Do I Hear the Whistle…? A First Attempt to Measure Four Forms of Employee Silence and Their Correlates

Silence in organizations refers to a state in which employees refrain from calling attention to issues at work such as illegal or immoral practices or developments that violate personal, moral, or legal standards. While Morrison and Milliken (Acad Manag Rev 25:706–725, 2000) discussed how organizational silence as a top-down organizational level phenomenon can cause employees to remain silent, a bottom-up perspective—that is, how employee motives contribute to the occurrence and maintenance of silence in organizations—has not yet been given much research attention. In this paper, we argue that this perspective is a meaningful complementation of the existing literature and that it is sensible to conceptualize distinct forms of employee silence (Pinder and Harlos, Research in personnel and human resources management. JAI Press, Greenwich, 2001; van Dyne et al., J Manag Stud 40:1359–1392, 2003). Drawing on past research and theory we conceptualize four forms of employee silence, namely quiescent, acquiescent, prosocial, and opportunistic silence. We present scales to assess the four forms and provide empirical tests for their distinctiveness and patterns of relationships to various correlates and potential antecedents and consequences.     

The determinants of Norwegian exporters’ foreign exchange risk management

Abstract

This paper examines foreign exchange (FX) hedging by Norwegian exporting firms to provide empirical evidence on the determinants of the hedging decision. The paper contributes to prior studies by, first, focusing on exporters to ensure that the companies in the sample have FX exposure, thereby allowing a more rigorous test of the theoretical determinants of hedging, and, secondly, in contrast to most previous studies that have focused on FX external hedging instruments, the use of both internal and external instruments is examined. Univariate, multivariate and multinominal analyses all provide evidence consistent with the firm value maximization hypotheses of underinvestment and risk aversion. Also, the following characteristics of firms—size, extent of internationalization and liquidity—are found to be related to the decision to hedge FX risk. However, the evidence on the links between the firm characteristics and the decision to hedge is not consistent across internal and external FX hedgers, and also varies for individual hedging instruments. Therefore it is argued that the empirical evidence on the theoretical determinants cannot be generalized to cover the full range of FX hedging strategies (which includes internal hedging instruments). Unlike empirical studies for other countries the evidence for Norwegian firms does not support the hypothesis that the avoidance of financial distress and the need to resort to external capital markets is a significant determinant of the hedging decision. Whilst the evidence suggests that country-specific factors may play a role in determining the use of FX hedging, it does not imply that the different policies adopted are necessarily inconsistent with the firm value maximization hypothesis.     

Globalisation and Policy Effects in Africa

Globalisation or market integration in Sub‐Saharan Africa is closely linked to the structural adjustment programmes. In this paper we focus on their dependence on the politics and institutional characteristics of the countries concerned. In particular, we argue that one important explanation for the dismal performance of many African countries, in spite of all the measures taken towards market liberalisation, is the combination of, first, a magnification of the effects of policy and, second, a lack of willingness or ability on the part of politicians to respect the restrictions imposed on their behaviour and policy choices by the liberalised markets. We look at how the increased exposure to international prices and returns on assets make the economic equilibrium relations – the law of one price and uncovered interest parity – relevant guidelines for economic policy. The argument is illustrated by the case of Zimbabwe, where lack of respect for the restrictions imposed by international markets has led to an economic crisis with negative growth rates and a departure from globalisation.     

Asymmetric effects of federal funds target rate changes on S&P100 stock returns,volatilities and correlations

We study the effects of FOMC announcements of federal funds target rate decisions on individual stock returns, volatilities and correlations at the intraday level. For all three characteristics we find that the stock market responds differently to positive and negative target rate surprises. First, the average response to positive surprises (that is, bad news for stocks) is larger. Second, in case of bad news the mere occurrence of a surprise matters most, whereas for good news its magnitude is more important. These new insights are possible due to the use of high-frequency intraday data.     

Assessing the impact of NERICA on income and poverty in central and western Uganda

Persistent food shortage and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are major development issues. New Rice for Africa (NERICA) was developed to boost crop yield and income of rural households in SSA. Although its high-yielding traits have become fairly well known, there is no empirical analysis of its impact on income and poverty. By taking the case of Uganda where a NERICA promoting program was initiated as one of the major poverty eradication measures, this study attempts to compare actual income with the hypothetical income without NERICA. We found that introduction of NERICA decreases poverty to a significant extent without deteriorating income distribution.     

Linear models, smooth transition autoregressions, and neural networks for forecasting macroeconomic time series: A re-examination

In this paper, we examine the forecast accuracy of linear autoregressive, smooth transition autoregressive (STAR), and neural network (NN) time series models for 47 monthly macroeconomic variables of the G7 economies. Unlike previous studies that typically consider multiple but fixed model specifications, we use a single but dynamic specification for each model class. The point forecast results indicate that the STAR model generally outperforms linear autoregressive models. It also improves upon several fixed STAR models, demonstrating that careful specification of nonlinear time series models is of crucial importance. The results for neural network models are mixed in the sense that at long forecast horizons, an NN model obtained using Bayesian regularization produces more accurate forecasts than a corresponding model specified using the specific-to-general approach. Reasons for this outcome are discussed.