Climate for conflict management,exposure to workplace bullying and work engagement: a moderated mediation analysis

The present study investigates a potential preventive factor in relation to workplace bullying. Specifically, we examine how climate for conflict management (CCM) may be related to less bullying, increased work engagement, as well as whether CCM is a moderator in the bullying engagement relationship. The study was based on a cross-sectional survey among employees in a transport company (N = 312). Hypotheses were tested simultaneously in a moderated mediation analysis which showed that bullying and job engagement were related (H1), CCM was related to less reports of bullying (H2), CCM was related to work engagement (H3) and that CCM was indirectly related to job engagement through bullying (H4), but only when CCM was weak (H5). That is, CCM moderated the relationship between bullying and work engagement in that this relationship only existed when CCM was low. The present study contributes to theory within this research field by showing that organizational measures may not only prevent bullying, but may also affect how employees react when subjected to bullying. Furthermore, the effect of climate in relation to bullying may be down to the narrow bandwidth facet of CCM. The study informs employers how they may act to prevent bullying while also reducing the potential negative outcomes of those cases of bullying that inevitably will show up from time to time.     

INTERNATIONAL RESERVE MANAGEMENT: A DRIFT‐SWITCHING REFLECTED JUMP‐DIFFUSION MODEL

We study the cost of shocks, that is, jump risk, with respect to reserve management when the reserve process is formulated as a drift‐switching jump diffusion with a reflecting barrier at 0. Inspired by the Brownian drift switching model, our model results in a more realistic dynamic behavior of international reserves than the buffer stock model. The new model can capture both the jump behavior in reserve dynamics and the leptokurtic feature of the increment distribution which has a higher peak and two asymmetric heavier tails than the normal distribution. Through the selection of an initial distribution that reflects certain steady state behaviors, the reserve process becomes a regenerative process. This selection enables us to derive a closed‐form expression for the total expected discounted cost of managing reserves, thus helping us to numerically find management strategies that minimize costs. The numerical results show that shocks at the reserve level have a significant effect on reserve management strategies and that model misspecification can result in nonnegligible additional costs.     

Sponsorship programmes and corruption in sport: management responses to a growing threat

Abstract

Sponsorship programmes are increasingly being exposed to the threat of corruption in sport. Several recent notable cases of corruption have exposed sponsors and their investments to significant perceived pressures including negative consumer associations with athletes, teams and officials that have been found guilty of engaging in corrupt activity. How sponsors respond to such instances of corruption in sport forms the basis of this paper. Drawing from an analysis of corruption cases (n = 2089), the paper initially examines the nature of corruption in sport. Through interview data (n = 21), it subsequently identifies key factors that sponsors should take into consideration when deciding upon a course of action to mitigate any potential effects of corrupt activity by a sporting property they are associated with. Finally, the paper discusses those courses of action.     

Evaluating discounts as a dimension of customer behavior analysis

Today, increased competition between organizations has led them to seek a better understanding of customer behavior through identifying valuable customers. Customers’ expectations about the price and quality of products and services play an important role in their selection process. In online businesses, competition and price differences between suppliers is high, so discounts will attract different customers. As a result, discounts and the frequency and amount of purchases can lead to better understanding of customer behavior. Customer segmentation and analysis is essential for identifying groups of customers. Hence, this study uses a model based on RFM called RdFdMd, in which d is the level of discount used to analyze customer purchase behavior and the importance of discounts on customers’ purchasing behavior and organizational profitability. The CRISP-DM and k-mean algorithm were used for clustering. The results indicate that using the R_dF_dM_d model achieves better customer clustering and valuation, and discounts were identified as an important criterion for customer purchases.     

Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.     

严监管背景下农信社合规风险管理体系建设

2018年,银行业监管环境进一步趋严,不但强调对银行的监管,更提出了对监管人员职责的监管,这种严格的外部监管环境对农信社的合规风险管理带来了极大的挑战。农信社合规风险管理体系的建设和完善已势不容缓。论文提出了农信社合规风险管理体系建设要从战略定位、文化渗透、防线搭建、专业专职化、考核和追究六个维度入手,推进合规风险管理长效机制的建设。     

碳排放交易制度的节能减排路径：效率提升还是结构转型？——来自中国省级数据的准自然实验

以中国2013年以来实行的碳排放交易试点政策作为准自然实验事件，基于2000-2017年中国30个省市的面板数据，运用双重差分法实证检验碳排放交易制度的节能减排效应及影响机制。研究发现，碳排放交易制度有利于实现中国经济“节能”与“减排”的双重目标，并通过了一系列稳健性检验；作用机制检验表明，能源效率提升和能源结构转型都是碳排放交易制度实现节能减排目标的重要路径；能源效率提升在碳排放交易制度实现“节能”和“减排”中分别发挥了10.19%和5.93%的作用，而能源结构转型分别发挥了48.87%和52.95%的作用。这意味着中国碳排放交易制度实现节能减排的主要动力来自能源结构转型，而非能源效率提升。能源结构转型涉及问题更加宏观和深层，这为中国加快推进节能减排进程，特别是完成2030年碳达峰和2060年碳中和的国际承诺提供政策启示。     

Do pensions foster education? An empirical perspective

The paper examines the effect of population ageing on public education spending. On the one hand, ageing is expected to have a negative effect on education, as an increasing number of retirees results in ‘intergenerational conflict’ and, hence, the condemnation of education expenditure. On the other hand, ageing, in combination with pay-as-you-go pension systems, offers incentives for the working-age generation to invest in the public education of the young in order to ‘reap’ the benefits (that is, higher income tax/contributions) of their greater future productivity. Empirical evidence derived from the application of a fixed effects approach to panel data for OECD countries shows that the increasing share of elderly people has a non-linear effect on education spending. This indicates a certain degree of intergenerational conflict. Nevertheless, we find that future population ageing, which reinforces the mechanism linking public education and pensions, reflects positively on education expenditure. Furthermore, by disaggregating total education expenditure by educational levels, we observe that this effect is led by levels of non-compulsory education, probably as a reflection of the direct connection to labor productivity.     

Using the Pack‐and‐a‐Half Rule to Eliminate Backroom Inventories in Retail Operations

In the retail industry, backroom inventories are typically associated with higher labor costs and greater operational complexity. Thus, retailers look for ways to eliminate backroom inventories. A heuristic used for this purpose is the pack‐and‐a‐half rule which suggests that the shelf space allocated for a product should be at least 50% larger than the case pack quantity in which the product is delivered. Despite its popularity among retailers, the pack‐and‐a‐half rule has been ignored in the academic literature. We introduce the pack‐and‐a‐half rule, assess its impact on a retailer's profits, identify cost, demand, and product characteristics driving this impact, and propose a modification. Based on an analysis of data obtained from a retailer on 1,986 SKUs in 20 categories, we find that the pack‐and‐a‐half rule decreases a retailer's profits, on average, by 10% when applied uniformly across all SKUs. Further, this decrease is significantly affected by product depth, product width, demand elasticity, case pack quantity, and inventory carrying cost. Finally, we develop a set of modifications based on these variables where the pack‐and‐a‐half rule is applied selectively and in a stepwise fashion. These modifications limit the decrease in a retailer's profits to a range between 6% and 7%.