Aiming to connect: the business case for diversity in public organizations in The Netherlands

This paper examines the effectiveness of diversity policy and interventions in the Dutch public sector and shows that business case interventions can affect employees’ commitment to their organization, contributing to staff retention rates and improving overall performance. Leadership style, as well as organizational culture, are shown to play a crucial role in the effectiveness of the interventions that were analysed.     

Contracts, search, and organizational diversity

In this paper we develop a search model that allows for Pareto-ranked multiple equilibria and investigate its implications on organizational diversity. The novel feature of the model is that multiple equilibria are obtained by the self-contained feedback mechanism between optimal contracting choices and the reservation value, which is in sharp contrast to existing literature that emphasizes the increasing returns to scale in the matching function. Our results provide some new insights on why there may exist significant differences in the internal organization of firms across countries, and even in the same country and industry.     

孵化网络多元性对在孵企业创业机会开发的影响研究——二元学习的中介作用

孵化网络为在孵企业提供了大量异质性资源获取通道,也对其资源利用能力提出了新的要求,能否有效利用孵化网络的多元性优势在一定程度上决定着在孵企业机会开发的成败。文章将二元学习作为网络资源转化为在孵企业创业机会开发的中间路径,构建孵化网络多元性、二元学习与在孵企业创业机会开发关系的概念模型并提出研究假设,结合256份有效调研数据对概念模型与假设进行检验。结果表明：孵化网络多元性对探索性学习和创新型机会开发的影响大于对利用性学习和均衡型机会开发的影响;与利用性学习相比,探索性学习对创新型机会开发的影响更大、对均衡型机会开发的影响则较小;探索性学习与利用性学习均对孵化网络多元性与创新型机会开发和孵化网络多元性与均衡型机会开发间关系有中介作用。研究结论对指导在孵企业学习能力培育与机会开发策略选择有重要借鉴意义。     

危机冲击与家族企业海外投资——来自中国香港上市公司的数据分析

社会情感财富理论提出后,许多学者在分析家族企业风险性决策时大多都是以社会情感财富这个单一的非经济目标作为决策依据,而忽略了经济目标在风险性决策模型中的重要性。文章针对这种单一决策目标的模型,基于企业经营的时间维度与目标类型构建了一个同时考虑到社会情感财富与经济目标的家族企业决策框架。基于2001-2016年中国香港本地制造业公司数据,文章重点考察了2003年发生的局部跨域SARS危机与2008年发生的全球金融危机对家族企业海外资产投资决策可能产生的影响,检验结果表明:与非家族企业相比,家族企业进行海外资产投资的动力往往更低。另外,不同的外部危机将对家族企业的海外资产投资产生显著的差异化影响。SARS危机冲击弱化了家族控制与海外投资的负向关系,即局部跨域危机来临时,家族企业为了持续发展将会加大其海外资产投资以获得潜在的风险性收益;全球性金融危机冲击则强化了家族控制与海外投资之间的负向关系,即全球性金融危机来临时,家族企业为了生存将会缩小其海外资产投资规模。文章的进一步研究还发现,虽然家族企业的海外投资对企业绩效具有负向影响,但局部跨域危机情境下的家族海外投资却显著改善了企业绩效,全球性金融危机冲击下的海外投资则更加恶化了企业绩效。     

方言多样化和企业创新——中国的事实及机制

文化作为非正式制度的重要组成部分会对企业创新产生影响吗？使用企业创新调查数据库和工具变量法,以方言表征文化,本文实证检验了方言多样化和企业创新之间的关系。结果发现,方言多样化对企业的创新投入产生了显著的抑制作用。平均而言,以人口加权的方言多样化指数增加1%,企业人均私人创新投入会下降1.18%。进一步的研究发现,方言多样化对企业创新投入的影响主要在于信任效应(文化身份认同)而非文化交流效应。此外,由于自身资源、人才和风险限制等,越来越多的企业将创新过程中技术链条的各部分外包给其他企业(即创新外包),但方言多样化增加了企业创新外包过程中的交易成本,进而对企业的创新投入产生了显著的抑制作用。最后,方言多样化通过市场分割强化了对企业创新投入的抑制作用,具体表现为产品和资本市场分割程度越高的省份,方言多样化对企业创新投入的抑制作用越强。     

Walking the talk in diversity management: Exploring links between strategic statements,management practices,and external recognition

Despite a link between external recognition for diversity management and important financial outcomes, very little research has examined the organizational efforts that can lead to such external recognition. To address this gap, this study examines the links between strategic diversity statements, diversity management practices, and external recognition of diversity using the theoretical lenses of the resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theory. Data on diversity statements and practices were collected from 27 Fortune 1000 companies, and, using a time-lag approach, external recognition data were collected from professional organizations one year later. Results show that organizations that “walk the talk” and institute both diversity statements and practices were more likely to gain external recognition. This study provides timely and practical recommendations for hospitality firms to integrate diversity statements with diversity practices, a process that may lead to external recognition and thus to favorable outcomes.     

The hunt for S-shaped growth paths in technological innovation: a patent study*

Since the works by the business cycle theorists in the 1930s, no attempts have been made to study empirically the long term evolution paths of individual technologies starting with long time series. This is an empirical exploration and confirmation of the now almost assumed image or metaphor of the way technology develops; that it follows an S-shaped growth path which is commonly associated with a similar shaped diffusion function of entrepreneurial activity. The paper also confirms the diversity of technology dynamics and explores how technological cycle takeoffs appear to be clustered within certain historical epochs. The results have implications for our understanding of the evolution paths of individual technologies, and of the evolution of technological systems and waves of innovation. By use of computational statistics, logistic growth functions are fitted to US patent stocks, 1920–1990, at a detailed level of aggregation, including chemical, electrical/electronic, mechanical, transport and non-industrial technologies. Some practical considerations when developing an empirically testable model of innovation cycles are addressed in the paper as well.     

一种实用的极化分集接收方案

】本文在满足系统指标的前提下提出一种更加实用的极化分集接收方案，并从相位同步及幅度加权等方面分析了该方案的性能及实用价值     

Budget emphasis,participation, task difficulty and performance: the effect of diversity within culture

Recent research on the impact of national culture on control systems had overlooked two important aspects. First, while cross-cultural studies have saturated mainly Anglo-American and Asian nations, other important cultural regions, such as the Nordic cultural group, have largely been overlooked. More importantly, the impact of the diversity within national culture, brought about by the diversity of the population, in terms of ethnic background, religion, language and egalitarianism, has also not been considered. With a low power distance and moderate individualism culture, and relatively centralised and formalised industrial relations systems which emphasise democratic work environment, Norwegian managers' budgetary participation is expected to be high. More importantly, as the Norwegian culture is old and the society homogeneous in terms of ethnic background, religion and egalitarianism, the diversity within the Norwegian culture is likely to be much lower than those of the newer, and much more ethnically diverse, societies.such as Australia and Singapore. Consequently, Norwegian managers' participation is expected to range from medium to high, rather than from low to high. Since high participation situations are common in Norway, prior studies' findings pertaining to high participation situations are expected to be supported in Norway. In contrast, since low participation situations are rare in Norway, prior studies' findings pertaining to low participation are unlikely to be supported in Norway. These expectations are supported by the results of this study.     

Ethnicity and human resource management practice in sub-Saharan Africa: the relevance of the managing diversity discourse

The paper explores issues of human resource diversity in the multi-ethnic societies of sub-Saharan Africa, arguing that ethnicity constitutes a primary dimension of diversity. The influence of ethnicity on employment relations in organizational life in this region is examined and whether the discourse of managing diversity could be applied to manage such diversity. The paper argues that, if the ethnic diversity found in African organizations is well managed, this could enhance organizational harmony and effectiveness. Further, if organizations in Africa deliberately embrace approaches of 'inclusion' rather than 'exclusion' in managing their human resource and appreciate the inherent employee 'difference', it could improve the image and effectiveness of organizations operating here. At the same time, there is a need to adapt such approaches to the cultural specificity of local contexts.