Gender-Based Vicarious Sensitivity to Disempowering Behavior in Organizations: Exploring an Expanded Concept of Hostile Working Environment

The purpose of this study was to explore evidence of gender-based vicarious sensitivity to disempowering behavior in organizations, expanding the concept of hostile working environment beyond the context of sexual harassment. Male and female graduate and undergraduate students viewed 10 video segments of Anita Hill's interview by U.S. senators during the October 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Clarence Thomas. Although no significant relationship was found between the personal attributes of age and ethnicity to perceptions of disempowering behavior, female participants reported seeing significantly more offensive behavior in the video segments than did male participants. The results are discussed in terms of greater female sensitivity to common forms of disempowering behavior in organizations, and having a disparate negative impact and systematically placing women at a disadvantage in today's workforce.     

Integrating sustainability and resilience in the supply chain: A systematic literature review and a research agenda

Sustainability has emerged as an important industrial strategic outlook expanding beyond organizational boundaries to include the supply chain. Simultaneously, the industry has also been faced with supply chain resilience concerns. Research on the intersection of supply chain sustainability and resilience is nascent and is a consequence of their observed mutual influences. However, confusion about concepts, implementation methods, and measurements of sustainable and resilient supply chains remains. This study completes a systematic literature review that critically examines several major observations and directions. We find the concept of sustainable supply chains is more established, and general agreement on its theoretical foundations exists. Supply chain resilience is relatively less mature. The nexus and relationships between the two topics are often incoherent: there is confusion on sustainable and resilient supply chains establishment; there is no clarity on what practices could jointly advance both areas. A major conflict exists since sustainability generally focuses on efficiency, while resilience seeks effectiveness. We recommend studies to analyze implementation relationships and impact. We also observe that performance measurement systems should be developed to assess supply chain sustainability and resilience performance taking with explicit consideration time horizons considered in these measures.     

Modeling Disinterest and Dislike: A Bounded Bayesian Mixed Logit Model of the UK Market for GM Food

Mixed logit models represent a powerful discrete choice analytical model but require assumptions about the functional form of the parameter distributions. The use of unbounded distributions, such as the normal distribution, may be regarded as unsuitable where theory indicates that all are negatively affected by increases in an attribute, such as price. Bounded distributions such as the triangular and log-normal are unable to model the case where a section of the population is indifferent towards an attribute, while the remainder are negatively disposed toward it. Train and Sonnier’s bounded mixed logit model accommodates these features and is employed in this paper. A censored normal and Johnson’s S_b distribution are used to model preferences in the UK for food attributes, including price and GM technology. Bi-modal distributions are identified regarding GM food: some are unlikely to ever consume it, some are close to indifference and willing to consume at relatively small discounts while the remainder are fairly unresponsive to further price reductions.     

FAMILIES, TIME AND MONEY IN CANADA, GERMANY, SWEDEN, THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE UNITED STATES

Using microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study, we assess "time crunch" for families with children in Canada, Germany, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S. Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that both time and money are important inputs to the well-being of parents and children. We present cross-country comparisons of "total available adult hours" under different assumptions about the varying time needs of families of different size. We also present estimates of "time shortages." In all cases, we provide separate estimates for families located at different points in the country income distributions, since being short of both time and money is likely to be particularly problematic. Although paid work hours are highest for high-income families, we nonetheless find significant numbers of lower-income families in which parents work very long hours in the paid labor market; this is particularly the case in the U.S.     

Learning Why More Learning Takes Place in Some Classrooms Than Others

Abstract. The relatively poor average performance of German students on the recent PISA international evaluations of 15- and 16-year-olds' literary skills (2000) and mathematical skills (2003) and the wide variation in performance, with low-income students scoring particularly poorly, have led to calls for reforms of the German educational system. Understanding why students in some classrooms learn more than do those in other classrooms is an important first step in considering alternative reform strategies. Possible explanations include differences in teacher quality, class sizes and peer groups, and also differences among the types of secondary schools that parents select for their children. This paper illustrates a set of techniques that are useful in examining the roles these factors play in predicting why, net of family background and prior achievement, the average achievement of children in some classrooms is much higher than that of children in other classrooms. We illustrate the use of these techniques with a dataset from Bogotá, Colombia, that has two attractive properties. First, some teachers teach multiple classes of students. Second, students are enrolled in schools in two sectors (public and private). Application of the techniques described in this paper could shed light on the reasons why the average academic achievement of German students attending some schools is much higher than that of German students attending other schools.     

Changes in sponsorship value: Competencies and capabilities of successful sponsorship relationships

The sponsorship relationship has evolved considerably over the past few years. As a result, the value delivered to both sponsors and the sports entities with which they form relationships needed to be redefined. While some of these partners have made the necessary leap forward, some sponsors have also been confronted with resistance on the part of sport entities to adapt to evolving perceptions of value. Based on a qualitative study aimed at canvassing the views of some of the most prominent experts in the field and spanning 4 years and four continents, we document this evolution of sponsorship value and identify those key competencies that differentiate successful sponsors from less successful ones. Our research provides insights for other inter-firm relationships, particularly those in the service sector.     

Reflections on the Efficient Market Hypothesis: 30 Years Later

In recent years financial economists have increasingly questioned the efficient market hypothesis. But surely if market prices were often irrational and if market returns were as predictable as some critics have claimed, then professionally managed investment funds should easily be able to outdistance a passive index fund. This paper shows that professional investment managers, both in The U.S. and abroad, do not outperform their index benchmarks and provides evidence that by and large market prices do seem to reflect all available information.     

GEM research: achievements and challenges

This article analyzes the content and evolution of research based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project. We conducted a rigorous search of articles published in journals within the Thomson Reuters’ Social Sciences Citation Index^® through an exploratory analysis focused on articles using GEM data. The main findings of this study reveal that the institutional approach is the most commonly used conceptual framework. Also, although there are still few academic publications using GEM data, the number of articles is increasing, as are opportunities for future research.     

Ethnic patterns of returns to education in Bulgaria

It is widely accepted that disparities in education contribute to the poor labour market outcomes experienced by ethnic minority groups and consequently to their poverty. In this article, I analyse differential educational benefits in Bulgaria and compare returns to education for the Roma minority with the majority population and the Turkish minority. I show that both ethnic minority groups have lower education levels and employment rates than the majority population and that they also have lower returns to education. This result could be related to minorities' lower education quality as well as to discrimination in the labour market. Integration policies should thus aim to improve employability and labour market competence of vulnerable groups starting from school.     

On Some Characteristics of Gaussian Covariance Functions

The concepts of isotropy/anisotropy and separability/non‐separability of a covariance function are strictly related. If a covariance function is separable, it cannot be isotropic or geometrically anisotropic, except for the Gaussian covariance function, which is the only model both separable and isotropic. In this paper, some interesting results concerning the Gaussian covariance model and its properties related to isotropy and separability are given, and moreover, some examples are provided. Finally, a discussion on asymmetric models, with Gaussian marginals, is furnished and the strictly positive definiteness condition is discussed.