Exploring Negotiation Through Boundary Objects in Global Design Project Networks

Boundary objects have been shown to play an important role in sharing knowledge in and across firms. However, little research has examined whether boundary objects can facilitate emergence of common knowledge across national cultural boundaries. To examine this, we observed 1,428 design review interactions involving U.S. and Indian engineers. We quantitatively analyzed 419 interactions involving engineers and boundary objects and then qualitatively analyzed 67 instances of boundary object–mediated negotiation. We found that boundary objects can play a central role in negotiating complex design knowledge. We then induced a propositional theoretical model of boundary object–mediated negotiation in global design project networks.     

Opportunities for Air Pollutant and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction through Local Transport Planning

This paper has three main objectives: firstly, to provide quantitative information on the potential greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions reductions resulting from a number of future road transport scenarios; secondly, to illustrate the emission reduction measures available to local transport planners; and thirdly, to highlight the potential for these measures to be integrated into strategies that deliver other transport priorities. The results are drawn from a case study of Norfolk in the UK. We conclude that while technology can play a large part in reducing emissions of air pollutants, demand management is crucial to the delivery of long term greenhouse gas emission reduction and ultimately of air pollutant emissions too.     

Compensation in the Post‐FIN 48 Period: The Case of Contracting on Tax Performance and Uncertainty

Academic and anecdotal evidence indicates that incentive systems often provide short‐term payouts without regard for long‐term consequences. New detailed disclosures mandated by FIN No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, enable us to use a tax setting to investigate whether boards adjust performance‐based pay for uncertainty. We find managers’ bonus payouts are positively associated with tax performance; however, bonus payouts are lower when measures of ex ante tax uncertainty are higher. Our results are robust to tests of alternative explanations including financial reporting aggressiveness, overall firm risk, and other forms of compensation. Further, we document that the relation between bonus compensation and tax performance has changed in the post‐FIN No. 48 period. Specifically, we identify a significant association between bonus payout and GAAP ETR only in the pre‐FIN No. 48 period and a significant association between bonus payout and cash ETR only in the post‐FIN No. 48 period, suggesting that the relation between compensation and tax avoidance should be examined carefully with particular attention to the post‐FIN No. 48 period.     

Evaluating the impact of TRIZ creativity training: an organizational field study

Creativity training is used by many organizations in an attempt to improve the innovativeness of their employees, yet there has been relatively little systematic evaluation carried out of the impact of such training. This study reports on the evaluation of the effectiveness of a theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ)‐based creativity training program in a major international engineering firm. Cross‐sectional, longitudinal and multisource evaluation strategies were used to assess the impact of the training on a sample of design engineers (n = 123) and to make comparisons with nontrainees (n = 96). Results indicate that participation in TRIZ training led to short‐term improvements in both the creative problem‐solving skills and motivation to innovate of engineers, and these were associated with longer term improvements in their idea suggestion in the workplace. There was variable support for the translation of these ideas into new innovations and improved performance at work as a result of the training. Theoretical and practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of creativity training interventions are discussed.     

Opportunistic customer complaining: Causes, consequences, and managerial alternatives

Should a hospitality firm yield to a customer complaint that is suspected [or even known] to be opportunistic? While the answer to this question varies based upon numerous factors, this conceptual article synthesizes multiple streams of empirical research to enumerate: (1) customer-centric, firm-centric [such as the influence of firm size], and relationship-centric determinants of opportunistic customer complaining; (2) means of detecting whether a complaint is opportunistic [such as through employee knowledge of operations]; and (3) potential consequences to the firm of yielding and not yielding to opportunistic complaints.     

An Empirical Evaluation of the Effect of Peer and Managerial Ethical Behaviors and the Ethical Predispositions of Prospective Advertising Employees

An advertising firm's ethical culture (as defined by the firm's managerial and peer ethical behaviors) may affect the employees' comfort levels and ethical behaviors. In this research, scenarios were used to describe advertising firms with various ethical cultures. Respondents' perceived comfort levels in working for the firms described in the scenarios and the respondents' behavioral intentions when faced with various advertising situations were assessed. Results of the study indicate that peer ethical behavior exerts a strong influence on the comfort or discomfort level and the ethical behavioral intentions of potential advertising employees. Further, the strong influence exerted by peers seems to transcend the ethical behavior of the manager and carry over to the attitude toward the entire corporate advertising environment. This study provides insights for firms and researchers interested in assessing the impact of an advertising firm's ethical culture on potential employees.     

Why is the teen birth rate in the United States so high and why does it matter?

Teens in the United States are far more likely to give birth than in any other industrialized country in the world. U.S. teens are two and a half times as likely to give birth as compared to teens in Canada, around four times as likely as teens in Germany or Norway, and almost 10 times as likely as teens in Switzerland. Among more developed countries, Russia has the next highest teen birth rate after the United States, but an American teenage girl is still around 25 percent more likely to give birth than her counterpart in Russia. Moreover, these statistics incorporate the almost 40 percent fall in the teen birth rate that the United States has experienced over the past two decades. Differences across U.S. states are quite dramatic as well. A teenage girl in Mississippi is four times more likely to give birth than a teenage girl in New Hampshire--and 15 times more likely to give birth as a teen compared to a teenage girl in Switzerland. This paper has two overarching goals: understanding why the teen birth rate is so high in the United States and understanding why it matters. Thus, we begin by examining multiple sources of data to put current rates of teen childbearing into the perspective of cross-country comparisons and recent historical context. We examine teen birth rates alongside pregnancy, abortion, and "shotgun" marriage rates as well as the antecedent behaviors of sexual activity and contraceptive use. We seek insights as to why the rate of teen childbearing is so unusually high in the United States as a whole, and in some U.S. states in particular. We argue that explanations that economists have tended to study are unable to account for any sizable share of the variation in teen childbearing rates across place. We describe some recent empirical work demonstrating that variation in income inequality across U.S. states and developed countries can explain a sizable share of the geographic variation in teen childbearing. To the extent that income inequality is associated with a lack of economic opportunity and heightened social marginalization for those at the bottom of the distribution, this empirical finding is potentially consistent with the ideas that other social scientists have been promoting for decades but which have been largely untested with large data sets and standard econometric methods. Our reading of the totality of evidence leads us to conclude that being on a low economic trajectory in life leads many teenage girls to have children while they are young and unmarried and that poor outcomes seen later in life (relative to teens who do not have children) are simply the continuation of the original low economic trajectory. That is, teen childbearing is explained by the low economic trajectory but is not an additional cause of later difficulties in life. Surprisingly, teen birth itself does not appear to have much direct economic consequence. Moreover, no silver bullet such as expanding access to contraception or abstinence education will solve this particular social problem. Our view is that teen childbearing is so high in the United States because of underlying social and economic problems. It reflects a decision among a set of girls to "drop-out" of the economic mainstream; they choose non-marital motherhood at a young age instead of investing in their own economic progress because they feel they have little chance of advancement. This thesis suggests that to address teen childbearing in America will require addressing some difficult social problems: in particular, the perceived and actual lack of economic opportunity among those at the bottom of the economic ladder.     

Same Work,Different Pay? Evidence from a US Public University

Abstract

This study examines detailed data for faculty at a typical public research university in the United States between 1995 and 2004 to explore whether gender wage differentials can be explained by productivity differences. The level of detail – including the number of courses taught, enrollment, grant dollars, and number and impact of publications – largely eliminates the problem of unmeasured productivity, and the restriction to one firm eliminates unmeasured work conditions that confound investigations of wider labor markets. The authors find that direct productivity measures reduce the gender wage penalty to about 3 percent, only 1 percentage point lower than estimates from national studies of many institutions and with fewer productivity controls. The wage structure for women faculty differs markedly from the wage structure for men. Interpreted against the institutional features of wage setting for this population, the paper concludes that penalties for women arise at the department level.     

Towards Ending the Silence: Working Women Caring for Children with Chronic Illness

This paper presents stories from women who work and care for a child with a significant chronic illness or disability. The purpose of this paper is to move towards ending the silence on their lives. A three-phase emergent research design responds to the question: What is life like for a full-time worker who is concurrently the primary carer of a chronically ill child? This paper considers the theory of Silencing the Self (Jack, 1991) in relation to the emergent themes of “Otherness” and “Doing it All.” As in Jack’s study, these women also engaged in silencing of the self. However, unlike the respondents in Jack’s study, these women did not demonstrate feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness for the future, nor were they alone in contributing to their silence. Indeed, many experienced silencing behaviors from others around them, and many rallied against the silence, not accepting that their burden should continue. Consideration of Jack’s theory is made to point out the distinctions between the women in this study and Jack’s study, and analytical commentary is provided to demonstrate the relevance of this analysis in light of the current debates surrounding the Work–Home Conflict and the rising levels of informal care provided by women in our communities.     

Wrongful firing in violation of public policy: Who gets fired and why

We extend the whistle-blowing literature to the context of wrongful firings that violate a public policy. Our results suggest that the incidence of wrongful firings varies, depending on the employee’s gender and tenure, and the industry in which the organization operates. Wrongful firings do not occur more frequently in certain occupations, since firms wrongfully discharge professional and managerial employees as often as employees in technical, clerical, and laborer occupations. We also show that gender, tenure, occupation, and industry, in combination, can distinguish between three types of wrongful firings in violation of public policy. Our results support the application of theory and empirical research on whistle-blowing to the wrongful firing context, aiding researchers interested in developing explanations of wrongful firings in violation of public policy. For managers, our study points to the need to develop more effective responses to employees exercising legal rights, refusing to participate in illegal or unethical activities, and performing a public duty or obligation, such as whistle-blowing.