Predictors of organizational citizenship behavior in relation to environmental and health & safety issues

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in relation to the environment and health and safety, commonly shaped by individual and voluntary initiatives, are essential factors for a smooth and efficient organization in firms. Our research explores the factors affecting OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues in a Multinational Enterprise (MNE) operating in the oil & gas sector. More in detail, we tested the influence of personal attitudes, self-efficacy, organizational support and social norm on OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues. The results show that personal attitudes and self-efficacy positively influence OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues and those factors are influenced respectively by perceived organizational support and social norm. Moreover, we found that attitudes play a full mediation between social norm and OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues and that organizational support on organization citizenship behavior for the environment and health and safety that is partially mediated through the perceived self efficacy. Finally, the results of our investigation are contextualized in the theoretical and managerial frameworks pointing to a number of avenues for further research.     

Coupling High Self-Perceived Creativity and Successful Newcomer Adjustment in Organizations: The Role of Supervisor Trust and Support for Authentic Self-Expression

This study addresses how supervisors can facilitate the socialization of newcomers with high self-perceived creativity into their new jobs. We combine self-verification theory and current literature on socialization in a dual-stage moderated mediation model where a) newcomer self-perceived creativity interacts with supervisor trust in the newcomer to trigger supervisor perception of newcomer creativity; and b) supervisor perception of newcomer creativity, in turn, interacts with supervisor support for newcomer authentic self-expression to impact newcomer adjustment outcomes (i.e., task performance, job satisfaction, and stress symptoms). A two-wave, multisource study of 146 newcomer–supervisor dyads provides support for our predictions, suggesting that high levels of supervisor trust and support for authentic self-expression serve as moderating conditions allowing supervisor perception of newcomer creativity to positively mediate the relationship between newcomer self-perceived creativity and newcomer adjustment.     

Imitation and Experimentation in Changing Contests

This paper analyzes the equilibrium play of individuals that are randomly matched to play a contest where the dominant action changes over time. Under myopic decision making, players adopt imitation strategies similar to those observed in evolutionary models with sampling from past play in the population. If the players are patient, equilibrium strategies display elements of experimentation in addition to imitation. If the changes in the environment are infrequent enough, these strategies succeed in coordinating almost all of the players on the dominant action almost all of the time. The myopic rules, on the other hand, result in miscoordination for a positive fraction of time. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C73, D83, D84.     

Missing in Asynchronicity: A Kalman‐em Approach for Multivariate Realized Covariance Estimation

Motivated by the need for a positive‐semidefinite estimator of multivariate realized covariance matrices, we model noisy and asynchronous ultra‐high‐frequency asset prices in a state‐space framework with missing data. We then estimate the covariance matrix of the latent states through a Kalman smoother and expectation maximization (KEM) algorithm. Iterating between the two EM steps, we obtain a covariance matrix estimate which is robust to both asynchronicity and microstructure noise, and positive‐semidefinite by construction. We show the performance of the KEM estimator using extensive Monte Carlo simulations that mimic the liquidity and market microstructure characteristics of the S&P 500 universe as well as in a high‐dimensional application on US stocks. KEM provides very accurate covariance matrix estimates and significantly outperforms alternative approaches recently introduced in the literature. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economy-wide Estimates of the Implications of Climate Change: Sea Level Rise

The economy-wide implications of sea level rise in 2050 are estimated using a static computable general equilibrium model. This allows for a better estimate of the welfare effects of sea level rise than the common direct cost estimates; and for an estimate of the impact of sea level rise on greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, general equilibrium effects increase the welfare costs of sea level rise, but not necessarily in every sector or region. In the absence of coastal protection, economies that rely most on agriculture are hit hardest. Although energy is substituted for land, overall energy consumption falls with the shrinking economy, hurting energy exporters. With full coastal protection, GDP increases, particularly in regions with substantial dike building, but utility falls, least in regions that protect their coasts and export energy. Energy prices rise and energy consumption falls. The costs of full protection exceed the costs of losing land. The results also show direct costs – the usual method for estimating welfare changes due to sea level rise – are a bad approximation of the general equilibrium welfare effects; previous estimates of the economic impact of sea level rise are therefore biased.