Toward an assessment of perceived HRM system strength: scale development and validation

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a theoretically grounded instrument to measure perceived HRM system strength. Relying on the work of Bowen and Ostroff, we identify different constructs capturing measurable features of a strong HRM system. Next, we develop items to measure these constructs, and use two different samples to validate the instrument. The resulting instrument builds on 11 constructs, organized along 3 different hierarchical levels. It is useful for HR practitioners in evaluating their functioning and for researchers to further test and develop theoretical insights in the HRM–performance relationship.     

Reforming the reform: changing roles for accounting and management in the Italian health care sector

This paper examines the ways in which accounting has intervened in the process of reforming the original ‘reform’ of the Italian health care system. By stepping into an ongoing process accounting has been asked not only to foster efficiency, effectiveness and value for money, but to correct as well the ‘degeneration’ of the original reform, which subjected health care delivery to ‘democratic’ scrutiny and political control. The call for a greater accountability in the use of public resources has been thus interpreted as both a mechanism of surveillance and control and a way to resist the ‘over-politicization’ of health sector management together with the abuses, scandals and fraudulent behaviour it induced. In seeking to interpret the specificity of the Italian experience, the paper suggests that the range of ‘the contexts in which accounting operates’ should be broadened in order to gain a deeper understanding of its roles in those institutions, such as health care systems, which play a crucial role in modern societies. In order to move in this direction systematic and empirically grounded cross-national comparisons are called for, since, although accounting and management are involved in virtually all attempts to redesign health care services, consequences are likely to be different when conditions of possibility differ at the outset.     

Explaining greater test use for selection: the role of HR professionals in a world of expanding regulation

In recent decades there has been a well‐documented increase in organisations' use of formal tests for selection purposes. This article investigates whether tests' technical qualities and predictive validity are the critical determinants of take‐up, or whether other organisational and contextual factors are more important. Case studies of organisations were used to identify the factors driving change and Workplace Employee Relations Survey data were analysed to determine the consistency of the findings with national data. The single most important factor appears to be the regulatory environment, with tests used as a precautionary measure to protect selection decisions from challenge. The growing formal professionalisation of HR departments is also important, and the influence of both factors is consistent with current theories of organisational decision‐making. Continued growth in test use is likely, but the implications for efficiency in selection are less clear.     

The determinants of whistleblowing in public administrations: an analysis conducted in Italian health organizations,universities, and municipalities

The aim of this paper is to examine which variables are most important in encouraging whistleblowing in Italian public administrations, as a result of the compulsory application of the anti-corruption Law No. 190/2012. Our research is based on an empirical analysis of 365 public administrations: 86 hospitals, 137 health agencies, 39 universities, and 103 major Italian municipalities.

The results show that whistleblowing seems to occur more frequently in large public administrations, to be associated with formal procedures and an organizational proceduralization that encourages individuals to actually blow the whistle, and that it is only partially correlated to training and education.     

The need for documenting validation transactions: a qualitative component of the testing validation process

Validation is an argument for the interpretation of test scores. It is often the case that the validators do not formally consider how the various interactions that take place during the process of test item development, for example with the subject-matter experts (SMEs), may be influencing the results obtained. . . Every effort should be undertaken to more fully understand the impact the validator has on the validation process through the documentation of qualitative evidence regarding how the transactions between and among the validators and SMEs influence the data collection effort upon which interpretations of test scores are made.     

Growth factors in medium-sized enterprises: the case of an Italian region

Due to the polarisation of the Italian production system into small and large enterprises, the role of medium-sized enterprises has been largely neglected. As a consequence, studies analysing the factors that affect economic development in Italy have mainly focused on the role of small businesses or on aggregates of small and medium-sized enterprises. This study contributes to the literature by focusing on medium-sized enterprises, and the study has a two-fold aim. First, our study aimed to identify the growth factors specific to medium-sized enterprises in comparison with small enterprises. Second, of the factors that determine the growth of medium-size enterprises, we aimed to identify factors with entrepreneurial characteristics. To investigate these two aims, we surveyed and analysed medium-sized enterprises operating in the Italian region of Bergamo. Our findings highlight some of the factors that significantly determine the growth of medium-sized enterprises, including proactivity, risk taking posture and investment aimed at growth.     

Organizing professionals and their impact on performance: the case of public health doctors in the Italian SSN

ABSTRACT

Hybrid professional managers have been associated with improvements in the performance of public sector organizations. However, less attention has been given to differences within this category. Drawing on board human capital theory, we focus on an emerging group of ‘organizing professionals’ with earlier and deeper exposure to management training and education: generalist clinical hybrids drawn from public health in the Italian healthcare system. Specifically, we investigate the impact that these hybrid hospital CEOs have on organizational performance in comparison with other backgrounds. The results indicate that this form of generalist hybrid professionalism has distinct, if not dramatic, consequences for performance.     

The co-creation of value for pursuing a sustainable happiness: The analysis of an Italian prison community

Happiness is generally considered a timeless and an ultimate goal for human being, groups, and even nations. Even though the personal dimension of happiness has been widely investigated, the literature still calls for further research on how individual, community and/or global happiness can be enhanced and sustained in the long run without exploiting future generations possibility to be happy. Thus, this study aims at contributing to bridge this gap, embracing value co-creation and its circular logic as a guiding framework of analysis. To this end, the existing relationship between happiness, co-creation and sustainable development has been explored according to the Public Service Logic (PSL), a theoretical framework based on the well-established construct of value co-creation. To support the theoretical investigation, an extreme case study has been analysed, underlining the way a specific Italian prison community approaches individual and collective happiness, both currently and in the future. The results paved the way for some interesting managerial and policy implications that might stimulate policymakers in carrying out sustainable actions and programs open to the participation and the active contribution of citizens. In this sense, the present study represents one of the first attempts to approach happiness as one of the determinants of sustainable development.     

Network of companies: an analysis of market concentration in the Italian stock market

In this paper we propose an adjustment to the Herfindahl–Hirschman concentration index for explicitly considering the role of the topology of financial economic networks on market concentration. The case study of the Italian stock market serves for outlining the relevance of the shareholding network in the measurement of effective concentration. Moreover, we deepen the analysis of the network comparing network centrality measures, that are a well known method for understanding the relative relevance of network nodes. The correlations among them show their relation, and the fact that none of them can completely substitute the information contained in the size of companies. Such analysis constitutes the base for randomized experiments aiming at understanding to which extent the topology of this financial economic network is constraining the market concentration, so we derive and comment the results on the maximum value of HH \(_{i}\) under the scale-free constraint. We also show the fragility of the network under random rewiring, both unconstrained and constrained by the network topology.     

Validation study of a model for the assessment of potential in Italian Young Professionals working in medium-sized to large companies in different business sectors

The paper presents the results of a survey carried out on the potential profiles of 1,068 Italian Young Professionals coming out from Assessment Center and Development Center activities. A review carried out on a database of potential profiles made available by GSO, which has acknowledged the potential assessments conducted by 35 medium to large sized companies of 8 different business sectors (Banking, Publishing, Pharmaceutical, Large-scale distribution, Transports, Fashion and Luxury, Telecommunications, Energy) over ten years, showed that the potential assessment of Young Professionals was carried out by means of observation grids including from 15 to 20 different skills, reaching a total number of 48 skills evaluated in all the companies examined. The aim of this research is to achieve an assessment model that includes the smallest possible number of highly predictive potential skills, avoiding dispersions and redundancies in the assessment and maximizing the opportunities for the companies to make correct managerial choices when using potential data. The research has applied a series of statistical models (correlation, factor analysis and regression) in order to reduce the number of abilities and identify those that predict the overall performance. The results show that the number of “necessary” skills is below 10. Two assessment models have been obtained, one defined as Narrow (eight necessary skills) and another defined as Broad (14 skills, the necessary ones plus others considered as “secondary” but relevant).     

Quality in health care: possibilities and limitations of quantitative research instruments among health care users

Quality in health care has traditionally been dominated by medical profession, where patients’ opinions were labelled as lay evaluation. Patients’ views and opinions are important because they give us an insight into dimensions of quality that are not evaluated by medical profession and often seem to be more important. In health care quantitative methodology is often used to address these quality dimensions and introduce patients’ views and opinions. There are various benefits using quantitative research instruments, such as a detailed analysis of the importance of various quality dimensions for patients and an analysis of factors influencing patients’ satisfaction. On the other hand serious deficiencies can be tackled too, that are usually dealt with qualitative research instruments, because they go deeper into people’s motives and feelings. However, health care service is specific—it is very important to patients (health is one of the most important values), but their participation in health care service is rather low. They also don’t always say and do what they mean. In such a context combination of quantitative and qualitative research instrument does not give satisfactory answers. The importance of complaints is stressed and rewards for taking them seriously and acting upon them is discussed.     

The effects of job-search motives and coping on psychological health and re-employment: a study of unemployed Hong Kong Chinese

We examine the influences of job-search motives and coping behaviours on psychological well-being and re-employment on 104 unemployed Hong Kong Chinese within a longitudinal context. Participants were tested on two different occasions separated by eight months. Results indicated that, at the first survey, use of coping strategies predicted higher psychological well-being while higher financial hardship was associated with decreased mental health. Results of ANOVA indicated that participants who scored high in employment commitment at the first survey were more likely to regain employment subsequently. Contrary to prior findings reported in studies with Western samples, psychological well-being was not affected by employment status at the follow-up survey. The psychological well-being of participants deteriorated from the first to the second survey. These findings point clearly to the significance of psychological factors in determining the response of Hong Kong Chinese to job loss. Implications of these data for future unemployment research among Chinese are discussed.     

Emotional intelligence,job insecurity,and psychological strain among real estate agents: a test of mediation and moderation models

We develop two models of the relationships between emotional intelligence (EI), job insecurity, and psychological strain. The moderation model suggests that EI reduces psychological strain by helping individuals cope with job insecurity when it arises. The mediation model suggests that EI reduces psychological strain by enabling individuals to conserve resources, thereby reducing their experience of job insecurity. Our results, based on a sample of 232 real estate agents, show that job insecurity mediates the relationship between EI and psychological strain. Contrary to what the moderation model suggested, the positive relationship between job insecurity and psychological strain was found to be stronger when EI was higher. Overall, the results provide more nuanced insights into the role of EI in psychological strain.     

Model selection test procedures in a single linear equation of a dynamic simultaneous system and their defects in small samples

A variety of asymptotically valid tests for orthogonality, serial correlation, predictive failure, and of coefficient restrictions are presented, and their rejection probabilities are assessed in linear structural models with lagged dependent and (possibly) jointly dependent variables by Monte Carlo methods. For all test procedures the small-sample distribution under the null usually deviates substantially from the asymptotic distribution; this impedes their use in a reliable model selection strategy for econometric time-series analysis. Despite the harassing dependence of type I errors on factors generally unknown to the practitioner, inconsistencies originating from specification errors or from disregarded simultaneity may be detected by particular tests in particular situations. From this study some clues emerge on how to interpret (in)significant values of the various test statistics.     

Unobserved heterogeneity in hazard rate models: a test and an illustration from a study of career mobility

This paper proposes a test for neglected heterogeneity in continuous-time hazard rate models that can be done easily using generally available program packages. It is a score test appropriate for cases in which the variance of the heterogeneity is small and it can be applied quite generally, provided that the generalized residuals can be calculated. The test is demonstrated using data on the career trajectories of German males from the German Life History Study.     

Dealing with differences: the impact of perceived diversity outcomes on selection and assessment of minority candidates

Although many strategies have been employed to specifically recruit and select minority employees, the selection rates for designated minority groups are often lower than those for the majority group. Minority candidates with high cultural maintenance (CM) are particularly vulnerable to cultural bias in selection procedures, a process which has proved difficult to change. This paper aims to examine whether these effects may be moderated by recruiters’ perceived diversity outcomes; whether they view diversity as beneficial or threatening to the organization's performance. In an experimental study, participants belonging to a cultural majority group played the role of recruiters (n = 99). Their diversity perceptions were manipulated by asking them to think about, and discuss, either positive or negative outcomes of cultural diversity in the workplace. They were then asked to rate fictional profiles of minority candidates for a job opening. The results confirm that CM of minority candidates has a negative main effect on the ratings they receive in assessment procedures. However, as predicted, this effect is moderated by diversity perceptions. Recruiters who perceive individual differences in the workplace as positive and beneficial, give higher ratings to candidates who maintain their own culture. This provides a promising insight in possible ways to reduce cultural bias in selection procedures.