Electronic monitoring at work: The role of attitudes,functions, and perceived control for the acceptance of tracking technologies

Organisations increasingly adopt tracking technologies that allow managers to continuously collect highly detailed records of employee, performance, and health. On the basis of the theory of planned behaviour, we aim to identify attitudes, functions of monitoring, and control perceptions that should strengthen or lower employees' acceptance of these technologies. Our experimental vignette study among 800 respondents in Germany reveals that acceptance is more likely if employees have positive attitudes towards surveillance in general and towards monitoring in private life and if the technologies enhance labour productivity. The tendency to reject the technology increases if it is to be used for monitoring health and performance. The results indicate that these new technologies will not be accepted unconditionally and may be subject to bargaining and conflicts. In the implementation process, human resources departments will have to take account of employee interests and well‐being, which in turn may improve acceptance and performance.     

The Eastern German Growth Trap: Structural Limits to Convergence?

Intereconomics - After an initial take-off during the first eight years following unification, the Eastern German economy started to stall and regress to its old growth path of the 1950s and 1960s....     

In the Twilight Zone Between Veracity and Lying: A Survey on the Perceived Legitimacy of Corporate Deception in Reaction to Ethical Dilemmas

In their effort to attain legitimacy, corporations are tempted to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise from conflicting stakeholder expectations by ambiguous and misleading communication. Such processes of organizational decoupling may in turn threaten corporate legitimacy. Therefore this article explores public acceptance of deceptive corporate practices that range between the poles of veracity and lying: They involve half-truths and concealment but no blatant lies and they neglect veracity only to conform to conflicting ethical values. The analysis builds on the assumption that specific types of corporate deception fulfill protective functions, such as privacy protection, self-defense, and social cohesion, and are therefore socially accepted. Results from an experimental online survey (n = 1,417) indicate that protective functions are ascribed to corporate deception, yet participants show only moderate levels of acceptance and advocacy on behalf of the corporation. Corporate deception is most likely to be perceived as legitimate when it serves privacy protection and when it involves altruistic intentions. These findings point out limits of organizational decoupling and emphasize the need for pluralistic ethics in strategic communication that provide a framework for the resolution of ethical dilemmas under consideration of situational conditions.     

Neuregelung der Hinzuverdienstmöglichkeiten für Transferbeziehende: keine leichte Aufgabe

In its coalition agreement, the German government proposes a reorganisation of the rules of earned income to be considered as a means test of basic income. In doing so, it takes up a frequently voiced criticism of the design of the basic income support for job-seekers under Book II of the Social Code. In recent years, researchers have called for a strengthening of (monetary) incentives to work, especially to take up employment with higher weekly working hours. In this paper, we summarise potential effects of such a reform on labour supply, the income distribution and the government budget in the context of a complex welfare system characterised by a high level of benefit non-take-up.

     

The macroeconomic determinants of private equity investment: a European comparison

A strong private equity (PE) market is a cornerstone for commercialization and innovation in modern economies. However, substantial differences exist in the relative amounts raised and invested in PE across European countries. We investigate the macroeconomic determinants of PE investment in Europe, focusing on the comparison between Central and Eastern European (CEE) and Western European countries. Our estimations are based on a data set running from 2001 to 2011 that covers 16 countries. Applying robust estimation techniques, we identify a ‘robust’ set of determinants of PE activity in both regions. We find similarities as well as differences in the driving forces of PE investments in Western European and CEE countries. Our results suggest that economic activity, the inflation rate, equity market capitalization, unit labour costs, the unemployment rate as well the the institutional and legal environment are significant determinants of PE activity.     

Material Distortion of Economic Behaviour and Everyday Decision Quality

Misleading information and unfair commercial practices have to be viewed against the background of what consumers otherwise do, i.e., what their purchase decisions look like when no misleading information or no unfair commercial practices are in place. This article provides some of this background by studying how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. This was done by an eye-tracking study which reveals to what extent consumers succeed in purchasing the products that best meet their purchase intentions when only a representative amount of misleading information is present. The study shows that decisions were suboptimal in relation to what the consumers claimed they wanted to purchase. Only in one product category did consumers in this study actually look at products that were slightly better than average, and as a result, they mainly selected products that were just as often poor as good. If the proportion of bad purchase decisions based on misleading information is small enough, perhaps it might be better to direct the authors’ attention to other ways of improving the decision environments that consumers encounter. In addition, the eye-tracking study provides some insight into how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. The present data show that consumers invested on average of less than 1 s to look at products.     

Tournament Compensation Systems,Employee Heterogeneity,and Firm Performance

Tournament compensation systems are widely used in practice and have been extensively analyzed theoretically. However, one major problem has hardly been studied in a company context so far: Although it is theoretically well understood that tournament compensation systems are only effective when employees are homogeneous, it has rarely been analyzed what companies can do when they are confronted with employee heterogeneity. In our article, we derive hypotheses on the performance effects of tournament compensation systems in a context of employee heterogeneity based on tournament and expectancy theory. Using personnel records from incentive travel contests, we are able to show that performance is lower in a situation with employee heterogeneity, but that in heterogeneous tournaments, incentives may still work for a subgroup of employees whom we term the “threshold group.” In addition, we also show how companies manage to design the information disclosure systems necessary to install effective “handicapping” or “league‐building” systems in order to increase the effort‐performance expectancy.     

Evaluating rater training with double-pretest one-posttest designs: an analysis of testing effects and the moderating role of rater self-efficacy

Abstract

Previous research on performance appraisal in Human Resource Management has found that frame-of-reference (FOR) training can improve rating accuracy. However, both the time-consuming development of training materials and the almost exclusive use of experimental evaluation designs limit the dissemination of FOR training as well as a better understanding of how and when it works. Therefore, unlike past research, the present studies used more general rater training materials and examined improvements in rater accuracy by means of a double-pretest one-posttest design. Study 1, using a student sample (the majority being part-time employees; N = 58), demonstrated the effectiveness of the rater training over and above a testing effect. Study 2 with participants from the workforce population (N = 45) replicated these results. In addition, in Study 2, pre-training rater self-efficacy moderated rater training effectiveness such that the rating accuracy of trainees with low self-efficacy improved more than did accuracy scores of trainees high in rater self-efficacy. We conclude that an effective FOR training can be conducted with less organization-specific materials, though both testing effects must be controlled for and individual differences (i.e. rater self-efficacy) between trainees have to be taken into account.     

The relationship between perceived training and development and employee retention: the mediating role of work attitudes

Abstract

This paper considers how utilizing a model of job-related affect can be used to explain the processes through which perceived training and development influence employee retention. We applied Russell’s model of core affect to categorize four different forms of work attitude, and positioned these as mediators of the relationship between perceived training and development and intention to stay. Using data from 1191 employees across seven organizations, multilevel analyses found that job satisfaction, employee engagement and change-related anxiety were significantly associated with intention to stay, and fully mediated the relationship between perceived training and development and intention to stay. Contrary to our hypotheses, emotional exhaustion was not significantly associated with intention to stay nor acted as a mediator when the other attitudes were included. These findings show the usefulness of Russell’s model of core affect in explaining the link between training and development and employee retention. Moreover, the findings collectively suggest that studies examining employee retention should include a wider range of work attitudes that highlight pleasant forms of affect.     

Asymmetric Information in Simple Bargaining Games: An Experimental Study

Bilateral bargaining situations are often characterized by informational asymmetries concerning the size of what is at stake: in some cases, the proposer is better informed, in others, it is the responder. We analyze the effects of both types of asymmetric information on proposer behavior in two different situations which allow for a variation of responder veto power: the ultimatum and the dictator game. We find that the extent to which proposers demand less in the ultimatum as compared to the dictator game is (marginally) smaller when the proposer is in the superior information position. Further we find informed proposers to exploit their informational advantage by offering an amount that does not reveal the true size of the pie, with proposers in the ultimatum game exhibiting this behavioral pattern to a larger extent than those in the dictator game. Uninformed proposers risk imposed rejection when they ask for more than potentially is at stake, and ask for a risk premium in dictator games. We concentrate on proposers, but also explore responder behavior: We find uninformed responders to enable proposers’ hiding behavior, and we find proposer intentionality not to play an important role for informed responders when they decide whether to accept or reject an offer by an (uninformed) proposer.