Veiled diversity? Workplace experiences of Muslim women in Australia

This study sheds light on the mobilisation of Islamic discourses in the lives of working Muslim migrant women and its interaction with Australian society in the context of diversity management as a workplace practice. Informed by a multilevel perspective on diversity management, this paper suggests that focusing exclusively on organisations and holding them solely accountable for diversity policies may be intensely inadequate as diversity management is impacted by both macro-societal and micro-individual issues. Through qualitative research by drawing on interviews with Muslim migrant women employed in the formal economic sector, the findings underscore the need for sophistication in dealing with the complexities presented by migration, ethnicity, religion and gender.     

Evaluating training effectiveness in India: Exploring the relationship between training components,metacognition and learning outcomes

This study aims to examine the key training factors that significantly impact the learning outcomes of trainees. A comprehensive framework is proposed to investigate the interrelationships among various training components, trainer performance, training usefulness, and their effects on metacognition and learning. Empirical testing of the model is conducted using the partial least squares structural equation modelling approach, analyzing data collected from 322 public servants in North India. The findings reveal that almost all the focal factors comprising a training programme, such as the usefulness of training, trainer performance and metacognition, positively influence trainees' learning. While training agencies should consider all components of the training programme, the perceived usefulness, trainer performance and trainees' metacognition are particularly influential factors in facilitating learning. Training components and trainer performance predict the usefulness of training. This study integrates all focal factors of a training programme into a comprehensive framework using employee data, explaining a significant portion (45%–64%) of the variance in trainees' learning. These findings emphasize the importance of addressing these focal factors thoughtfully when designing and implementing effective training programmes.     

The design of a consumption tax under capital risk

This paper focuses on the design of a consumption tax in a world of capital risk. The certainty literature discusses two standard options, namely the cash flow method and the pre-payment method (i.e., the wage tax), and finds the two approaches to be equivalent. Models that consider capital risk (via asset choice) reach different conclusions. This discrepancy arises in part due to a different choice of the social discount rate. In light of the failure of the discount-rate argument to resolve the issue at hand, we explore the market certainty equivalence of risky government revenue. We let revenue risks stay in the private sector, and examine the market value of the feasible transfer (e.g., in the form of a public good) back to households. We reach three broad conclusions. First, we find that if the state returns to each household its own tax-revenue risks, equivalence will be re-established as in certainty models. Next, we show that if the state engages in intergenerational risk sharing (e.g., through a system of stochastic tax transfers), the wage tax cannot be construed to be a valid pre-payment alternative to the cash flow or a modified wage-tax-ation system. Efficient risk allocation across generations under a cash flow tax (or, one that includes future capital gains as well as wages in the tax base) leads to a Pareto improvement over the simple wage tax. Finally, a major policy implication follows; in order to be practicable, a consumption tax would have to be implemented via registered savings accounts much in the fashion of the Canadian registered retirement savings plans program rather than through the pre-payment route.     

Effects of the workplace social context and job content on nurse burnout

Job burnout is a continuing concern for human resource management, as it affects employee productivity and well‐being. In particular, the nursing profession is widely recognized as a stressful occupation that leads to burnout. The present study examines the relative significance of workplace social context in a health care setting and the job content of the nursing profession for influencing the three dimensions of job burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1981). Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of a random sample of 1,190 nurses working in 43 public hospitals in Hong Kong. The results indicate that although both the workplace social context and job content have significant effects on burnout dimensions, the effects of the workplace social context were significantly stronger. In addition, the workplace social context had a significant negative effect on personal accomplishment, whereas job content influenced personal accomplishment positively. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of devising management interventions for dealing with job burnout in the nursing profession. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Supply-side effects of exchange rates, exchange rate expectations and induced currency depreciation

Within the context of a small open economy model, this paper examines the repercussions of induced currency depreciation. The results presented in this paper are based on a model with firm microeconomic foundations and which takes into account both the supply and demand-side effects of exchange rate variations. The distinguishing feature of the model is the role of exchange rate expectations. We consider three kinds of expectations; adaptive, extrapolative, and regressive expectations. We also perform several sensitivity tests based on these expectations. Our simulation exercise shows that the effect of induced currency depreciation depends largely on supply-side effects. In most cases, we find that currency depreciation results in (i) a fall in output, (ii) an increase in prices and (iii) an improvement in the balance of trade. In the absence of weak supply-side effects of exchange rates, we find that, if the Marshall-Lerner conditions hold, then depreciation of the home currency has a favorable effect on output but its effect on the balance of trade is negative.     

Impact of market orientation on firm’s customer-based performance: the moderating role of employee orientation

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine the influence of employee orientation (EO) on converting constituent dimensions of market orientation (MO) into customer-based performance (CBP) and consider the robustness of these relationships in the context of firm age and size. Based on a sample of 410 mid-to-senior-level managers working in UK service industries, we find that all three dimensions of MO positively influence CBP. While highlighting the utility of employing a multidimensional approach to evaluate the customer-based outcome of MO implementation we highlight the nuanced role of EO in strengthening the MO–performance relationship and emphasise the crucial role employees play in implementing different strategic orientations in a perceivable way to customers.     

Landowner knowledge and willingness to supply woody biomass for wood-based bioenergy: Sample selection approach

Nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners’ willingness to harvest woody biomass for wood-based bioenergy is important if sustainable feedstock supplies are to be realized in the U.S. However, a significant number of them do not know that unused logging residues could be used to produce wood-based bioenergy. Therefore, this study analyzed landowner willingness to harvest woody biomass in Mississippi contingent upon their knowledge of wood-based bioenergy. The requisite data were analyzed in accordance with the Heckman approach. Results indicated that elderly, male, and resident landowners, having larger tracts of pine plantations were more likely to be aware of wood-based bioenergy. The results further revealed the need for bioenergy related extension education focusing on female landowners and those having small tracts of forest land.     

Is Fiscal Decentralization Conflict Abating? Routine Violence and District Level Government in Java,Indonesia

Utilizing a newly created data set the authors examine the relationship between routine/everyday violence and fiscal decentralization in 98 districts of the Indonesian island of Java. By examining possible relationships between fiscal decentralization and routine violence, this paper fills a gap in the literature where the analysis of the relation between fiscal decentralization and violence is relatively scant. Routine violence, which is different from both civil war and ethno-communal conflict, centres around group brawls, popular justice or vigilante violence. Despite the uniform implementation of fiscal decentralization, subnational entities exhibit varying experiences with decentralization, but a common consequence is the increased size of local government. Fiscal decentralization, and the increased size of local government, can alleviate pent-up frustrations with a centralized state, as local government expenditure is seen to satisfy the needs of communities with which people identify more closely. The authors also find that the greater the share of locally generated revenues, the lower the number of violent incidents; but this capacity to generate more local revenues mainly lies in richer districts. Therefore, richer districts are likely to have a lower incidence of violence.     

Exchange rates of oil exporting countries and global oil price shocks: a nonlinear smooth-transition approach

This paper models logistic and exponential smooth transition adjustments of real exchange rates for six major oil-exporting countries in response to different shocks affecting oil prices. The logistic form captures asymmetric and the exponential form symmetric adjustments in regards to positive and negative oil price shocks. We chose oil-exporting countries that do not peg their exchange rates. For most countries, we detect no statistically significant non-linearities for the adjustment process of real exchange rate returns, be they asymmetric or symmetric, in response to oil supply shocks, idiosyncratic oil-market-specific shocks, and speculative oil-market shocks. Exceptions are oil supply shocks in the UK and possibly Brazil, where exchange rates respond nonlinearly, though the effects are symmetric for both countries. On the other hand, global aggregate demand shocks, which are shocks not originating directly in the oil market, have nonlinear asymmetric effects on real exchange rate returns for Canada, Mexico, Norway and Russia, and nonlinear symmetric effects for Brazil and the UK.