The cost of injustice: overall justice,emotional exhaustion,and performance among entrepreneurs: do founders fare better?

Small Business Economics - In this paper, we build on the allostatic load model, developed in stress research, to explore the impact of entrepreneurs’ overall justice perceptions on emotional...     

Faking ISO 9001 in China: An exploratory study

Over 1.5 million ISO 9001 certificates are in effect worldwide, 30 years after this quality management standard was launched. As the factory of the world, China is by far the leading country for ISO 9001, in terms of both absolute and relative numbers and growth. Nevertheless, practitioners have cast doubts on the reliability of adopting ISO third-party quality certification in this country. In-depth interviews with 40 senior quality managers, consultants, and auditors with broad field experience and other complementary methods paints a disturbing picture. The widespread prevalence of fake ISO 9001 certificates is indicated, together with an eroded credibility of the process of third-party certification. We discuss the profound implications of the study—including whether or not the phenomenon is restricted to China—and introduce suggestions for managers and other stakeholders, as well as avenues for further research.     

A Mathematical Programming Approach for Measuring Technical Efficiency in a Fuzzy Environment

A three stage approach is proposed to measure technical efficiency in a fuzzy environment. This approach uses the traditional data envelopment analysis framework and then merges concepts developed in fuzzy parametric programming (Carlsson and Korhonen, 1986). In the first stage, vague input and output variables are expressed in terms of their risk-free and impossible bounds and a membership function. This membership function represents the degree to which a production scenario is plausible. In the second stage, conventional efficiency measurement models (Banker, Charnes and Cooper, 1984; Deprins, Simar and Tulkens, 1984) are re-formulated in terms of the risk-free and impossible bounds and the membership function for each of the fuzzy input and output variables. In the third stage, technical efficiency scores are computed for different values of the membership function so as to identify uniquely sensitive decision making units. The approach is illustrated in the context of a preprint and packaging manufacturing line which inserts commercial pamphlets into newspapers.     

Improving corporate biodiversity management through employee involvement

This paper presents an empirical examination of the role of employee involvement in the internalization of corporate biodiversity management. A qualitative study in natural resource companies was conducted, based on semi‐directive interviews with managers, consultants, and experts in this area. The findings show that employee involvement is essential to improve biodiversity practices in natural resource companies, which largely rely on organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment. The role of tacit knowledge, voluntary initiatives, and prevention of harmful behaviors in the workplace are highlighted. The main obstacles to the internalization of biodiversity issues include their complexity, the lack of corporate commitment, the externalization of initiatives, and the lack of training for employees. The contributions to the literature on corporate environmental management, internalization of new practices, and organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment are explained. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are also provided.     

Biases and Strategic Behaviour in Performance Evaluation: The Case of the FIFA's best soccer player award

In this paper, we study biases in performance evaluation by analysing votes for the FIFA Ballon d'Or award for best soccer player, the most prestigious award in the sport. Our findings suggest that ‘similarity’ biases are substantial, with jury members disproportionately voting for candidates from their own country, own national team, own continent and own league team. Further, we show that the impact of such biases on the total number of votes a candidate receives is fairly limited and hence is likely to affect the outcome of this competition only on rare occasions where the difference in quality between the leading candidates is small. Finally, analysing the incidence of ‘strategic voting’, we find jury members who vote for one leading candidate are more, rather than less, likely to also give points to his main competitor, as compared with neutral jury members. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of awards, elections and performance evaluation systems in general and for the FIFA Ballon d'Or award in particular.     

Leading by Example: A Model of Organizational Citizenship Behavior for the Environment

Organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment (OCBEs), which are based on individual, voluntary and informal initiatives, are increasingly considered as an essential ingredient of corporate greening. Drawing on the emerging literature on this issue, this paper explores the determinants and consequences of managers' OCBEs. A study of 304 managers from the manufacturing sector allowed us to validate a new model of managers' OCBEs based on structural equation modeling. The model shows the role of environmental values and perceived behavioral control (PBC) in the adoption of OCBEs. As expected, the model also shows positive and significant relationships between OCBEs, environmental management practices and performance in this area. The study sheds new light on the impacts of OCBEs and explores the reasons why they can be used to lead by example and to improve environmental performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Cost-minimization comparison of darunavir plus ritonavir and lopinavir/ritonavir in HIV-1 infected treatment-naïve women of childbearing age

Background:

Guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services in the US recommend ritonavir-boosted lopinavir (LPV/r) as a preferred protease inhibitor (PI) for HIV-positive antiretroviral-na?ve pregnant women. These guidelines also cite ritonavir-boosted darunavir (DRV?+?RTV) as an alternative PI in this clinical scenario. The purpose of this analysis was to compare economic outcomes for regimens based on these two treatments.

Study design:

An existing discrete event simulation (DES) model was adapted to conduct a cost-minimization analysis comparing the two regimens in HIV-infected women of childbearing age (WOCBA), from the perspective of a healthcare payer in the US.

Methods:

The DES model was used to represent disease states, health events, healthcare encounters, pregnancy, and treatment choices in HIV-infected WOCBA starting treatment with regimens based on either LPV/r or DRV?+?RTV. It also incorporated parameters for individual patient characteristics, and for antiretroviral (ARV) treatment effectiveness, treatment sequencing, clinical progression, and resource use. Potential events included scheduled physician visits; viral suppression; viral rebound; AIDS-related complications; CHD events; treatment discontinuation and switching; ARV treatment side-effects (SE); and death. The primary outcomes were discounted 5-year and 10-year healthcare costs. Alternative scenarios considered different rates of switching from DRV?+?RTV to LPV/r upon conception.

Results:

Compared with DRV?+?RTV, LPV/r was associated with similar clinical outcomes while offering savings at the 5- and 10-year horizons (of $24,904 and $43,502 per patient, respectively), and in extensive sensitivity analyses. The main driver of the savings was the difference in cost between PIs.

Conclusions:

Starting HIV-infected ARV-treatment-na?ve WOCBA on an LPV/r-based regimen is cost-saving and provides similar patient outcomes compared to a DRV?+?RTV-based regimen.     

Value creation and value capture with frictions

We use a formal value‐based model to study how frictions—incomplete linkages in the industry value chain that keep some parties from meeting and transacting—affect value creation and value capture. Frictions arise from search and switching costs and moderate the intensity of industry rivalry and the efficiency of the market. We find that firms with a competitive advantage prefer industries with less, but not zero, frictions. We show that rivalry interacts nontrivially with other competitive forces to affect industry attractiveness. Firm heterogeneity emerges naturally when we introduce resource development. Heterogeneity falls with frictions, but the sustainability of competitive advantage increases. Overall, we show that introducing frictions makes value‐based models very effective at integrating analyses at the industry, firm, and resource levels. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.