How host organizations prepare for and learn from expatriate assignments

This article reveals what goes on inside host organizations prior to and during expatriate assignments. On the basis of analyzing organizational documents and conducting 43 interviews with host country nationals (HCNs) and expatriates in 30 Vietnamese organizations that host external foreign assignments, we provide a detailed account of HCNs' experiences and unearth sophisticated preparation and management activities designed to maximize these organizations' learning. We depict what we call “a host organization lifecycle” and extract five lessons: (a) host organizations prepare carefully in advance to learn as much as possible from expatriates; (b) HCNs experience quite dramatic adjustments and burdens during expatriates' placements; (c) mutual trust between expatriates and HCNs is a prerequisite for HCNs' learning; (d) most of HCNs' learning occurs informally via interactions with expatriates or observing how they work; (e) host organization managers actively manage HCN–expatriate relationships. Our findings outline a “wish list” of practices that expatriate‐using organizations could consider deploying for expatriate assignments that focus on the benefit of the host organization' development.     

Modeling beef supply response and price volatility under CAP reforms: The case of Greece

This study examines the supply response of the Greek beef market and the possible effect of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the Greek beef sector during the period 1993–2005. A Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) process is used to estimate expected price, and price volatility, while several different symmetric, asymmetric and non-linear GARCH models are estimated. The empirical results show that price volatility and feed price are important risk factors in the supply response function, while the negative asymmetric price volatility that was detected implies that producers have a weak market position. Furthermore, the empirical findings confirm that the annual premium paid by the EU to beef producers had a positive impact on the production level and also, the change of the EU price support regime, after 2006, is having negative effects on beef production level in Greece.     

Land change in the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado), 1986–2002: Comparative analysis and implications for land-use policy

The Brazilian Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna ecoregion covering 1.8 million km² south and east of the Amazon rainforest, is in rapid decline because of the expansion of modern agriculture. Previous studies of Cerrado land-use and land-cover (LULC) change imply spatial homogeneity, report widely varying rates of land conversion, use ambiguous LULC categories, and generally do not attempt to validate results. This study addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing moderate-resolution, multi-spectral satellite remote sensing data from 1986 to 2002 in two regions with identical underlying drivers. Unsupervised classification by the ISODATA algorithm indicates that Cerrado was converted to agro-pastoral land covers in 31% (3646 km²) of the study region in western Bahia and 24% (3011 km²) of the eastern Mato Grosso study region, while nearly 40% (4688 km² and 5217 km², respectively) of each study region remained unchanged. Although aggregate land change is similar, large and contiguous fragments persist in western Bahia, while smaller fragments remain in eastern Mato Grosso. These findings are considered in the current context of Cerrado land-use policy, which is dominated by the conservation set-aside and command-control policy models. The spatial characteristics of Cerrado remnants create considerable obstacles to implement the models; an alternative approach, informed by countryside biogeography, may encourage collaboration between state officials and farmer-landowners toward conservation land-use policies.     

Protected areas,conservation and tourism – financing the sustainable dream

Many commentators suggest that tourism could help fund the ever growing number of protected areas. The traditional reliance on government sources to support protected areas is increasingly untenable, in both the developed and developing world. This paper reviews the relationship between tourism and protected areas to assess opportunities for sustainable funding to assure effective stewardship. It explores a range of innovative and creative alternative funding mechanisms which could be consistent with a positive evolving relationship between tourism and protected areas. An outline classification of four protected area archetypes for management and funding purposes is suggested, based on a combination of visitation and biodiversity levels. To service the management of those four types, a series of non-government revenue streams are explored such as payments for ecosystem service (ES), environmental mortgages, intrinsic value funding, carbon abatement funding and research dividend funding. Issues discussed include: the willingness to pay on the part of potential visitors, the potential impact of fees on visitation, “quarantining” particularly valuable ecosystems from visitation and intrinsic value funding, the unpredictability of environmental mortgages and the potential stability of ES payments. Further research is required in data analysis and into the design of land tenure systems and regulatory mechanisms.     

Eating their cake and everyone else's cake, too: Resources as the main ingredient to workplace bullying

This article examines workplace bullying from a personal resources perspective. As workplace bullying emerges in unsupportive and stressful work environments, the threat of personal resource loss triggers the low cost, high reward resource-seeking behaviors that are typically reported as indicative of bullies in the workplace bullying research. Herein, we propose that these resource-seeking bullying behaviors allow bullies to create reinforcing resource gain cycles for them, but also create reinforcing resource loss cycles for targets and bystanders of bullying. As a potential remedy, we discuss recommendations for organizations to reduce the occurrence of workplace bullying.     

The impact of social support on salesperson burnout and burnout components

Previous research has shown that salesperson burnout affects sales productivity, employee retention, and job satisfaction. Although burnout has often been conceptualized as a multiple‐component construct, research typically has approached the efficacy of burnout reduction techniques by using overall measures of burnout rather than by examining the effects of such techniques on individual burnout components. The present research investigates how social support and choice of coping strategy relate to burnout components, illustrating the need to consider such components when conducting burnout‐related research. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

List Prices,Sale Prices and Marketing Time: An Application to U.S. Housing Markets

Many goods are marketed after first stating a list price, with the expectation that the eventual sales price will differ. In this article, we first present a simple model of search behavior that includes the seller setting a list price. Holding constant the mean of the buyers’ distribution of potential offers for a good, we assume that the greater the list price, the slower the arrival rate of offers but the greater is the maximal offer. This trade‐off determines the optimal list price, which is set simultaneously with the seller's reservation price. Comparative statics are derived through a set of numerical sensitivity tests, where we show that the greater the variance of the distribution of buyers’ potential offers, the greater is the ratio of the list price to expected sales price. Thus, sellers of atypical goods will tend to set a relatively high list price compared with standard goods. We test this hypothesis using data from the Columbus, Ohio, housing market and find substantial support. We also find empirical support for another hypothesis of the model: atypical dwellings take longer to sell.     

Estimating overall returns to international agricultural research in Africa through benefit-cost analysis: a "best-evidence" approach

This study offers a "best evidence" approach to summarizing recent benefit-cost analyses of international agricultural research in Africa. First, from an extensive literature review and the resulting global inventory of impact studies, 23 studies are identified that calculate aggregate rates of return for Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and partner investments in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). These studies are then appraised against a review framework consisting of principles, criteria, and indicators for study rigor. Subsequently, the economic benefits reported by studies grouped on the basis of its analytical rigor are aggregated and set against total investment by the CGIAR and national agricultural research systems to determine if the total investment to date can be justified by documented benefits under a range of assumptions. As a result, the study finds that aggregate investment is justified under a fairly wide range of suppositions. Under all scenarios, the vast majority of documented benefits stem from a relatively limited array of activities with a majority of benefits stemming from biological control (80%). Close to 20% of total benefits result from crop genetic improvement, and less than 1% result from all other activities. The implications of these results for research investment strategies in SSA and impact assessment are discussed.     

Residents’ perceptions on the traffic impact of a special event: a case of the Macau Grand Prix

Special events may cause significant disruptions to the community and affect the daily lives of the local residents. This study examines how local residents perceive the traffic impact of a major tourism event, the Macau Grand Prix, which is an annual event that takes place on a circuit around the streets of the city, Macao. An exploratory factor analysis reveals five factors regarding the traffic impacts of the event, and the residents of different transportation modes have distinct views on the traffic measures. Bus transit and pedestrian traffic management is found to be the most effective. The result provides the event organizer implications and assessment for the traffic planning and management measures in gaining support from the community.     

Exploration-exploitation tradeoffs and information-knowledge gaps in self-regulated learning: Implications for learner-controlled training and development

Learning in modern organizations often involves managing a tradeoff between exploration (i.e., knowledge expansion) and exploitation (i.e., knowledge refinement). In this paper, we consider the implications of this tradeoff in the context of learner-controlled training and development. We then propose a model that integrates research on control theory, curiosity, and skill acquisition to explain how information knowledge gaps (i.e., gaps between what learners believe they know and what they desire to know) guide resource allocation decisions throughout the learning process. Using this model, we present testable propositions regarding (a) the different approaches learners take when resolving exploration-exploitation tradeoffs, (b) how systematic changes in learner perceptions translate into changes in systematic learner behavior, and (c) how common biases in key learner perceptions can undermine the functioning of self-regulated learning in training and development contexts. We finish with a discussion of the model's implications for the science and practice of training and development.