to make a large contribution to world growth, the global upturn is now being driven by strengthening domestic demand in the advanced economies.…     

Employee share ownership and investment concentration: which employee shareholders fail to diversify?

Using data from a survey of employees in three UK companies, the article examines concentration of savings in employer shares. It is found that a substantial minority of employees hold most of their savings in employer shares despite the risks. The article examines the distribution and determinants of portfolio concentration. It is found that portfolio concentration is more likely to be found among men, those on higher incomes, and those who are in early middle-age. Regression analysis indicates that organisational commitment and the duration of participation in the share ownership plan also affects the probability of having a concentrated portfolio. There is no clear evidence that those with substantial concentrations of employer shares take active steps to monitor their investments more closely than those with smaller shareholdings.     

Understanding constant connectivity to work: How and for whom is constant connectivity related to employee well-being?

Over the past few decades, the widespread use of mobile work devices (MWDs: e.g., laptops and smartphones) has enabled constant connectivity to work. This study advances previous work on the effects of constant connectivity for employees by focusing on how and for whom constant connectivity might be related to employee well-being. Additionally, organizational-level antecedents of constant connectivity are investigated. This paper reports on two survey studies that a) operationalize constant connectivity and its organizational antecedents and b) investigate the relationship between constant connectivity and employee well-being. The findings demonstrate that constant connectivity is negatively related to employees' well-being due to the inability to disengage from work. Moreover, this negative association exists independently of employees' boundary preferences. The findings further suggest that perceived alignment between perceived functional, physical, and symbolic connectivity aspects of MWDs and occupational identity, susceptibility to social pressure, and the visibility of co-workers' communication practices all contribute to constant connectivity in the workplace.     

Exploring factors relating to extinction disclosures: What motivates companies to report on biodiversity and species protection?

This paper seeks to contribute to the existing business strategy and the environment literature by investigating the disclosure practices of biodiversity/extinction (B/E) and threatened species. We use greenwashing theory to understand global companies' motivation to report on B/E information. Data are collected from 200 Fortune Global companies for 3 years. We develop our comprehensive 53 disclosure index and create and test OLS regression model to measure the relationships between B/E disclosures and its determinants factors including environmental performance, industry sector, country, assurance, environmental awards, presence of biodiversity partners, and the number of species' related disclosure. Our results reveal that there are positive significant relationships between B/E disclosure and assurance provided by the Big 4: gaining an environmental award, companies from high biodiversity risk sectors, developing countries, presence of biodiversity partners, and how many specific biodiversity words are published in companies' reports. On the other hand, there are positive insignificant relationships between B/E disclosure and assurance: poor performers and the number of species disclosed in companies' reports. Our findings have important implications for regulators and policymakers. Our evidence appears to be robust when controlling for possible endogeneities.     

Can employee ownership and human resource management policies clash in worker cooperatives? Lessons from a defunct cooperative

The article analyzes the interaction between employee ownership, HRM policies and practices, and HRM outcomes in what was the world's biggest industrial worker cooperative for decades, and now defunct, Fagor Electrodomésticos. Using longitudinal internal data and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, this paper sheds light on how employee ownership conditioned HRM policies. HRM outcomes—such as job satisfaction and absenteeism—are also analyzed over a long period of time. Chronic nepotism when recruiting new members, failures in the training policy, impoverished and Taylorist working systems, and reverse dominance hierarchies are analyzed as factors that increased free riding and caused low satisfaction and the disengagement of working members. This case study contributes to the literature on HRM and worker cooperatives as it provides some insights that are rarely found in that literature. It also provides guidance to worker cooperatives about increasing the fit between employee ownership and HRM policies and outcomes.     

Economic policies: still shackled by post-war euphoria?

This country's economic and social policies remain dominated by the war-time consensus: Keynes and Beveridge and the full-employment White Paper, and belief that the state is best qualified to'run the economy.'The so-called monetarist and Thatcher revolutions failed to re-shape policy-making. Dependence on the rate of interest to suppress inflation, the staple of successive governments'macroeconomic policy, represents a neo-Keynesian survival and is a major source of our distempers. It needs reconsideration ab initio .     

From pay to praise? Non-cash employee recognition in Canadian and Australian firms

Despite deep theoretical roots, a prominent place in the practitioner literature, and increasing use by organizations, non-cash employee recognition plans have thus far received relatively little empirical study by academic researchers. Drawing on survey data from 349 Canadian and Australian firms, this study examines the incidence of individually based and group-based non-cash recognition (NCR) programmes, ascertains whether there are relationships between use of non-cash and cash-based reward practices, and identifies possible predictors of NCR programmes. Results indicate that non-cash plans are indeed common in both countries, but do not appear to substitute for cash-based performance plans, contrary to enthusiasts' suggestions. The most important predictor of non-cash programmes is unionization, which is negatively related to both individually based and group-based NCR programs in Canada, and to group-based programmes in Australia.     

Channels of employee voice: complementary or competing for space?

This article identifies the existence of employee voice channels and examines how they interact within the context of an overall organisational voice system. In so doing, we can better appreciate the disparities between the micro‐level reality and macro‐level rhetoric of employee voice for highly skilled employees in the knowledge intensive sector. Drawing on an instrumental, inductive case study involving managers and, most notably, employees, the research finds that the plurality of mechanisms provided for voice appears to cause some confusion that leads to a neglect of certain channels and others competing for attention. This raises the issue, which has not received attention thus far, as to whether the availability of multiple voice channels can have counter‐productive effects whereby they start to compete with rather than complement each other.     

Regulatory Uncertainty: A Reason to Postpone Investments? Not Necessarily

There is a polarity in the literature as to whether companies do or do not postpone investment decisions in the light of regulatory uncertainty. In the case of flexible regulation characterized by a high degree and discontinuous resolution of uncertainty, we show that companies do not necessarily postpone investment decisions. We trace this observation back to three motivations: securing competitive resources, leveraging complementary resources, and alleviating institutional pressure. We connect these motivations to fundamental principles of the resource-based view and institutional theory and further show the existence of a regime where institutionally motivated and resource-based actions are not necessarily decoupled. We base our research on a case study covering 80 per cent of the German power generation industry which faces regulatory uncertainty from the European CO₂ Emission Trading Scheme.     

To the victor belong the spoils? A theoretical investigation of star employee hierarchies

Star employees are characterized by their high-status position in organizations. Yet, important distinctions in stardom are likely to exist among stars within an organization. These distinctions, in turn, may have important implications for not only the organization but also the stars themselves. Examining star employees via a resource perspective, we integrate conservation of resources theory and the theory of self-control strength to examine the risks and benefits associated with different levels of stardom. In this work we introduce and investigate two unique star profiles identified as the “superstar” and the “understudy.” Specifically, we examine both the potentially unforeseen risks associated with superstar status and the unanticipated benefits associated with understudy status. We further consider how characteristics of stars and contextual factors may serve as important contingencies. Given the extent to which stars guide organizational success and the intention of many employees to reach various levels of stardom, this work has important theoretical and practical implications.     

Numerical Maximisation of Likelihood: A Neglected Alternative to EM?

There is by now a long tradition of using the EM algorithm to find maximum‐likelihood estimates (MLEs) when the data are incomplete in any of a wide range of ways, even when the observed‐data likelihood can easily be evaluated and numerical maximisation of that likelihood is available as a conceptually simple route to the MLEs. It is rare in the literature to see numerical maximisation employed if EM is possible. But with excellent general‐purpose numerical optimisers now available free, there is no longer any reason, as a matter of course, to avoid direct numerical maximisation of likelihood. In this tutorial, I present seven examples of models in which numerical maximisation of likelihood appears to have some advantages over the use of EM as a route to MLEs. The mathematical and coding effort is minimal, as there is no need to derive and code the E and M steps, only a likelihood evaluator. In all the examples, the unconstrained optimiser nlm available in R is used, and transformations are used to impose constraints on parameters. I suggest therefore that the following question be asked of proposed new applications of EM: Can the MLEs be found more simply and directly by using a general‐purpose numerical optimiser?     

How to design virus containment policies? A joint analysis of economic and epidemic dynamics under the COVID-19 pandemic

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - We analyze the impact of different designs of COVID-19-related lockdown policies on economic loss and mortality using a micro-level simulation...     

Should the firm or the employee pay for upskilling? A contract theory approach

Upskilling involves costly effort on behalf of existing employees to acquire new skills that are required to execute high value-added projects. A firm-financed training scheme allows the screening of applicants but comes with the cost of hidden actions, as some employees might train themselves yet continue working on low-value projects. A policy relying on worker self-training and incentive compatible contracts allows attracting more workers to high-value projects, yet it must grant a positive informational rent to flexible workers. The analysis reveals the optimal contract specific to each of the two training schemes. The profit comparison shows that the training strategy depends on how large is the net value created by upskilling, which is a characteristic of the business or industry.     

Does capital structure differently affect incumbents' responses to entry threat and actual entry?

Some theories predict that firms with higher financial leverage compete more aggressively in product markets than firms with lower financial leverage, whereas others predict that lower‐leverage firms compete more aggressively than higher‐leverage firms. This paper studies how incumbent airlines' capital structure affects their responses to Southwest Airlines' entry threat and actual entry. The results indicate that, when responding to entry threat, lower‐leverage incumbents cut prices more aggressively than higher‐leverage incumbents; in contrast, when responding to actual entry, higher‐leverage incumbents cut prices more aggressively than lower‐leverage incumbents.     

Organizational citizenship behaviour and employee retention: how important are turnover cognitions?

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between perceived job alternatives, intention to search, intention to leave and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), with a view to determining the extent to which these variables are related. Two surveys using separate samples (Study 1, n = 651, and Study 2, n = 226) were used. First, in both studies, perceived job alternatives provided a better account of OCB towards the organization (sportsmanship and civic virtue) than OCB towards individuals (helping and altruism). Second, the results of Studies 1 and 2 indicate that the relationships between OCB and intention to search and between OCB and intention to quit are different. The findings suggest that one part of the research model appears to be generalizable, while the other part appears to be explained by the context of employment. The implications of the findings are discussed.