Men and women as managers: A significant case of no significant difference

What does it all mean? We've reviewed five studies involving almost 2,000 people compared on a total of 43 scales. We've studied matched pairs and controlled for level of managerial achievement. And after all is said and done, we have detected a total of two overall differences between male and female managers. One of these, involving managerial work motivation, favors females: Their work motivation profiles are more “achieving” than those of their male counter-parts. The other difference, pertaining to interpersonal competence, favors the male managers: They are more open and candid with their colleagues than are females. Add to these the more titillating than significant anomalies of differing back-up style preferences and we are left with one conclusion: Women, in general, do not differ from men, in general, in the ways in which they administer the management process.Managers themselves and their subordinates concur. It seems that the disproportionately low numbers of women in management can no longer be explained away by the contention that women practice a different brand of management from that practiced by men. Whereas this may amount to good news in some quarters, we ought not be prematurely elated by discovering that women manage just the way men do. Carolyn Sherif has pointedly called attention to the fact that all is not necessarily well in today's male-oriented management activities.We of course view management in its more global aspects: The important issue to us is how an individual manages in relation to achievement criteria. Individual achievement and organizational health ultimately depend on the way management is practiced. And we now see that the way management is practiced is not related to the sex of the manager — the issue is generic rather than gender-bound.     

Do analysts who understand accounting conservatism exhibit better forecasting performance?

This study investigates the performance of analysts when they match the asymmetric timeliness of their earnings forecast revisions (i.e., asymmetric forecast timeliness) with the asymmetric timeliness of firms’ reported earnings (i.e., asymmetric earnings timeliness). We find that better timeliness‐matching analysts produce more accurate earnings forecasts and elicit stronger market reactions to their forecast revisions. Further, better timeliness‐matching analysts issue less biased earnings forecasts, more profitable stock recommendations and have more favorable career outcomes. Overall, our results indicate that analysts’ ability to incorporate conditional conservatism into their earnings forecasts is an important reflection of analyst expertise and professional success.     

Entrepreneurial Religion in the Age of Neoliberal Urbanism

The introduction to this symposium on entrepreneurial religion and neoliberal urbanism discusses leading scholarly approaches to religion and urban theory, arguing that, despite their merits, these approaches are in need of refinement. Theories on religion and urban theory too often describe religion as a reactionary phenomenon. Religious movements and spaces are generally defined as pockets of resistance and shelter against retreating or failing states under neoliberal restructuring programmes in the shadow of consumption dreams. Although religious actors and ideologies unquestionably form part of urban groups that are denied access to public and private means to wealth and security, the contributors to this symposium argue that within a global, comparative perspective, the entwinement of religion, state and market reveal more complicated configurations. Through a comparison of Islamic gated communities in Istanbul, Pentecostal prayer camps in Lagos and Pentecostal grassroots movements in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, this symposium demonstrates that urban religion should also be regarded as a constitutive force of contemporary capitalism and should therefore be placed at the heart of the neoliberal construction of urban space instead of at its margins.     

Text and metatext in the resource‐based view

This paper distinguishes between text and metatext in the resource‐based view (RBV) – that is, the actual words and logic fundamental to the RBV (the text) and the traditions, interpretations and applications of the theory (the metatext). It argues that Kaufman's ( 2015 ) criticism of the RBV as applied to strategic human resource management actually focuses on RBV metatext and not text. Indeed, unlike some RBV metatext, RBV text actually has a great deal to say about research and practice in strategic human resource management.     

Volunteering time decisions: a multi‐factor experimental study

Non‐profit organizations often seek volunteers to help staff a fundraising event. In the present research, an experimental study assessed volunteering time decisions for a fundraising event following manipulations of opportunity cost valence, opportunity cost avoidability and question order involving donating time and donating money. Opportunity costs represent foregone alternatives sacrificed (e.g. working) when engaging in an activity (e.g. volunteering), with valence of the opportunity cost indicating the appeal (positive or negative) of the foregone alternative and avoidability of the opportunity cost suggesting how easy it would be to forgo the alternative. Prospective donors are often asked to consider both volunteering time and contributing money, and these two questions posed to individuals can be varied in terms of order. The results of the experiment revealed that individuals intended to volunteer the most time when an opportunity cost was negative and avoidable. The lowest time donation intentions occurred when an opportunity cost was positive and less avoidable with individuals also being asked about donating money prior to being asked to donate time. The results highlighted the importance to non‐profit firms of considering opportunity costs potential volunteers face and suggested care in structuring the order of questions involving time and money posed to those individuals. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vis-à-vis vs. mixed dock door assignment: A comparison of different cross dock layouts

An important decision problem during the layout phase of a cross dock is related to the arrangement of inbound and outbound operations within a terminal. Either one side of the terminal is exclusively dedicated to inbound and the other to outbound destinations (vis-à-vis policy) or inbound and outbound destinations can facultatively be assigned all around the terminal (mix policy). The latter policy promises more flexibility, when finally assigning dock doors to truck destinations during operational planning, but comes for the price of ambiguous material flows and potential congestions inside the terminal. Both policies are compared with regard to their impact on operational planning, where deterministic, stochastic and unknown inbound loads are differentiated. Our results show the mix policy being superior in most cases except for unknown inbound loads.     

How do bankruptcy laws affect entrepreneurship development around the world?

How do bankruptcy laws as formal institutions affect entrepreneurship development around the world? Do entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws encourage more entrepreneurship development at a societal level? We posit that if bankrupt entrepreneurs are excessively punished for failure, they may give up potentially high-return but inherently high-risk opportunities to start new businesses. Amassing a cross-country database from 29 countries spanning 19 years (1990-2008), we find that lenient, entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws are significantly correlated with the level of entrepreneurship development as measured by the rate of new firm entry.