The Buffering Effect of Perceived Organizational Support on the Relationship Between Work Engagement and Behavioral Outcomes

The present study examined the commonly held assumption that a low level of work engagement leads to higher turnover intentions and employee deviant behavior. Employee survey results (n = 175) from a manufacturing organization in the United Kingdom showed that employee work engagement correlates negatively with lagged measures of turnover intentions and deviant work behavior directed toward the organization. The results suggest that perceived organizational support moderates the relationship between work engagement and turnover intentions and deviant behaviors directed toward the organization, such that perceived organizational support compensates for relatively low levels of work engagement. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Why some are more equal: Family firm heterogeneity and the effect on management’s attention to CSR

Research at the family firm–Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) nexus lacks agreement about whether family firms are more or less socially responsible than their non‐family counterparts, which leads discussion relating to the bright and dark side of socioemotional wealth (SEW). We add to this ongoing debate in two different ways. First, we build on family firm heterogeneity and argue for a gray side to SEW, located between the bright and dark sides that is dependent upon the kind of family firm ownership. Second, we assume that prior research on a diverse set of CSR behaviors may, to some extent, explain the contradicting results; thus, we propose going back a step and focusing on management’s attention to CSR as an important antecedent of CSR behavior. By analyzing the letters to the shareholders of German HDAX firms from 2003 to 2012, this study finds that family ownership positively affects management’s attention to CSR, mainly driven by founders and family foundations. The research adds to our understanding of the family firm–CSR nexus by scrutinizing the role SEW plays in management’s attention to CSR when it comes to family firm heterogeneity.     

The link between perceived HRM practices,performance and well‐being: the moderating effect of trust in the employer

The present study examines the interaction between perceived HRM practices and trust in the employer on employee performance and well‐being. Specifically, the study tests whether trust in the employer moderates the relationships between perceptions of HRM practices and task performance (as rated by employees’ supervisors), organisational citizenship behaviour, turnover intentions and employee well‐being. Support was found for the majority of the hypotheses using data from 613 employees and their line managers in a service sector organisation in the UK. Trust in the employer moderates the relationships between perceived HRM practices and task performance, turnover intentions and individual well‐being, but not organisational citizenship behaviour. Implications of the findings for organisations and future research are discussed.     

Evaluating growth options as sources of value for pharmaceutical research projects

The financial value of research projects is difficult to assess because they are highly uncertain. Often, the result is either an overly conservative approach to strategic innovation, based on net present value analyses, or an overly aggressive approach based on optimistic qualitative portfolios. R&D project evaluation requires recognizing threats as well as opportunities from uncertain events, and incorporating flexibility in managerial action in response to them. Real options pricing analysis is a widely discussed tool for evaluating such managerial flexibility. The limitation of options pricing lies in its requirement for complete financial markets, in which a replicating asset can be found that reproduces (or, at least, is correlated with) the project’s payoffs in all possible states of the world. However, the major risks of research projects are typically project specific and cannot be replicated in external markets. In this situation, a decision tree is a better tool to represent managerial options during execution of the project, and to evaluate its value. A decision tree is equivalent to options pricing for risks that can be priced in the financial markets (if trading of securities is explicitly included), and moreover, it can incorporate risks and flexibility that are not traded in financial markets. Using decision trees, we demonstrate a quantitative evaluation of compound growth options from research at BestPharma, a large international pharmaceutical company. A growth option is a future opportunity that may arise from a current R&D investment. The growth option may not be related to the primary purpose of the R&D project, or not even be directly foreseeable. Kester (1984) has argued that growth options may account for a large part of project value. BestPharma faced the problem of choosing among several strategic research initiatives. They developed a decision tree representation of the projects, which helped to provide transparency about project value and strategic options. Most importantly, carefully thinking through the tree helped to identify growth options, represented by additional branches in the tree, and to quantify that they represented major sources of value.     

Das Stoma richtig versorgen

Stomaformen und Versorgungssysteme — In Deutschland leben circa 100.000 Menschen mit einem Stoma. Entscheidend für die Lebensqualit?t dieser Patienten ist eine optimale Versorgung des künstlichen Darmausgangs – auch durch die professionelle Pflege.     

Task assignment and organizational form

This paper shows that a firm prefers a process-based task assignment compared to a function-based one if the tasks are from functional areas which are neither too complementary nor too substitutable. We consider several projects (processes) with contributions from several functional areas. The organization can be structured along processes like product lines (M-form) or along functional areas like marketing or production (U-form). The U-form enables cost savings due to specialization or scale economies. The more effective incentives under the M-form might outweigh these savings if the functions are neither too complementary nor too substitutable.      

International Differences in Student Achievement: An Economic Perspective

Abstract. International comparisons reveal large cross‐country differentials in average student performance. Although there is considerable public debate about these differences, their sources are hardly identified. Using school, teacher and student data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the present paper attempts to explain what causes between‐country gaps in mathematics test score distributions. Following a three‐pronged strategy of micro‐level and cross‐country regressions as well as bilateral country comparisons, we show how these gaps are explained by differences in school, teacher and student characteristics, or financial resources devoted to the school system. Institutional characteristics, such as competition between schools and the composition of the faculty can also help to understand international differences in student achievement.     

Coping with regional inequality in Sweden: structural change,migrations, and policy, 1860–2000

In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted U‐shaped curve, growing during industrialization and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden's regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not exhibit this U‐shaped pattern. Accordingly, today's regional income inequality in Sweden is lower than in other European countries. We note that the prime mover behind the long‐run reduction in regional income differentials was structural change, whereas neoclassical and technological forces played a relatively less important role. However, this process of regional income convergence can be divided into three major periods. During the first period (1860–1940), the unrestricted action of market forces, particularly the expansion of markets and high rates of internal and international migration, led to the compression of regional income differentials. During the next period (1940–80), regional convergence was even more intense. In this period, institutional arrangements favoured the reduction of productivity differentials across industries and successive governments aided the reallocation of the workforce from declining to thriving regions and economic sectors. During the last period (1980–2000), when regional incomes diverged, internal migration and structural change slowed. Furthermore, the development of knowledge‐intensive service industries favoured economic growth in the main metropolitan areas.     

Schulleistungsunterschiede zwischen den deutschen Ländern

Since 2006 school achievement of German students has been measured on a regular basis within the so-called national educational monitoring. The most recent results show considerable differences between the states. At first glance, students in the eastern and southern states perform well while students in the city-states show poor results. This paper argues that these differences cannot be attributed to state-specific school policies. Rather, a large portion of the variance between the states can be explained by social and ethnical differences. As a consequence, not only educational policy but also social and integration policies have to be reviewed in order to get a better understanding of the differences in school achievement among the German states.