The Role of Participative Leadership and Trust‐Based Mechanisms in Eliciting Intern Performance: Evidence from China

In this article, we investigate the relationship between participative leadership and job performance within the internship setting. Based on two‐waves of survey data obtained from 309 intern‐supervisor dyads, we find that participative leadership has a positive relationship with job performance, and that affective trust mediates that relationship. We also find that although cognitive trust is not significantly related to intern job performance, it mediates the relationship between participative leadership and affective trust. Our findings contradict those of previous research which question the effectiveness of participative leadership in short‐term employment situations such as internships. They also highlight the importance of designing internships to be reflective of typical performance situations, characterized by participative leadership practices, rather than more directive leadership practices. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Die Deckungsvorsorge der Versicherungsvermittler nach der EU-Versicherungsvermittlungs-Richtlinie

Insurance intermediaries being obliged to be registrated in Germany due to the directive have to comply with severe provisions concerning cover provisions (i. e. Deckungsvorsorge). A third-party liability insurance is virtually compulsory for insurance brokers and insurance agents charged by several insurance companies (i. e. Mehrfach-Agent), other kinds of equal alternatives for them do not exist practically. Concerning exclusively charged insurance agents (i. e. Ausschließlichkeits-Agenten), as well as in a side job, an indemnity clause of their insurance company giving the third party full rights may be a an alternative complying with the directive. The minimum covering funds being prescribed by the directive of € 1 million per event of damage and the minimum annual covering sum of € 1.5 million are appropriate to third party liability risks of an average insurance broker on the German market, for almost all of the insurance agents on this market without a permitted covering provisions, with regard to their very little third party liability risks, they are too high. Nevertheless, the German legislator is not entitled to deviate from them to lower sums for lack of an authorization rule in the directive. German legislator should transform the rules of the directive into national ones as soon as possible in favour of the interests of the consumers worthy of protection, using the existing national regulations on lawyers, notary publics, tax consultants and accountants concerning minimum contents of compulsory cover provisions and agreed exclusive clauses.     

Social Market Economy: origins,meanings and interpretations

This paper investigates various possible meanings of ‘Social Market Economy’—60 years after its political initiation in Germany. We focus on the variety of intellectual sources that influenced the formation and interpretation of the concept in Germany during the first half of the last century. Our particular attention is on Müller-Armack’s definition of a rather dualistic concept of ‘social’ versus ‘market economy’ and the subtle differences it has with an original (Freiburg School) view of ordo-liberalism that lends itself more easily to a constitutional economics perspective.

Incentives for sales agents after the advent of the internet

E-commerce has siphoned sales away from bricks-and-mortar channels in many industries. Taking a principal-agent perspective, this article analyzes how the increasing volume of e-sales influences offline incentive schemes and firm profitability. According to the proposed model, moderate channel cannibalization can be a blessing in disguise if it decreases incentive intensity and lowers expected wage payments. Whether a larger volume of e-sales is blessing or curse depends (among other things) on the relative magnitude of cannibalization versus market enlargement and the degree to which the increase changes the composition of offline customers’ types with respect to service costs.

Individual Differences in Within-Person Variability in Personality Positively Predict Economic Gains and Satisfaction in Negotiations

Group Decision and Negotiation - Prior research on the value of personality traits for predicting negotiation outcomes is rather inconclusive. Building on prior research and in light of recent...     

John Quiggin,Economics in two lessons: Why markets work so well,and why they can fail so badly

The Review of Austrian Economics -     

Examining the influence of servant and entrepreneurial leadership on the work outcomes of employees in social enterprises

Abstract

The present study examines the relative influence of two distinct leadership styles, servant leadership and entrepreneurial leadership, on the organizational commitment and innovative behavior of employees working in social enterprises. Analyzing data from 169 employees and 42 social entrepreneurs, we found that, although servant leadership was positively related to followers’ organizational commitment, the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and organizational commitment was insignificant. In contrast, whilst we found evidence that entrepreneurial leadership was positively related to followers’ innovative behavior, the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ innovative behavior was insignificant. Our research contributes to the underdeveloped literature on leadership in social enterprises by exploring the relative effectiveness of different leadership styles (namely an entrepreneurial leadership style and a servant leadership style) in promoting follower work attitudes and behaviors in social enterprises. In addition, our research demonstrates the importance of leadership over and above followers’ individual differences such as pro-social motivation and creative self-efficacy.     

The impact of loneliness on compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines

Many individuals have been reluctant to follow the COVID-19 prevention guidelines (e.g., wearing a mask, physical distancing, and vigilant handwashing) set forth by the U.S. Center for Disease Control to reduce the spread of COVID-19. In this research, we use reciprocal altruism theory to investigate the role of loneliness and its impact on compliance with these guidelines. Our findings indicate that lonely individuals are less willing to comply with COVID-19 prevention guidelines than non-lonely individuals. Process evidence suggests that this occurs as loneliness can inhibit an individual's sense of obligation to reciprocate to others. However, we demonstrate that framing information about COVID-19 through agentic (vs. communal) advertising messaging strategies can offset the negative impact of loneliness on compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines. Thus, marketers and policymakers may want to consider the important role of loneliness when tailoring messaging appeals that encourage compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.     

Information, the Dual Economy, and Development

We examine the interactions between different institutional arrangements in a general equilibrium model of a modernizing economy. There is a modern sector, where productivity is high but information asymmetries are large, and a traditional sector where productivity is low but information asymmetries are small. Consequently, agency costs in the modern sector make consumption lending difficult, while such lending is readily done in the traditional sector. The resulting trade-off between credit availability and productivity implies that not everyone will move to the modern sector. In fact, the laissez-faire level of modernization may fail to maximize net social surplus.
This situation may also hold in the long run: in a dynamic version of the model, a "trickle-down" effect links the process of modernization with reduction in modern sector agency costs. This effect may be too weak and the economy may get stuck in a trap and never fully modernize. The two-sector structure also yields a natural theoretical testing ground for the Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis: we show that even within the "sectoral shifting" class of models, this phenomenon is not robust to small changes in model specification.