Perceptions of Organizational Ethics as Predictors of Work Absence: A Test of Alternative Absence Measures

The study examined the distinction between two traditional work absence measures: frequency, reflecting voluntary absence, and duration, reflecting non-voluntary absence. The two measures were compared in a test of the relationship between work absence and employees’ perceptions of organizational ethics. Questionnaires and archive data were collected from 1,016 teachers in Israel. Organizational ethics was represented by three variables: ethical climate (caring and formal), organizational justice (distributive and procedural), and teacher’s tendency to misbehave. Results showed that four ethical constructs (caring climate, formal climate, tendency to misbehave, and procedural justice) were related to absence frequency, while only one (caring climate) was related to absence duration. The findings add to previous research on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary absence measures, and the superior sensitivity of frequency over duration as a measure of voluntary absence. In practice, the results may encourage principals and managers to create ethical workplaces to minimize absence frequency.     

Mapping Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Supply Chains: an Exploratory Perspective

Corporate responsibility (CR) in general, and sustainable supply chain management in particular, have been a growing concern for companies and researchers over the past decade. However, in scholarly work, sustainability has often been dealt with in a generic fashion or from an anecdotal point of view. Further, research works examining CR on the one hand and sustainable supply chains on the other have been conducted separately. We undertake the multiple factor analysis of a CR rating database (Innovest) which reports longitudinal scores for both the social and environmental performance of 1198 companies in different countries and distinct industries, to demonstrate a strong relationship between CR and a sustainable supply chain. Our findings from exploratory analysis also illustrate the role of country of origin and industry in shaping CR behaviour, highlighting isomorphic as well as allomorphic trends for CR trough time. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The monetary model strikes back: Evidence from the world

We revisit the dramatic failure of monetary models in explaining exchange rate movements. Using the information content from 98 countries, we find strong evidence for cointegration between nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals. We also find fundamentals-based models very successful in beating a random walk in out-of-sample prediction.     

Can Urban Indicators Predict Home Price Appreciation? Implications for Redlining Research

Economists commonly control for neighborhood indicators, such as median income, in underwriting models that test for redlining. Many such indicators are highly correlated with neighborhood racial composition and therefore have the capacity to "explain away" the role of race in lending decisions. This paper argues that indicators should be included in models of underwriting only if they affect future home prices, and hence the value of the default option, in a consistent fashion. Testing the effect of nine census variables, taken from two recent redlining papers, on California tract appreciation from 1986 to 1994, a consistent relationship between indicators and home price is not found.     

Firm-Level Influences on Forms of Employment and Pay in Russia

This article examines forms of employment and compensation in a sample of 44 Russian enterprises in 1996. The incidence of employee participation in decision making is highest in employee-owned enterprises. Otherwise, ownership has little impact. Effects of industry, size, resources, and transaction costs are consistent with Western experience. The employment relation in contemporary Russian enterprises is thus not so deeply embedded in institutional influences as to be insensitive to conditions prevailing in individual workplaces.     

Housing Tenure and Mortgage Choice

This paper examines the relationship between housing tenure and mortgage contract. We present a model showing that, given expected mobility, borrowers will have incentive to self-select into the appropriate mortgage product such that their fixed-rate period is directly related to their probability of moving. We empirically test this hypothesis using housing tenure data derived from a large national database of repeat mortgage transactions. After controlling for borrower characteristics, the mobility hazards of 3/1, 5/1 and 7/1 ARMs, compared to a 30-year fixed rate, are estimated to be 28%, 14% and 11% higher, respectively