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1 – 10 of over 12000Enrico Marcazzan, Diego Campagnolo and Martina Gianecchini
Building on the recent capability-based conceptualisation of resilience, this paper aims to explore whether the experience of a previous crisis and entrepreneur resilience are…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on the recent capability-based conceptualisation of resilience, this paper aims to explore whether the experience of a previous crisis and entrepreneur resilience are associated with Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs') adoption of different anticipation strategies for adversities.
Design/methodology/approach
Using original survey data on 959 Italian and German SMEs, the research uses a multinomial logistic regression model in order to test the influence of the prior experience of a crisis and the entrepreneur resilience on the likelihood of adopting different anticipation strategies.
Findings
The paper shows that the previous experience of a crisis increases the likelihood of regularly adopting proactive but non-formalised anticipation actions while decreasing the likelihood of adopting a pure reactive strategy to adversities; in addition, entrepreneur resilience is nonlinearly associated with anticipation strategies.
Originality/value
The main originalities rely on eschewing a pure binary view in relation to the organisational choice of adopting a reactive or a proactive approach towards adversities and on considering the entrepreneur resilience as a factor with both “bright” and “dark” side effects in relation to the anticipation of adversities.
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As social media has become an ingrained aspect of our lives—including our political relationships with other citizens and the state—various governments have warned public servants…
Abstract
Purpose
As social media has become an ingrained aspect of our lives—including our political relationships with other citizens and the state—various governments have warned public servants that being politically active online might threaten the reputed impartiality of themselves and the public service. This study examines whether public servants are less likely to be politically active on social media than other citizens, and seeks to understand public servants’ varying disposition to be politically active online by investigating the role of employees’ underlying Big 5 personality traits.
Design/methodology/approach
Multivariate regression, along with marginal effects and predicted probabilities, are used to investigate public servants’ online political activity with survey data from Canada, a country where impartiality is a core public service value, and where governments, public service commissions and even public sector unions have voiced cautious messages about the threat online political activity presents to the reputed impartiality of public servants, and the public service at large.
Findings
Analysis of the direct effects of being a public servant and each Big 5 personality trait finds that being a public servant significantly, and substantively, reduces the probability of engaging in online political activity, meanwhile, Extraversion and Conscientiousness have consistent, significant and substantive relationships with being politically active online. Subsequent analysis investigating the dynamic between the Big 5 and being a public servant, uncovers a more complex story. Among public servants, Openness and Neuroticism, rather than Extraversion and Conscientiousness, are associated with significant and substantive changes in the probability of engaging in some online politically activities. This is consistent with research investigating the relationship between the Big 5 and risk aversion, given that public servants in Canada work in an environment with a highly cautious discourse portraying social media as a serious risk to impartiality.
Practical implications
The findings also speak to best practices for public service human resource managers by shedding light how public servants’ behavior can be better understood and managed by paying attention to their underlying personality traits.
Originality/value
This study moves beyond analyzing trends between public and private sector employees, to instead examine public servants’ online political activity. This study offers theoretical and empirical insight into how public servants’ disposition to be politically active online is, in part, influenced by their underlying Big 5 personality traits, specifically, Neuroticism and Openness.
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Brandon Roberts and Randall C. Campbell
The purpose of this paper is to study the attributes that influence perceptions of customer service in the retail banking setting from a non‐customer perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the attributes that influence perceptions of customer service in the retail banking setting from a non‐customer perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This research employs a mystery shopping approach to identify and measure key service attributes that predict the likelihood of an individual's choosing a banking location.
Findings
The measures employed accurately predicted positive and negative outcomes based on respondent choices. The data suggest that personal elements of service may be of critical importance in cultivating new customer relationships.
Originality/value
Existing research related to bank service primarily focuses on customers in the context of their existing institutional relationship. This study examines a largely unexplored area of service, specifically, the issues most important to prospective customers with regard to banking choices.
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Alex Bryson and Harald Dale-Olsen
We present theoretical and empirical evidence challenging early studies that found unions were detrimental to workplace innovation. Under our theoretical model, unions prefer…
Abstract
We present theoretical and empirical evidence challenging early studies that found unions were detrimental to workplace innovation. Under our theoretical model, unions prefer product innovation to labor-saving technological process innovation, thus making union wage bargaining regimes more conducive to product innovation than competitive pay setting. We test the theory with population-representative workplace data for Britain and Norway. We find strong support for the notion that local bargaining leads to product innovation, either alone or together with technological innovation.
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This paper seeks to analyse to what extent absolute wage levels, relative wages compared with colleagues, and the position in a firm's hierarchy affect workers' absenteeism…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to analyse to what extent absolute wage levels, relative wages compared with colleagues, and the position in a firm's hierarchy affect workers' absenteeism behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses personnel data of a large German company from January 1999 to December 2005. The data set contains 62,774 monthly observations of 1,187 full‐time white‐collar workers. Probit and Tobit models for individual monthly absenteeism are estimated.
Findings
Absenteeism is negatively correlated with absolute wages, relative wages, and hierarchical levels, which is in line with the paper's hypotheses. Moreover, the results indicate that a positive relative wage has a stronger impact than a negative relative wage, which gives rise to the issue of unequal wage structures.
Research limitations/implications
The findings point to the relevance of interdependent preferences and status in utility functions. From the non‐linear relationship between relative wages and absenteeism it follows that an unequal wage structure has the benefit that relatively better paid workers are absent less frequenty, while the costs of higher absenteeism of workers at the lower tail of the wage distribution are rather low.
Practical implications
The results show that not only the absolute wage level but also status‐related factors (e.g. relative wage, hierarchical level) affect employees' work effort and that unequal wage structures can be efficient to some degree.
Originality/value
The paper provides “real world” evidence from scarce personnel data for the importance of interdependent preferences and status. Furthermore, the non‐linear relationship between relative wages and absenteeism is examined.
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The study aims to establish that religiosity has a positive link with government trust, making the secularization trend all the more likely to further erode this already fragile…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to establish that religiosity has a positive link with government trust, making the secularization trend all the more likely to further erode this already fragile resource.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the use of data from the World Values Survey and European Social Survey the link between religiosity and trust in government is examined.
Findings
Religiosity and trust in government are positively linked in aggregate data.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis is based on aggregated data, not individual countries, and religiosity is a complex concept to measure.
Practical implications
Secularization will have a long-term negative effect on government trust. Low levels of trust in government in the West are likely here to stay, or even worsen, as populations continue to secularize.
Social implications
With less trust in government, it will be more difficult to govern effectively.
Originality/value
The author has not yet seen a full test on how secularization will impact trust in government. In fact, this study makes clear that the trend goes a long way explaining why trust in government has been falling in the developed world for decades.
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Moses Waithanji Ngware, Moses Oketch, Alex Chika Ezeh and Netsayi Noris Mudege
The purpose of this paper is to examine household characteristics and schooling decisions in terms of enrollment and type of school in an urban setting in Nairobi.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine household characteristics and schooling decisions in terms of enrollment and type of school in an urban setting in Nairobi.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a cross‐sectional data set collected in 2005. The sample comprises 7,475 primary school‐aged children. A probit model was estimated to show what influences decisions at household level.
Findings
Analysis shows that different household and individual attributes motivate different decisions. A considerable proportion (40 per cent) of children from the poorest quintile attends non‐public schools compared to 34 per cent from the richest quintile. The findings reveal that better‐off households are more represented in the free primary education (FPE) programme. The predicted probability of a decision to attend a public school for a primary school‐age child increases as the household wealth increases.
Practical implications
The paper concludes that poorer households are least attending and may be excluded from free public schools.
Originality/value
The paper demystifies the notion that introduction of FPE in developing countries is a pro‐poor policy.
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Richard V. Burkhauser, Markus H. Hahn, Dean R. Lillard and Roger Wilkins
We use Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) data from the United States and Great Britain to investigate the association between adults’ health and the income inequality they…
Abstract
We use Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) data from the United States and Great Britain to investigate the association between adults’ health and the income inequality they experienced as children up to 80 years earlier. Our inequality data track shares of national income held by top income percentiles from the early 20th century. We average those data over the same early-life years and merge them to CNEF data from both countries that measure self-reported health of individuals between 1991 and 2007. Observationally, adult men and women in the United States and Great Britain less often report being in better health if inequality was higher in their first five years of life. Although the trend in inequality is similar in both countries over the past century, the empirical association between health and inequality in the United States differs substantially from the estimated relationship in Great Britain. When we control for demographic characteristics, measures of permanent income, and early-life socio-economic status, the health–inequality association remains robust only in the U.S. sample. For the British sample, the added controls drive the coefficient on inequality toward zero and statistical insignificance.
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Anthony Amoah and Benjamin Amoah
Lockdowns are generally characterised by financial depletion, loneliness, stress, depression, loss of jobs and businesses, among others. The effect of the recent lockdown in Ghana…
Abstract
Purpose
Lockdowns are generally characterised by financial depletion, loneliness, stress, depression, loss of jobs and businesses, among others. The effect of the recent lockdown in Ghana as a result of COVID-19 pandemic has not been different. The primary question this study seeks to answer is: are lockdowns only characterised by negativity, or could there be a positive side that has not yet been harnessed?
Design/methodology/approach
To answer this question, the authors rely on a dataset of 879 observations obtained through an online survey administered from 25 April to 3 May 2020. Using a regression approach, the authors applied an ordered probit econometric technique with its associated predicted margins.
Findings
The authors show evidence that in the midst of the negativity surrounding the lockdown, social connectedness is evident, especially in relatively less busy cities. The authors recommend that instead of losing oneself through social isolation and loneliness during lockdowns, people should use lockdowns as an opportunity to build and exhibit social capital and harness the opportunities associated with it. The authors also recommend that during lockdowns, channels of social connectedness should be made easily accessible and cheaper through a well-targeted government subsidy programme for the poor.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is a novel study that provides the first empirical evidence on the relationship between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown and social connectedness.
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Suvasish Das Shuvo, Tanvir Ahmad, Dipak Kumar Paul and Md. Ashrafuzzaman Zahid
Breast cancer is the most increasing female cancer worldwide, including Bangladesh. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between dietary patterns and…
Abstract
Purpose
Breast cancer is the most increasing female cancer worldwide, including Bangladesh. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between dietary patterns and knowledge perception of breast cancer risk patients in Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey about 27 frequently consumed food items was conducted among 140 patients in Amader Gram Cancer Care & Research Center. A logistic regression was applied to estimate breast cancer risk. Dietary patterns were analyzed by the principal component analysis: the fat-rich foods (meat, oil, etc.), fruits, vegetables, sugar, tea, coffee, eggs and fish patterns.
Findings
The marginal effect of the logit model estimated an increased risk of breast cancer for a“Fatty Diet”, characterized by a higher consumption of milk (1.2 per cent, p < 0.01), vegetable oils and fats, butter (3.7 per cent, p < 0.05) and red meat (4.9 per cent, p < 0.05), but a decreased risk of breast cancer for a “Fruity and Vegetable Diet”, characterized by a higher consumption of fish (1.3 per cent, p < 0.01), chicken and eggs (5.1 per cent, p < 0.05), fruits (0.05 per cent, p < 0.01) and vegetables (2.9 per cent, p < 0.05). The findings of this study also suggested that weight (0.07 per cent, p < 0.01) and age (19 per cent, p < 0.05) were associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, but exercise (13 per cent, p < 0.05) reduced breast cancer risk. The findings also showed that maximum patients had inadequate knowledge on dietary and clinical factors of breast cancer risk, in addition to poor cancer screening practice. Poor knowledge and practice of breast screening were likely to lead to late stage presentation of breast cancer.
Originality/value
The authors found an association between the prudent dietary patterns and breast cancer risk and poor knowledge on nutrition and breast cancer.
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