“Evolutionary” and “revolutionary” events affecting HRM in Israel: 1948–2008

In Western countries, HRM strategies, policies and practices commonly develop in a gradual and incremental “evolutionary” way, but unforeseen domestic or external events can also engender “revolutionary” rapid changes. This paper reviews the major evolutionary and revolutionary changes arising from internal and external sources that Israel has experienced since the founding of the State in 1948, which stem primarily from the political, economic, societal and technological spheres. Israel's HRM has been required to take on new roles to adjust to these changes. A set of propositions derived from a 2-dimensional conceptual model associating source (internal/external) with nature (evolutionary/revolutionary) of change is put forward to account for HRM responses and operations in Israel.     

Ex Ante Bond Returns and the Liquidity Preference Hypothesis

We provide a formal test of the liquidity preference hypothesis (LPH), that is, the monotonicity of ex ante term premiums, using nonparametric estimates that do not require a structural model for conditional expected returns. Although the point estimates of the term premiums are consistent with previous conclusions in the literature regarding violations of the LPH, the test statistics are generally insignificant, even when powerful conditioning information is used. These results illustrate the importance of correctly accounting for correlations across maturities and of formally testing the inequality restrictions implied by the LPH.     

The Impact of Scale,Complexity, and Service Quality on the Administrative Costs of Pension Funds: A Cross‐Country Comparison

Administrative costs per participant appear to vary widely across pension funds in different countries. Using unique data on 90 pension funds over the period 2004–2008, this article examines the impact of scale, the complexity of pension plans, and service quality on the administrative costs of pension funds, and compares those costs across Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States. We find that, except for Canada, large unused economies of scale exist. Higher service quality and more complex pension plans significantly raise costs. Administrative costs vary significantly across pension fund types, with differences amounting to 100 percent.     

Ethical Climate and Managerial Success in China

This study examines perceptions of ethical climate and ethical practices of 118 successful Chinese managers among business students and managers in the Zhejiang province of China. The impact of different ethical climate types on perceived ethical practices of successful managers was also investigated. The “rules” was the most reported, and “independence” was the least reported, among the various climate types. A majority of the respondents perceive successful managers as ethical. In addition, those who believed that their organization had a “rules” climate perceived a strong positive link between success and ethical behavior. None of the other climate types had an impact on the link between success and ethical behavior.     

The Impact of Research Grant Funding on Scientific Productivity

In this paper, we estimate the impact of receiving an NIH grant on subsequent publications and citations. Our sample consists of all applications (unsuccessful as well as successful) to the NIH from 1980 to 2000 for standard research grants (R01s). Both OLS and IV estimates show that receipt of an NIH research grant (worth roughly $1.7 million) leads to only one additional publication over the next five years, which corresponds to a 7 percent increase. The limited impact of NIH grants is consistent with a model in which the market for research funding is competitive, so that the loss of an NIH grant simply causes researchers to shift to another source of funding.     

Modeling and Assessing Sustainable Enterprise Excellence

The enterprise excellence and modern sustainability movements have developed along near parallel timelines. Skilled use of enterprise excellence systems has been documented to significantly boost performance across an array of key domains, including financial, human capital, operations and supply chain, and other areas. Notably absent are social and environmental performance, with their absence attributable to the inadequate emphasis on enterprise excellence of these domains. Similarly, although the triple bottom line is core to the sustainability movement, many adherents of sustainability approach its people and planet domains with ardor, yet virtually neglect its profit domain. A simple model of sustainable enterprise excellence and accompanying maturity assessment regimen are introduced and advanced as a means of merging these movements to drive an equity, ecology and economy triple top line strategy to produce triple bottom line people, planet and profit performance with innovation and organizational design playing pivotal roles in both the model and its assessment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Anthropomorphizing makes material goods as happiness-inducing as experiences

Prior research suggests that material goods (e.g., electronic gadgets) often provide less happiness than do experiences (e.g., movies). As a boundary condition, the present research proposes a theory-based yet actionable solution to overcome the happiness disadvantage of material goods. Three studies show that when material goods are anthropomorphized (i.e., imbued with humanlike characteristics), consumers gain enhanced feelings of consumption sociality and, in turn, derive a boost in happiness such that they gain as much happiness from these material goods as from experiences. With mediation and moderation approaches, we provide process evidence for these enhanced feelings of consumption sociality that are typically lacking with material purchases, which are prone to being consumed alone rather than with other people. Thus, the present research suggests that even in the absence of other people, consumers can gain greater happiness from their material goods by perceiving them as human.

     

Ethical Climates and Managerial Success in Russian Organizations

This study investigated employee perceptions of ethical climates in a sample of Russian organizations and the relationship between ethical climate and behaviors believed to characterize successful managers. A survey of managerial employees in Russia (n = 136) indicates that "rules" was the most reported and "independence" was the least reported ethical climate type. Those who perceived a strong link between success and ethical behavior report high levels of a "caring" climate and low levels of an "instrumental" climate. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

Talk of the Network: A Complex Systems Look at the Underlying Process of Word-of-Mouth

Though word-of-mouth (w-o-m) communications is a pervasive and intriguing phenomenon, little is known on its underlying process of personal communications. Moreover as marketers are getting more interested in harnessing the power of w-o-m, for e-business and other net related activities, the effects of the different communications types on macro level marketing is becoming critical. In particular we are interested in the breakdown of the personal communication between closer and stronger communications that are within an individual's own personal group (strong ties) and weaker and less personal communications that an individual makes with a wide set of other acquaintances and colleagues (weak ties).We use a technique borrowed from Complex Systems Analysis called stochastic cellular automata in order to generate data and analyze the results so that answers to our main research issues could be ascertained. The following summarizes the impact of strong and weak ties on the speed of acceptance of a new product:The influence of weak ties is at least as strong as the influence of strong ties. Despite the relative inferiority of the weak tie parameter in the model's assumptions, their effect approximates or exceeds that of strong ties, in all stages of the product life cycle.External marketing efforts (e.g., advertising) are effective. However, beyond a relatively early stage of the growth cycle of the new product, their efficacy quickly diminishes and strong and weak ties become the main forces propelling growth. The results clearly indicate that information dissemination is dominated by both weak and strong w-o-m, rather than by advertising.The effect of strong ties diminishes as personal network size decreases. Market attributes were also found to mediate the effects of weak and strong ties. When personal networks are small, weak ties were found to have a stronger impact on information dissemination than strong ties.