Hospital Numerical Flexibility and Nurse Economic Security in China and India

This article contrasts the flexibility of Chinese and Indian urban hospitals and the security of nurses. The study draws on a survey of 55 urban hospitals, and finds that national context generates different flexibility–security outcomes even when workers with similar skills are considered. Our findings support claims that China is constructing a flexibility–security regime that aims to promote both security and flexibility, and that India remains attached to employer‐based social protection, but challenges the claim that economic growth is higher in China because India's employers have relatively less capacity to utilize labour‐time as they wish.     

Unveiling the temporally contingent role of codification in alliance success

While prior research highlights the importance of codifying alliance experience to achieve alliance success, it is unclear whether codification is equally useful in the different phases of an alliance. Based on a sample of 192 technology firms that report on over 3,400 strategic alliances, we find that in the partner selection and termination phases, reliance on codified knowledge is useful. However, in the partner management phase, reliance on codified knowledge is less beneficial and can be even negatively related to performance. Our findings have implications for the tension between flexibility and efficiency and the relationship between structure and performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Breaking the letter vs. spirit of the law: How the interpretation of contract violations affects trust and the management of relationships

Contract violations are ubiquitous. There has been little attention, however, dedicated to understanding the mechanisms involved in making sense of and addressing such occurrences. Two experimental studies investigated how people interpret contract violations and how these interpretations affect trust and the management of relationships. By drawing on the distinction between violations of the letter versus spirit of the law, we show that letter violations are more difficult to overcome than spirit violations, due to higher perceived intentionality. These effects generalized across different populations, levels of contracting experience, types of contracting contexts, levels of ambiguity within the contract, and degrees of contract complexity. The results yield important implications for understanding contract violations, trust, and organizational responses as a relationship management capability. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Looking Forward to Performance Improvement: A Field Test of the Feedforward Interview for Performance Management

This study examines the effectiveness of the feedforward interview for improving the job performance of employees relative to a traditional performance appraisal interview in a business equipment firm. Managers (n = 25) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Employees (n = 70) who engaged in a feedforward interview with their manager were observed by an anonymous peer to perform significantly better on the job four months later than employees (n = 75) who received the company's traditional performance appraisal interview. The finding that the feedforward intervention increased performance relative to the performance appraisal indicates that the effect is a relatively enduring one. The results suggest that the feedforward interview should prove useful for human resource managers who are searching for ways to increase the performance of their organization's human resources over and above the traditional performance appraisal. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Corporate Governance and Corporate Financing and Investment during the 2007‐2008 Financial Crisis

We examine the impact of the 2007‐2008 financial crisis on nonfinancial firms’ financing and investment activities and the role of corporate governance in alleviating the adverse consequences of the external capital supply shock. Employing a difference‐in‐differences research design, we find that better governance mitigates the disruption caused by the bank credit supply shock to firms’ financing and investment activities. A variety of robustness tests suggest that our findings are unlikely to be driven by an endogeneity problem. We obtain similar results when we extend the sample period to include the delayed spillover from the banking sector to other capital market sectors.     

Management Roles and Sustainability Information. Exploring Corporate Practice

Little empirical research has been conducted on perceptions of the types of sustainability information dealt with by different managers in internal company processes. In this study the roles of different managers are distinguished based on contingency theory and using the categorisation in the sustainability balanced scorecard concept. Expected sustainability information types are identified for these roles and hypotheses are derived and tested about perceptions of the types of sustainability information in different management roles. Interviews identified 116 roles involved with sustainability information in a set of leading German and UK sustainability reporting companies. Results from analysing sustainability information types contingent upon different management roles contribute to the understanding of sustainability accounting systems and practices and how companies can best support different management roles with appropriate sustainability information.     

Internet versus bricks-and-mortar retailers: An investigation into intangibility and its consequences

Intangibility has long been studied as a unidimensional construct with the focus being placed upon the physical element. This paper explores the effects of three unique intangibility dimensions on a consumer's ability to evaluate goods and services, and the perceived risk (PR) associated with the transaction. The authors examine these relationships in purchase environments that include both traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers and the Internet. Their investigation further incorporates prior knowledge as a moderating factor into the proposed framework. This allows for a thorough comparison of the effects and relationships that exist between intangibility and its consequences in general, evaluation difficulty (ED) and perceived risk (PR) in particular. The authors develop hypotheses pertaining to the proposed model and test them with two experiments. The empirical results are broadly supportive of the hypotheses. Theoretical and managerial implications to the services marketing literature are discussed.     

Social Issues and Media Sensationalism: The Effectiveness of Teaching Methods to Affect their Perceived Importance

This study assessed the perceived importance of various social issues and the effect that teaching methods have on business students' perceptions of those issues. Subjects in the test group were shown an educational video that explained how some social issues are reported inaccurately with extensive coverage, or sensationalized in the media, resulting in a moral panic. Other issues are not covered as extensively, but may have a more significant impact on business, society and the subject. The importance of five social issues was rated by students who had completed a course that covered business ethics and social responsibility content and those who had not taken the course yet.Results indicated that business ethics and social responsibility course content had no effect on perceived importance of social issues, but that viewing the video did. Subjects who viewed the educational video on social issues in the news media rated those issues receiving extensive coverage as lower in importance than those subjects who did not view the video. Also, subjects who viewed the educational video rated those issues not receiving extensive coverage as higher in importance than those subjects who did not view the video. Implications for business ethics and social responsibility educators are discussed.     

Hierarchical Bayesian conjoint models incorporating measurement uncertainty

The authors explore situations where consumers supplement their judgments with a measurement of uncertainty about their own preferences, either implicitly or explicitly, and develop two sets of hierarchical Bayesian conjoint models incorporating such measurements. The first set of models uses the relative location of a rating to determine the importance or weight given to the rating, in a regression setting. The second set uses interval judgment as a dependent variable in a regression setting. After specifying the models, the authors perform a theoretical comparison with a basic Bayesian regression model. They show that, under different conditions, the proposed models will yield more precise individual-level partworth estimates. Two simulated data examples and data from a conjoint study are used to illustrate the gains that could be obtained from modeling uncertainty. In the empirical application, the authors show that model fit improves when ratings for items that respondents do not like are given more weight compared to ratings for items that they do like. Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.