Psychological safety climate and workplace bullying in Vietnam’s public sector

The bureaucratic and impersonal nature of public management can fertilize workplace bullying and risks for psychological health and safety. Psychological safety climate (PSC) is an important indicator to reduce psychological hazards. Yet, there have been few studies conducted to examine the existence of PSC in the public sector in non-Western economies. This study examined the implementation of PSC and its effects on 274 employees from six branches of a Vietnamese public sector organization. The results suggest that senior management in organizations should consider positive work conditions and an effective system of policies, procedures, and practices for the prevention of psychosocial hazards.     

Formal sector job growth and women’s labor sector participation : The case of Mexico

This paper looks at the effects of demand and supply on the determinants of labor sector (school, home work, informal, and formal) participation between Torreon and Tijuana, Mexico for married and single women. Comparisons between the two cities are used to capture differences in labor demand. Torreon is a traditional city with an agri-industrial base and Tijuana is a border city with large export processing (maquiladora) and tourism sectors, both of which demand female labor. Factors influencing labor supply include both individual and household characteristics. Married women, given the strong cultural tradition of working in the home, do not significantly increase their paid labor participation with higher labor demand or changing characteristics of the household. Personal characteristics have the greatest impact on labor sector participation. Single women do, however, increase their formal sector participation with additional employment opportunities and respond to household needs by moving in and out of the paid labor market. Results indicate that increases in labor demand in Mexico from the NAFTA could expand formal sector labor force participation of single women.     

Poachers and gamekeepers: processes of class-based organisational closure and usurpation in Sri Lanka’s emerging private sector

In a qualitative study based on 25 interviews, we examine highly skilled workers’ accounts of class-based closure in emerging occupational sectors in Sri Lanka. Our findings reveal holes in the entrance criteria firms demanded to secure their elite status. Highlighting how individuals who were excluded at junior levels negotiate entry at mid/senior levels, we show how ‘poachers turn into gamekeepers’, illuminating the dialectical relationship between exclusion and inclusionary usurpation. We contextualise organisational closure, highlighting the influence of wider societal effects on the process.     

Confirmatory factor analyses of the children’s attitudes and behaviors towards animals scale in two eastern cultural contexts

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the factor stability of the Children’s Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Animals Scale (CABTA) across two eastern contexts: China and Malaysia. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted on data collected from 700 Chinese mothers and 700 Chinese fathers, and 385 Malay parents of children aged 6–12 years. The CFA results suggested that the model was a good fit for both the Chinese and Malaysian responses. Furthermore, invariance testing showed that although there was factor loading invariance across cultures, the assumption of intercept invariance did not hold. This suggests that although the scale is suitable for use in both cultures, mean comparisons across contexts could be problematic. The internal reliabilities for the Typical and Malicious cruelty subscales were adequate across the samples. All findings show that the CABTA is a promising scale for international use.     

The Bribery Paradox in Transition Economies and the Enactment of ‘New Normal’ Business Environments

We develop a novel, sense-making perspective on corruption in transition economies. Prior research has focused on understanding why some entrepreneurs are more likely to pay bribes than others. It typically assumes that paying bribes will lead to an intended – albeit unfair – competitive advantage. We challenge this assumption and uncover a bribery paradox: drawing upon sense-making logic, we argue that beyond gaining an immediate benefit from bribing, entrepreneurs who frequently pay bribes may in the longer run be enacting a ‘new normal’ business environment perceived as high in obstacles, especially in transition countries. As sense making is grounded in identity construction and one’s social context, we argue that owners of family firms will be especially vulnerable to the dangers of perceiving greater obstacles over time and enacting an obstacle-ridden ‘new normal’ business environment. We find empirical support for our framework on a sample of 310 privately held small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 22 transition economies.     

Musgrave’s vision of the public sector: the complex relationship between individual, society and state in public good theory

Richard Musgrave introduced the notion of a public good after reading an obscure publication by Lindahl in German in 1910. His great contribution to knowledge was to provide a clear and comprehensive structure for thinking about the process of achieving an “optimal” allocation of resources across public and private goods based individual preferences and the role of government in that process. A number of ambiguities and issues in Musgrave’s vision remain only partially resolved including the need to incorporate “higher laws” or community values into the allocation process.      

The ‘post-bureaucratic’ public sector organization. New organizational forms and HRM in ten UK public sector organizations

This paper evaluates the extent to which ‘post-bureaucratic’ organizational forms have been introduced to the UK public sector and the implications for human resource management policies and practices in the sector. The study draws from interview data at ten public sector organizations including local authorities, the National Health Service, the Civil Service, police authorities, broadcasting and transport. It concludes that certain structural changes have been made, but that older functional lines of authority still exist and thus post-bureaucratic claims are misleading. However, a harsher working environment has arisen for managers in these public sector organizations, with longer hours and a more complex working environment. Older certainties such as job security, a safe career path and seniority-based pay have all been eroded.     

Productivity change in the privatized water sector in China (1999–2006)

Journal of Productivity Analysis - We estimate the effects of the Chinese water sector’s privatization reforms based on firm-level panel data from 1999 to 2006. By applying a translog...     

Changes in women’s and men’s child care time in China, 2004–2011: the contributions of cohort replacement and intra-cohort change

With the rapid social and economic changes in China, increasing attention has been paid to issues related to child care, such as maternal work and child care, child care support sources, and work-family conflict. But the change in women’s and men’s child care time in the last decade remains under-researched. I use cross-sectional data from the 2004–2011 China Health and Nutrition Survey and linear decomposition regression techniques to examine the mechanisms generating structural change in child care time for men and women. I find that overall women’s child care time is slightly decreasing because the contributions of intra-cohort change and cohort replacement are offsetting one another. However, men’s childcare time is increasing during the same time period because of processes of intra-cohort change. Trends in women’s childcare time indicate a positive but small cohort replacement effect, whereas men’s childcare time is largely impacted by a positive intra-cohort change effect. These results highlight the mechanisms through which the gendered division of childcare time inside Chinese families has been shifting in the direction of increasing egalitarianism from 2004 to 2011.     

The effects of financial liberalization on productivity: Evidence from India’s manufacturing sector

Using a panel of India’s registered manufacturing firms and both economy-wide and firm-level financial data, we investigate the effects of India’s financial liberalization on the productivity of its manufacturing sector in the 1990s and 2000s. Our dynamic panel analysis shows that the series of financial liberalization policies/measures, at both the macro and micro levels, significantly enhanced the productivity of the manufacturing sector. Total factor productivity increased for all firms, including those owned by the state government, with greater gains for the firms in the private and foreign sectors. Our results suggest that policies favoring financial liberalization should be pursued further in order for India to foster higher economic growth.     

The ‘third hand’: Private sector consultants in public sector accounting change

Abstract

This paper explores the role of large private sector consulting firms in the promotion and implementation of public sector accrual accounting. By focusing on an early adopter of accrual accounting for its entire public sector, this research presents an analysis of the activities of large consulting firms in the process of a significant public sector accounting change. The role of consultants in the change is presented by analysing primary data extracted from archival sources and oral histories provided by a number of prominent actors classified as users of information (politicians), producers of information (bureaucrats) or accounting consultants. The role and impact of the consulting firms' actions can be better understood by applying concepts of non-coercive isomorphism and the interplay between self-interest and perceived public interest. The consulting firms are shown to have used phantom images to promote the case for accounting change. This was done with a zealous belief that bringing public sector accounting into line with private sector accounting was an inherently righteous objective.     

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.     

Reflections of associations and foundations’ applications in new media to increase the quality in disabled people’s lives

Associations and foundations (that support these associations) play a vital role in increasing the life quality of the society in general, and the disabled people in particular. Civil society organizations which place a significant emphasis on the society’s well-being play an active role both in the promotion of disabled people’s rights and the provision of equal opportunities for their active participation in social life. Disabled people represent a disadvantaged group in the society because they experience disadvantages in economic and social life. This study focuses on new media usage of nonprofit oriented associations that are established to support disabled people in Northern Cyprus as a developing country. The content analysis as a quantitative research methodology is used to analyze the Disabled Associations’ and some foundations’ web sites and their official Facebook pages to interpret their identities, their way of communication and their social responsibility projects for increasing the quality of life of disabled people and raising public awareness on disabled people’s rights.

     

Knowledge flow in China’s humanities and social sciences

Despite fruitful studies on knowledge flow and interdisciplinarity, there are few investigations on knowledge flow in humanities and social sciences (HSS) and how knowledge from science and technology diffuses to HSS sub-disciplines. Based on Chinese and English articles in HSS, this study explored knowledge flow in China’s HSS with an analysis of Chinese and English publications from 1998 to 2014. Findings include: (1) the interdisciplinarity degree of knowledge absorption in social sciences is higher than that of humanities in both Chinese and English articles, meanwhile the degree of interdisciplinarity in all HSS sub-disciplines increased constantly; (2) Chinese scholars in HSS increasingly tended to learn knowledge in hard sciences and applied it to their domains, especially in English articles; (3) in Chinese articles, Economics was the most crucial knowledge base, while Management, Education and Law were absorption-oriented sub-disciplines; in English articles Management, Law, Literature and Philosophy were absorption-oriented sub-disciplines.     

Spatial and sectoral characteristics of China’s international and interregional virtual water flows – based on multi-regional input–output model

This paper provides a systematic analysis of spatial and sectoral characteristics and changes in virtual water flows associated with China’s interregional and international trade based on the China interregional input–output tables of 2002 and 2007. The results show significant improvement in water use efficiency between 2002 and 2007. However, the general spatial patterns and sectoral components of virtual water flows have more or less remained during the period. Almost all Chinese provinces are net exporters of virtual water in international trade. In interregional trade, the dominant direction of virtual water flow is from peripheral provinces to eastern coastal provinces. The agricultural sector plays an important role in shaping this direction and has significant impacts on water uses in exporting provinces, some of which are water scarce. The results of this study clarify some confusions concerning mismatches between regional water endowments and virtual water trade within China and with other countries.     

Afriat’s Theorem and Samuelson’s ‘Eternal Darkness’

Suppose that we have access to a finite set of expenditure data drawn from an individual consumer, i.e., how much of each good has been purchased and at what prices. Afriat (1967) was the first to establish necessary and sufficient conditions on such a data set for rationalizability by utility maximization. In this note, we provide a new and simple proof of Afriat’s Theorem, the explicit steps of which help to more deeply understand the driving force behind one of the more curious features of the result itself, namely that a concave rationalization is without loss of generality in a classical finite data setting. Our proof stresses the importance of the non-uniqueness of a utility representation along with the finiteness of the data set in ensuring the existence of a concave utility function that rationalizes the data.     

Living in and living out: a qualitative study of incarcerated mothers’ narratives of their children’s living condition

The number of incarcerated mothers is increasing significantly. There are many risks and harmful consequences for the children of the incarcerated mothers. In Iran, there is not a systematic research and information on these children. Therefore, this study aims at utilizing a qualitative methodology, to investigate the living conditions of this group, based on their mothers’ narratives. The grounded theory approach of Strauss and Corbin 1998 was used to analyze the consequences of the incarceration of mothers on the living conditions of children. The participants of the study include 16 incarcerated mothers who were on leave. The data were gathered via in-depth and open-ended interviews. During the coding process six categories were extracted which describe the living condition of the children: behavioral, mental, and physical challenges; escape; experience of poverty and destructive economy of family; dilemma of caring; mother-child visitation; difficulties suicide and mother’s emotional challenges. Children of incarcerated mothers encountered challenges such as mental, behavioral and economic. Many of them escape from home and school. Mothers prefer informal caring of their children than formal. The mother-child visits include some difficulties such as long distance, transportation costs, and undesirable visiting atmosphere. Mothers pointed to their deep psychological problems and sometimes committing suicide due to the separation of their children.     

The rebound effect on energy efficiency improvements in China’s transportation sector: A CGE analysis

Energy use is becoming more efficient due to technological innovations. We focused on the transportation sector in China to develop a national multisector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for analyzing the rebound effect from an improvement of 10% in the energy efficiency. We compared the size of the energy rebound effect at both the macroeconomic and sectoral levels in different transportation modal subsectors, namely rail, road, water, and air travel. The findings showed that the magnitude of the rebound effect varies across the transportation modes. This is particularly true for the air transportation sector, which has an economy-wide rebound effect of 30.1% and an own-sector rebound effect of 74.6% because of a sharp increase in the export demand for air transport services. We also quantitatively evaluated the contribution of energy efficiency improvement in the transportation sector to China’s economic growth and carbon reductions and found a positive dividend effect on the economy as well as the environment. The modeling results suggest that improving overall transportation energy efficiency by 10% generates an economy-wide welfare gain of approximately 29 billion yuan, while 19 billion yuan are attributable to a more efficient road transportation subsector. Furthermore, to offset the effects of these mode-specific rebound effects, we simulated the effectiveness of different policies and solutions. These included economic instruments in the form of energy, environmental, and carbon taxes, household transport consumption structure adjustments, and energy structure adjustments. This study revealed that combining these sustainable development policies offers opportunities for economy-wide multisectoral improvements in energy savings, emissions reduction, and economic benefits.     

Role of women’s empowerment in improving farmer’s livelihood: empirical evidence from China

Quality & Quantity - Gender equality and women’s development are the paramount objectives for the sustainable development of the mankind. The influence of women’s rights and status...     

Intellectual capital and value creation in the production and assembly of vehicles and auto-parts sector in Brazil： A panel data analysis

This work investigates the relationship between intellectual capital and value creation in the sector of production and assembly of vehicles and auto-parts in Brazil. Through the access of the database from the annual industrial research conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, we gathered 865 observations, from 2000 to 2006, of public and private Brazilian companies with more than 100 employees. The database allows the estimate of relevant aggregated variables such as national accounts, gross domestic product, intermediate consumption, as well as propitiates a sectorial study of business strategies and performance, including value added by individual companies. In particular, in this study we use data on variables associated to intellectual capital. To achieve the goal of the study, we consider intellectual capital as defined by Pulic （2000, 2002）, including human capital and structural capital. For the analysis of business performance, we used Pulic＇s VAIC （Value Added Intellectual Cofficient） index as a measure of efficiency of the employed financial and intellectual capital. Regression models were run to verify the relationship among the efficiency in the use of intellectual capital and the profitability of Brazilian companies. The gross income, calculated as before selling, general and administrative expenses, depreciation expenses, amortization and interest expenses, was used as measure of the flows of value creation and the profitability was measured by the gross income to the total assets of the companies. Considering the constructs defined by Pulic （2000, 2002）, we tested, for the Brazilian sector of Production and Assembly of Vehicles and Auto-parts, the following hypotheses： （l） there is a positive relationship between value creation and intellectual capital, （2） there is a positive relationship between value creation and stock of intellectual capital, （3） there is a positive relationship between value creation and efficiency of the employed capital, （4） there is a positive relationship between value creation and efficiency of the human capital, （5） there is a positive relationship between value creation and efficiency of the structural capital. The results of the study, obtained through panel data analysis and through the use static and dynamic models, support the hypotheses that the intellectual capital of the companies, in its flow and stock dimensions, is positively and significantly related to value creation.