Measuring the quality of work: the case of the Italian social cooperatives

Quality of work has within a short time become a major subject of study and discussion in labour economy. Its quantification is a challenging task because it implies the translation of various subjective perceptions into a single objective measure (composite indicator). In this paper, the method used to construct measures is the Rating Scale Model and the available data come from the Survey on Italian Social Cooperatives carried out in 2007. The validity of the obtained Rasch measures is tested with respect to some overall variables of the quality of work. Moreover, using inferential confidence intervals, these measures are utilized to evaluate the differences in the perception of the quality of work due to worker (gender, age and education) and cooperative (type, dimension and geographic area) characteristics, work characteristics (service area, membership, time and type of contract) and work incentives (economic, professional and learning).     

Effects of personal characteristics on organizational commitment: evidence from Brazil's oil and gas industry

In 1997, Brazil's major energy company faced a loss of its monopoly as part of the country's structural reform. Many of its employees were recruited by new entrants to the oil and gas industry. In order to retain employees, the company initiated a multiyear planning process which included a redesigned human resource management model oriented to organizational commitment. This study examines the long-term influence of five employee personal characteristics (type of employment, job level, gender, education level and service time) on the affective, normative and continuance components of organizational commitment. The research was conducted in one of the company refinery and involved a questionnaire survey of all employees and interviews with senior managers. It was found that type of employment (company staff or contractor) had the greatest impact on affective and normative commitment, while service time and education level are the most significant contributors to continuance commitment. Gender and job level were found to have limited implication for commitment. The results demonstrate that the company response to structural reform had the long-term positive effect of binding employees to the organization.     

Still feeling employable with growing age? Exploring the moderating effects of developmental HR practices and country-level unemployment rates in the age – employability relationship

Abstract

A compelling issue for organizations and societies at large is to ensure external employability of the workforce across workers’ entire work-life span. Using the frameworks of age norms, stereotyping and age meta-stereotypes, we investigate whether (a) age is negatively related to perceived external employability; and (b) the age-employability link is moderated by HR developmental practices (HRDPs) and unemployment rate. We argue that being aware of stereotypes and age norms in organizations, and holding also meta-stereotypes about their group, older workers perceive themselves as less externally employable. However, the context –HRDPs that one has experienced, and the country unemployment rate – would act as buffers. Using data from a large-scale survey from over 9000 individuals in 30 institutionally diverse countries, we found that the negative relationship between age and perceived external employability was significant across all countries. In addition, at the individual level, we found that HRDPs acted as a buffer for this negative relationship, such that the effect was less pronounced for individuals who have experienced more HRDPs during their working life. At the country level, the hypothesized moderating effect of unemployment rate was not observed. Limitations, future research directions, as well as practical implications of the study are discussed.     

What Determines Principle-Based Standards Implementation? Reporting on Global Compact Adoption in Spanish Firms

International Accountability Standards have proliferated in the last 20 years, with the UN Global Compact (GC) as the most widely accepted principle-based standard catalyzing voluntary participation by firms. This study aims to improve understanding about the factors that determine companies’ progress in adopting principle-based standards. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine the direct and combined influences of different organizational resources (firm-specific resources, innovative capability, length of participation, and internationalization of the firm) on standard implementation as perceived by 213 Spanish GC signatories. Our results reveal that the level of firm-specific resources has a positive effect on the extent of GC principles implementation and that innovative capability and length of GC participation strengthen this effect. Contrary to our expectations, we find that the internationalization of firms does not have an effect on GC principles implementation. We discuss the implications of these findings for scholars and practicing managers.     

Reliable Robust Regression Diagnostics

Motivated by the requirement of controlling the number of false discoveries that arises in several application fields, we study the behaviour of diagnostic procedures obtained from popular high‐breakdown regression estimators when no outlier is present in the data. We find that the empirical error rates for many of the available techniques are surprisingly far from the prescribed nominal level. Therefore, we propose a simulation‐based approach to correct the liberal diagnostics and reach reliable inferences. We provide evidence that our approach performs well in a wide range of settings of practical interest and for a variety of robust regression techniques, thus showing general appeal. We also evaluate the loss of power that can be expected from our corrections under different contamination schemes and show that this loss is often not dramatic. Finally, we detail some possible extensions that may further enhance the applicability of the method.     

Effect of Stakeholders’ Pressure on Transparency of Sustainability Reports within the GRI Framework

Transparency is a quality of corporate social responsibility communication that enhances the relationship between the investors and the company. The objective of this paper is to analyze if the transparency of the sustainability reports is affected by the relationship of companies in different industries with their stakeholders. If this were the case, it would indicate that the pressure of significant stakeholders determines the required level of transparency of the reports. We find that the pressure of some groups of stakeholders (customers, clients, employees, and environment) improves the quality of transparency of the reports. We extend previous research by studying the effect of stakeholder group pressure on transparency when reporting sustainability. Our results show that transparency is affected by ownership, along with size and global region.     

Is There a Long-Term Relationship Between Agricultural GHG Emissions and Productivity Growth? A Dynamic Panel Data Approach

The paper adopts a single-country regional panel dataset to analyse the long-term relationship between agricultural greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and productivity growth and, consequently, to assess emissions sustainability. The hypothesis of emission sustainability is assessed by estimating alternative panel model specifications with conventional and GMM estimators applied to the highly heterogeneous Italian regional agriculture, whose methane and nitrous oxide emissions are properly reconstructed for the periods 1951–2008 and 1980–2008. The modelling approach and the empirical specification include the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) as one of the possible outcomes. Results suggest that, when a significant relationship between agricultural GHG emissions and productivity growth occurs, it is often monotonic and, though sustainability is accepted for some GHG, no univocal robust evidence of the EKC emerges across the different specifications, estimators and periods. Policy implications of this empirical evidence are finally drawn.     

Employability and mental health in dismissed workers: the contribution of lay-off justice and participation in outplacement services

The current study’s explored if and how psychosocial resources of employability contribute to mental health of dismissed workers. Degree of outplacement services use, perceived employability and perceived organizational lay-off justice were examined as mediators of the relation between personal employability and mental health. The research involved dismissed workers in the pharmaceutical industry, who joined programs of re-employment sponsored by companies. Structural equation results showed that the lay off workers with higher personal employability were less likely to have mental health deterioration. Furthermore psychosocial resources of personal employability directly increased perceptions of having job available alternatives and was indirectly associated with a higher degree of use of outplacement programs, but these variables didn’t mediate the relation with mental health. Lay-off justice had a direct positive impact on mental health, but it was not relate with employability. Our study contributes to understand some psychological processes that can affect the decision to utilise outplacement programs and offers suggestions for employability profiling.