To Screen or Not to Screen? Using the Internet for Selection Decisions

Organizations are increasingly relying on Internet searches and social networking websites to uncover detailed and private information about job applicants. Such Internet screening techniques have the potential to provide additional information beyond that found using traditional screening approaches. However, questions regarding the legality and appropriateness of this practice, as well as issues regarding the standardization, reliability, and validity of the information obtained, need to be addressed. The current work describes these issues associated with Internet screening and provides recommendations to help ensure this practice is used appropriately in organizations. Suggestions for future research on Internet screening are also discussed.     

HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data challenge

The HR world is abuzz with talk of big data and the transformative potential of HR analytics. This article takes issue with optimistic accounts, which hail HR analytics as a ‘must have’ capability that will ensure HR's future as a strategic management function while transforming organisational performance for the better. It argues that unless the HR profession wises up to both the potential and drawbacks of this emerging field and engages operationally and strategically to develop better methods and approaches, it is unlikely that existing practices of HR analytics will deliver transformational change. Indeed, it is possible that current trends will seal the exclusion of HR from strategic, board‐level influence while doing little to benefit organisations and actively damaging the interests of employees.     

Market novelty, competence-seeking and innovation networking

Studies of innovation networking have frequently been concerned with the occurrence of dyadic relationships and with their apparent impact on simple measures of firm-level innovation outputs. This paper takes a more detailed look by analyzing the connection between different types of innovation and forms of networking. Based on the market novelty of innovation outcomes and the extent to which innovation activities require new competences, four types of innovation are identified. It is proposed that these types correlate with various innovation network dimensions, including the volume of networks, the strength and content of ties, and the specificity of ties. Drawing on survey data of 594 innovations realized by Dutch small firms, it is observed that the requirement to access new competences for innovation correlates positively with the number of network partners involved. We also note more subtle connections between types of innovation and networking, including that novel innovation outputs correlate with using network partners as a source of inspiration, whilst new competences associate with networking for knowledge capital. In the latter case, these activities also draw on new and intended ties relatively often, i.e. network partners which are actively sought out for the specific contributions they may make to the innovation process. Finally, innovation which is simultaneously new-to-the market and requires new competences uses strong ties relatively often. Implications for innovation policy and practice are discussed.     

‘I lose,but that’s not the point’: Situated Economic and Social Rationalities in Horserace Gambling

ABSTRACT

This article compares ethnographic observations of horserace gambling in two UK spaces – the betting shop (remote) and the racecourse (proximal). The paper identifies the emerging, situated rationales that attract gamblers to these leisure spaces, and that motivate them to integrate their gambling activities as an ongoing, sustainable feature of their lives. Doing so, it is observed that, for the vast majority of punters, gambling on the horses is neither ‘addictive’ nor is it ‘irrational’, except in narrowly defined zweckrational terms. The article thus argues for a shift in current gambling research, away from an overwhelming preoccupation with pathological gambling, towards a broader consideration of the more representative and socioeconomically significant activities of leisure gambling.     

Auditing in the Presence of Outside Sources of Information

We examine how an auditor's ability to terminate a multi-period client relationship provides the auditor with a real option whose value depends on the nature of informational asymmetry between the incumbent and other potential auditors. In particular, we isolate conditions under which the auditor's private and public sources of information behave as complements rather than substitutes. In such circumstances, increasing the likelihood of publicly provided information induces the auditor to expend more (rather than less)resources in private information gathering activities.     

How Might Companies Value ESOs?

There has been a steady growth in the use of employee equity compensation plans, and in the use of executive stock options (ESOs) in particular, along with a rise in shareholder and public perceptions that the values of compensation plans are not always fully disclosed. The IFSA of Australia recently called for separate reporting in financial statements of numbers and values of ESOs. Companies, when negotiating employment contracts, frequently agree to compensate an executive if a share option plan is subsequently not approved by shareholders. These facts suggest that reporting the value of an ESO plan is a useful and important exercise. We outline a model for the valuation of ESOs typically issued by Australian listed companies and illustrate the application of the model with a case study.     

Directional heterogeneity of environmental disamenities: the impact of crematory operations on adjacent residential values

A hedonic study of residential house sales in Rawlins, Wyoming, was conducted to estimate the impact of an environmental shock from a new point source upon adjacent residential property values. We use a unique data base of house sale prices and associated house attributes, including structural and neighbourhood characteristics and geographic distances and directions from the source of the shock, atmospheric emissions from a new crematory. Our data spans 27 months of house sales: 7 months before, and 20 months after the startup of crematory operations. Results indicate that proximity, measured both in terms of direction and distance from the crematory, imparts a statistically significant negative impact on average house sale prices–an increase of 0.3 to 3.6% of average sale price for every one-tenth mile increase up to one-half mile in distance away from the crematory, but depending on direction from the crematory. This distance benefit increases somewhat with calendar time only for houses located west of the crematory.     

Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices: Evidence from Assessing Macroeconomic Shocks

This paper outlines a simple macro model with overlapping wage contracts to investigate how the temporary and permanent components of stock price movements may be related to aggregate macro-economic supply and demand disturbances. In the content of the model, we show that aggregate demand shocks have only temporary effects on real stock prices, while supply shocks may affect the level of real stock prices permanently. Moreover, the temporary component in U.S. stock prices, identified by placing appropriate structural restrictions on a vector autoregressive system estimated for the postwar period, is statistically significant. This evidence supports the mean-reversion hypothesis that stock prices are not pure random walks. The finding is robust to the choice of variables used in the vector autoregressive system and periodicity.     

Methods for delivering complex social services: exploring adaptive management and regulation in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme

In the wake of new public management, and with the emergence of new public governance, a number of challenges remain unsolved in the field of public service governance and management. In this paper, we use the example of the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme to show how we might deal with the design and implementation of a public service reform within the context of new public governance. We argue that governments need to develop greater openness to risk and policy experimentation during implementation. We therefore propose an adaptive system architecture that could support such risk taking.