Gamifying employer branding: An integrating framework and research propositions for a new HRM approach in the digitized economy

The digital age calls for digital HRM approaches, as the “digitized” workforce confronts companies with changing requirements regarding their human resource practices. Most importantly, companies need to build strong employer brands to attract, motivate, and retain employees. One promising approach to employer branding in the digital age is to gamify companies' employer branding activities by means of serious games (i.e., digital games with an educational purpose). Both serious games and employer branding share the key characteristic of facilitating learning to create knowledge. Despite existing research on employer branding and serious games in separate streams, virtually no research addresses their relationship, albeit its strong relevance for researchers and practitioners alike. The authors discuss both domains and their relation, propose a conceptual framework building on a novel learning-based extension of the affective events theory, and derive directions for future research to advance the understanding of gamifying employer branding in the digitized economy.     

Preference revelation games and strong cores of allocation problems with indivisibilities

This note considers the equilibrium outcomes of the preference revelation games in the general model of indivisible good allocation introduced by [Sönmez, T., 1999. Strategy-proofness and essentially single-valued cores. Econometrica 67, 677–689]. We adopt the concepts of coalitional equilibria and cores which are both defined in terms of the weak deviation or blocking by a prescribed class of admissible coalitions. We prove that if the solution which induces preference revelation games is individually rational and Pareto optimal and the class of admissible coalitions is “monotonic,” then the set of coalitional equilibrium outcomes coincides with the core. And we point out that the preceding analysis in the context of marriage problems [Gale, D., Shapley, L., 1962. College admissions and the stability of marriage. American Mathematical Monthly 69, 9–15] is hardly extended to the general model.     

The politics and economics of decentralization

This paper analyzes a simple general equilibrium model with local public goods subject to exclusion and crowding. In general, no competitive equilibrium exists for such models. However, in this paper we study a four-person example, satisfying assumptions formulated in a paper by McGuire [Group segregation and optimal jurisdictions, J. Political Econ.82, 112–132 (1974)], in which a competitive equilibrium does exist. This example demonstrates that the model is capable of generating realistic implications regarding stratification of jurisdictions, the decision to subdivide or consolidate jurisdictions, reliance on exclusionary zoning, and the use of revenue sharing.     

A Bayesian network to discover relationships between negative features in sport: a case study of teen players

The purpose of this paper is the study of relationships between negative psychological features in young competitive team players via a Bayesian network (BN). The BN let us describe in graphical terms the dependencies and conditional independencies between variables in a multivariate context, and therefore it let us analyze the relationships between the type of motivational climate and orientation of team players (from two different frameworks: goal orientation theory, and self-determination motivation theory), and we took into account their willingness to accept the use of gamesmanship and cheating at the games, related with somatic and cognitive pre-competitive anxiety. The BN analysis includes three reasoning patterns: evidential reasoning, causal reasoning and intercausal reasoning. We built a BN from a data set composed of twelve psychological variables, which were identified as relevant to this study. The structure and parameters were learnt with TETRAD IV and the BN was implemented in Netica software.     

Risk-taking behavior of technology firms: The role of performance feedback in the video game industry

This study focuses on what drives technology-driven companies to engage in risk-taking behavior by serving new markets. Building on the behavioral theory of the firm and prospect theory, this study suggests that technology-driven organizations tend to respond to past performance rather than future possibilities. Using a sample of 5312 video games from 362 game developers, the results reveal that market performance trend and market performance variability have opposing effects on risk-taking behavior: while a positive market performance trend negatively influences a company's tendency to venture into new markets, a high-degree of market performance variability tends to positively influence new market entry. The study also finds opposite results for expert performance trend and expert performance variability: companies with consistently positive expert evaluations are more likely to enter into new markets, while variability in expert evaluations has a negative effect on new market entry. Furthermore, the effects of expert performance trend and variability are conditional on market performance trends. Finally, the results suggest that companies that venture into new markets tend to choose relatively similar markets if these companies are suffering from a negative market performance trend or a negative expert review trend.     

Equilibria in a class of aggregative location games

Consider a multimarket oligopoly, where firms have a single license that allows them to supply exactly one market out of a given set of markets. How does the restriction to supply only one market influence the existence of equilibria in the game? To answer this question, we study a general class of aggregative location games where a strategy of a player is to choose simultaneously both a location out of a finite set and a non-negative quantity out of a compact interval. The utility of each player is assumed to depend solely on the chosen location, the chosen quantity, and the aggregated quantity of all other players on the chosen location. We show that each game in this class possesses a pure Nash equilibrium whenever the players’ utility functions satisfy the assumptions negative externality, decreasing marginal utility, continuity, and Location–Symmetry. We also provide examples exhibiting that, if one of the assumptions is violated, a pure Nash equilibrium may fail to exist.     

Iterated weak dominance and subgame dominance

In this paper, we consider finite normal form games satisfying transference of decisionmaker indifference. We show that any set of strategies surviving k rounds of elimination of some weakly dominated strategies can be reduced to a set of strategies equivalent to the set of strategies surviving k rounds of elimination of all weakly dominated strategies in every round by (at most k) further rounds of elimination of weakly dominated strategies. The result develops work by Gretlein [Gretlein, R., 1983. Dominance elimination procedures on finite alternative games. International Journal of Game Theory 12, 107–113]. We then consider applications and demonstrate how we may obtain a unified approach to the work by Gretlein and recent results by Ewerhart [Ewerhart, C., 2002. Iterated weak dominance in strictly competitive games of perfect information. Journal of Economic Theory 107, 474-482] and Marx and Swinkels [Marx, L.M., Swinkels, J.M., 1997. Order independence for iterated weak dominance. Games and Economic Behavior 18, 219-245].     

Causal discourse in a game of incomplete information

Notions of cause and effect are fundamental to economic explanation. Although concepts such as price effects are intuitive, rigorous foundations justifying causal discourse in the wide range of economic settings remain lacking. We illustrate this deficiency using an N$N$-bidder private-value auction, posing causal questions that cannot be addressed within existing frameworks. We extend the frameworks of Pearl (2000) and White and Chalak (2009) to introduce topological settable systems (TSS), a causal framework capable of delivering the missing answers. Particularly, TSS accommodate choices belonging to general function spaces. Our analysis suggests how TSS enable causal discourse in various areas of economics.     

Why and how do firms reshore? A contingency-based conceptual framework

Much of the growing body of reshoring literature has focused on why firms reverse a prior location decision. While valuable, this work needs extending to how the decision to reshore is operationalised. Using a two-stage approach, this paper presents a conceptual framework that covers both why and how firms reshore. The framework also utilises contingency theory to identify the factors that influence these decisions. It is therefore claimed to be more comprehensive than others frameworks found in the literature. First, a systematic literature review deductively develops an initial framework. Second, a revised version of the framework is presented using evidence from a single, exemplar case of captive reshoring in the textiles industry. The case evidence identifies new factors and extends a typology of reshoring decisions proposed in the literature to more accurately reflect the dynamic, complex, and incremental nature of the onshore-offshore-reshore location and ownership decision.     

Best response dynamics with level-n expectations in two-stage games

This paper analyzes behavior in repeatedly played two-stage games, where players choose actions in both stages according to best replies using level-n expectations about the opponent׳s actions in both stages. Level-n expectations are recursively defined in a way that a player holding level-n expectations correctly predicts the action of an opponent holding level-(n−1) expectations. A general conceptual framework to study such dynamics for two-stage games is developed and it is shown that, contrary to results for single-stage games, the fixed points of the dynamics depend on the level of the expectations. In particular, for level-0 expectation, fixed points correspond to a Nash equilibrium of a simultaneous move version of the game, whereas (under certain conditions) fixed points converge towards the subgame perfect equilibrium of the two-stage game if the level of expectations goes to infinity. The approach is illustrated using a two-stage duopoly game, where firms in the first stage invest in activities reducing their marginal costs and in the second stage engage in Cournot competition. Conditions for local stability of the fixed points are derived for different levels of expectations and it is shown that level-2 expectations are sufficient to move the fixed-point of the dynamics to a close neighborhood of the subgame perfect equilibrium. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that although firms benefit from unilateral increases in the level of expectations, an increase of n by all firms reduces all profits.     

A non-parametric spatial independence test using symbolic entropy

In the present paper, we construct a new, simple, consistent and powerful test for spatial independence, called the SG test, by using the new concept of symbolic entropy as a measure of spatial dependence. The standard asymptotic distribution of the test is an affine transformation of the symbolic entropy under the null hypothesis. The test statistic, with the proposed symbolization procedure, and its standard limit distribution have appealing theoretical properties that guarantee the general applicability of the test. An important aspect is that the test does not require specification of the W matrix and is free of a priori assumptions. We include a Monte Carlo study of our test, in comparison with the well-known Moran's I, the SBDS (de Graaff et al., 2001) and τ test (Brett and Pinkse, 1997) that are two non-parametric tests, to better appreciate the properties and the behaviour of the new test. Apart from being competitive compared to other tests, results underline the outstanding power of the new test for non-linear dependent spatial processes.     

Neo-pluralism as a theoretical framework for understanding HRM in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper discusses the 'social' nature of employment management problems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). 'Applied' Western HRM is largely based on unitarist conceptions of organizational reality. Where conceptions suggest a 'stakeholder' perspective, they tend to follow orthodox formulations of pluralism. In that regard, notions of 'stakeholding' refer to the divergent internal organizational interests (mainly economic) of labour and management. In the SSA context, however, the broader social and moral issues of the wider community have a decisive influence on the employment relationship. And internal employment relations structures, such as trade unions, do not constitute the main representative channels for employee grievances. Consequently, established Western employment frames of reference do not represent suitable theoretical frameworks for analysing all the relevant social factors that influence the SSA employment relationship. This paper proposes a modified version of Ackers' (2002) 'neo-pluralist' theoretical framework as the basis for understanding and resolving some of issues involved in HRM in SSA. From this analysis, it proposes a model of HRM that attempts to institutionalize some elements of the 'African social system' into formal HRM policies and strategies.     

Robust games: theory and application to a Cournot duopoly model

In this paper, the robust game model proposed by Aghassi and Bertsimas (Math Program Ser B 107:231–273, 2006) for matrix games is extended to games with a broader class of payoff functions. This is a distribution-free model of incomplete information for finite games where players adopt a robust-optimization approach to contend with payoff uncertainty. They are called robust players and seek the maximum guaranteed payoff given the strategy of the others. Consistently with this decision criterion, a set of strategies is an equilibrium, robust-optimization equilibrium, if each player’s strategy is a best response to the other player’s strategies, under the worst-case scenarios. The aim of the paper is twofold. In the first part, we provide robust-optimization equilibrium’s existence result for a quite general class of games and we prove that it exists a suitable value \(\epsilon \) such that robust-optimization equilibria are a subset of \(\epsilon \)-Nash equilibria of the nominal version, i.e., without uncertainty, of the robust game. This provides a theoretical motivation for the robust approach, as it provides new insight and a rational agent motivation for \(\epsilon \)-Nash equilibrium. In the last part, we propose an application of the theory to a classical Cournot duopoly model which shows significant differences between the robust game and its nominal version.     

Incomplete information and the time series behaviour of consumption

Pischke ( 1995 ) uses both microeconomic and macroeconomic US data to test the idea that, within an otherwise standard PIH framework, ignorance by agents of aggregate labour income can account for the observed degree of excess smoothness and sensitivity in consumption. His tests involve only the second moments of aggregate consumption and labour income. In this paper our main aim is to identify and test the restrictions his model implies for aggregate consumption dynamics, using US quarterly data over the period 1959–1996, but our framework allows us also to test an earlier, related model of Goodfriend ( 1992 ). We find that both models can be formally rejected: ignorance of aggregate labour income cannot by itself account for aggregate consumption dynamics; some other relaxation of the assumptions of the standard PIH is required. We give an example of one possible such relaxation and present evidence indicating that Pischke's version of imperfect information may, within that framework, have a significant role to play. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rethinking the polyphonic organization: Managing as discursive practice

Literary approaches problematize the practice of knowing in relation to managing. Drawing on Kafka, Lyotard, Rorty and others, our overarching objective here is to widen and deepen linguistic approaches to management and organization studies. We elaborate the concept of the polyphonic organization: starting from Kafka's reading of the story of the Tower of Babel, we reflect on polyphony and, using Lyotard's concept of the différend, we explore the linguistic gaps that constitute the polyphonic organization. Interpreting these different language games as a driving force behind organizational sensemaking, we theorize on the connection between change, power and language. Management as a discursive practice focuses linguistically on deconstructing and translating between language games divided by the différend.     

Convergence to competitive equilibria and elimination of no-trade (in a strategic market game with limit prices)

The strategic market games literature contains many results that predict Walrasian equilibria in the competitive limit. However, they usually come at the expense of ad hoc assumptions that rule out “pathological” no trade equilibria. This paper studies a strategic market game with limit prices. The set of Nash equilibrium allocations of this game converges to the set containing all competitive equilibria and no-trade, when players are replicated. Moreover, two rounds of iterated deletion of weakly dominated strategies eliminate the no-trade equilibria. Hence, replication paired with two rounds of iterated dominance gives a clean prediction of competitive equilibrium.     

Optimal pricing strategy for foreign market entry: a game theoretic approach

Given that pricing plays an important role in a company's international competitive strategy, researchers have long argued the need for theory building in the area of international pricing. This study develops an optimal pricing strategy for foreign market entry using a game theoretic framework. The proposed model assumes two firms, a local incumbent and a foreign entrant, competing in a market. Consumers know the quality of the incumbent's offering, but do not know how it compares to that of the foreign entrant's. Based on these assumptions, and using the theory of inference making, we propose an upward price distortion by the entrant firm as an optimal entry strategy under incomplete information. The paper presents a game theoretic derivation to establish that the game has a unique intuitive separating equilibrium where the entrant firm stands to gain by engaging in upward price distortion to signal high quality to consumers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An overlapping generations model with non-ordered preferences and numeraire-incomplete markets*

Abstract This paper shows that, even with a life-cycle component, the standard model of competitive consumption and asset trading can be extended to encompass general preference relations, which do not necessarily hinge upon special assumptions such as time or state separability, or even completeness or transitivity. More precisely, this paper addresses the equilibrium existence for an overlapping generations pure-exchange economy with non-ordered preferences and incomplete financial markets of numeraire assets. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 91B50, 91B62 Journal of Economic Literature Classification: D52, D91     

A core equivalence theorem with an arbitrary communication structure

We formalize the concept of a communication structure by identifying it with a partition of the set of agents. Thus, a coalition can form if and only if it belongs to the given partition. Within this framework we are able to show that for every integer J≧2, if we put the uniform distribution on the space of partitions that contain exactly (or, no more than) J coalitions, the probability that such a partition will contain a blocking coalition for any Pareto optimal allocation which is bounded away from being competitive, is arbitrarily close to 1, as the number of individuals increases.