Development and validation of an Integrated Organizational Safety Climate Questionnaire with multilevel confirmatory factor analysis

Meta-analytic and traditional reviews on safety climate reveal theoretical and methodological safety climate issues still open. The main aim of this study is to propose a questionnaire which combines recent and different approaches to safety climate, trying to give a contribute about these issues. The present research led to the development of a new questionnaire to measure safety climate, suitable for blue-collar workers, and to the evaluation of its psychometric properties, and usefulness to measure safety climate in the industrial sector. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) was used to properly evaluate the factor structure underlying the safety climate questionnaire composed of three scales: organizational safety climate scale, supervisor’s safety climate scale and co-workers’ safety climate scale. The clear distinction, made with the use of three different scales, among safety agents (organization, supervisor, co-workers), allows the assessment of workers’ perceptions focused on each level, and allows to deeply explore, for instance, lateral relationships of supervisor’s safety climate and co-workers’ safety climate, analysing the interactions between the roles of these two safety agents. A two-level design was used, considering the individual level and the work-group level. Data collection involved 1,617 blue-collars from eight Italian manufacturing companies. The MCFA results demonstrated the importance to use proper analysis to study the factor structure of a multilevel construct as safety climate, and confirmed the theoretical structure of safety climate purposed from Griffin and colleagues, using not only psychological climate (i.e., the individual level), but also the group level safety climate.     

A regional perspective on inequality and growth in Portugal using panel cointegration analysis

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and economic growth for thirty Portuguese NUTS3 regions within a multivariate panel framework over the period 1995–2007, using panel cointegration techniques to test for the existence of a relationship between inequality and real GDP per capita. The results point to the existence of a relationship between the variables, where the effect of inequality, measured as the Gini index of the earnings distribution, on per capita output is negative. This negative influence seems to be determined by the behaviour of the bottom of the earnings distribution, most likely by dampening investment in human capital, with the results pointing to the coexistence of a positive impact of inequality at the top of the distribution, supporting the incentives argument for the inequality-growth nexus. Additionally, the results confirm the predicted positive relationship between human capital and output, lending support to both the exogenous and endogenous growth models predictions on the importance of human capital for production both as an input in the production of final goods and in the production of technology. Another interesting result concerns structural funds: we found a negative relation of this variable with regional output. We believe that EU structural funds were a source of Dutch disease for Portugal, which resulted mainly in a lack of external competitiveness of the Portuguese economy due to the excessive specialization in non-tradable goods made possible by the European funds.     

Optimism and the perceptions of new risks

While many risks, especially new ones, are not objectively quantifiable, individuals still form perceptions of risks using incomplete or unclear evidence about the true nature of those risks. In the case of well known risks, such as smoking, individuals perceive risks to be smaller for themselves than others, exhibiting ‘optimism bias’. Although existing evidence supports optimism bias occurring in the case of risks about which individuals are familiar, evidence does not yet exist to suggest that optimism bias applies for new risks. This paper addresses this question by examining the gap in perceptions of risks individuals have for themselves versus society and the environment, conceptualised as social and/or environmental optimism biases. We draw upon the 2002 UEA‐MORI Risk Survey to examine the existence of optimism bias and its effects on risk perceptions and acceptance regarding five science and technology‐related topics: climate change, mobile phones, radioactive waste, GM food and genetic testing. Our findings provide evidence of social and environmental optimism bias following similar patterns and optimism bias appearing greater for those risks bringing sizeable benefit to individuals (e.g. mobile phone radiation) rather than those more acutely affecting society or the environment (e.g. GM food or climate change). Social optimism bias is found to reduce risk perceptions for risks that have received large amounts of media attention, namely, climate change and GM food. On the other hand, optimism bias appears to increase risk perceptions about genetic testing.     

The competitive implications of the deployment of unique resources

The ‘resource‐based’ view focuses on unique resources as the fundamental sources of competitive advantage and superior profits. We use a game‐theoretic model to analyze the impact of the deployment of unique resources on product market competition, and the impact of unique resources and sustainable competitive advantages on profits when the competitive implications of resource deployment are taken into account. We find that some of the core propositions of the resource‐based view do not necessarily hold when the impact of resource deployment on product market competition is explicitly considered. Specifically, the accumulation and deployment of unique resources does not necessarily increase the firm's profit and the difference between its profit and competitors' profits. Furthermore, achieving a sustainable competitive advantage does not necessarily lead to higher profits. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporations and local economies in the Brazilian Amazon: the impacts of the mining sectors scheduled investments in Southeastern Pará (2004–2010)

Southeastern Pará is an extraordinarily dynamic region. There were large cattle ranching projects, financed in the 1960s. Expansion of peasant agriculture, mineral projects and gold prospecting followed the ranching projects. Also important structural transformations reinforced the role of the urban centres and the local rural bases in the logistics of new economic sectors conditioned by the presence of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), in the region since 1985. This article presents the results of an input–output analysis of the investment programme of CVRD from year 2004 up to 2010. The main findings are that the mineral sector has achieved a considerable influence over the economy of Southeastern Pará, so that during the cycle of investments each 1% in the growth of the mineral production creates growth possibilities of about 0.83% for the agricultural sector and about 0.86% for the local urban sectors. Considering just the production growth, a percentile point will imply growth at, respectively, 0.73% and 0.76% for those sectors. For the economy of the rest of the state of Pará, those elasticities would be, incorporating the investments, 0.80% and, without them, 0.68%. For the economy of the rest of Brazil they would be, respectively, 0.88% and 0.78%.     

Visual and Interactive Comparative Analysis of Individual Opinions: A Group Decision Support Tool

This study proposes the use of the visual, interactive and comparative analysis (VICA) methodology to encourage consensus-building in decision making processes involving multiple criteria and multiple participants working in cooperative groups. The tool was applied to the Electre TRI (VICA-Electre TRI) method which utilises comparative analyses plus visuals and the interactive exchange of individuals’ opinions within the group. It aims at reducing complexity, presenting updates about each member’s progress in the decision making process and fostering the search for consensus. The methodology was implemented in a spreadsheet format (Microsoft Excel) to make it as accessible as possible while also facilitating its acceptance and efficient use within organizations.     

A Sorting Model for Group Decision Making: A Case Study of Water Losses in Brazil

Many water supply systems in Brazil have serious problems related to the high index of water losses, which provokes financial and environmental impacts. This is an immediate consequence of an inadequate maintenance plan, allied to natural and budgetary constraints. In addition, in these types of problems it is commonplace to consider the opinions of many managers, such as those from the operational, environmental and financial sectors of Water Companies. In view of this, a sorting multicriteria model to support group decision making is developed. We proposed an approach which sorts the areas of the system which are located in critical zones of water losses into categories, and which takes into account different points of view and considers uncertainty in criteria weights by using only ordinal information, so as to make it viable to manage the maintenance plan and to use the scant financial resources more efficiently. The SMAA-TRI method is used to tackle the group sorting problematic by categorizing the network into zones where losses are intense and thus to focus the managers’ effort on the most critical regions. A case study in Brazil is presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the approach proposed.     

Green consumers and their identities: how identities change the motivation for green consumption

This research aims to fill the gap in green consumption literature from the perspective of values as types of intentions and identity‐based motivation. In two studies, we examine how the salience of personal and social identities can change the relationship between types of intentions and green consumption. The results demonstrate that when personal identity is salient, self‐transcendence intentions influence green consumption more than self‐enhancement intentions. This is because personal identity (compared with social identity) increases the positive effect of congruent intentions (self‐transcendence) on green consumption. However, when social identity is salient, self‐transcendence and self‐enhancement intentions have a similar impact on green consumption. This is because social identity (compared with personal identity) reduces the negative effect of self‐enhancement intentions on green consumption. Finally, we discuss theoretical and managerial implications for values as types of intentions, identity‐based motivation and green consumption.     

Northern and southern Italian social cooperatives during the economic crisis: a multiple factor analysis

A multiple factor analysis is developed to assess the differences in the economic performance and employment levels of social cooperatives in three main geographical areas: North, Central and South Italy, between 2008 and 2011. The results showed that despite the global economic and financial meltdown, the social cooperatives in these areas increased their overall turnover and total assets between 2008 and 2011. Furthermore, the employment data showed a positive trend during this period. The analysis also found that the prolonged crisis in 2010 and 2011 affected mainly the southern regions, where conjunctural factors exacerbated long-term structural deficiencies.     

Exploring the efficiency of Italian social cooperatives by descriptive and principal component analysis

Over the last decade, independent agencies, institutions and research centres (ISTAT—National Statistic Office, Ministry of Economic Development, Confcooperative Legacoop, Unioncamere) have provided studies on the evolution of the cooperative movement in the Third Sector in Italy in order to monitor the development of these organizations over time and to evaluate their economic and employment impact in the country. Following a similar path, this study analyzes the contribution of social cooperatives in Italy at a regional level, highlighting the differences related to their longevity and fields of activity. Moreover, the article evaluates the efficiency and profitability of the social cooperative by adopting principal component analysis to economic and financial indexes.