Promise and peril in implementing pay‐for‐performance

Why would managers abandon pay‐for‐performance plans they initiated with great hopes? Why would employees celebrate this decision? This article explores why managers made their decisions in 12 of 13 pay‐for‐performance “experiments” at Hewlett‐Packard in the mid‐1990s. We find that managers thought the costs of these programs to be higher than the benefits. Alternative managerial practices such as effective leadership, clear objectives, coaching, or training were thought a better investment. Despite the undisputed instrumentality of pay‐for‐performance to motivate, little attention has been given to whether the benefits outweigh the costs or the “fit” of these programs with high‐commitment cultures like Hewlett‐Packard was at the time. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Bayesian exploratory factor analysis

This paper develops and applies a Bayesian approach to Exploratory Factor Analysis that improves on ad hoc classical approaches. Our framework relies on dedicated factor models and simultaneously determines the number of factors, the allocation of each measurement to a unique factor, and the corresponding factor loadings. Classical identification criteria are applied and integrated into our Bayesian procedure to generate models that are stable and clearly interpretable. A Monte Carlo study confirms the validity of the approach. The method is used to produce interpretable low dimensional aggregates from a high dimensional set of psychological measurements.     

Disclosure‐protected Inference Using Generalised Linear Models

Vast amounts of data that could be used in the development and evaluation of policy for the benefit of society are collected by statistical agencies. It is therefore no surprise that there is very strong demand from analysts, within business, government, universities and other organisations, to access such data. When allowing access to micro‐data, a statistical agency is obliged, often legally, to ensure that it is unlikely to result in the disclosure of information about a particular person or organisation. Managing the risk of disclosure is referred to as statistical disclosure control (SDC). This paper describes an approach to SDC for output from analysis using generalised linear models, including estimates of regression parameters and their variances, diagnostic statistics and plots. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has implemented the approach in a remote analysis system, which returns analysis output from remotely submitted queries. A framework for measuring disclosure risk associated with a remote server is proposed. The disclosure risk and utility of approach are measured in two real‐life case studies and in simulation.     

浅析FEWD随钻测井技术的作用与应用效果

随钻遥测、随钻电法、声波、核、核磁共振、随钻地震等技术近几年具有长足的发展。随钻测井技术主要应用于地质导向和地层评价。大力发展随钻测井技术是油田技术服务公司的一个主要关注方向。我国发展随钻测井技术要有新的思路,实现跨越式发展,才能紧跟世界石油工业先进技术的发展步伐,达到提高国内随钻测井技术水平的目的。本文针对利用该FEWD形成的随钻测井技术,介绍了该技术涉及到的常用井下仪器组合、常用钻具组合、现场施工管理方式、主要应用技术,以及该技术的应用范围、应用效果和在部分油田的使用情况。     

Let’s Not Go Down that Path Again: Lessons from the Past Applied to Immigrant-Targeted Discrimination

Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are a staple of the modern United States workplace. While much of the discussion of this fact centers on negative consequences for the U.S., far less attention has been paid to the detrimental impact on immigrants resulting from their workplace experiences, particularly relating to being targets of discrimination. In this article, we outline: a) a variety of types of workplace discrimination potentially relating to immigrant status; b) potential negative outcomes arising from said discrimination for both immigrant employees and their employers, and; c) how existing and predicted employment law standards place organizations in a legally vulnerable position when such discrimination goes unchecked. We further discuss implications of immigrant-targeted discrimination (ITD) for organizations and managers, and plausible extensions of workplace discrimination laws to specifically include ITD.     

Levels of computer self-efficacy, computer use and earnings in China

Levels of self-efficacy in computer use were found to be positively related to computer use at work among a sample of workers in Shanghai. The simultaneous estimation of computer use and earnings indicated that an earnings premium for computer use accrues only to females, not to males.     

Are we operating effectively? A lean analysis of operating theatre changeovers

Hospital operating theatres are a critical but costly resource in healthcare processes. Their efficiency and utilisation impact upon hospital finances, clinical effectiveness and patient outcomes. Operations management techniques have now been applied widely to optimise flow. An important challenge is to balance the needs of process flexibility, efficiency and work standardisation with clinical requirements. This paper applies operations management methods to analyse elective orthopaedic surgery at five international hospitals to describe the issues that affect operating theatre productivity. It utilises an innovative method of video analysis to observe patient changeovers over 29 days of surgery and data is analysed to understand the causes of variability and waste. The findings suggest that processes which are standardised via operations management methodologies can improve productivity in a process that exhibits wide variation in practice. There are apparent trade-offs associated with efficiency and clinical concerns such infection control, that lead to different standard process archetypes being utilised. Recommendations for standardising patient changeovers are provided.     

Just‐cause provisions,severance pay,and the efficiency wage hypothesis

A simple model of employment contracting is employed to examine the effectiveness of just‐cause provisions in alleviating employer opportunism in two types of efficiency wage contracts—standard contracts, in which wages exceed the worker's marginal contribution, and deferred wages, which are paid after a period of tenure in the firm. It is argued that just‐cause employment policies are necessary and sufficient to prevent employer opportunism when standard efficiency wages are utilized. However, just‐cause policies are not sufficient to deter employer opportunism when employment contracts are of the delayed‐payment type. In these contracts, other contractual provisions, such as severance provisions, are also necessary. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Behavioral economics: implications for regulatory behavior

Behavioral economics (BE) examines the implications for decision-making when actors suffer from biases documented in the psychological literature. This article considers how such biases affect regulatory decisions. The article posits a simple model of a regulator who serves as an agent to a political overseer. The regulator chooses a policy that accounts for the rewards she receives from the political overseer—whose optimal policy is assumed to maximize short-run outputs that garner political support, rather than long-term welfare outcomes—and the weight the regulator puts on the optimal long run policy. Flawed heuristics and myopia are likely to lead regulators to adopt policies closer to the preferences of political overseers than they would otherwise. The incentive structure for regulators is likely to reward those who adopt politically expedient policies, either intentionally (due to a desire to please the political overseer) or accidentally (due to bounded rationality). The article urges that careful thought be given to calls for greater state intervention, especially when those calls seek to correct firm biases. The article proposes measures that focus rewards to regulators on outcomes rather than outputs as a way to help ameliorate regulatory biases.