Health care and philanthropy: where are we headed?

Peering into health-care's future means examining social, economic and political issues. Knowing what's coming will help development professionals deal with this new world.     

Going beyond supplier diversity to economic Inclusion:Where are we now and where do we go from here?

Supplier diversity is not a new concept but has increased in urgency due to racial unrest and social polarization across the globe. As culture shifts globally, demanding more diversity and inclusion in businesses, companies are having to rethink their overarching values and strategies. Supplier diversity programs foster more inclusive relationships with diverse and underrepresented populations of suppliers to produce both economic and social impact. Researchers have shown if managed effectively, a diverse and inclusive supply base can help organizations reduce risk, enhance brand image, and increase innovation and flexibility. The intent of this Notes and Debates article is to introduce and define supplier diversity, showing how an economically inclusive supplier diversity program enhances organizational benefits and provides greater economic and social benefits. A secondary intent is to begin the dialogue on the benefits of transitioning from traditional supplier diversity programs to fully embedded economic inclusion models. What is the purpose behind the transition? Is more supplier diversity necessarily better? What enablers or capabilities may be needed to evolve from a traditional supplier diversity program to a strategically positioned economic inclusion mindset? Suggestions are made about embedding key enablers within an organizational structure so that companies can mature in supplier diversity efforts and drive stronger social and economic value. This Notes and Debates piece uses support from ongoing research efforts that include interviews with companies engaged in supplier diversity programs and several supplier diversity councils. Some initial observations and remarks are incorporated in the text to help illustrate how to move from supplier diversity to economic inclusion. The enablers that help move from traditional diversity programs to economic inclusivity appear to mature and develop over time. Some organizations remain in the early, more traditional phases while others have dynamic ecosystems that have developed to support this transition.     

Using fear appeals to promote cancer screening—are we scaring the wrong people?

• There is debate regarding the use of fear appeals (emphasizing severe threats to health) in social marketing, to encourage preventive behaviours, such as screening for breast cancer. While it has been found that fear appeals may result in attitude and behaviour change there is also the risk of inciting inappropriate levels of fear, motivating the wrong audience or instigating maladaptive behaviour in the target group such as denial or defensive avoidance. This study examined the impact of an experimental threat manipulation for mammography screening on a group of women in regional Australia. The study found that varying the level of threat had no impact on stated intentions of the women to undergo mammographic screening. However, it also found that high-threat messages resulted in stronger negative emotional reactions and greater perceived susceptibility among younger women who are not the target group for screening in Australia. The results of this study emphasize the importance of limiting the use of high levels of threat in social marketing campaigns, and ensuring that campaigns are appropriately designed to specifically impact upon and motivate the target group.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health and safety risks in Britain's workplaces: where are they and who controls them?

This is the first paper to identify the correlates of workplace managers' perceptions of the health and safety risks faced by workers and the degree to which workers have control over those risks. The risks that workers face and the control they have over those risks are weakly negatively correlated. Managerial risk ratings are positively associated with both injury and illness rates, but not with absence rates. The control rating is also positively associated with injury and illness rates, but it is negatively correlated with absence rates. Workers are more likely to be exposed to health and safety risks when their workplace is performing poorly and where it has been adversely affected by the recession. Union density is positively associated with risks but is not associated with workers' control over risks. Having on‐site worker representatives dealing with health and safety is linked to lower risks than direct consultation between management and employees over health and safety. However, there is no evidence that particular types of health and safety arrangement are related to workers' control over health and safety risks.     

Two decades of cognitive bias research in entrepreneurship: What do we know and where do we go from here?

The study of entrepreneurial cognitive bias emerged about two decades ago and has received growing attention in entrepreneurial research. However, this is the first comprehensive review of the studies published in this field and therefore describes the current state of the art of cognitive bias research in entrepreneurship. This paper identified a total of 54 relevant articles and structures them by a typology of bias. It shows that a considerable number of articles cover overoptimism and overconfidence, while limited attention has been given to other biases such as illusion of control, the belief in the law of small numbers, escalation of commitment, planning fallacy, status quo bias, self-serving bias, and hindsight bias. Results of this review show that studies examining overoptimism and overconfidence have delivered most consistent results. The focus of the review lies on logically structuring the body of research by assessing the key issues in the determinants and in the consequences of each bias and thereby identifying a range of new research opportunities. Special emphasis was placed on incorporating insights from conceptual papers.     

A journey home: What drives how long people are homeless?

This paper uses survival analysis to model exits from two alternative forms of homelessness: sleeping on the streets (‘literal homelessness’) and not having a home of one's own (‘housing insecurity’). We are unique in being able to account for time-invariant, unobserved heterogeneity. Like previous researchers, we find results consistent with negative duration dependence in models which ignore unobserved heterogeneity. However, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, we find that duration dependence has an inverted U-shape with exit rates initially increasing (indicating positive duration dependence) and then falling. Exit rates out of both literal homelessness and housing insecurity fall with age. Women are more likely than men to exit housing insecurity for a home of their own, but are less likely to exit literal homelessness. Persons with dependent children have higher exit rates. Finally, education seems to protect people from longer periods of housing insecurity.     

Developing the e-commerce sector for the fishery industry: What business are we really in?

In this study, we use the theory of the marketing firm to explain marketing relationships between consumers and firms selling fish in the context of developing the e-commerce sector for the fishery industry. We use a unique dataset composed of quantitative and qualitative data to provide a behavioral economic analysis and interpretation. The results reveal interdependent managerial and consumer behavioral relationships, indicating the presence of bilateral contingencies. The results also provide some indication of the theory of transaction cost, where cost-intensive activities are likely to be internalized within marketing firms selling fish.     

Secular stagnation – are we stuck in Summers' long winter?

• We estimate that the UK has a relatively large output gap of around 2¾% of potential output. With the legacy of the financial crisis fading, the UK should see healthy growth in potential output of around 2.1% a year from 2015–24. Usually this would drive a period of strong economic growth, but we expect GDP growth to average a relatively underwhelming 2.4% a year over this period, largely due to the drag from aggressive fiscal consolidation.
• There is significant disagreement amongst economists about the size of the output gap. Estimation of the output gap has been problematic since the financial crisis because of the depth of the recession and relatively slow pace of the subsequent recovery, while sizeable revisions to the national accounts data have been an added complication. Our estimate of the output gap is towards the top of the range of independent forecasters surveyed by HM Treasury, but it is consistent with the literature on the impact of financial crises on potential output.
• We expect potential output growth of 2.1% a year from 2015–24, a faster pace than that seen since the financial crisis, but some way short of the experience of the pre‐crisis decade. The shortfall relative to the pre‐crisis period is largely due to a smaller contribution from growth in labour supply, which reflects the impact of an ageing population. However, labour is set to make a much stronger contribution to potential output growth in the UK than in most other major European countries over the next decade.
• The combination of a large output gap and healthy growth in potential output will provide the conditions for firm growth and low inflation over the medium term, with GDP growth expected to average 2.4% a year from 2015 to 2024. Growth could be stronger were it not for the sizeable drag from fiscal consolidation over the next four years and the dampening effect that this will have on activity. This will ensure that the output gap closes very slowly. The government's fiscal plans are heavily influenced by the OBR's view that there is limited scope for stronger growth to drive an improvement in the public finances. But if our view turns out to be correct, it will become apparent that the government has pursued a more austere path than is strictly necessary in order to comply with its fiscal rules.

     

Secular stagnation ‐ are we stuck in Summers' long winter?

• Stunningly low global long‐term bond yields provide some credence to a secular stagnation view of the world. We present an analytical framework – culminating in a simple scorecard – for assessing the extent to which purported drivers and manifestations of secular stagnation match global economic and financial developments and we compare with a complementary narrative focusing on balance sheet boom and bust. We find some support for each, but think global rates will not stay as low for as long as markets price in.
• Larry Summers has used the term to refer to a situation where demand and supply for savings deliver very low equilibrium real interest rates. The bulge in middle‐aged savers, falling prices of investment goods, and flows of savings ‘uphill’ from emerging markets may have all led to real rates trending much lower in recent decades.
• Another version of the story is that slow technical progress depresses demand for borrowing, and pushes down on real rates. This is less compelling, and based more on anecdote than anything else. There are as many reasons to be optimistic, as pessimistic, about the supply side.
• There are holes in the secular stagnation narrative. Until very recently, G7 savings rates have trended down rather than up, partly because of another decades‐long trend of financial innovation. Furthermore, few economists, nor the Fed or the BoE, expect policy rates in the US or UK to stay low for as long as is priced in to markets.
• A complementary narrative would stress the role of the credit‐fuelled mega‐boom and subsequent balance sheet blow out and Great Recession, and then the long road to financial repair. This is more consistent with the path of savings rates over recent decades, and the policy response – including QE – can explain much of the rest.
• We see the two explanations as complementary and reinforcing. In global terms, they appear no better or worse than each other. Comparing across countries, Japan comes closest to resembling secular stagnation, followed by EZ, US and UK, according to our scorecard.
• We think ultra‐low long rates will not be borne out by the future path of short rates, but acknowledge a significant risk they might, for example, if monetary policy remains too tight on average because of zero bound effects on interest rates and limited scope for fiscal accommodation.

     

Human resource strategies and firm performance: what do we know and where do we need to go?

This research review focuses on the links between human resource strategies and organizational effectiveness. It is likely that bundles of, or configurations of, activities are more important in enhancing labour productivity than any single activity. However, studies are typically limited in theoretical rigour, have quite small samples and are typically non-cumulative. The empirical basis of strategic human resources management is thus circumscribed.     

Industry 4.0 technologies in the manufacturing sector: Are we sure they are all relevant for environmental performance?

This research contributes to the debate about the relevance of Industry 4.0 technologies in improving environmental performance in the manufacturing industry. We employed a qualitative–quantitative approach in which 19 Italian operations managers were interviewed and 260 managers responded to an online questionnaire. The effects of various technologies were ranked using ordinal regression. Comments and suggestions gave context to the quantitative results. Sensors, radio-frequency identification, artificial intelligence and analytics were found to be most relevant in improving environmental performance, whereas simulation software contributed moderately. Additive manufacturing, cobots, robots, automated mobile robots and automated guided vehicles had a negative effect, augmented reality had no effect and other technologies indirectly affected environmental performance. We also found a lack of knowledge and application as well as scepticism about technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Finally, there was concern about the disposal of electrical and electronic waste produced by these technologies.     

Individual and contextual predictors of team member proactivity: what do we know and where do we go from here?

Contemporary organizations are placing greater emphasis on team work in order to meet the challenges of an increasingly turbulent business environment. In this context, the relationship between team member proactivity and overall team performance has been the focus of growing interest among management scholars and practitioners alike. Whereas extant scholarship acknowledges that team member proactivity is different from other forms of proactivity (i.e., individual and organization member proactivity), there is still only limited understanding of the factors that predict team member proactivity. Therefore, this paper extends current scholarship by identifying the individual and contextual predictors of team member proactivity and explaining how, taken together, they jointly influence team member proactivity. Building on these findings, the paper also identifies gaps in the current literature and proposes a model of team member proactivity to be tested in future research.     

Inference in difference-in-differences: How much should we trust in independent clusters?

We analyze the challenges for inference in difference-in-differences (DID) when there is spatial correlation. We present novel theoretical insights and empirical evidence on the settings in which ignoring spatial correlation should lead to more or less distortions in DID applications. We show that details, such as the time frame used in the estimation, the choice of the treated and control groups, and the choice of the estimator, are key determinants of distortions due to spatial correlation. We also analyze the feasibility and trade-offs involved in a series of alternatives to take spatial correlation into account. Given that, we provide relevant recommendations for applied researchers on how to mitigate and assess the possibility of inference distortions due to spatial correlation.     

Managing five paradoxes of knowledge exchange in networked organizations: new priorities for HRM?

The life‐blood of most organizations is knowledge. Too often, the very mechanisms set up to facilitate knowledge flow militate against it. This is because they are instituted in a top‐down way, they are cumbersome to manage and the bridges of trust fail to get built. In their thirst for innovation, the tendency is for firms to set up elaborate transmission channels and governance systems. As a result, staff are drowned in a deluge of mundane intranet messages and bewildered by matrix structures, while off‐the‐wall ideas and mould‐breaking insights are routinely missed. Added to this is the challenge of operating across professional, cultural, regional and linguistic boundaries, where ways of sharing knowledge differ markedly, even within the same project team. Drawing upon extensive research with scientists in the ATLAS collaboration (a high‐energy particle physics experiment comprising 3,500 scientists from 38 countries), we explore five paradoxes associated with knowledge exchange in global networks. Each paradox leads to a proposition which takes the theory and practice of knowledge management in a fresh direction. We conclude by outlining a number of HRM priorities for international knowledge‐intensive organizations.     

ICT skills measurement in social surveys: Can we trust self-reports?

Quality & Quantity - Self-reports are the most common way of measuring information and communications technology (ICT) skills in social surveys. Studies comparing self-reported computer skills...     

Do people trust more when they are happy or when they are sad? Evidence from an experiment

This paper deals with the role played by incidental emotions on trust decisions. Based on a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives, we explore the way positive and negative emotions impact transfers in a trust game. In addition, we investigate the mechanism through which risk intervenes in the relationship between emotions and trust. Our results suggest that negative emotions influence trust positively, whereas positive emotions decrease trust. This effect disappears once risk is included to the game. Furthermore, we found that transfer in the trust game is driven by other‐regarding preferences and by risk preferences.