Diversity challenge: An integrated process to bridge the ‘implementation gap’

At this time of crisis, companies rediscover the key role people play in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. Taking into account the heterogeneity of their workforces, boards of directors and managers alike face the challenge of understanding how to manage diversities such that the benefits outweigh the costs. This article argues that companies can deal with this challenge by adopting an integrated process of change across strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Indeed, people's differences and diversity management need to be introduced and integrated within company values and vision (strategic level). This vision has to be translated into strategies, a specific policy, and its associated practices to promote the development of synergic cultural and organizational changes that affect the whole company (tactical level). Finally, this policy and its associated practices need to be turned into real actions (operational level). Herein, we propose and discuss an integrated process to implement diversity management in a detailed and sufficiently flexible way such that it can be personalized and adapted to a specific organization. From a managerial standpoint, the proposed model could be a guide for bridging the ‘implementation gap’ of diversity management.     

Entrepreneurial orientation and network board diversity in network organizations

This study extends the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) to the network level to investigate how diversity among officers serving on network organization boards affects network-level entrepreneurial orientation (NEO). Using data from 53 strategic network organizations across five years, we found that insider/outsider and functional diversity among network board members promotes NEO. The results also demonstrate that board group tenure moderates the influence of diversity in opposite ways. The impact of board insider/outsider diversity is stronger in networks in which board members lack long tenure. On the contrary, the effect of functional diversity on network entrepreneurial orientation is stronger in network organizations with tenured boards.     

Religious freedom, religious diversity, and Japanese foreign direct investment

Research into the links between religion and foreign direct investment is scarce, partly because research on religion has not been the traditional domain of business and economics. Nevertheless, religion affects the economies, political structures, legal environments, and social behaviors of people around the world and is, therefore, an important element of the international business environments. Foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions are often made after an assessment of the international business environments. This article makes a singular contribution by focusing on the impact of religion – religious freedom and religious diversity – on the foreign direct investment of Japanese companies. We find that national income and religious diversity significantly influence Japanese decisions to invest.     

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。     

省级开发区土地集约利用评价改进研究

为了解决现行评价工作中的不足,对影响安徽省级开发区土地集约利用的因素进行系统性分析,构造全面的评价指标体系和分析视角,使开发区管理机构全面、真实的掌握土地集约利用状况,促进土地节约集约利用.通过收集资料、调查研究,以客观评价为主、主客观评价相结合,系统性分析了影响省级开发区土地集约利用因素,以“开发区管委会”和“入区企业”两类主体,分别构建土地集约利用评价指标体系,实现既考虑到各个省级开发区的实际情况又能很好地为开发区的横向比较和整个省域内开发区的统筹和规划,以及相关政策的制定提供参考作用,使成果的利用更具针对性.     

宜毕高速公路K3段震后边坡滑坡应急处置研究

为了有效控制震后山体滑坡、崩塌现象的蔓延,保证高速公路建设及运营安全,以震后宜毕高速公路K3段为研究对象,开展震后应急勘察工作,采取注浆、排水和反压等手段对边坡滑坡进行位移和沉降监测。利用Geostudio中的Slope/W模块分析加固后的滑坡稳定性,计算边坡的屈服加速度,提出根据预应力锚索进行加固的治理方案。结果表明,滑坡在地下水和地震的共同作用下产生,土体薄层状结构及岩层顺倾均加剧了滑坡形成,尽管地震作用对边坡整体稳定性有较大影响,但实施的应急处置措施遏制了滑坡的进一步变形,经过计算,边坡加固处理后屈服加速度为0.07g,安全系数为1.3,符合相关规范要求。可见,边坡滑坡体位移在震后初期得到了有效控制,治理措施有效提高了该边坡的稳定性。处置方案对类似高速公路的建设与维护具有借鉴意义。     

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。