A Phase-wise Development Approach to Business Excellence: Towards an Innovative,Stakeholder-oriented Assessment Tool for Organizational Excellence and CSR

The European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF) is, among other concepts, based on a phase-wise development approach as described by Clare Graves' Levels of Existence Theory. As much as corporate sustainability has a sequence of adequate interpretations, aligned with each development level, also the notion of business excellence can be defined at multiple levels, as this paper demonstrates. Furthermore, the authors analyze the current EFQM Excellence Model for particular biases towards various development levels and suggest a new and innovative two-step approach to assessing organizational performance with respect to organizational excellence (OE) and corporate sustainability. According to the organization's ambition, the assessment is either limited to a shareholder approach, mainly focusing at optimal usage of resources, or it also includes an additional assessment format based on the stakeholder approach, with specific reference to the organization's performance on the financial, social and ecological bottom line. This paper demonstrates the need and feasibility of an EFQM-Based assessment tool with a combined focus on corporate sustainability and OE.     

Age differences in career activities among higher‐level employees in the Netherlands: a comparison between profit sector and non‐profit sector staff

The present study describes age differences in the occurrence of career activities among profit sector and non‐profit sector employees in the Netherlands. Three different types of variables have been studied, i.e. individual, job‐related and organizational variables. Hypotheses have been tested with original survey data from 423 profit sector employees and 136 non‐profit sector employees. The employees are all working in higher‐level jobs in large organizations. Overall, we may conclude from this study that the differences between profit sector and non‐profit sector workers are not consistent at all. For some factors the situation is more advantageous for profit sector employees, whereas for other factors the outcomes point in the opposite direction. Regarding age effects, we have found that, in general, for profit sector employees the differences between starters (20–34 years) and middle‐aged workers (35–49 years) are not univocal, whereas the differences between middle‐aged workers and seniors (over‐fifties) imply that the amount of individual initiatives and organizational activities is less for the latter group of employees. When the three age groups are compared for the non‐profit sector employees, most factors do not vary significantly. For the factors where the F‐test is found to be significant, by and large, the situation regarding the possibilities for a further career development is worst for the seniors.     

Organizational Identification during a Merger: The Role of Self‐Enhancement and Uncertainty Reduction Motives during a Major Organizational Change

Past research focuses predominantly on self‐enhancement as a motive underlying organizational identification even though there have been several calls for examining multiple motives of identification. Our research explores the interplay of the self‐enhancement and the uncertainty reduction motives in shaping identification during a major organizational change: a merger of a business unit with its parent corporation. Based on analysis of survey responses collected from 751 employees of the merging business unit, we find that the self‐enhancement motive, measured via attractiveness of perceived organizational identity and perceived external prestige, continues to influence identification during this merger. However, its effects are diminished when considering the effect of the uncertainty reduction motive. In particular, in addition to affecting identification directly, this latter motive, measured via agreement with projected identity of the business unit and identification with a distal target (i.e., the parent corporation), decreases the effect of perceived external prestige on business unit identification. Our research answers longstanding calls for understanding organizational identification motives beyond self‐enhancement, and shows how multiple identification motives work during a major organizational change: a time when identification is strongly needed, yet hard to garner.     

Estimating dynamic R&D choice: an analysis of costs and long‐run benefits

This article estimates a dynamic structural model of discrete Research and Development (R&D) investment and quantifies its cost and long‐run benefit for German manufacturing firms. The model incorporates linkages between R&D choice, product and process innovations, and future productivity and profits. The long‐run payoff to R&D is the proportional difference in expected firm value generated by the investment. It increases firm value by 6.7% for the median firm in high‐tech industries but only 2.8% in low‐tech industries. Simulations show that reductions in maintenance costs of innovation significantly raise investment rates and productivity, whereas reductions in startup costs have little effect.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Capital Acquisition and Bankruptcy Laws

Ineffective capital acquisition decisions at start-up may lead to business failure and bankruptcy; a result which is both costly and disruptive to the owners and other stakeholders of the firm. To cope with the risk of failure, owners embark on a variety of risk-reducing activities whereas the U.S. government attempts to moderate the downside effects of such failures through the rules surrounding bankruptcy. Previous studies imply that as owners become more aware of the protections offered through the government regulation of bankruptcy, they should become less concerned with the effects of failure and be willing to raise higher levels of initial capital. Raising higher levels of initial capital, in turn, leads owners to take actions intended to reduce firm risk and to minimize the threat to their personal financial security. Data from a sample of small firms confirm our hypothesis by showing that as the level of initial capital acquisition increases, owners embark on activities intended to reduce firm risk. However, capital acquisition is not associated with the owner's familiarity with bankruptcy regulations. As a result, governmental objectives in establishing these regulations may not be achieved. Our findings have implications for firms' owners, consultants, and policymakers, in terms of the relationship between an entrepreneur's knowledge of bankruptcy laws and the financing of their enterprises.     

Resource-grabbing by status-conscious agents

We introduce a dynamic model of resource-grabbing by status-conscious agents, i.e., agents value not only their absolute consumption levels, but also the relative status within their reference group. We explore the effect of the concern for relative consumption on the growth rate and the welfare of an economy where agents appropriate from a common property resource. Our model shows that the greater is agents' concern about their relative status, the more aggressively they tend to behave. Consequently, social welfare is lower because the growth rate of the public asset is reduced due to higher extraction rate. We also consider the effect of increased heterogeneity, and show that social welfare decreases as the distribution of status-consciousness among agents widens.     

Organisational influences upon the development of occupational expertise throughout the career

The present study describes the relationship between four organisational predictor variables and the degree of occupational expertise of higher‐level employees in three different career stages. The factors in question are: social support from immediate supervisor, social support from near colleagues, organisational facilities and attention from immediate supervisor for a further career development. Hypotheses have been tested with original survey data from 420 higher‐level employees and 224 direct supervisors working in large organisations both in the profit and in the non‐profit sector. The results indicate that the focus of attention is, in general, restricted to the employee's present contribution and to the familiar job domain. Activities aimed at enlarging the outlook are virtually non‐existent. That is to say, management has a preoccupation with instrumental leadership, i.e. aimed at the here‐and‐now and less future‐oriented, instead of appropriate people management.     

State Ownership,Socio-political Factors,and Labor Cost Stickiness

This article examines the effect of state ownership on the labor cost stickiness of firms in 22 European countries. States are more likely to interfere in the decision-making processes of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and demand firm activities that are desirable from a socio-political perspective. For example, to win political support, politicians may instruct SOEs to avoid layoffs to minimize unemployment rates. The varied objectives of SOEs also make it more difficult to control managers' behavior, leaving more room for managerial discretion and the pursuit of self-interests through empire-building behavior. Both state intervention and managerial self-interest restrain managers from laying off employees or reducing employee wages when sales decrease, which may lead to greater labor cost stickiness. Data from 1993 to 2012 reveal that SOEs exhibit greater labor cost stickiness than private firms, and their labor cost stickiness also varies predictably with socio-political variables such as election years and left-wing governments.