The loyalty construct: Hirschman and beyond

Six papers drawing on Hirschman's (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty model are discussed with regard to two themes: (a) relationship to the original work (specifically focusing on variations in the definition and operationalization of the loyalty component), and (b) the development of the loyalty construct itself. A concerted effort is called for to pursue a better understanding of loyalty, including an improved appreciation of the depth and breadth of the construct, its antecedents and outcomes, and its operationalizations in organizational settings.     

Understanding sales force automation outcomes: A managerial perspective

Despite the growing importance and potential of sales force automation (SFA), failure rates for SFA implementations have been reported to be as high as 55-80%. Given the growth of SFA programs, the potential effectiveness and efficiency SFA can bring to the sales force, and the magnitude of SFA failures, it is surprising that relatively few studies have addressed this important and timely topic. Many of the early studies have focused on the adoption and diffusion/infusion of SFA programs from an information technology perspective. The results of these studies have been inconclusive in explaining SFA implementation failures. The purpose of this study is to add to our understanding of SFA failures by investigating a broader set of implementation factors than those typically included in acceptance of technology studies. We conducted in-depth personal interviews with executives from three global organizations who were responsible for SFA initiatives in their firm. Results from the in-depth analyses yield recommendations and a proposed model to assist managers in the implementation of their SFA as well as getting their salespeople to “buy-in” to the SFA, and ultimately reduce SFA failures.     

我国商业银行市场结构和市场绩效的实证分析

运用DEA模型从市场结构和市场绩效两方面对我国商业银行进行检验分析,显示我国银行业的集中度、市场份额与绩效呈负相关关系,原因主要在于我国银行业市场结构较高的集中度不是市场自发作用的结果,大的银行规模并不意味着更高的利润回报。我国银行集中度和绩效之间不存在结构理论中所假设的因果关系,银行业市场结构对绩效的促进作用不明显。建立和完善我国银行业绩效考核体系时着重强调的应该是效率,而非银行规模和市场份额。     

Job congruence, academic achievement, and earnings

This study combines a widely held view of how earnings are related to education and job tenure (The Mincer model¹) with the notion that earnings are associated with the quality of an employer–employee job match. The quality of an individual's occupational choice is measured using job congruence, a commonly-used construct in the psychometric literature. Better-matched individuals should be more productive and, as a result, have higher earnings. Previous studies were unable to address the importance of job preferences to earnings because available data do not include both job congruence and individual earnings. The Alumni Outcomes Survey, recently produced by ACT Inc., is among the first data sets to include both variables. We use these data to estimate the importance of job congruence on earnings after controlling both for job tenure and for academic achievement, measured by an individual's ACT score. Results indicate that job congruence is positively correlated with earnings, and has effects on earnings that are of almost equal magnitude with years of education.     

浅析以用户为中心的地质成果社会化服务体系

随着社会对地质成果需求的不断扩大和延伸,地质成果的社会化问题越来越受到人们的广泛关注,我国地质成果社会化服务虽然已经开展并且服务范围在不断扩大,但也存在着成果表达方式单一,管理制度有缺陷、服务理念落后,信息化人才短缺等问题,从而影响和制约了地质成果社会化服务的开展,为解决地质成果社会化服务中存在的问题和障碍,应建立以用户为中心的地质成果社会化服务体系。包括树立以用户为中心的服务理念,针对目标用户群提供相应的服务,建立以用户为中心的地质成果社会化服务评价指标体系等。     

Offshoring,wages, and heterogeneity

Considering heterogeneous responses by skill group to material and service offshoring, we examine the relationship between offshoring and the individual wages of workers in the U.S. labor market. We find that offshoring has been beneficial for high-skill workers but detrimental for middle- and low-skill workers. In particular, service offshoring, which has been widespread since 2000, has severely affected the labor market, compared to material offshoring.     

Effect of cognitive abilities and non-cognitive abilities on labor wages: empirical evidence from the Chinese Employer-Employee Survey

ABSTRACT

The existing literature suggests that worker’s cognitive and non-cognitive abilities have a significant impact on wages. However, presently there is little research in this area of ??China’s labor force, due to scanty data. To this end, this Paper conducted a CEES-based data research, which found that, the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of male, skilled workers have a greater impact on their wages, as compared with those of the female, unskilled workers. The OLS regression based on the Mincer Wage Equation found that, the impact of non-cognitive abilities on wages is generally larger than that of the cognitive abilities. All cognitive abilities have a positive impact on wages, wherein English proficiency has the greatest elasticity of wages, which is 12.1%. Of all non-cognitive abilities, Conscientiousness has the highest wage elasticity, which is 13.6%, whereas Agreeableness has a negative wage elasticity of ?6.32%.

Abbreviations: CEES: Chinese Employer-Employee Survey OLS: Ordinary least squares     

The performance of politicians: The effect of gender quotas

This paper investigates whether the gender of elected politicians affects political outcomes at the municipal level. Relying on Italian administrative data from 1991 to 2009, we are able to instrument the gender of elected politicians using an institutional exogenous change: a gender quota in the candidacy list enforced only in a subsample of municipalities and for a short period of time. While the gender of politicians does not affect the general ‘quality of life’, proxied by the internal migration rate, it does increase significantly both the efficacy of policies targeting women and households, proxied by the fertility rate, and the efficiency of the municipal administration, proxied by the actual size of the administrative bodies. These results, which are robust to several specifications and checks, suggest that affirmative action enhancing gender equality in political representation may be beneficial not only in terms of social justice but also from a political outcome perspective.     

Income mobility in a high-inequality society: Evidence from the first two waves of the National Income Dynamics Study

The study of income inequality and income mobility has been central to understanding post-apartheid South Africa's development. This paper uses the first two waves of the National Income Dynamics Study to analyse income mobility using longitudinal data, and is the first to do so at a nationally representative level. We investigate both the correlates and root causes of moving up and down the income distribution over time. Using both absolute and relative changes as reference points, we highlight some of the factors associated with South Africans moving into and out of poverty.     

Diversity goals: Reframing the debate and enabling a fair evaluation

While diversity has enjoyed significant popularity in the corporate world for the last two decades, researchers continue to put forward conflicting results regarding the business benefits of workplace diversity. Some say workplace diversity is good for businesses; others argue it is an undertaking full of challenges; and yet others assert that it doesn’t really matter. With this in mind, we attempted to synthesize the research that evaluates the impact of workplace diversity on the organizational bottom line. We find an over-emphasis on demonstrating the business case of diversity in economic denominations, which—to some extent—has limited our understanding of the complex dynamics associated with diversity. We identify a lack of attention toward institutional forces as one of the reasons that has restricted our focus on mere economic gains. Overall, we recommend broadening our definition of goals that organizations have when adopting diversity initiatives by including ‘gain of legitimacy’ and ‘creation of goodwill’ as part of the essential consequences of diversity programs.