Racial harassment and job satisfaction in South Africa: the moderating effects of career orientations and managerial rank

Employee job satisfaction is a strong predictor of pivotal individual and organizational outcomes, e.g. commitment, productivity, retention. This study examines the mediating role of workplace racial harassment in the association of employee racioethnicity and job satisfaction in the South African context. Furthermore, this study investigates the moderating effects of career-related variables, i.e. career orientations and managerial rank. Results of a survey of 154 employees in South Africa indicate that black South Africans experience more workplace racial harassment than white employees and thus show lower job satisfaction. Moreover, the detrimental effects of workplace racial harassment on job satisfaction are more pronounced among highly career-oriented individuals and/or among employees with no or low managerial rank. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.     

Manufacturing Resistance: Rationalizing the Irrationality of Managerial Control on the Shop Floor in a US Medical Electronics Factory

Juravich (1985) asserts that the organization of US industrial manufacturing is irrational as well as appearing chaotic from the workers’ viewpoint because of management’s refusal to integrate the workers’ knowledge into the production process. Because of this, Juravich argues, if and when the workers’ knowledge is integrated into the production system, the workers no longer will experience “chaos on the shop floor.” Extending Devinatz’s (1993) analysis in response to Juravich, this article argues that workers use resistance as a logical strategy for rationalizing what they perceive to be the irrationality of the shop floor. Utilizing Kusterer’s (1978) work, I argue that the use of many, but not all, resistance strategies constitutes a type of “survival knowledge” acquired and used by workers in response to managerial control. I maintain that these strategies constitute a special type of workplace resistance which I refer to as “pure and simple resistance.”     

管理哲学:理论和实践的呼唤

管理学层面的创新已成强弩之末 ,不能有效解决 2 1世纪人类社会面临的新问题 ,只有管理哲学层次上的创新才能为管理理论和管理实践的发展开辟新的道路。     

Fire the manager to improve performance?Managerial turnover and incentives after privatization in the Czech Republic

This paper analyses the effect of the introduction of managerial incentives and new human capital on enterprise performance immediately after privatization in the Czech Republic. We find weak evidence for the presence of managerial incentives: only from 1997, 3 to 4 years after privatization, does poor performance significantly increase the probability of managerial change. Nevertheless, replacing the managing director in a newly privatized firm improves subsequent performance. This indicates that the privatized firms operate below potential under the incumbent management. We show that the institutional framework matters as well: managerial turnover improves performance only if the management is closely interconnected with the board of directors and thus holds effective executive authority.     

Are Golden Parachutes an Optimal Contracting Response or Evidence of Managerial Entrenchment?: Evidence from Successful Takeovers

Two models that attempt to explain the adoption of golden parachutes are examined. The first model views golden parachutes as an optimal contracting response to a takeover, the other perceives them as an outgrowth of severe managerial entrenchment that results in contracts for the benefit of managers. Using a sample of 169 successful acquisitions of NYSE targets from 1981 through 1989, I document that targets that have adopted golden parachutes experience significantly higher excess returns around the announcement of a takeover than targets without these contracts. I find similar increased excess returns for the bidder/target portfolios. In addition, bidder excess return is independent of the existence of golden parachutes in targets. Additional results suggest that golden parachutes do not reduce managerial resistance to takeovers. The results are consistent with the managerial entrenchment hypothesis and inconsistent with the optimal contracting hypothesis. Sensitivity tests confirm these results.     

我国上市公司经理管理防御程度的量化研究

经理管理防御程度的度量在我国仍是一个空白,国外学者使用的外部代替变量不能很好地反映经理人的管理防御动机。因此,从经理人个人特质出发选取六个最能反映经理管理防御行为的变量,采用内容分析法构建出经理管理防御指数。以2003—2006上市公司的数据为例进行实例验证,我们发现这种经理管理防御行为在我国上市公司中的确存在,而且防御程度呈上升趋势。     

Corporate Governance When Managers Set Their Own Pay

This paper presents a model of the firm in which the manager has discretion over his own compensation, constrained only by the threat of shareholder intervention. The model addresses two main questions. How does shareholder power affect managers' compensation and their incentives to maximise firm value? And what is the optimal level of shareholder power? Expectedly, the model shows that increasing shareholder power leads to lower managerial pay. Greater shareholder power, however, also weakens the manager's incentives to maximise value and may even lead to lower profits for shareholders. There might, thus, be too much, as well as too little, shareholder power. The model characterises the optimal level of shareholder power and yields predictions about the relation between shareholder power, managerial pay, performance and firm characteristics.     

Achieving Temporal Ambidexterity in New Ventures

Organizations face a common intertemporal choice problem, where actions suitable in the shortterm are different from those that work in the longterm. Building on the organizational ambidexterity theory, we argue that organizations can reconcile their short‐term and long‐term tensions, but this does necessitate managerial endeavours that orchestrate this reconciliation. We introduce the concept of temporal ambidexterity and define four intertemporal tensions involving an organization’s objectives, resources, markets, and uncertainty. We examine how firms can address these tensions successfully in the context of new ventures, and to do so we focus on three managerial capabilities of founder‐CEOs: expertise breadth, external connectivity, and empowering leadership. Results from 243 new ventures in China suggest that temporal ambidexterity improves with these managerial capabilities, and more so for younger ventures. Our findings shed light on solutions and mechanisms by which intertemporal balance is fulfilled, particularly for new ventures in a dynamic environment.     

管理者特征如何影响企业内部审计外包？——基于中国A股市场调查数据的研究

基于全部A股上市公司的问卷调查数据,探讨管理者特征与企业内部审计外包的关系,结果发现董事长越规避风险、内审负责人的组织认同度越高,企业越可能选择内部审计外包,而总经理的风险偏好、内审负责人年龄对内部审计外包决策影响较弱。进一步的研究表明,董事长风险偏好、内审负责人的组织认同与内部审计外包之间的作用关系主要存在于非国有企业或重视内审职能的企业,仅当企业内部控制较差时,董事长越规避风险,企业越可能外包内部审计,而企业内部控制较好时内审负责人年龄和组织认同更能显著影响外包决策。