The relationship between job dissatisfaction and training transfer

The high rates of training transfer failure that prevail still puzzle practitioners as well as researchers. The central aim of the present study is to analyze the relatively under‐researched role of job dissatisfaction in the training transfer process. Specifically, we expect that job dissatisfaction would have a negative effect on transfer but that this effect would be buffered by the expectation of positive transfer consequences and motivation to transfer. To test these hypotheses, 220 participants in different training programs completed an online questionnaire 1 year after training. The results support our assumptions. They reveal that job dissatisfaction has a detrimental effect on training transfer, but that motivation to transfer and the expectation of positive transfer consequences have a buffering effect. The more motivated a person is towards transfer, the less negative is the effect of job dissatisfaction on actual transfer, but only if a person expects positive outcomes from transfer, such as acknowledgment or rewards. The findings are discussed in relation to existing training transfer models, as well as models of job (dis)satisfaction.     

Ecotourism development in Ghana: A postcolonial analysis

Despite growing research on ecotourism in Ghana, it is unclear to what extent colonial approaches to forestry and wildlife conservation still influence ecotourism in the country. This paper examines ecotourism development in Ghana from a postcolonialist perspective. It is based on a thematic assessment of primary data from in-depth interviews with a range of ecotourism actors. The paper shows that ecotourism in Ghana, much like colonial forestry and wildlife conservation, faces challenges such as the marginalisation of the local community, the use of neo-crisis narratives, a dependence on international forces, and the marginalisation of local ecological knowledge. It argues for a holistic approach to the development of ecotourism as a win–win strategy for sustainable development.     

Exit as governance: do blockholders affect corporate innovation in large US firms?

Using a sample of large US firms, this study shows that blockholders in combination with liquidity can contribute positively to innovation (R&D investments). We contribute to the literature on managerial myopia that has focused mainly on large owners and their type (short-term/long-term). Our results are in line with recent theoretical studies arguing that blockholders in combination with market liquidity can mitigate managerial myopia, as suggested by the exit model of governance. The results indicate that blockholders can be efficient in resolving agency problems and that they can enhance long-term prosperity, even when the individual blockholder investment horizon may not be long.     

Identifying design values across countries through adaptive comparative judgment

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Adaptive comparative judgment (ACJ) has proven to be a valid, reliable, and feasible method for assessing student performance in...     

Family logics and environmental sustainability: A study of the New Zealand wine industry

The majority of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the wine industry are family owned and operated providing a unique organisational structure to study environmental sustainability engagement. However, researchers at the intersection of environmental sustainability (ES) and family businesses tend to oversimplify family businesses as homogeneous regarding ES. Therefore, the broader goal of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of heterogeneities among family firms related to ES. The paper aims to understand how family firms portray different aspects of family influence (family goals, family values, culture and ethics, and the imprints of the founders and the next generation) in their ES disclosures. Family logics are used as a theoretical lens to analyse family influence. A qualitative content analysis of 72 corporate websites of family firms operating in the New Zealand wine industry was conducted. Antecedents of heterogeneities were revealed with a discussion of three typologies of family firms: family first, business first and upstarts.     

How (Not) to Foster Innovations in Public Infrastructure Projects*

The government wants an infrastructure‐based public service to be provided. First, the infrastructure has to be built; subsequently, it has to be operated. Should the government bundle the building and operating tasks in a public–private partnership? Or should it choose traditional procurement (i.e., delegate the tasks to different firms)? Each task entails unobservable investments to come up with innovations. It turns out that, depending on the nature of the innovations, bundling can either stimulate or discourage investments. Moreover, we find that if renegotiation cannot be prevented, public–private partnerships might lead the government to deliberately opt for technologically inferior projects.     

A Cautionary Tale About Control Variables in IV Estimation

Many instrumental variable (IV) regressions include control variables to justify (conditional) independence of the instrument and the potential outcomes. The plausibility of conditional IV independence crucially depends on the timing when the control variables are determined. This paper works through different IV models and discusses the (conditions for the) satisfaction of conditional IV independence depending on whether the control variables are measured prior to or after instrument assignment. To illustrate the identification issues, we consider the Vietnam War draft risk as instrument either for veteran status or education to evaluate the effects of these variables on labour market and health outcomes. Our empirical analysis based on the ‘Young Men in High School and Beyond’ survey suggests that commonly used conditional IV strategies to estimate the impact of draft induced military service or education may be severely biased due to the use of improper controls.     

The term structure of cross-sectional dispersion of expectations in a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment

In this paper, we present the results of a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment (LtFE) where we eliciting short- as well as long-run expectations regarding the future price dynamics in markets with positive and negative expectations feedback. Comparing our results on short-run expectations with the LtFE literature, we prove that eliciting long-run expectations has no impact on the price dynamics nor on short-run expectations formation. In particular, we confirm that the Rational Expectation Equilibrium (REE) is a good benchmark only for the markets with negative feedback. Interestingly, our data show that while the term structure of the cross-sectional dispersion of expectations is convex in positive feedback markets, it is concave in negative feedback markets. Differences in the slope of the term structure stem from diverse degrees of uncertainty regarding the evolution of prices in the two feedback systems: (1) in the negative feedback system, the convergence of the price to the REE reflects a tendency for coordination of long-run expectations around the fundamental value; (2) conversely, oscillatory price dynamics observed in the positive feedback system is responsible for the diverging pattern of long-run expectations. Finally, we propose a new measure of heterogeneity of expectations based on the scaling of the dispersion of expectations over the forecasting horizon.

     

Forecast combination through dimension reduction techniques

This paper considers several methods of producing a single forecast from several individual ones. We compare “standard” but hard to beat combination schemes (such as the average of forecasts at each period, or consensus forecast and OLS-based combination schemes) with more sophisticated alternatives that involve dimension reduction techniques. Specifically, we consider principal components, dynamic factor models, partial least squares and sliced inverse regression.Our source of forecasts is the Survey of Professional Forecasters, which provides forecasts for the main US macroeconomic aggregates. The forecasting results show that partial least squares, principal component regression and factor analysis have similar performances (better than the usual benchmark models), but sliced inverse regression shows an extreme behavior (performs either very well or very poorly).