The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self‐efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.     

A Tutorial on Palm Distributions for Spatial Point Processes

This tutorial provides an introduction to Palm distributions for spatial point processes. Initially, in the context of finite point processes, we give an explicit definition of Palm distributions in terms of their density functions. Then we review Palm distributions in the general case. Finally, we discuss some examples of Palm distributions for specific models and some applications.     

Agricultural productivity growth in Latin America and the Caribbean: an analysis of climatic effects,catch‐up and convergence*

This paper investigates whether climatic adjusted total factor productivity (CATFP) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is converging, converging to different steady states or exhibit absolute convergence, that is the process does not require (government) interventions to reach its equilibrium path. We use data from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and from the Food and Agriculture Organization for 28 LAC countries over a 54‐year period (1961–2014) to estimate random parameters stochastic production frontier models to calculate CATFP and then use cross‐sectional regressions and an error correction model to analyse CATFP convergence across countries in the region. The results show that technological progress is the main driver of CATFP growth in the region and there is no absolute convergence, that is CATFP gaps across countries will not decrease over time and least performing countries will not grow faster than better performing ones without targeted policies. However, CATFP across LAC exhibits conditional convergence towards different steady states. Technological progress plays a critical role in raising the steady state level of CATFP with an overall average of 2.22 per cent per annum.     

财政支出差异性对创业活动的激励效应分析

经济新常态下，创业是推动中国经济发展、改善民生的重要途径。创业过程的风险性、不确定性及正外部性需要政府给予积极支持。基于2007-2015年中国内地30个省市（除西藏外）数据，运用动态面板模型，考察地区财政支出和创业活动的关系。研究结果表明：财政支出规模对创业活动数量及创业活动质量具有滞后的积极作用；财政支出规模的滞后效应源于财政支出结构的滞后效应，不同财政支出结构对创业活动质量影响的差异较大；同时，创新是提升创业活动质量的重要手段。因此，政府应积极支持“大众创业、万众创新”，各地区财政创业扶持资金应该从规模和结构上进行调整，重点优化有利于创新的支出结构，为创业提供良好的公共环境。     

Matching Matters in 401(k) Plan Participation

This study offers new evidence on the effects of the matching contributions made by employers to 401(k) plan accounts on plan participation rates, exploiting microdata from the National Compensation Survey, a large, nationally representative, establishment dataset. It addresses the potential endogeneity of the matching contributions by employing coworker and labor market characteristics as instruments. The results indicate that employer matches have substantial effects. They also indicate that higher match rates tend to be correlated with workers having lower propensities to save; correcting for this endogeneity produces estimates that are bigger than those seen through direct cross‐sectional comparisons.     

Does the Stock Market Compensate Banks for Diversifying into the Insurance Business?

This paper explores a wide range of corporate restructurings, all available deals from wire services, in the banking and insurance sectors that led to bancassurance ventures. An event study methodology is employed to calculate excess returns on and around the deals’ announcement date. Using both univariate and multivariate analysis the paper finds bank driven mergers, deal's size and regional categorization all triggering positive and significant market reactions. Unlike the univariate framework, multivariate analysis shows that geographic focus and language are not significant factors. The results also indicate that markets are indifferent with respect to bank withdrawals from the bank‐insurance operations. Finally, Canadian, U.S. and European bank‐insurance deals produce positive results, while Australasian bidders offer statistically insignificant equity returns.     

Business is Show Business: Management Presentations as Performance

While there is continual scholarly interest in the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor, extant dramaturgical perspectives limit the ability to account for aesthetic experiences in theatrical situations. This study provides a different methodological lens for looking at ‘theatre’ in organizations and illustrates that an inclusion of performance theory can be particularly valuable for understanding aesthetic techniques which are increasingly employed in organizations. Responding to calls for aesthetic studies, this article analyses large‐scale management presentations such as annual general meetings, press conferences, and analyst meetings ‘as performance’ instead of re‐labelling them as if they were drama. Drawing on the latest theatre theory and introducing a tool for performance analysis, the study accounts for the aesthetic experience and describes the complex interplay of scenography, lighting, clothing, managers' performance style, rhetoric, and audience interaction, showing that these organizational events are co‐created and contested theatrical performances with a potential for resistance and possible change as well as for persuasion.     

儒家始祖形象的三种形态及其意义

传统儒家从未停止对事物根源与本质的探索。所谓"物有本末,事有终始","始"之字义常常兼具逻辑上的原初性与价值上的根本性。始祖作为生民存续之始和人道的开端,其形象隐含着重要的理论意义,更关联着儒家思想与制度的核心。本文分别从感生之祖、始封之祖、生民之祖三种形态出发,追溯始祖形象的特点,并试图通过这一讨论来理解儒家家国建构的不同模式及其基础。     

Are Unrealistic Assumptions/Simplifications Acceptable? Some Methodological Issues in Economics

Are unrealistic assumptions acceptable? If results are not changed in a misleading way, they are acceptable. The same assumption may be acceptable in one context and not in another. Assuming identical pairs of individuals in the parity and limit theorems in general equilibrium theory is acceptable as results are not changed substantially. The alleged equivalence of the first‐price and second‐price auctions is based on misleading assumptions; Coase's case against taxing pollution is based on a misleading all‐or‐nothing comparison. The contrasting results (neutrality versus non‐neutrality of money) of perfect versus imperfect competition in macroeconomics with important real‐world policy relevance are also used to illustrate the point.