‘My Brilliant Career’? New Organizational Forms and Changing Managerial Careers in Japan,the UK,and USA

The end of the traditional management career has been heralded with supporting, albeit largely anecdotal, data. The ‘old’ career was set within internal labour markets in large organizations and characterized by long‐term stability. The ‘new’ arrangements have apparently shifted responsibility from employer to employee, with careers being developed across organizations. Such change is premised on new organizational forms and is often associated with a growing sense of employee insecurity. We explore the reality of this ‘new’ scenario through interpretation of in‐depth semi‐structured interviews conducted with middle and senior human resources managers in large firms in Japan, the UK, and USA. The data indicate that most of our case study organizations had downsized and delayered, with hybrid structural forms emerging. Career prospects were diminished, with fewer vertical promotions and a greater emphasis on lateral ‘development’; middle managers were generally resentful of such factors and forces. Although not directly reflective of ‘Anglo‐American’ business practice, similar changes to career trajectories were witnessed in Japan as in the UK and USA.     

Generational Perception and Satisfaction Differences Related to Restaurant Service Environment

ABSTRACT

The current study considers perception, satisfaction, and importance rating differences of aspects of the dining service environment in a casual-themed restaurant between members of three generations—baby boomers, Gen X, and millennials. The study also assesses the moderating role of generation on the relationship between satisfaction and repeat patronage intentions. Significant differences were found between generations related to satisfaction, importance ratings, and repeat patronage intentions regarding the overall dining service environment. The current study provides assessment of components of the DINESCAPE scale along with items from the DinEX scale related to social connectedness. Implications of the research are discussed.     

初游者与重游者的旅游特征差异分析——以广西大新县为例

针对初游者和重游者的旅游特征进行差异分析,这对于旅游目的地建设具有重意义。以在广西大新县进行问卷调查获得的数据为基础,对初游者和重游者的旅游特征差异进行细致分析,得出如下结论：初游者和重游者在信息渠道、交通方式、旅游消费体现出了“大趋同,小分异”特征;在旅游方式和停留时间呈现出较大的分异性;重游者的旅游满意度和忠诚度比初游者更高。     

Customers on the web are not all created equal: the moderating role of internet shopping experience

Consumers' previous shopping experience has been found to be an important influence on future shopping intentions. Prior internet shopping experience, however, has been largely overlooked as a moderator of attitudes and online-retail outcomes. Specifically, key influences on online retail buying behavior such as site reputation, advertising likeability, site security and hedonic and utilitarian shopping values can be expected to have differential effects on intentions to repatronize an e-commerce website based on the level of internet shopping experience by prospective buyers. This study proposes and tests an integrated model in which level of prior internet shopping experience is treated as a moderator of relationships among attitudinal variables and repatronage intentions with the variable attitude toward the site as a mediator of buying intentions. Findings are consistent with the proposed model with an interesting exception. Perceptions of site security were in the opposite direction of the model prediction. Managerial and theoretical implications are provided for consideration.     

The Construction of Residential Housing Price Indices: A Comparison of Repeat-Sales,Hedonic-Regression,and Hybrid Approaches

This article examines a number of hypotheses that underpin the repeat-sales and hedonic approaches to the construction of housing price indices, as well as the practical problems associated with the implementation of either approach. We also examine a hybrid procedure that combines elements of both the repeat-sales and hedonic-regression techniques. For our sample of individual home sales in Oakland and Fremont California over an 18-year period, repeat-sales methods are subject to sample selection bias; the maintained assumption of time constancy of implicit prices of housing attributes is violated; the repeat-sales estimator is extremely sensitive to influential observations; and the usual method used to correct for heteroskedasticity in repeat-sale housing returns is inappropriate in our sample. Hedonic techniques are better suited to contend with index number problems per se, as they can accommodate changing attribute prices over time. They also appear to give rise to more reliable estimates of price indices, as unusual observations have less effect on estimated price indices. Drawbacks of the hedonic approach include the usual concern with omitted attributes, and their effect on the estimated price index.     

Safety issues beyond the workplace: Estimate relationships between work injuries and available supervision

This study reports the results of an investigation of the relation between one measure of the performance of firms, work injuries, and the number of first level supervisors for 140 chemical, paper, and wood product manufacturing firms. Additional numbers of supervisors were found to be associated with lower work injuries in most cases, and the cost of such additional supervision was found to be partially justified in terms of the reduced costs of work injuries, although there was considerable variation across industry.     

A Multilevel Appraisal and Conceptualization of Company Downsizing

Downsizing is widely used to improve corporate efficiency and competitiveness. Although downsizing can be useful, the process has a number of associated disadvantages, and companies commonly overlook the negative impact on society, the business profession, the company, and employees' collective attitudes and perceptions. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to present a multilevel framework that examines the impact of societal, institutional, organizational, and individual factors on corporate downsizing. The potential negative effects of downsizing on each of these domains are also examined, and recommendations regarding the successful implementation of employee reduction programs are presented based on information highlighted in the framework.     

Two Decades of Commercial Property Returns: A Repeated-Measures Regression-Based Version of the NCREIF Index

This article documents 20 years of performance of commercial real estate in the United States using a portfolio of properties that comprise the widely followed NCREIF Property Index (NPI). We develop an extension of the repeated-measures regression (RMR) to produce an improved version of the NCREIF Index that eliminates the stale appraisal and seasonality problems. We use this RMR version of the index to examine the magnitude and duration of the of the crash in property values in the early 1990s. The RMR Index is also compared with the NAREIT Index, and property-type subindices are developed using a Bayesian estimator. Finally, it is also shown how the RMR can be used to estimate the average magnitude of random valuation error in commercial property valuation.     

高精度双向互锁铰链结构设计

介绍一种背负式雷达易折叠平板反射阵天线上采用的高精度双向互锁铰链的结构设计。该铰链采用了四轴系双向互锁、粗定位与精确定位转换等技术,实现了天线快速展开和拆收、天线表面装配精度及重复定位精度,从而确保了天线的主要技术指标。     

The Effects of Downsizing on Operating Performance

We examine the performance of 118 firms that downsized between 1989–1993. We find that downsizing firms experience declines in operating performance prior to the downsizing announcement. Operating performance improves significantly following the downsizing. These firms are able to reduce the cost of sales, labor cost, capital expenditures and R&D expenditures. We also find that firms that perform poorly in their industries prior to the downsizing and have increases in assets following the downsizing have larger improvements in performance. There is some evidence that the improvements are greater for firms that increase their focus.