Management and 1992 — Illusions and reality

Dr Butt Philip takes a refreshingly unsycophantic view of ‘1992’, pointing out that, away from the hype, a good deal of the Single European Market (SEM) programme has been in place for some time. Although the European Commission's timing and tactics over the SEM programme were shrewd, in Britain at least, the national campaign has been confusing.It is a company's business development and positioning in relation to 1992 that matters, and this involves both an internal ‘1992 audit’ as well as making sure it is well represented in Brussels.Although giving us cautionary good advice, the author feels a sense of Zeitgeist about the SEM programme and the federal Europe that it implies. Attitudes and institutions in business must be developed to achieve the destiny of European integration.     

Economic and social leader–member exchange relationships and follower performance

This exploratory study investigated the link between economic and social leader–member exchange relationships and follower work performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Instead of viewing exchange relationships between leaders and subordinates on a continuum from low to high quality, we conceptualize social and economic exchange relationships as relationships with different qualities, rather than different levels of quality. Data from 552 followers and 78 leaders supported our two-dimensional model of leader–member exchange relationships. Furthermore, an economic leader–member exchange relationship was negatively related to both work performance and organizational citizenship behavior. As expected, positive relationships were obtained for a social leader–member exchange relationship and work performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

6 Pay and Performance: Individuals,Groups, and Executives

Abstract

In this chapter, we address three pay for performance (PFP) questions. First, what are the conceptual mechanisms by which PFP influences performance? Second, what programs do organizations use to implement PFP and what is the empirical evidence on their effectiveness? Third, what perils and pitfalls arise on the way from PFP theory to its execution in organizations? We address these questions in general terms, but also highlight unique issues that arise in PFP for teams and for executives. We highlight the fact that research and practice in the area of PFP requires one to deal with a number of trade‐offs. For example, strengthening PFP links can generate powerful motivation effects, but sometimes these are in unintended and unanticipated directions, resulting in undesirable effects. In addition, there are also trade‐offs in deciding the degree of emphasis to give to individual versus team performance and to results versus behaviors in PFP plans. What all this means is that, as in other areas of management, “one best way” advice (e.g., do or do not use individual PFP plans) or “sound‐bite” conclusions (e.g., PFP does not exist; PFP does or does not motivate) are rarely valid, but rather depend on the circumstances and the organization. In the realm of executive pay, we question the current conventional wisdom in the management literature that there is little or no PFP. We close the chapter with a discussion of our key conclusions and suggestions for what we think would be the most interesting and useful future research areas. We encourage the management literature, which has increasingly become interested in the concept of evidence‐based management, to execute this concept more effectively in its research and when talking or writing about pay.     

Approximation and hardness results for label cut and related problems

We investigate a natural combinatorial optimization problem called the Label Cut problem. Given an input graph G with a source s and a sink t, the edges of G are classified into different categories, represented by a set of labels. The labels may also have weights. We want to pick a subset of labels of minimum cardinality (or minimum total weight), such that the removal of all edges with these labels disconnects s and t. We give the first non-trivial approximation and hardness results for the Label Cut problem. Firstly, we present an \(O(\sqrt{m})\)-approximation algorithm for the Label Cut problem, where m is the number of edges in the input graph. Secondly, we show that it is NP-hard to approximate Label Cut within \(2^{\log ^{1-1/\log\log^{c}n}n}\) for any constant c<1/2, where n is the input length of the problem. Thirdly, our techniques can be applied to other previously considered optimization problems. In particular we show that the Minimum Label Path problem has the same approximation hardness as that of Label Cut, simultaneously improving and unifying two known hardness results for this problem which were previously the best (but incomparable due to different complexity assumptions).     

Flows with unit path capacities and related packing and covering problems

Since the seminal work of Ford and Fulkerson in the 1950s, network flow theory is one of the most important and most active areas of research in combinatorial optimization. Coming from the classical maximum flow problem, we introduce and study an apparently basic but new flow problem that features a couple of interesting peculiarities. We derive several results on the complexity and approximability of the new problem. On the way we also discover two closely related basic covering and packing problems that are of independent interest. Starting from an LP formulation of the maximum s-t-flow problem in path variables, we introduce unit upper bounds on the amount of flow being sent along each path. The resulting (fractional) flow problem is NP-hard; its integral version is strongly NP-hard already on very simple classes of graphs. For the fractional problem we present an FPTAS that is based on solving the k shortest paths problem iteratively. We show that the integral problem is hard to approximate and give an interesting O(log?m)-approximation algorithm, where m is the number of arcs in the considered graph. For the multicommodity version of the problem there is an $O(\sqrt{m})Since the seminal work of Ford and Fulkerson in the 1950s, network flow theory is one of the most important and most active areas of research in combinatorial optimization. Coming from the classical maximum flow problem, we introduce and study an apparently basic but new flow problem that features a couple of interesting peculiarities. We derive several results on the complexity and approximability of the new problem. On the way we also discover two closely related basic covering and packing problems that are of independent interest. Starting from an LP formulation of the maximum s-t-flow problem in path variables, we introduce unit upper bounds on the amount of flow being sent along each path. The resulting (fractional) flow problem is NP-hard; its integral version is strongly NP-hard already on very simple classes of graphs. For the fractional problem we present an FPTAS that is based on solving the k shortest paths problem iteratively. We show that the integral problem is hard to approximate and give an interesting O(log m)-approximation algorithm, where m is the number of arcs in the considered graph. For the multicommodity version of the problem there is an O(?m)O(\sqrt{m}) -approximation algorithm. We argue that this performance guarantee is best possible, unless P=NP.     

Old and New Organizational Cages. What about Autonomy and Freedom?

The discourses on the so-called “post-bureaucracy” emphasizes the importance of autonomy and freedom in present-day organizations. Yet, differently to the discourses, the practices are not univocal and there is a mix of continuity and transformation to be investigated. The article addresses these issues aiming to understand if and how organizational cages are changing, in particular in the public sector. After discussing the issues of autonomy and freedom in the contemporary organizations, the analysis focuses on the New Public Management in Italy on the basis of a case study. The research highlights the role of institutional and social resources that mediate freedom and autonomy.     

Median problems with positive and negative weights on cycles and cacti

This paper deals with facility location problems on graphs with positive and negative vertex weights. We consider two different objective functions: In the first one (MWD) vertices with positive weight are assigned to the closest facility, whereas vertices with negative weight are assigned to the farthest facility. In the second one (WMD) all the vertices are assigned to the nearest facility. For the MWD model it is shown that there exists a finite set of points in the graph which contains the locations of facilities in an optimal solution. Furthermore, algorithms for both models for the 2-median problem on a cycle are developed. The algorithm for the MWD model runs in linear time, whereas the algorithm for the WMD model has a time complexity of  O(n²)\mathcal{O}(n^{2}) .     

are near nectariferous tissue and

创造性思维和创新能力是当今领导者立于不败之地的重要素质之一,领导者的创造性思维决定他的创新能力和行为方式。创造性思维是一种具有开创意义的思维活动,即开拓人类认识新领域、创造人类认识新成果的思维活动,它往往表现为形成新观念、提出新方案、创建新理论、发明新技术等     

Planning—Satisfaction and productivity

The areas of worker satisfaction and productivity have been of continual importance to managers of all types of organizations. Unfortunately, the analysis of these topics have usually been done in a segmented manner. This article attempts to develop a total conceptual scheme for planning to increase worker satisfaction and employee productivity. Both internal work and external environmental components are included in the models which examine social psychological, physical, and environmental components of the worker's life in a total system's approach.     

Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers' working conditions and well-being?

Transformational leadership has been widely researched and is associated with followers' performance, attitudes, and subjective well-being at the individual level. Less research has focused on transformational leadership as a group phenomenon. In a survey study (425 followers and 56 leaders), we examined how group-level and differentiated transformational leadership shape followers' perceptions of their working conditions and individual subjective well-being. There was stronger evidence that differentiated transformational leadership's relationships with indicators of well-being was mediated by perceptions of working conditions, in that 10 out of 20 tests for mediation using differentiated transformational leadership were significant, compared to just three out of 20 for group-level transformational leadership. The results suggest that transformational leadership needs to be studied as a group phenomenon considering how group-level perceptions may impact on followers' well-being and that leaders need to realize that there is an “I” in groups and addition to a “we” in groups.     

Does the internet change how we die and mourn? Overview and analysis

The article outlines the issues that the internet presents to death studies. Part 1 describes a range of online practices that may affect dying, the funeral, grief and memorialization, inheritance and archaeology; it also summarizes the kinds of research that have been done in these fields. Part 2 argues that these new online practices have implications for, and may be illuminated by, key concepts in death studies: the sequestration (or separation from everyday life) of death and dying, disenfranchisement of grief, private grief, social death, illness and grief narratives, continuing bonds with the dead, and the presence of the dead in society. In particular, social network sites can bring dying and grieving out of both the private and public realms and into the everyday life of social networks beyond the immediate family, and provide an audience for once private communications with the dead.     

Out of sight and out of mind? A literature review of occupational safety and health leadership and management of distributed workers

Distributed workers – those who work autonomously and remotely from their organisation’s main locations for at least some of their work-time – are an important and growing proportion of the workforce that share common characteristics of temporal and spatial distance. Yet, many leadership styles and management practices assume face-to-face interaction, potentially rendering them less helpful in trying to ensure good occupational safety and health (OSH) outcomes for distributed workers. We conducted a systematic literature review to examine the leadership and management of OSH for distributed workers. Twenty-three papers were identified. Eleven papers identified established leadership styles, including leader-member exchange, (safety specific) transformational and considerate leadership. Twenty papers examined management. Findings from these 20 papers were interpreted as representing resources, deployed through management and utilised by managers to ensure OSH for distributed workers, including communication technologies, social support and a good safety climate. Despite limited research in this area, findings indicate the importance of both leadership and management in ensuring OSH for distributed workers. Findings suggest a fertile area for future enquiry.     

Does self-efficacy matter for burnout and sickness absenteeism? The mediating role of demands and resources at the individual and team levels

In team-based organizations, team members may share similar experiences, feelings and, consequently, susceptibility to burnout. This study explores the burnout process beyond the individual level of analysis and integrates Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) with the Job Demands-Resources Model (JD-R), emphasizing the role of self-efficacy in shaping the meaning that people ascribe to situations. A multilevel structural equation model was tested in which it was predicted that work self-efficacy beliefs would be associated with burnout both directly and indirectly via job demands and job resources, and at both the individual and the team level. Moreover, it was posited that, at the team level, registered sickness absences are predicted by burnout. A sample of 5406 call centre operators, clustered in 186 teams working in the same large Italian company, filled out a questionnaire, whereas team absence rates were provided by the company's HR department. The findings largely supported the hypothesized model: at both levels, job demands and job resources partially mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and burnout. Moreover, at the team level, burnout predicted subsequent sickness absenteeism. In addition, individual-level burnout was primarily associated with job demands, whereas team-level burnout was primarily associated with a lack of team-level resources.     

Shareholders and managers: Who care more about corporate diversity and employee benefits?

We test two competing theories that explain a firm’s engagement in corporate diversity and employee benefits: socially responsible investment theory and management overinvestment theory. We find that publicly-traded companies with strong shareholder rights are more likely to promote women and/or minorities to the positions of CEO and board of directors in their organizations, conduct business with women- and/or minority-owned operations, and provide better family benefits to their employees than firms with strong management power. These findings indicate that the companies with strong shareholder rights engage more actively in internal aspects of CSR activities, which supports the socially responsible investment theory rather than the management overinvestment theory. Shareholders (i.e. institutional investors) tend to integrate their social goals (i.e. internal CSR issues) and financial goals into their investments. In response to these changes, managers should engage in the internal aspects of corporate social issues more aggressively as the agents of shareholders.     

Health and well-being of older workers: comparing their associations with effort–reward imbalance and Pressure,Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure

Work organisation has well-established associations with health. This study compares the associations of Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure (PDR) and effort–reward imbalance (ERI) with health and well-being among older workers. Participants were 714 Australian workers aged 45–65 (56.3% female), with a mean age of 54.6 years (SD = 5.0) and a mean of 34.7 working hours per week (SD = 13.9). Hierarchical regression analyses tested the strengths of the associations of both ERI and PDR with work–life conflict and mental health. Independent variables were entered in blocks: demographic characteristics (age and gender), working hours and then ERI or PDR (measured using the four subscales: financial pressure, reward pressure, disorganisation and regulatory failure). Compared to ERI, the PDR subscales collectively accounted for slightly less variance in work–life conflict and slightly more variance in mental health. The PDR subscales also accounted for extra variance in both dependent variables when ERI was included in the model. These findings indicate that PDR is a promising construct that includes elements of work organisation not addressed by ERI.     

Residential Mortgages and Public Policy: What to do with Fannie and Freddie?

The current debate on U.S. housing policy focuses on the role of the government in supporting the mortgage market. Existing organizations (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) are in conservatorship status, and Congress is considering alternative structures and guarantees including the Johnson‐Crapo bill, to provide catastrophic insurance in support of the coverage from private companies. The resolution of this issue is complicated by the various activities involved in the issue—investment securities, public policy, macroeconomics, accounting, and insurance. This article reviews the impact of these activities on U.S. housing, with a discussion of the feasibility of creating a catastrophic insurance program similar to that of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The federal government has successfully operated catastrophic insurance programs in support of private sector initiatives, and this experience—while certainly not perfect—may be a reasonable approach to the current Fannie/Freddie dilemma.     

Formalisation and flexibilisation in organisations – Dynamic and selective approaches in corporate innovation processes

A classic problem in organising corporate innovation projects is the tension between formalisation and flexibilisation. Connecting this discussion to the younger debate on ambidexterity, this paper asks how organisations balance informal and formal, flexible and inflexible ways of working in their innovation projects. It derives a way to break down formalisation and flexibilisation into the dimensions of power, communication and trust and connects them to learning. By unhinging formalisation and flexibilisation from the organisational level and looking at them at the small-scale level of specific projects and functional arenas instead, the paper sheds new light onto the various fashions in which formalisation and flexibilisation do not contradict, but complement each other. An empirical account based on 100 qualitative expert interviews illustrates this.     

3 Merger and Acquisition Transactions and Executive Compensation: A Review of the Empirical Evidence

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing empirical evidence and provide an integrative framework for the growing body of literature that is situated at the intersection of two highly debated topics: merger and acquisition (M&A) activities and executive compensation. The proposed framework structures the literature along two dimensions, such as M&A phases and firm's role in a M&A deal, allowing us to identify three main streams of research and five different conceptualizations of causal relationships between M&A transactions and executive compensation. Making a comprehensive review of empirical studies conducted to date we aim at shedding more light on the current and emerging knowledge in this field of investigation, discussing the inconsistencies encountered within each stream of research and suggesting promising directions for further exploration.     

Algebraic and combinatorial properties of ideals and algebras of uniform clutters of TDI systems

Let \(\mathcal{C}\) be a uniform clutter and let A be the incidence matrix of \(\mathcal{C}\). We denote the column vectors of A by v ₁,…,v _q . Under certain conditions we prove that \(\mathcal{C}\) is vertex critical. If \(\mathcal{C}\) satisfies the max-flow min-cut property, we prove that A diagonalizes over ? to an identity matrix and that v ₁,…,v _q form a Hilbert basis. We also prove that if \(\mathcal{C}\) has a perfect matching such that \(\mathcal{C}\) has the packing property and its vertex covering number is equal to 2, then A diagonalizes over ? to an identity matrix. If A is a balanced matrix we prove that any regular triangulation of the cone generated by v ₁,…,v _q is unimodular. Some examples are presented to show that our results only hold for uniform clutters. These results are closely related to certain algebraic properties, such as the normality or torsion-freeness, of blowup algebras of edge ideals and to finitely generated abelian groups. They are also related to the theory of Gröbner bases of toric ideals and to Ehrhart rings.     

Academic Autonomy and Freedom under Pressure: Severely Limited,or Alive and Kicking?

Academic freedom and the autonomy of academic institutions (their freedom from outside interference) are core values in contemporary academic life. This article outlines changes that have taken place in the last few decades that impact academic freedom and autonomy to at least some degree. These include the increasing catering by universities to stake-holders in the environment, increasing professionalization of university administrations, an evolving pattern of broadening authority over internal university decision-making, and an increasing attention to student (i.e. customer) needs. Two case studies -- one of recent decisions in the University of California system and the other at the University of Oslo -- illustrate the theoretical points in the article and point to the need to know a lot more about academic autonomy and academic freedom, especially in an environment of changing management practices and scarce resource bases for many institutions. The cases were selected because of the authors’ familiarity with them and are examples meant to illuminate some of the challenges and complexities inherent in the phenomena and to inspire further research on academic freedom and autonomy utilizing the instrumental and institutional perspectives from organization theory that are the core of our theoretical analysis.