Engaging employees for quality of life: mediation by psychological capital

The objective of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological capital (PsyCap) between work engagement and the six dimensions of quality of work life (QoWL). Data were collected from the employees working in the accident and emergency department of tertiary hospitals in India involved in rendering emergency healthcare services. Structural analysis showed that PsyCap fully mediates the relationship between work engagement and control at work and partially between work engagement and the other five dimensions of QoWL. These results augment broaden and build theory by explaining the role of PsyCap in channelizing the positive effect of work engagement to improve employees’ QoWL. Hospitals with the accident and emergency department are encouraged to recruit psychologically capable employees. Such employees can transfer the benefits of their personal resources and engagement to the quality of life at work and be less prone to burnout.     

Diffusion of mobile telephony in India: An empirical study

Diffusion of new technology is an important driver of economic growth. In this paper, diffusion of mobile telephony in India is studied. There is a vast diffusion potential in this country which needs to be exploited efficiently and in a rational way. This paper investigates the social, technological, economical and political (STEP) factors that have influenced the diffusion process of mobile telephony especially the diffusion speed. The epidemic model, which is widely employed in the diffusion studies of mobile telephony, is used for the study. The data is fitted into logistic, gompertz, and bass models by nonlinear least squares and it is found that gompertz model best describes the diffusion process of mobile telephony in India. The study reveals that competition and government intervention played a significant role in accelerating the diffusion speed of mobile telephony by making the technology affordable. It is found that mobile telephony is a substitute for fixed line telephony in India. The findings will be useful in taking managerial decisions with respect to factors in forecasting and controlling the diffusion process of emerging technologies.     

Skilled–unskilled wage inequality: A general equilibrium analysis

The paper develops a static three sector competitive general equilibrium model of a small open economy in which skilled labour is mobile between a traded good sector and a non-traded good sector and unskilled labour is specific to another traded good sector. The capital is perfectly mobile among all these three sectors. We examine the effects of change in different factor endowments and of globalization on skilled–unskilled wage inequality. We find that the effect of a change of a factor endowment on wage inequality depends on the factor intensity ranking between two skilled labours using sectors and on the relative strength of the marginal effects on demand for and supply of non-tradable good. We also find that a decrease in the price of the product produced by skilled (unskilled) labour using traded good sector lowers (raises) the skilled–unskilled wage inequality.     

The effect of monetary policy on real house price growth in South Africa: A factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) approach

This paper assesses the impact of monetary policy on real house price growth in South Africa using a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR), estimated using a large data set comprising of 246 quarterly series over the period 1980:01 to 2006:04. The results based on the impulse response functions indicate that, in general, house price inflation responds negatively to monetary policy shock, but the responses are heterogeneous across the middle-, luxury- and affordable-segments of the housing market. The luxury-, large-middle- and medium-middle-segments are found to respond much more than the small-middle- and the affordable-segments of the housing market. More importantly, we find no evidence of the home price puzzle, observed previously by other studies that analyzed house prices using small-scale models. We put this down to the benefit gained from using a large information set.     

Skilled–unskilled wage inequality,nontraded good and endogenous supply of skilled labour: A theoretical analysis

The paper develops a static four sector competitive general equilibrium model of a small open economy in which skilled labour is endogenously produced by the education sector and is mobile between a traded good sector and a nontraded good sector. Capital is also perfectly mobile among the education sector, skilled labour using traded good sector and the nontraded good sector. However, land and unskilled labour are specific to another traded good sector. We analyse the effects of change in different factor endowments and reduction in tariff rate on skilled–unskilled wage inequality. We find that the effect of a change in different parameters on wage inequality depends on the factor intensity ranking between two skilled labour using sectors and on the relative strength of the marginal effects on demand for and supply of nontraded final good. We also analyse the effects of changes in different parameters on the supply of skilled labour.     

开发新产品的成功之道

你的企业感到开发新产品困难重重吗？如果确实如此,你可以尝试向那些行家里手们学习。 在对北美和欧洲28家企业的300多名员工进行调查后,我们发现,那些具有最佳产品开发记录的企业在三件事情上比它们不太成功的同行做得更好：它们在项目早期就确立了对项目目标的清晰认识;它们在自己的团队中培育出了强有力的项目文化;它们在整个项目开发过程中,始终与客户保持着密切联系。     

A Conceptual Framework That Identifies Antecedents and Consequences of Building Socially Responsible International Brands

Research on the reputation of international firms using branding philosophies for offering products that are harmful for customers, through business‐to‐business networks, has until now yielded inconsistent results. Although the literature recommends socially responsible behavior of firms offering branded products as one of the determinants of brand reputation, it fails to satisfactorily identify the factors that would particularly enable a brand offering controversial products to be recognized as a socially responsible brand. Authors use the inductive approach to examine existing research and review anecdotes to build a model that will allow brand managers to develop recognition of an ethical and socially responsible brand while offering controversial products such as tobacco or gambling. In addition, the role of business customers of an international brand is also reviewed to understand if they can moderate the causal relationship between the socially responsible image of the brand and brand reputation. Guidelines for future research on the propositions made are provided in this article. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

TESTING FOR FRACTIONAL INTEGRATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY REAL EXCHANGE RATES

This paper utilises “a class test for fractional integration” associated with the seminal contribution of Hinich and Chong to appraise the possibility that Southern African Development Community (SADC) real exchange rates can be treated as long memory processes. The justification for considering fractional integration is that the general failure to reject the unit‐root hypothesis in real exchange rates is caused by the restrictiveness of standard unit‐root tests regarding admissible low‐frequency dynamic behaviour. The paper presents evidence that, except for South Africa, none of the SADC real exchange rates are fractionally integrated. However, the results are found to be sensitive to the size of the sample.     

Examining the Nature and Effects of Psychological Contract: Case Study of an Indian Organization

This study investigates psychological contract contents and the effects of different types of psychological contracts on the work outcomes of employees in an Indian organization. Analysis of case study interviews and secondary data suggests that employee expectations can be categorized into relational and transactional psychological contracts. The contents of these contracts, while largely similar to those in the West, reflected certain aspects that are unique to the sociocultural context of employment relationships in India. Further, the fulfillment or breach of these psychological contracts led to different effects on work outcomes. Relational psychological contracts affected long‐term affective work outcomes, such as prosocial work behaviors, psychological ownership, and engagement. Transactional psychological contracts had stronger effects on turnover intentions and attitude to work. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.