Framing and Misperception in Public Good Experiments

Earlier studies have found that framing has a substantial impact on the degree of cooperation observed in public good experiments. We show that the way the public good game is framed affects misperceptions about the incentives of the game. Moreover, we show that such framing‐induced differences in misperceptions are linked to the framing effect on subjects' cooperation behavior. When we do not control for the different levels of misperceptions between frames, we observe a significant framing effect on subjects' cooperation preferences. However, this framing effect becomes insignificant once we remove subjects who misperceive.     

Evaluating Financial Capability Services Provided in a Workforce Development Program

This field study explores the effects of an offer of financial counseling provided to low‐income people exiting welfare assistance in a workforce development program. While only about one‐third of workers actually took part in counseling, those who did were able to reduce the amount of debt they had in collections. We did not find other statistically significant effects on financial behavior or well‐being, however. People living at or below poverty levels of income may need more intensive financial support services than counseling can provide. This study illustrates the challenge of engaging participants in financial capability services, as well as the limitation of interventions like counseling for people who have very low incomes.     

Why Complementary HRM Practices Impact Performance: The Case of Rewards,Job Design,and Work Climate in a Knowledge‐Sharing Context

The strategic HRM literature suggests that HRM influences employees in combinations of practices that “fit” each other rather than as stand‐alone practices; however, it pays little attention to the underlying individual‐level mechanisms. In contrast, the HRM literature on knowledge sharing examines the influence of single practices on individual‐level knowledge sharing, but fails to include the influence of combinations of practices. We link the idea of fit between practices to employee motivation for knowledge sharing by arguing that rewards may be ambiguous and difficult to interpret, but that such ambiguity may be reduced if rewards are combined with other aligned HRM practices, notably job design and work climate. Thus, fit is established through the ambiguity‐reducing effect of combining specific HRM practices. Accordingly, we test for complementarities among rewards, job design, and work climate in the form of a three‐way interaction among these variables with respect to their impact on knowledge‐sharing motivation. Our analysis of 1,523 employees in five knowledge‐intensive firms shows that employees who are exposed to knowledge‐sharing rewards experience higher levels of autonomous motivation to share when they are simultaneously exposed to a noncontrolling job design and work climate that support knowledge sharing. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effect of subordinates’ gender on the difference between self-ratings,and superiors’ ratings,of subordinates’ performance in hotels

An appropriate means of subordinate managers’ performance evaluation in an organisation is crucial for identifying their strength and weaknesses for maintaining job commitment, and improving performance on on-going basis [Church, A., 1995. First-rate multirater feedback. Training and Development 49, 42–43; Church, A., Bracken, D., 1997. Advancing the state of the art of 360-degree feedback. Group and Organisation Management 22, 149–161; Atwater, L., Yammarino, F., 1997. Self-other rating agreement: a review and model. Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management. 15, 121–174]. The debate, on whether there is difference between subordinates’ self-ratings of their performance, and superiors’ ratings of it is better, continues. This is because the extant literature is inconclusive. This study contributes towards resolution of the debate at least for the hotel industry in Australia.     

How China Sees the Arctic: Reading Between Extraregional and Intraregional Narratives

In May 2013, China gained observer status in the Arctic Council, exemplifying its growing legitimacy as a regional actor in the eyes of the eight countries with territory north of the Arctic Circle. Yet since China remains an extraregional state without territory in the Arctic, Chinese officials continue to bolster their state’s legitimacy as an Arctic stakeholder through two spatially inconsistent but mutually reinforcing grand regional narratives. On the one hand, Chinese officials recognize the salience of territory and presence in the Arctic, underscoring their country’s “near-Arctic” location and polar scientific expeditions. On the other hand, officials depict the Arctic as a maritime, global space where climate change has potential ramifications for the entire planet. Significantly, these reframings are affecting intraregional states’ perceptions of the Arctic, demonstrating how a region’s territorial extent, symbolic meaning, and institutional form emerge through the ongoing conversation between extraregional and intraregional narratives.     

Examining the success of women of color-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in the United States: A system dynamics perspective

The objective of this study was to unravel the challenges confronting women of color (WoC)-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United States. This is based on findings that most WoC-owned SMEs fail within the first few years of establishment. The impact of the global financial crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on WoC-owned SMEs was also explored. System Dynamics (SD) is a computational modeling approach useful for understanding changes in a system over time and is applied in this study to illustrate WoC entrepreneurs' navigation through the startup and maturation of SMEs. The authors calibrated and validated the model with publicly available data. Findings revealed that more emphasis should be placed on failure reduction in the early years of establishment of these businesses. Also, there is the need for early intervention rather than focusing on the improvement of the successful business exit from the system. Results indicated that the creation of new businesses by WoC after the failure of existing businesses produced an increase in the number of failed enterprises. The authors assert that attention must be paid at the individual level through support to the entrepreneur. This study contributes to the extant literature by providing the first known SD model useful in depicting the SME system for WoC entrepreneurs in the US. The model serves as a potentially useful tool for informing effective policy making, education, and programmatic approaches to support the success of WoC entrepreneurs in the US.

     

A game of thrones—Dynamics of internal CEO succession and outcome

We examine the implications of chief executive officer (CEO) succession methods for firm outcomes and executive incentives. Focusing on internal CEO successions, we find that the largest U.S. firms typically rely on two types of succession methods, namely, heir apparent and horse race successions. Although heir apparent and horse race CEO candidates have similar qualifications, the consequences of these two succession methods differ significantly. We find that horse race successions induce conflict and are detrimental to firm performance but not necessarily to the newly appointed CEOs. Our findings suggest succession method influences firm performance, executive incentives and CEO labour markets.