Workplace Harassment Intensity and Revenge: Mediation and Moderation Effects

This study examines the mediating role of rumination, state anger, and blame attribution, and the moderating role of trait forgiveness in the relationship between workplace harassment intensity and revenge among employed students at a medium-sized Midwestern U.S. university (N = 310) and full-time employees from various industries in Shanghai, China (N = 251). We tested the proposed model using techniques described by Hayes (Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis, The Guilford Press, New York, 2013). Results within both samples suggested that workplace harassment intensity is positively associated with both major and minor revenge. Results of multiple mediation tests showed that state anger and blame attribution mediated the relationships between workplace harassment intensity and both types of revenge behavior. Furthermore, trait forgiveness moderated the relationship between blame attribution and major revenge.     

Strategic responses to extreme institutional challenges: An MNE case study in the Palestinian mobile phone sector

Besides firm-level resources and industrial influences, firms’ strategies have been related to their institutional contexts. Empirical studies have investigated survival strategies in international environments where institutional voids, barriers and violence have had independent influences.This study is the first to analyse strategies in circumstances that combine all these negative challenges. In the Palestinian mobile phone industry, a surviving MNE has faced not only violence, voids and institutional barriers imposed by three different governments, but also the liability of foreignness and its associated uncertainties.In a highly uncertain environment, it is found that being a MNE brings benefits as well as liabilities of foreignness. Furthermore, this MNE discloses many strategic responses to institutional challenges that are associated with positive outcomes, even in a most extreme Palestinian environment that produces the most propitious circumstances for negative responses and outcomes.     

Peter Z. Grossman, ed. How Cartels Endure and How They Fail: Studies of Industrial Collusion. Cheltenham, U.K., and Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2004. vi + 324 pp. ISBN 1-85898-830-6, $115.00.

Economics textbooks teach us that, in general, cartels are unstable,inefficient, bad for the public good, and (at least in the UnitedStates) illegal. The eleven chapters in this provocative bookdispel such generalities. Through cross-sectional surveys andcase studies, the authors explore various definitions of successand failure in understanding the rise and fall of cartels. Theavailable empirical findings "do not always conform to the textbook,or even the sophisticated game theoretic, models" (p. 2). In a succinct introduction Grossman asks,     

Or(g)anizational Citizenship Behavior, Resource Exchan(g)es, and Career Growth Opportunities

Based on resource and relational theories, this study examined the relationships among organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), exchanged resources, and career growth opportunities, along with the moderating effect of member-member exchange (MMX). Findings from a field survey of 192 supervisor-subordinate dyads revealed that status resource was positively related to OCB and career growth opportunities. MMX moderated the relationship between OCB and status resource in such a way that the relationship was stronger in the low MMX context than in the high MMX context. The main contribution of this study is an explanation of the effects of OCB on individual careers from a fine-grained perspective based on resource and relational theories.     

Lévy betas: Static hedging with index futures

This study considers calibration to forward‐looking betas by extracting information on equity and index options from prices using Lévy models. The resulting calibrated betas are called Lévy betas. The objective of the proposed approach is to capture market expectations for future betas through option prices, as betas estimated from historical data may fail to reflect structural change in the market. By assuming a continuous‐time capital asset pricing model (CAPM) with Lévy processes, we derive an analytical solution to index and stock options, thus permitting the betas to be implied from observed option prices. One application of Lévy betas is to construct a static hedging strategy using index futures. Employing Hong Kong equity and index option data from September 16, 2008 to October 15, 2009, we show empirically that the Lévy betas during the sub‐prime mortgage crisis period were much more volatile than those during the recovery period. We also find evidence to suggest that the Lévy betas improve static hedging performance relative to historical betas and the forward‐looking betas implied by a stochastic volatility model.     

Can Consumer Confidence Forecast Household Spending? Evidence from the European Commission Business and Consumer Surveys

This paper represents a first formal attempt to examine the ability of consumer confidence to forecast household spending within a multicountry framework. To this end, we use two confidence indices, namely the Consumer Confidence Indicator and the Economic Sentiment Indicator, both of which are derived from the European Commission Business and Consumer Survey. As in previous single-country investigations, we find that there is much variability in the in-sample incremental forecasting performance of the confidence indices for the countries canvassed. Further, the results of our out-of-sample tests indicate that the confidence indices considered provide limited information about the future path of household spending.     

Structures of foreign trade and income distribution: The case of Mexico

Using Mexico's input-output tables and household survey data, this paper examines various trade strategies and their relationship to commodity production with a view to assesing their effect on the distribution of income. The model incorporates income-induced multiplier effects, taking into account the full range of input import-substitution possibilities. The results show that the differences in the impact on income, particularly, of the lower incomes, are most marked in the tensions between exportable and import-competing activities. On the whole, production per unit of output in the non-tradable sector produces as much factor income as that in the export sector. Expansion of exportable activities marginally improves the economic position of the poor in relation to other income groups, but only when direct effects are taken into account. If, however, domestic production meets the needs of intermediate imports, then the distribution of income remains unaffected by alternative trade strategies.