Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Climate for conflict management,exposure to workplace bullying and work engagement: a moderated mediation analysis

The present study investigates a potential preventive factor in relation to workplace bullying. Specifically, we examine how climate for conflict management (CCM) may be related to less bullying, increased work engagement, as well as whether CCM is a moderator in the bullying engagement relationship. The study was based on a cross-sectional survey among employees in a transport company (N = 312). Hypotheses were tested simultaneously in a moderated mediation analysis which showed that bullying and job engagement were related (H1), CCM was related to less reports of bullying (H2), CCM was related to work engagement (H3) and that CCM was indirectly related to job engagement through bullying (H4), but only when CCM was weak (H5). That is, CCM moderated the relationship between bullying and work engagement in that this relationship only existed when CCM was low. The present study contributes to theory within this research field by showing that organizational measures may not only prevent bullying, but may also affect how employees react when subjected to bullying. Furthermore, the effect of climate in relation to bullying may be down to the narrow bandwidth facet of CCM. The study informs employers how they may act to prevent bullying while also reducing the potential negative outcomes of those cases of bullying that inevitably will show up from time to time.     

In the city: The John Lewis partnership and planned shopping centres

A defining feature of large-scale retailing during the period 1950–1980 was the emergence and evolution of planned shopping centres. During the 1950s, department stores in the United States were in the vanguard of this phenomenon. In contrast, British department stores continued operating from traditional high street sites, and had limited opportunities for expansion within planned shopping centres until the 1970s. This paper addresses the connection between department store retailing and the development of the planned shopping centre in Britain from the perspective of one enterprise: the John Lewis Partnership. The article demonstrates that the Partnership was willing to operate department stores within centrally located shopping centres, but was circumspect about operating stores in non-centrally located shopping centres.     

Non-GAAP reporting following debt covenant violations

Review of Accounting Studies - We investigate whether firms change their non-GAAP reporting practices after debt covenant violations. We find that the likelihood that a firm will disclose non-GAAP...     

Settlement procedures and stock market efficiency

This study examines why most derivatives markets that settle on the day following expiration choose the opening rather than the closing price as the final settlement price (FSP), whereas most markets that settle on the expiration day select an average rather than a single price as the FSP. Four exogenous changes in the Taiwan Futures Exchange settlement procedures provide an experimental basis for studying the settlement procedures’ impact on underlying assets. Greatest market efficiency is observed when the FSP is determined by a single rather than an average price and hypothesize that manipulation is prevented at the expense of market quality.     

Matrix Representation of Solution Concepts in the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution with Probabilistic Preferences and Multiple Decision Makers

Group Decision and Negotiation - In this paper, matrix methods are developed to determine stable states in the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR) with probabilistic preferences with n...     

A multivariate distance nonlinear causality test based on partial distance correlation: a machine learning application to energy futures

This paper proposes a multivariate distance nonlinear causality test (MDNC) using the partial distance correlation in a time series framework. Partial distance correlation as an extension of the Brownian distance correlation calculates the distance correlation between random vectors X and Y controlling for a random vector Z. Our test can detect nonlinear lagged relationships between time series, and when integrated with machine learning methods it can improve the forecasting power. We apply our method as a feature selection procedure and combine it with the support vector machine and random forests algorithms to study the forecast of the main energy financial time series (oil, coal, and natural gas futures). It shows substantial improvement in forecasting the fuel energy time series in comparison to the classical Granger causality method in time series.     

Ownership structure and hospital service costs and fees: A decomposition approach

This paper analyzes hospital characteristics that are associated with higher average costs and charges for venipuncture, computed tomography procedures (computerized axial tomography [CAT] scans), and electrocardiograms (EKG). Using data from a Medicare database, our results indicate that higher wages, larger hospital sizes, and greater service quality are associated with higher procedure costs, whereas system membership is generally associated with lower procedure costs. Blinder‐type decompositions, which are the main focus of this study, suggest (a) that venipuncture costs are about 17% to 19% lower at proprietary hospitals than at nonprofit or government hospitals, (b) CAT scan costs are about 6% to 12% lower at nonprofit hospitals than at proprietary and government hospitals, and (c) that EKG costs are about 3% lower at proprietary hospitals than at nonprofit or government hospitals. Lastly, large portions of each of these differences are found to be due to both differences in mean values of the hospitals' characteristics by ownership type and differences in the mechanism by which the hospitals' characteristics are transmitted to procedure costs.     

“Going natural”: Black women’s identity project shifts in hair care practices

Hair care, a seemingly mundane consumption practice, is packed with sociocultural meanings and constitutes an important realm of identity work for consumers. Drawing upon existing literature on consumer identity projects, this paper investigates the experiences of urban, Black women in Kenya as they disengage from the normative practice of altering their natural hair texture using chemical straighteners (a practice that conforms to Eurocentric beauty ideals of straight, flowing hair), and adopt the non-normative hair care practice of “going natural,” in which they embrace their natural hair texture and hairstyles. This paper traces the historical, sociocultural, and political events that underpin the normative ideology associated with the identity marker of natural Black hair, and how this ideology influences the women’s “going natural” experience. Findings reveal tensions that emerge in the women’s identity project disengagement and reconstruction process, and how the women navigate their position as they reimagine their embodied identity quest.