Turning Agents into Psychological Principals: Aligning Interests of Non‐Owners through Psychological Ownership

Principals who delegate tasks to agents face the perennial challenge of overcoming agency problems. We investigate whether feelings of ownership among senior managers in the absence of formal ownership can align agents' interests with those of principals, thus turning agents into psychological principals. Using a moderated mediation model, we find that psychological ownership is positively related to company performance through the mediating effect of individual‐level entrepreneurial behaviour. We also find that the effect of psychological ownership on individual‐level entrepreneurial behaviour and, ultimately, company performance is weaker for high levels of monitoring compared to low levels. These findings offer important contributions to agency, psychological ownership, and entrepreneurship literatures.     

Aligning employees with the organization's strategic objectives: out of ‘line of sight’, out of mind

This research focuses on the strategic alignment of a firm's human resources. Specifically, I investigate employee ‘line of sight’ to an organization's strategic objectives. Line of sight is conceptualized as an employee's understanding of an organization's objectives and how to contribute to those objectives. Line of sight was expected to vary across individual characteristics (e.g. hierarchical level, tenure) and relate to important work outcomes (e.g. work attitudes, turnover). Results of a field study confirmed many of the hypotheses, supporting the importance of this construct to research and practice.     

Australian consumer attitudes to health claim – food product compatibility for functional foods

This study with Australian consumers investigated how appealing different health claims combined with particular food carriers were to Australian consumers, and compared the results of a similar study with Dutch consumers. 149 shoppers considered up to 30 different food concepts, rating how ‘attractive’, ‘believable’, and ‘new and different’ they found each concept and their ‘intention to try’. Each variable was significantly related to intention to try (p < 0.001) and together explained 56% of the intention score. Claims and carriers independently had a significant effect on ratings of attractiveness and intention to try but, unlike the Dutch study, the carrier was a more important predictor of intention to purchase than the claim. Implications for regulation of health claims for food are discussed.     

Using product design strategically to create deeper consumer connections

Historically, product design has most often been considered a process for creating functional differentiation through added features, superior performance, and so forth. However, with the advent of more design-oriented companies, such as Apple, Dyson, and others, design is increasingly being seen as an important strategic tool in creating preference and deeper emotional value for the consumer. In this research, we show how different design elements may be used strategically to create two very different outcome chains from a consumer's perspective. This work shows that certain design elements are more likely to create functional product differentiation and transactional consumer outcomes, while other design strategies tap a more emotional form of value creation. As we show, an emotional focus in value creation is more likely to create desired and powerful outcomes such as loyalty, joy of use, and even passion. Given current business trends towards relationship-based customer management, this emphasis on emotional value creation through product design is particularly relevant. In order to make these ideas actionable, we offer specific product design strategies that managers can use to enhance the transactional and relational value of their customer relationships.     

针对车辆AEB系统失效和误作用场景的研究

本文基于预期功能安全,采用功能分解方法,总结出部分车辆自动紧急制动(AEB)系统失效和误作用场景,并从中选取典型场景作为测试场景,开展不同车型的实车道路试验,总结出AEB系统的缺陷与隐患分类.希望此类研究能为AEB系统失效和误作用测试标准的制定提供参考.     

股权分置改革中的机构合谋与内幕交易

本文考察了股权分置改革过程中机构投资者与非流通股股东之间的合谋问题以及合谋的可能途径——内幕交易。文章的基本发现有两个:第一,在控制了影响股改对价水平的主要因素之后,机构投资者对方案的赞成比例与股改对价水平之间存在显著的负相关关系,而全体流通股股东以及大个体流通股股东对方案的赞成比例与对价水平之间呈现显著的正相关关系;第二,机构投资者对方案的赞成比例越高,公司的内幕交易程度也越高,而其他流通股股东的表决意见与内幕交易程度之间没有显著关系。这意味着机构投资者与非流通股股东利用内幕交易进行了合谋,合谋的结果使得非流通股股东得以支付一个较低的对价水平,而机构投资者则通过内幕交易获得额外收益。     

Do supermarkets’ emails have any value for their customers? The effect of emails’ content and interestingness on customers’ attitude and engagement

Supermarkets use relational emails mainly to foster sales and support promotional campaigns, while brands and more exclusive retailers use more non-transactional contents in order to foster a positive attitude towards their brands, but also a better customer mood. Using the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework we study the role of relational email content and interestingness of emails emanating from supermarkets on consumer’s perceived value and on their attitude and engagement towards the supermarket, but also on their mood. Building a dedicated relational email perceived value scale and comparing three types of content, this article highlights the importance of emotional value even in a utilitarian context (supermarket). A few recommendations are offered to help supermarkets to provide value-added content to their customers in order to foster preference and loyalty in a highly competitive market where discounters are gaining shares.     

Agency controls and subsidiary strategic initiatives: The mediating role of subsidiary autonomy

Prior studies examining the impact of organizational controls on subsidiaries’ strategic initiatives have to a large extent failed to find a significant direct association between the two. We argue that this lack of direct association may be due to the fact that the control mechanisms used exert their influence on subsidiaries’ strategic initiatives indirectly by suppressing subsidiaries’ decision-making autonomy. Drawing upon agency theory we consider the effects of two types of controls, monitoring and incentive alignment, as mediated by subsidiaries’ decision-making autonomy. We test this effect on data from 115 subsidiaries of foreign multinationals operating in Greece. The results of our analyses empirically validate this assertion for both mechanisms. Our findings further show that, when both mechanisms are present, one may accentuate the effect of the other, highlighting the value of employing a contingency approach to fully capture the effects of organizational controls on the pursuit of subsidiaries’ strategic initiatives.     

Misalignment between societal well-being and business profit maximization: The case of New York taxis drivers’ incentive system

Objectives of business sustainability efforts commonly include increasing consumer safety, decreasing resource consumption, and decreasing pollution. Even though there is a societal interest in attaining these goals, business and other economic agents often operate under incentive structures that run counter to these objectives. Taxi drivers operate as economic independents. Their revenue depends on their fares and tips. Moreover they choose how many hours to work, how fast to drive, and which route to take. Using New York City taxi data from 2013, we test the level of alignment between the revenue maximizing behavior of drivers versus safety, conservation and pollution-related outcomes that are valued by stakeholders. We find substantial misalignment—i.e., in order to maximize revenue, drivers take inefficient routes and they exceed the speed limit thus decreasing safety, increasing fuel consumption and increasing air pollution. Based on these empirical results, we suggest methods of aligning societal goals with those of revenue maximizing taxi drivers.     

Drivers of hotel employee’s voice behavior: A moderated mediation model

This study developed and tested a moderated mediation model for examining the relationships among person-organization fit (P-O fit), employee voice, employees’ perceived nature of the work and employees’ perceived functional quality of their services. Using 265 frontline employees from several 3 star hotels in Taiwan, the analytical results show that P-O fit is positively related to employee voice, and that employees’ perceived nature of the work mediates the positive relationship between these two variables. The analytical results also show that employees’ perceived functional quality of their services moderates the direct effect of P-O fit on employees’ perceived nature of the work, as well as the indirect effect of P-O fit on employee voice via employees’ perceived nature of the work. Theoretical and practical implications for the hospitality literature and hotel practitioners are discussed herein.