Banking Employees’ Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility,Value-Fit Commitment,and Turnover Intentions: Ethics as Social Glue and Attachment

Evidence suggests that efforts to improve corporate ethics and social responsibility are associated with enhanced work attitudes, but the nature of these relationships is still subject to investigation. Consequently, this study determines the degree to which perceptions of corporate social responsibility are related to individuals’ value-fit commitment and turnover intentions (both employee-reported and manager-reported). Information was obtained from subjects employed in a southern regional branch of a national banking and financial services institution. Two unique self-report questionnaires were developed to collect information from managers and employees, resulting in ninety-two matched pairs of forms. Mediation analysis indicated that perceived corporate social responsibility was associated with increased value-fit commitment, and that value-fit commitment was negatively related to employee-reported and manager-reported turnover intentions. The presence of full mediation was identified in both frameworks. These findings present a number of important managerial and research implications, which are discussed in this study.     

‘Znakomstva I Svyazi’ (Acquaintances and connections) – Blat,the Soviet Union,and mundane entrepreneurship

The discussion regarding entrepreneurship and society has often presupposed that this society by necessity will be one that embraces the market economy as a guiding principle. This paper questions this assumption by discussing a command economy, namely the Soviet Union, as a fundamentally entrepreneurial society. By introducing the case of the blat, ‘Russia’s economy of favours’, the paper illustrates how mundane individual economies can be a part of entrepreneurship, and how flexible opportunity networks can support the rigidity of a command economy. Continuing from this, the exclusion of such irregular economies is discussed from an ideological rather than an analytic standpoint. The paper further presents some inferences that can be drawn from the case of the blat and which problematizes common assumptions in entrepreneurship studies.     

Measuring the Returns to Networking and the Accumulation of Social Capital: Any Evidence of Bonding,Bridging, or Linking?

This article presents analyses of individual investment in social capital using both the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the UK Time Use Survey (2000) (UKTUS). We suggest a general theoretical framework that could possibly explain individual investment in various forms of social networking. Measures of social capital are then constructed in an attempt to capture the extent of individual investment in bonding, bridging, and linking networks. These measures, together with other socioeconomic indicators, are used as explanatory factors in wage equations, estimated using ordered probit, OLS, and instrumental variable approaches. We are unable to identify any consistent returns from investment in bonding and bridging networks. In contrast, the evidence suggests that any returns to investment in the development of linking social capital simply derive from the positive signals that group membership may transmit to potential employers. Our results underline the contrast between studies that consider social capital as an attribute of communities, as opposed to individuals, in that we find a negative return to social activity at the level of the individual.     

Deprived or not deprived? Comparing the measured extent of material deprivation using the UK government’s and the Poverty and Social Exclusion surveys’ method of calculating material deprivation

Poverty can either be measured directly, through standards of living such as material deprivation, or indirectly through resources available, usually income. Research shows that the optimum measure of poverty combines these methods, a fact that the UK government took cognisance of in its tripartite measure of child poverty. For use in a birth cohort study, two methods of calculating material deprivation were tested: the method used by the UK government taken from the Family Resources Survey (FRS), and the methods used in the Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) study at Bristol University. Results show that the former measure, compared to the latter measure, underestimates the depth and extent of material deprivation among families with young children in Scotland.     

Effect of the Government’s Use of Social Media on the Reliability of the Government: Focus on Twitter

Abstract

The social media have been well recognized as important spaces for providing the people with government service and PR policy and they have been utilized by most of the government entities. Therefore, we try to identify whether the social media can be used as tools to enhance the reliability of the government. This study indicates Twitter is different from other conventional channels not only in the form but also in substance. Therefore, the service prioritizing more on transparency, participation, and communication or relationship appears more desirable and is utilized to the maximum.     

Whose constituency? Representativeness of the Finnish Paper Workers' Union,innovation strategies,and outsourcing in the Finnish paper industry between 1980 and 2008

Outsourcing has been a conflictual issue in the Finnish paper industry, which reached a temporary solution in 2005. This article analyses the Paper Workers' Union's stance on outsourcing, arguing that it has been defending acquired rights and perhaps deliberately narrowed its representation of diverse constituencies over time.     

IN THE SHADOW OF ‘THE CITY’ YET TO COME: Auroville,Developmentalism and the Social Effects of Cityness

This article focuses on the planned community of Auroville in Tamil Nadu, India, founded in 1968. Building on critical readings of the settlement that have drawn attention to the power imbalance in its relationships with surrounding villages, the article delineates the ways that a geographical imagination of cityness has been a key component of the settlement's development and the forms of neo-coloniality in which it has been implicated. Drawing on archival and published sources as well as ethnographic research, the article discusses three ways in which the settlement performs a sense of its own ‘cityness-to-come’: first, the architectural discourse and planning rationality central to Auroville's identity; second, its agonistic public sphere vis-à-vis architecture and planning, and third, its ethos of learning and evolution, and the settlement's developmental teleology. In so doing, the article shows how ‘the city’ conceived as a textual and spatial promise, as well as a utopian aspiration, works ideologically to constitute the settlement itself, but also to precipitate social effects and uneven power relationships with village communities in this region. To sum up, this article develops an argument about the neo-colonial social work done by ‘the city’ conceived as text.     

Entrepreneurs’ networks and the success of start-ups

The network success hypothesis assumes a positive relation between the networking activities of founders and their start-up’s success. The rationale behind this hypothesis is the theory of socially embedded ties that allow entrepreneurs to get resources cheaper than they could be obtained on markets and to secure resources that would not be available on markets at all, e.g. reputation, customer contacts, etc.

This paper clarifies how entrepreneurial network activities can be measured and which indicators exist to quantify start-up success. It then reviews empirical studies on the network success hypothesis. The studies have rarely come up with significant results. This surprising evidence can be explained by large differences in the way that the dependent and the independent variables were defined and by effects of unobserved variables such as the networking expertise of the founders and the entrepreneurs’ level of existing know-how in the areas of co-operation and networking (‘absorptive capacity’). The major shortcomings of existing network studies are found to be the neglect of different starting conditions, the focus on individual founders’ networks instead of multiple networks in start-ups with an entrepreneurial team, and the assumption of a linear causal relation between networking and start-up success. Accordingly, the paper develops a new, extended model for the relation between entrepreneurial networks and start-up success. Finally, we make some suggestions for the further development of entrepreneurial network theory.     

International business travelers’ psychological well-being: the role of supportive HR practices

This study examines the effects of the job demands and job resources typical of international business travel (IBT) on psychological well-being (job exhaustion, vigor and satisfaction with work-related travel) among 232 Finnish IBTs. The study is theoretically based on the job demands-resources model and both health impairment and motivational processes were examined alongside the interaction effects of job demands and job resources. Path analysis based on structural equation modeling showed that, of the job demands, workload and pressure experienced in work demanding IBT predicted job exhaustion, but risks related to travel destinations did not. Viewed as job resources, supportive HR practices for traveling (well-functioning and safe travel arrangements and an opportunity for post-travel recovery) predicted vigor and satisfaction with traveling work. They also provided a buffer against the negative effects of the risks of travel destinations on job exhaustion and boosted satisfaction with work travel under circumstances of high risk related to travel destinations. Our findings indicate that organizations should pay greater attention to the workload and the pressure under which IBTs work, and develop supportive HR practices, especially for IBTs who experience high safety and health risks, for example, at their destination.     

What's the point of European Sectoral Social Dialogue? Effectiveness and polycontexturality in the hospital and metal sectors

Drawing on pragmatism and systems theory, this article analyses how participants in the European Sectoral Social Dialogue in the metal and hospital committees understand its effectiveness. We find that the participants have a broad understanding of effectiveness compared with the European Commission and existing research. Participants do not dismiss the importance of direct effects on working conditions in member states but downplay it in comparison with indirect effects from, and effectiveness in, European Sectoral Social Dialogue. That is, horizontal learning, knowledge sharing and pragmatic bottom-up work to reach consensus are emphasised as more prominent than top-down regulatory effectiveness.     

Modeling and simulation of the quality’s entropy

The aim of the present study is to define quality entropy as well as to illustrate some of its properties. The simulation of the mathematical model for quality entropy shall be performed by means of specialized software for mathematical problem simulation, such as Microsoft Excel that we have employed for this particular study. Our aim is to prove that quality entropy may be expanded to the notions of Markov source of quality and Bernoulli source of quality, by analogy with the Markov and Bernoulli sources employed in information theory. Likewise, the present study delineates some aspects regarding tolerance to quality entropy. The subject of entropy and its application of the management of quality has been approached by other authors as well (Dinu and Vod?, Revista Calitatea-acces la succes, anul 8(4): 60–61, 2007; Dinu, Revista Calitatea-acces la succes, anul 8(5): 62–63, 2007; Georgescu-Roegen, Legea Entropiei ?i Procesul Economic, 1979; Stamatiu, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Quality, Reability and Maintainabilty, 2000; Stamatiu, Proceeding of the 18th International Conference on Quality, Reliability and Maintainability, 2002). Through our transdisciplinary approach, we would like to contribute to the development of this subject.     

Service Quality,Administrative Process,and Citizens’ Evaluation of Local Government in the US

Abstract

It is often assumed that citizens evaluate government based on service quality or outcomes (such as safe neighbourhoods or good schools), but aspects of administrative process (such as fairness and respect) are also important. Using data from two US surveys, this study examines how service quality and administrative process influence citizens’ evaluations of government. Results indicate that service quality matters most to ratings of the community; in contrast, administrative process is the dominant driver of trust; and both quality and process have large effects on judgements about government’s overall job performance. Implications for public management research and practice are discussed.     

Does sport affect the competitiveness of European Union countries? An analysis of the degree of innovation and GDP per capita using linear and QCA models

The sport industry has experienced great growth in recent years worldwide, and especially in the European Union (EU) countries. However, despite the role that this industry can play in improving the competitiveness of these countries (Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and innovation performance), no studies have been found that analyse its influence. So, the main aim of this study is, firstly, to analyse the relationship between the innovation performance and the GDP per capita of EU countries, and, secondly, to find out how sport-related indicators and different innovation-related indicators influence the innovation performance and GDP per capita of the EU countries. To this end, two different methodologies have been used: hierarchical regression models and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). A total sample of 23 EU countries have been analysed. The results show that GDP per capita and innovation performance are highly correlated in a positive and significant way (0.76; p?<?.0001), and that the variables related to sport help explain the variance of these two variables, highlighting as necessary variable in both cases the growth in the sports sector (consistency >0.90). Finally, a number of practical implications are presented that can help policy makers to improve the competitiveness of EU countries.

     

Damaged by Democracy: The National Union of Mineworkers and the 1984–85 Strike

This paper explores the democratic tensions within the National Union of Mineworkers that split the union during the 1984–85 strike over mine closures. In seeking to understand the conflict over the failure to hold a national ballot to validate this yearlong strike, the paper explores the development of this federally structured trade union and examines previous conflicts in which the federated nature of the union created local, rather than national, solidarities.