What is (or should be) the difference between competency modeling and traditional job analysis?

We argue that Competency Modeling (CM) has the potential to fill an important void in Traditional Job Analysis (TJA), specifically the infusion of strategic concerns in day-to-day employee behavior. Moreover TJA and CM pursue fundamentally different goals, which those who argue for and against either of these human resource methods at times may overlook. To buttress this point we compare TJA and CM along six dimensions: purpose (describe versus influence behavior), view of the job (an object to be described versus a role to be enacted), focus (job versus organization), time orientation (past versus future), performance level (typical versus maximum), and measurement approach (latent trait versus clinical judgment). We conclude with a series of recommendations regarding ways in which TJA can be joined with CM so that an organization may achieve, among other outcomes, the critical purpose of directing employee behavior toward the accomplishment of its strategic objectives.     

Diversity in organizations: Where are we now and where are we going?

A great deal of research has focused on workforce diversity. Despite an increasing number of studies, few consistent conclusions have yet to be reached about the antecedents and outcomes of diversity. Likewise, research on different dimensions of diversity (e.g., age, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and culture) has mostly evolved independently. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to examine each of these dimensions of diversity to describe common themes across dimensions and to develop an integrative model of diversity.     

Working sick and out of sorts: a cross-cultural approach on presenteeism climate,organizational justice and work–family conflict*

Abstract

A climate of presenteeism has important effects on employee well-being and the organization itself. Our study, based on surveys of health sector employees in six different countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Lebanon, Portugal, Russia and Spain) examines whether organizational justice plays a mediating role in the relationship between a presenteeism climate in the organization and work–family conflict (WFC). Our results indicate that the perception of organizational justice and the presenteeism climate do influence WFC. Moreover, higher levels of WFC were found in non-Latin countries. This study contributes to the work attendance and life balance field by providing cross-cultural empirical evidence corroborating the effect of justice and presenteeism climate on the WFC.     

International trade,technological shocks and spillovers in the labour market: a GVAR analysis of the US manufacturing sector

We empirically analyse the response of labour market related variables in the US manufacturing sector to various shocks, notably to trade openness and technology, as well as examining spillovers from industry-specific labour market shocks. The econometric approach involves an application of the recently developed Global Vector Autoregression methodology of Dées et al. (2007 Helbling, T, Jaumotte, F and Sommer, M. 2006. How has globalization affected inflation?. IMF World Economic Outlook, April: 97–134.  [Google Scholar]) to 12 manufacturing industries over the period 1977–2003. The framework allows us to analyse the response of a standard set of labour-market related variables (employment, real compensation, productivity and capital stock) to exogenous factors (a sector-specific measure of trade openness, a common technology and oil price shock), along with industry spillovers using specific measures of manufacturing-wide variables for each sector. Generalized impulse responses indicate that increased trade openness negatively affects real compensation, has negligible employment effects and leads to higher labour productivity. These impacts, however, are relatively weaker than those induced by technology shocks, with the latter positively and significantly affecting both real compensation and employment. There is also evidence of positive spillovers across industries from sector-specific employment and productivity shocks. Impact elasticities suggest strong intra-sectoral linkages for employment and capital stock formation, contrasting with weak linkages for what concerns real compensation and productivity.     

Pure strategy equilibria of single and double auctions with interdependent values

We prove the existence of monotonic pure strategy equilibrium for many kinds of asymmetric auctions with n bidders and unitary demands, interdependent values and independent types. The assumptions require monotonicity only in the own bidder's type. The payments can be a function of all bids. Thus, we provide a new equilibrium existence result for asymmetrical double auctions and a small number of bidders. The generality of our setting requires the use of special tie-breaking rules. We present an example of a double auction with interdependent values where all equilibria are trivial, that is, they have zero probability of trade. This is related to Akerlof's “market for lemmons” example and to the “winner's curse,” establishing a connection between them. However, we are able to provide sufficient conditions for non-trivial equilibrium existence.     

Education, corruption, and the distribution of income

We examine how the interaction between education and corruption affects institutional reform and economic development. While corruption reduces average income and education, education increases not only output and hence potential corruption rents, but also produces more informed electorates that better monitor government actions. We find that economies with intermediate levels of education remain in a poverty trap since the level of skills creates sufficient corruption rents but not enough monitoring. Economies with low or high levels of education can escape the poverty trap, and inequality plays a key role in determining whether this occurs through a change in institutions or an expansion of education.     

Swinburne's Challenge: A Note on Probability Estimates for Nontypical Potential Evidence Instances

General confirmation theory, and especially its Bayesian variant, has never been able to adequately address the issue of how to handle qualitative evidence instances. Such statements encompass a wide class including historical claims, those of the human sciences not incorporating quantitative models, legal statements and the like. The issue was recognized by the philosopher Swinburne (1973) who puzzled how such statements as, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, could be assigned a meaningful probability estimate. The present paper suggests that such statements can be transformed into, at least, plausible probability estimates. This requires a two step process: judgements made by credible raters, and the transformation of judgements into one or more reliability co-efficients. These reliability estimates can then be utilized in the standard Bayesian model to yield plausible degrees of belief between hypothesis and evidence.     

Shaping online consumer choice by partitioning the Web

This research explores how partitioning attributes in online search interfaces changes the valuations of those attributes—and impacts subsequent choice—such that attributes that are displayed as separate categories tend to receive greater decision weight than attributes grouped under umbrella categories. Across several choice domains—cars, dates, and hotels—we show that different attribute partitions impact the importance assigned to attributes (Studies 1 and 2), as well as consumer choices (Studies 3 and 4). We argue that these effects are due in part to users' willingness to use the implicit recommendations of interface designers to determine the importance of attributes, a willingness that extends to following explicit recommendations of online agents based on those attributes (Study 5). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Pseudo empirical likelihood method in the presence of missing data

In this paper, we propose an estimator for the population mean when some observations on the study and auxiliary variables are missing from the sample. The proposed estimator is valid for any unequal probability sampling design, and is based upon the pseudo empirical likelihood method. The proposed estimator is compared with other estimators in a simulation study.     

Measuring the economic benefit from R&D: results from the mass, length and flow programmes of the UK national measurement system

This study sought to measure the economic consequences of reduced expenditure on specific sections of the UK National Measurement System (NMS), part of the state-funded technological infrastructure. A method was developed which can be adapted to any publicly or privately financed R&D of which the benefits and cost-effectiveness are unclear or contested.
The recent interactions between the NMS and industry were investigated empirically. Five mechanisms were found to account for the majority of instances of successful value creation. Several case studies of each mechanism were collected, illustrating their existence beyond reasonable doubt.
Each of the cut projects would have been expected to have encouraged growth and profitability in identified sectors of the economy through one or more of these five mechanisms. The effects of the cuts were modelled over 30 years. Compared to the costs of the cut projects projected over the same period, the benefits to the economy were predicted to exceed the costs.