Ethics and Performance: A Simulation Analysis of Team Decision Making

The interrelationships among a number of variables and their effect on ethical decision making was explored. Teams of students and managers participated in a competitive management simulation. Based on prior research, the effects of performance, environmental change, team age, and type of team on the level of ethical behavior were hypothesized. The findings indicate that multiple variables may interact in such a fashion that significance is lost.     

The evolution of longevity: Evidence from Canada

Canadian men in the top earnings ventile live eight years (11%) longer than do men in the bottom ventile. For women, the difference is 3.6 years. This earnings–longevity gradient has shifted uniformly across earnings groups through time, in stark contrast to in the US. We demonstrate that the widely used period measurement method can differ from cohort measures. For middle‐aged men, we find a recent slowdown of mortality improvements, echoing the situation in the US. With comparable data, the Canadian earnings–longevity gradient is half the US gradient; but one quarter of this gap may result from Canada–US earnings differences.     

Neighborhood price externalities of foreclosure rehabilitation: an examination of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program

The federally funded, HUD-administered Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) was enacted in the wake of the financial recession to mitigate the underlying adverse neighborhood effects associated with foreclosed properties. We examined the neighborhood price impacts of NSP-funded foreclosure rehabilitation undertaken by Habitat for Humanity in Dallas County, Texas, using a difference-in-difference framework. Foreclosure rehabilitation projects in Dallas County produced an average 15% increase in neighborhood home prices that sold up to 30 months after the rehabilitated property sale and within 0.1 miles of the rehabilitated property. Foreclosure rehabilitation that involved significant exterior repairs was associated with the largest estimated effect sizes. Results suggest that NSP funding in Dallas County effectively targeted homes that had the potential to have the most severe neighborhood impacts and that rehabilitation was an effective means of reversing neighborhood price externalities associated with blighted foreclosed properties.     

The double‐edged effect of knowledge acquisition: How contracts safeguard pre‐existing resources

Research summary : Acquiring knowledge on a partner's pre‐existing resources plays an important yet ambiguous role in collaborative relationships. We formally model how contracts trade off productive and destructive uses of knowledge in a buyer‐supplier relationship. We show that, when the buyer's pre‐existing resources are vulnerable to the revelation of sensitive knowledge, the supplier overinvests in knowledge acquisition as it expects to use the knowledge as a threat in price negotiations. A non‐renegotiable closed‐price contract prevents such overinvestment and reduces the supplier's ability to expropriate the buyer ex post. Our results extend to the cases of renegotiable closed‐price contracts, repeated interactions between a buyer and a supplier, and the use of nondisclosure policies. We draw theoretical, empirical, and managerial implications from our model. Managerial summary : This study yields new insights regarding the use of contract design in protecting pre‐existing, nonrelationship specific assets in buyer‐supplier arrangements. Anecdotal examples illustrate the “dark side” of these arrangements where opportunistic suppliers exploit knowledge of buyers' pre‐existing resources to seek rent and appropriate value. When a supplier is likely to act harmfully, a closed‐price contract that specifies the price of the supplier's component upfront may reduce the supplier's incentives to overinvest in acquiring and exploiting knowledge of the buyer's pre‐existing resources. As such, when a buyer's pre‐existing resources are highly valuable, and thus more vulnerable to use by the supplier outside of the arrangement, a non‐renegotiable closed‐price contract is more efficient. Additionally, limited disclosure policies and informal agreements based on repeated interactions complement indirect governance via price contracts. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mindfulness-based training interventions for employees: A qualitative review of the literature

We provide a comprehensive qualitative review of 67 published studies that have examined mindfulness-based training interventions conducted with employees. The findings indicate that the most common research designs were the pre-test/post-test only design (35.8%) and the randomized waitlist control group design (26.9%). About two-thirds of the studies included a control group (61.2%), with approximately three-quarters (75.6%) of these studies using random assignment. Of the 63 studies that used a conventional experimental design, the majority (65.1%) included only one follow-up assessment, most often immediately after training. Results indicated a great degree of heterogeneity in terms of program content, although many studies used some adaptation of Kabat-Zinn's (1990) Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (41.8%), an approach with a strong evidentiary base with clinical populations. All training programs incorporated practice, most (85.1%) used multiple methods of delivering the training material, and training varied considerably in total duration, session length, and the number of training sessions. Our review also found that the intended purpose of mindfulness-based training for employees was most commonly the reduction of stress/strain (80.6%), although a wide range of other targeted outcomes were documented. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future research aimed at advancing our understanding of mindfulness-based training interventions with employees.     

虚拟工作第三波

2013年1月·Harvard Business Review研究20世纪80年代以来的职场变迁,我们发现知识性工作"虚拟化"有三大浪潮。专家预计,用不了几年,将有超过13亿的劳动者从事虚拟工作,即通过电子接入设备来进行远程工作。第一波:虚拟自由职业者。20世纪80年代初,新兴的电子邮件网络技术使人们在家就可以完成工作,从而使家庭主妇、退休人士、学生等进入劳动力市场,劳动力供给大大增加。     

Cross‐cultural differences on work‐to‐family conflict and role satisfaction: A Taiwanese‐British comparison

The aim of this research was to explore relations between work and family demands and resources, work‐to‐family conflict (WFC), and work and family outcomes in a cross‐cultural comparative context involving Taiwanese and British employees. Two‐hundred and sixty‐four Taiwanese employees and 137 British employees were surveyed using structured questionnaires. For both Taiwanese and British employees, work and family demands were positively related to WFC, whereas work resources were negatively related to WFC. Furthermore, WFC was negatively related to family satisfaction. More importantly, we found that nation moderated relationships between work resources and WFC, WFC and work, and family satisfaction. Specifically, work resources had a stronger protective effect for Taiwanese than British in reducing WFC, whereas WFC had a stronger detrimental effect on role satisfaction for British than Taiwanese. It is recommended that both culture‐general and culture‐specific effects should be taken into consideration in designing future WFC research and familyfriendly managerial practices. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

What Factors Affect the Persistence of an Innovation Advantage?

Factors that affect a firm's ability to achieve an advantage may differ from those that affect its ability to sustain that advantage. Moreover, if advantage is a relative concept then studies that relate resource stocks to ‘absolute’ outcomes say little about how resources contribute to enduring differences among firms. We explore these issues in the global semiconductor industry by analyzing how a firm's resource stocks contribute to the persistence of an innovation advantage (a relative outcome). The findings demonstrate that a firm's own production experience and the experience held by its partners contribute to temporary innovation advantages. The results also show that a firm's own production experience yields a more durable innovation advantage as compared to the experience held by a firm's partners and that the experience held by a firm's partners provides a more enduring advantage than a firm's patent stock.     

THE GROWTH OF FAMILY EARNINGS INEQUALITY IN CANADA, 1980–2005

In this study we document recent trends in family earnings inequality using data from the Canadian Census and provide insight into the various factors that drive changes in the family earnings distribution. Over the period 1980–95 we observe substantial increases in family earnings inequality. In contrast, we find that some decrease in inequality occurred over the period 1995–2005 although the earnings of the richest 1 percent of families increased substantially. We use semi‐parametric decomposition methods to show that increases in the employment rates of men and women, increases in their educational attainment, and decreases in assortative mating tended to have equalizing effects on the family earnings distribution. We also show that increases in the returns to higher education and increases in the proportion of single individuals as well as lone‐parent families drove increases in family earnings inequality.