Contributing Factors to the Spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases

A bstract .   Economists have long studied the determinants and effects of income transfers. This article examines an indirect effect of welfare payments on participating individuals: an increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted disease ( STD ) rates.
Several studies have found a significant and positive link between the size of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock fertility rates. Higher welfare payments reduce the cost of bearing and raising a child, and thus reduce the full cost of engaging in unprotected sex. An unintended consequence of unprotected sex is exposure to contagious diseases. This implies that states with higher welfare payments per child will experience higher rates of STDs.
We test this hypothesis using statewide data on the incidence of three types of bacterial STDs, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, for the years 1994 through 1998. The empirical specification is based on the standard microeconomic model of utility-maximizing behavior. The included explanatory variables are demographic proxies reflecting differences in state population characteristics. These characteristics capture unobservable or intrinsically unmeasureable differences in the perceived costs and benefits of engaging in unprotected sex.
The explanatory variable of primary interest is the size of the real welfare payment per recipient. Our empirical results indicate that states with higher real welfare payments are associated with greater rates of STDs.     

Restricted forecasting with VAR models: An analysis of a test for joint compatibility between restrictions and forecasts

A restricted forecasting compatibility test for Vector Autoregressive Error Correction models is analyzed in this work. It is shown that a variance–covariance matrix associated with the restrictions can be used to cancel out model dynamics and interactions between restrictions. This allows us to interpret the joint compatibility test as a composition of the corresponding single restriction compatibility tests. These tests are useful for appreciating the contribution of each and every restriction to the joint compatibility between the whole set of restrictions and the unrestricted forecasts. An estimated process adjustment for the test is derived and the resulting feasible joint compatibility test turns out to have better performance than the original one. An empirical illustration of the usefulness of the proposed test makes use of Mexican macroeconomic data and the targets proposed by the Mexican Government for the year 2003.     

Information systems and technology sourcing strategies of e-Retailers for value chain enablement

In the e-Retail industry, a well-designed IT infrastructure is essential in creating a tightly integrated value chain and delivering high quality service. With intense competition for market share and profits, information systems and technology (IST) sourcing decisions are becoming increasingly important to e-Retail firms to support continued growth and market responsiveness. Drawing on the contingency theory, we examine organizational and environmental factors that influence an e-Retailer's IST sourcing strategy of make versus buy in enabling its value chain activities, and we also look at firm-level performance impacts of IST sourcing decisions that involve bundling across value chain activities. We test the proposed model and hypotheses using a panel data set of 307 firms over the period of 2006–2010. The results show that firms that make transformative IT investments tend to source a smaller portion of IST for their e-Retail value chain activities than firms that pursue automate or informate as their strategic role for IT investment. Capabilities are positively associated with IST sourcing. Firms experienced in e-Retail are more likely to build rather than buy their IST. In addition, we find mimicking behavior for IST sourcing among firms in the same merchandizer category. We find that IT strategic role is strongly associated with growth metric, whereas sourcing decisions predominantly impact operational performance measures. There is partial evidence that alignment between IT strategic role and IST sourcing decisions results in better performance effects. Moreover, complementary IST sourcing of synergistic marketing and sales activities positively impacts Web sales and conversion rate, but the sourcing combination of logistics, operations, and sales activities is associated with lower Web sales and conversion rate.     

Personality and the creativity of frontline service employees: linear and curvilinear effects

Abstract

Previous studies have investigated the relationship between the Five-Factor model of personality and creativity. As this model has been criticised for providing a limited account of an individual’s personality, this study considers additional personality traits that have recently been investigated in the literature as determinants of employee behaviour. Moreover, we also contribute to the existing body of literature by conducting this study in a service setting, for which we predict personality traits will exert differentiated effects on creativity when compared to other settings. Finally, while past research has focused on linear effects, this study examines the existence of non-linear effects between personality and creativity. The results indicate that personality traits apart from the Five-Factor model have an impact on creativity and that the effects of several personality traits on the creativity of frontline service employees differ from those obtained in other settings. Lastly, the findings also show that five of the personality traits have non-linear effects on creativity, and this may be a stimulus for a new stream of research in the human resources literature.     

Variations in human resource management in Asian countries: MNC home-country and host-country effects

This paper investigates the determinants of HRM strategy in a random sample of firms operating in Korea and Taiwan. Both indigenous and foreign-owned firms are studied. HRM strategy is measured in terms of the company's reliance on high-performance, versus more traditional, HRM policies and practices in several different areas, including staffing, employee influence, employee rewards and employee autonomy. Independent variables include the firm's country or region of origin (USA, Japan, Europe, Korea or Taiwan), the host country (Korea or Taiwan) and the internal culture of the firm, as measured by upper management's perception that human resources constitute a significant source of value for the organization. Pronounced differences are found across countries of origin and between the two host countries. Managerial values and various organizational characteristics that serve as control variables are also found to impact on HRM strategy.     

Running on the spot? A review of twenty years of research on the management of human resources in comparative and international perspective

Research using a comparative and international perspective on the management of human resources is examined, drawing on articles published in leading human resource management, management/organizational behaviour and related social science journals between 1977 and 1997. In total a little under 2 per cent of the articles under review focused on the management of human resources in a comparative and international perspective. The largest group of these articles was comparative in nature (44 per cent), followed by those with an international perspective (35 per cent). A smaller number adopted a combined approach (17 per cent) and a few were separately classified as foreign national studies (4 per cent). Over time, there has been some progress made in terms of the number of articles published and the scope of topics covered. However, many of the articles displayed similar shortcomings to those noted in earlier reviews of cross-national management/organization studies: in particular, an over-reliance on a small number of primarily Anglo-Saxon countries, a lack of a longitudinal perspective, a loose specification of culture, an ethnocentric bias and a frequent failure to explain observed differences and similarities.     

Collegiality under pressure: the effects of family demands and flexible work arrangements in the Netherlands

Collegial relationships at work have become more important now that organizations increasingly use team-based work processes. Collegiality is also facing new challenges, however: more employees are meeting heavy demands beyond the workplace and making more frequent use of flexible work arrangements. This study seeks to explain the effect of employees’ family demands on collegiality and evaluates whether the use of flexible work arrangements improves or impedes collegial behaviour. Moreover, we aim to investigate collegial behaviour as an exchange process between co-workers, and therefore also take family demands and the use of flexible work arrangements by co-workers into account as predictors of employee collegiality. Based on a sample of 1114 employees from 30 organizations, the results show that when used by the employee and co-workers, flexitime decreases collegiality. Collegiality is decreased when the employee has young children, but increased when co-workers have older children. The implications of these findings for HR practices are discussed.     

The Value Relevance of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Allowances: An Exploratory Study in the Related United States SO2 Market

This paper examines the valuation implications of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances. We posit that the value of a firm's bank of emission allowances has two components that are likely to be positively valued by the capital market: (1) an asset value component; and (2) a real option value component. Since the necessary data to examine this research hypothesis in the setting of GHG emission allowances is not yet available, we test our conjecture by examining the value relevance of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emission allowances held by US electric utilities. Empirical results reveal that the capital market assigns a positive price to a firm's bank of SO₂ emission allowances, consistent with the argument that emission allowances have, at least, an asset value component that is assigned a positive price by the market. We also find weak evidence consistent with the market assigning a real option value to the allowance banks.     

Client focus in regulatory agencies

Abstract

‘Client focus’ seems like a counter-intuitive notion for regulatory agencies, whose job is to compel people to comply with government requirements. Yet it is becoming the catchphrase for many regulatory authorities. This article puts forward an argument, based on social exchange and regulatory theory, that a client-focused approach is not only compatible with a regulatory role, but also actually facilitates it. It recognizes that most people's propensity to comply is a function of factors other than the fear of punishment, such as their intrinsic or normative motivations and their ability to do what is required. It also assists in delineation and understanding of the proportion of regulatees who opportunistically avoid their obligations. The article advances a broader model of social exchange between regulators and regulatees.     

Governance for climate-change adaptive capacity in the Swedish electricity sector

Abstract

This article analyses the capacity for climate change adaptation (CCA) in the Swedish electricity grid sector. Utilizing two perspectives from organization theory it directs attention to changes in the sector, from the 1980s until 2010, with radical change with an NPM-reform in 1996. For the time before 1996 findings indicate a high CCA capacity. The reform led to a reduction in this capacity through an increased emphasis on economic efficiency, although there also has been some room for robustness-considerations. This article shows that organizational culture and formal structure influence the capacity to adapt to climate change.