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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contingency effects that contextual factors of a networked service environment have on the phased Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation frameworks.

This paper employs the critical realism (CR) case study research methodology to examine the contingent and causal relationships between contextual configurations of business networks, the DMAIC or PDCA phases in an LSS implementation agenda, and business management functions. The authors conducted a single case study on the basis of challenges they met in kicking off lean transportation in the Port of Houston.

The key finding from the study is a mid-range theory regarding the contingency effects of contextual factors of service business networks on the phased LSS implementation frameworks. The authors found that when there are complexity and dynamics of contextual factors at the field layer, management should focus more on tasks in early LSS phases to emphasize influencing. When there is no centralized authority in the network and the value-system is loosely coupled, management needs to execute more tasks as described in the define, measure and analyze phases with the purpose of both influencing and orchestrating. When individual actors have goals not aligned well with the goal of the business network and have unmatched operations capabilities, these factors should be considered as early as possible in these LSS phases. When a business network has complicated business processes with high unpredictability and uncertainty and individual actors’ value-creation systems are not well embedded in the entire value-creation system, PDCA will be the preferred core structure of an LSS implementation agenda.

This study contributes to the LSS research stream by introducing a causal/contingency model that prescribes the contingency effects of three contextual configurations on LSS implementation. It also contributes to the emerging discipline, business network management, regarding how to use LSS frameworks in strategic planning. It also contributes to the CR school of problem-driven case study by using a strategic initiative framework as a platform and each phase in the framework as a unit. This conceptualization of the entity of interest helps explore the interactions among three theoretical constructs: contextual configurations, phased LSS implementation agenda and management functions.

Managerial implications of this study are twofold. One is the procedure of analyzing the impacts of contextual factors on the causal relationships between LSS implementation phases and network management functions. The entire procedure represents the agenda-setting process of LSS implementation, the most daunting and challenging managerial task in LSS projects. Another one is the guideline on how to determine whether DMAIC or PDCA is appropriate for the LSS agenda when used in a networked environment.

This paper would serve as an excellent resource for both academicians and LSS practitioners in initiating, orchestrating and managing an LSS project in a networked service environment. This study represents the first effort to explore the impact of contextual factors of business networks on lean transformation.

Although cultural beliefs about gender differences in emotional experience and expression are pervasive, empirical evidence does not always bear out those beliefs. This disjuncture has led scholars to argue for the examination of specific emotions in specific contexts in order to understand more clearly the conditions under which gender differences emerge. Heeding this call, we focus on the justice context, reviewing and investigating men's and women's feelings about and emotional displays regarding distributive justice. Using a vignette study, we specifically examine how gender and the contextual factors of procedural justice, legitimacy of the decision-maker, and gender of the decision-maker affect emotional responses of injustice victims. We argue that a focus on the gender combination of actors in a situation moves the study of gender and emotions beyond the assumption that gender-specific cultural beliefs dictate individual's feelings across situations. Our findings show few gender differences in the experience and expression of anger, resentment, and satisfaction. Rather, contextual factors, including the gender of the decision-maker, had stronger effects on emotional responses than gender of the victim. In our justice situation, then, context matters more than gender in understanding emotional responses.

The present study sought to determine whether or not there is an association between contextual effects of violent socialization on violent youth behavior across different nations.

The data in this study derive from the International Dating Violence Study, a dataset of over 17,000 college students collected in 32 different nations. Variables consist of various scales from the Personal Relationship Profile that focuses on experiences and behaviors occurring prior to age 15 years, as well as national indicators of violence. Multilevel modeling analysis was used to analyze the data.

The results indicate two important findings. First, violent socialization significantly varies across different national contexts and this contextual effect accounts for a significant proportion of variation in youth violence. Second, violent socialization, both within individual families and as a contextual effect within different nations, is significantly associated with increases in violent youth behavior across the nations.

The International Dating Violence Study is a cross-sectional convenience sample of college students, which is not representative of specific nations nor college students. Further, the present study classifies nations as a “community” rather than explore microlevel communities within a nation. Future research should focus on examining variation of area specific norms for subsets of communities within nations with representative samples of a general population.

The present study appears to be one of the first published studies offering empirical evidence for international research on the theoretical argument of the contextual effects of violence within a nation, and begins to increase knowledge among criminologists of such contextual factors being associated with youth violent behavior across different nations.

The analysis of cultural consumption centers on the influence of individual characteristics (mainly social class). However, this chapter proposes that this relationship is contextual. More specifically, this relationship varies according to the nature of local cultural scenes where people live. In order to show the contextual impact of cultural scenes, we analyze a representative survey among a Spanish population. Three main conclusions are drawn. First, two main dimensions explain the patterns of cultural consumption by the Spanish population: the classical distinction between popular and high culture, and the distinction between conventional and unconventional cultural practices. Second, other characteristics, beside social class, are important to explain the implication of population in different patterns of cultural consumption, for instance, age; young people are oriented toward more unconventional practices regardless of their social class. Third, local cultural scenes matter: the difference between cultural practices of different groups (for instance, young and old people) is reduced in municipalities oriented toward unconventionality, showing an “assimilation contextual effect.” This contextual effect also has some impact upon local cultural policies that we mention briefly.

The analysis of lifestyles and cultural consumption has focused mainly on determining the impact of individual attributes on the types of practices developed by individuals. However, the effect of the access or exposure to certain opportunities of cultural consumption is less frequently analyzed, or even whether this exposure has different effects according to different social groups. The analysis of this issue is one of the objectives of the “Cultural Scene” research program, which is being developed under the project “Cultural Dynamics of Cities.” In this chapter, we try to determine whether existing cultural scenes in different municipalities influence how Spanish residents develop their cultural practices, with data from a nationally representative survey.

The purpose of this paper is to test empirically whether there exist spillover externalities in job satisfaction, i.e., to test whether individual-level job satisfaction is affected by the aggregate job satisfaction level in a certain labor market environment.

The authors use a linear-in-means model of social interactions in the empirical analysis. The authors develop an original strategy, motivated by the hierarchical models of social processes, to identify the parameters of interest. BHPS and WERS datasets are used to perform the estimations both at the establishment and local labor market levels.

The authors find that one standard deviation increase in aggregate job satisfaction leads to a 0.42 standard deviation increase in individual-level job satisfaction at the workplace level and a 0.15 standard deviation increase in individual-level job satisfaction at the local labor market level. In other words, the authors report that statistically significant job satisfaction spillovers exist both at the establishment level and local labor market level; and, the former being approximately three times larger than the latter.

First, this is the first paper in the literature estimating spillover effects in job satisfaction. Second, the authors show that the degree of these spillover externalities may change at different aggregation levels. Finally, motivated by the hierarchical models of social processes, the author develop an original econometric identification strategy.

Part-time employment is a vital portion of the U.S. labor force, yet research to date has provided only limited insights into how to successfully create and manage this sector of the workforce. We propose that these limitations are due, at least in part, to an inadequate explication of the levels issues inherent in this area. In this article, we present a summary framework of constructs at the economic, industry, organization, individual, and work levels that influence part-time work arrangements. We then specify a cross-level moderator model that examines how the number of hours worked by employees influences their attitudes and behaviors. We posit that this relationship is moderated by a number of contextual effects at multiple levels. Using this sample model, we demonstrate the way in which researchers examining part-time work arrangements can effectively address levels issues. Our article concludes with a discussion of the implications that this summary framework has for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.

Recent scholarship has augmented Bandura's theory underlying efficacy formation by pointing to more proximate sources of efficacy information involved in forming collective teacher efficacy. These proximate sources of efficacy information theoretically shape a teacher's perception of the teaching context, operationalizing the difficulty of the teaching task that faces the school and the faculty's collective competence to be successful under specific conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of three contextual variables: socioeconomic status, school level, and school structure on teacher perceptions of collective efficacy.

School level data were collected from a cross‐section of 79 schools in a Midwestern state. Data were analyzed at the school level using hierarchical multiple regression to determine the incremental variance in collective teacher efficacy beliefs attributed to contextual variables after accounting for the effect of prior academic performance.

Results support the premise that contextual variables do add power to explanations of collective teacher efficacy over and above the effects of prior academic performance. Further, of the three contextual variables school structure independently accounted for the most variability in perceptions of collective teacher efficacy.

A sample of 79 schools was considered small to accurately test a hypothesized model of collective teacher efficacy formation using structural equation modeling. That approach would have had the advantage of permitting the researchers to identify the relationships among the predictor variables and between the predictors and the criterion. Additionally, there was a concern of possible aggregation bias associated with aggregating collective teacher efficacy scores to the school level. Despite these limitations, the findings hold theoretical and practical implications in that they defend the theoretical importance of contextual factors as efficacy sources. Furthermore, formalized and centralized conditions conducive to promoting perceptions of collective efficacy in teachers are identified.

Extant collective efficacy studies have generally not operationalized Bandura's efficacy sources to include the effects of current context. This study does.

The purpose of this article is to review and comment on recent and emerging trends in negotiation research, and to highlight the importance of the interactions between various dimensions of negotiation.

Consistent with the behavioral negotiation framework, a two‐level structure is maintained consisting of the contextual characteristics of negotiation, on the one hand, and the negotiators themselves, on the other. The framework is supplemented with updated research, and the influence of culture in negotiation is commented upon – noting its increasing role in negotiator cognition, motivation, attribution, and cooperation. The paper also adds new themes to reflect the recent advancements in negotiation research. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which negotiator effects can mediate and/or moderate contextual effects, as well as the ways in which contextual effects can mediate and/or moderate negotiator effects.

The paper suggests that efforts to integrate the recent developments in negotiation research are necessary and that the behavioral negotiation perspective, due to its simultaneous simplicity and flexibility, is appropriate and effective for incorporating the various streams of negotiation research into a systematic framework. Critically, this framework highlights the dynamic interaction between the two levels and leaves much room for further exploration of these dynamics.

The paper identifies emerging areas of inquiry that can be especially fruitful in helping negotiation scholars to expand more traditional approaches to conflict in bold new ways and open up innovative avenues for thinking about the domain of negotiation. The paper offers a comprehensive model that integrates various dimensions of negotiation and illustrates the interaction among them.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of work characteristics on members’ self‐efficacy and collective efficacy, and the subsequent effect on police officers’ performance.

A multilevel model is adopted to analyze quantitative data obtained by using 812 police officers and 54 chiefs of police stations in Taiwan as the research objects.

The authors found that work characteristics affected members’ self‐efficacy and collective efficacy, which further affected the individual‐ and group‐level performance and the contextual effect of social work characteristics (SWCs) and collective efficacy on self‐efficacy and individual performance. The authors also confirmed the cross‐level moderation of social characteristics on the relationship between motivational work characteristics (MWCs) and self‐efficacy, and between self‐efficacy and individual performance.

A limitation was the characteristics of the sample, which consisted of mostly first‐line uniformed police officers in Taiwan. From the perspective of managerial implications, it is felt that police organizations should beef up the training on police officers’ collective efficacy, such as building group spirit, improving members’ sense of responsibility, and building up trust with the organization.

The findings prove that the study of work design is particularly important for enhancing the management effectiveness of police organization, because it explains the causes of a number of organizational behaviors as well as a number of important results that influence the police organization (e.g. efficacy and performance).