Exploring talent management in India: The neglected role of intrinsic rewards

The challenge of global talent management is critical to firm success. Even with the global economic slowdown of 2008 and 2009, there are continuing challenges in attracting, managing, and retaining talent, especially in the developing regions of the world where economic activity has outpaced the availability of skilled employees. To examine this situation, we develop and test a model of talent management across 28 Indian firms involving 4811 professional-level employees. The intrinsic rewards experienced are a critical element in employee retention, satisfaction with the organization, and career success. We explored four antecedents of intrinsic rewards: the social responsibility of the employer, pride in the organization, manager support, and performance management (PM). We found support for the importance of intrinsic rewards as a mediating variable, as well as for the moderating role of certain hygiene factors. Our research suggests multinational, international, and national employers may have non-pecuniary mechanisms to promote retention and employee satisfaction, even in challenging labor market environments. We conclude by proposing implications for research and global HRM practices.     

Effectiveness of Absurdity in Advertising Across Cultures

This paper examines the effect of absurd advertising on memory and persuasion across cultures. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, it is hypothesized that the effect of absurdity on recall is culturally invariant, whereas the effect on attitude toward the ad is contingent on the recipients’ cultural orientation. The assumptions are tested using a between-subjects experimental design, in which we manipulated type of absurdity and used the cultural dimensions as blocking variables. Data was collected from 274 students in the United States, Germany, Russia, and China. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these findings as well as guidelines for further research.     

Do German Welfare‐to‐Work Programmes Reduce Welfare Dependency and Increase Employment?

Abstract. During the last decade, many Western economies reformed their welfare systems with the aim of activating welfare recipients by increasing welfare‐to‐work programmes (WTWP) and job‐search enforcement. We evaluate the short‐term effects of three important German WTWP implemented after a major reform in January 2005 (‘Hartz IV’), namely short training, further training with a planned duration of up to three months and public workfare programmes (‘One‐Euro‐Jobs’). Our analysis is based on a combination of a large‐scale survey and administrative data that is rich with respect to individual, household, agency level and regional information. We use this richness of the data to base the econometric evaluation on a selection‐on‐observables approach. We find that short‐term training programmes, on average, increase their participants' employment perspectives. There is also considerable effect heterogeneity across different subgroups of participants that could be exploited to improve the allocation of welfare recipients to the specific programmes and thus increase overall programme effectiveness.     

Value Capture and Policy Design in a Digital Economy

Pervasive information and communication technology (ICT), intertwined with global dispersion of supply chains, is inducing a sizable structural transformation. All the articles in this special issue highlight that even though technology is the key driver, the reactions of businesses and countries to these transformations will depend on economic, political, and social arrangements within each organization and society. The competitive landscape of the ICT industry itself is likely to remain in flux. Also in other industries, both value creation and value capture are becoming increasingly complex—and remain more favorable for the developed countries than some commonly used measures suggest. According to the prevailing economic thinking, public policies should set market-friendly “rules of the game” and then stay out of the way. In the ICT domain, technical standards, spectrum allocations, and market power associated with various types of lock-ins play crucial roles calling for more active public involvement. In particular, the dynamic aspects of competition and anti-trust policies are important yet complex. While there is limited scope for sectoral or horizontal industrial policies, this special issue provides alternative avenues for considering matrix or systemic policies emphasizing education, openness, and national competitiveness.     

A cautionary note on computing conditional from unconditional correlations

We show that some care is needed when inferring true unconditional correlations from observed conditional correlations, which is a frequent problem in empirical finance and elsewhere. We give a general formula for the relationship between the two and demonstrate its importance in the context of the bivariate t-distribution.     

Zur Reform der Pflegeversicherung: Einstieg in ein nachhaltiges und wettbewerbliches System

Bundesgesundheitsminister R?sler hat für 2011 eine umfassende Pflegereform sowohl der Leistungsseite als auch der Einnahmenstruktur angekündigt. Die Autoren dieses Beitrags machen den Vorschlag, die umlagefinanzierte Pflegeversicherung um eine kapitalgedeckte S?ule zu erg?nzen.     

Does the Ethical Culture of Organisations Promote Managers’ Occupational Well-Being? Investigating Indirect Links via Ethical Strain

The present study had two major aims: first, to examine the construct validity of the Finnish 58-item Corporate Ethical Virtues scale (CEV; Kaptein in J Org Behav 29:923–947, 2008) and second, to examine whether the associations between managers’ perceptions of ethical organisational culture and their occupational well-being (emotional exhaustion and work engagement) are indirectly linked by ethical strain, i.e. the tension which arises from the difference in the ethical values of the individual and the organisation he or she works for. The sample consisted of 902 managers from different organisations, in middle and upper management levels, aged 25–68 years. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provided support to the hypothesised eight-factor structure of the CEV scale; i.e. the scale contained the factors of clarity, congruency of supervisors, congruency of senior management, feasibility, supportability, transparency, discussability and sanctionability. In addition, it emerged from the CFAs that the high intercorrelations of these factors can be explained by the second-order factor of ethical culture. The managers’ perceptions of the ethical culture prevailing in their organisations were associated with their occupational well-being both directly (high-work engagement) and indirectly via a low level of ethical strain (low-emotional exhaustion). Thus, the findings indicated that the ethical culture of organisations plays a major role in managers’ occupational well-being.     

Leapfrogging to Sustainable Consumption? An Explorative Survey of Consumption Habits and Orientations in Southern Brazil

In current political and scientific debates on sustainable consumption, the low- and middle-income classes of emerging countries are gaining attention. One common feature of such debates is the idea that these emerging consumer classes could be motivated to “leapfrog” directly to environmentally and socially aware consumption patterns and, thereby, avoid adopting the resource-intensive consumption styles of populations in industrialized countries. To be able to adapt sustainable product development or sustainable communication strategies to the needs of low- and medium-income classes, it is necessary to know more about the basic consumption orientations, current consumption habits, and future consumption aspirations of these societal groups. In order to contribute towards filling that knowledge gap, an exploratory survey was conducted, taking the example of emerging low- and middle-income classes in a Southern Brazilian city. The survey identified five different consumer types: the Home-Centered Traditionals, the Indifferent, the Up-to-date Privileged, the Wanna-be Materialists, and the Quality of Life-Oriented Postmaterialists. The paper outlines some ideas concerning how these types can be addressed with target-group-specific products and services as well as differentiated sustainability communication strategies. We conclude, however, that “leapfrogging” of Brazilian low- and middle-income classes towards sustainable consumption is not a very likely option. There are certain consumption orientations that sustainability strategies can link to, but these trends are not likely to compensate the general tendencies towards a resource-intensive lifestyle following the model of the industrialized countries.