THE EMOTIONAL TOLL OF ORGANIZATIONAL DOWNSIZING

In spite of the frequent need for downsizing organisations, managers are in general badly prepared to meet such contingencies when they arise. There is thus a real need for educating managers to handle layoffs. This paper analyses the emotional dynamics at work in cases of downsizing organisations, the types of impact on layoff ‘survivors’ and the coping strategies that management may promote and deploy in order to minimise organisational trauma. Emotions are key factors in social life upon which a coherent sense of community ultimately depends. The idea advanced here is that understanding and managing emotions may enhance survivor coping capacities and thus prevent the major negative effects of downsizing for both the organisation and the individual. The paper concludes with practical recommendations to ensure that emotional well-being is prioritised as central to the process of downsizing in order to maximize cooperation and sustain collective endeavour.Downsizing; layoffs; emotional management; coping strategies; stress

Attitudes towards unethical behaviours in organizational settings: an empirical study

Employee misconduct is prevalent in organizations and may be counterproductive in social and material terms. It is thus important to better understand how misconduct is construed by employees and the factors that determine its ethical acceptability in specific cases. This study explores attitudes towards unethical and minor deviant behaviours by examining the degree of acquiescence towards them in a sample of employees. Based on previous studies it was hypothesized that both organizational commitment and job satisfaction would be negatively related to the acceptance of such behaviours in organizational settings. Results show that there is a relationship between the degree of acquiescence and organizational commitment and a more modest relationship with job satisfaction. They further indicate that organizational tenure impacts very significantly on the degree of acceptance. Although differences were found for age, neither gender nor organizational variables were found to be significant

Tax lotteries: The crowding-out of tax morale and long-run welfare effects

This paper examines tax lottery policies as a method to reward consumers who request business receipts for goods and services they have paid for. We argue that the evaluation of the welfare effects of tax lotteries based solely on short-run tax revenue variations overlooks important long- term sources of inefficiency. Tax lotteries may crowd out the willingness of individuals with leading roles in shaping social norms to engage in voluntary third-party tax enforcement, and thus cause long-term welfare losses. We sought support for our argument analyzing the case of the Portuguese tax lottery and conducting an empirical study with a sample of Portuguese nationals. Findings show that tax morale is a key determinant of voluntary third-party tax enforcement, and that the level of education is positively associated with the crowding out of the intrinsic motivation to engage in voluntary third-party tax enforcement

The Role of CSR in Corporate Social Capital Creation

The paper explores the relationship between social capital, corporate social capital and corporate social responsibility and trust in business. The aim of the paper is to highlight the role of the CSR concept in the corporate social capital creation process. The authors started with the review of the social capital concept – its essence, development, and characteristics. Further, the analysis of the business adaptation of the social capital concept was conducted. Finally, the corporate social responsibility concept was presented and its role from the perspective of trust and wider, corporate social capital creation, was discussed. It is concluded that actual implementation of the CSR concept can raise the trust to the business organization and create its social capital

Timely and nonintrusive active document annotation via adaptive information extraction

The current work has been carried on in the framework of the AKT project (Advanced Knowledge Technologies, http://www.aktors.org), an Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) sponsored by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant GR/N15764/01). AKT involves the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Southampton and the Open University (www.aktors.org). AKT is a multimillion pound six year research project that started in 2000.The process of document annotation for the Semantic Web is complex and time consuming, as it requires a great deal of manual annotation. Information extraction from texts (IE) is a technology used by some of the most recent systems for actively supporting users in the process and reducing the burden of annotation. The integration of IE systems in annotation tools is quite a new development and in our opinion there is still the necessity of thinking the impact of the IE system in the process of annotation. In this paper we discuss two main requirements for active annotation: timeliness and tuning of intrusiveness. Then we present and discuss a model of interaction that addresses the two issues and Melita, an annotation framework that implements such methodology.peer-reviewe

Cumprimento das obrigações fiscais por motivações cívicas

O presente trabalho explora as motivações que levam os indivíduos a cumprir voluntariamente as suas obrigações fiscais e a colaborar com a autoridade tributária. Com base na literatura sobre voluntary tax compliance, averigua-se se os cidadãos o fazem por motivações cívicas, nomeadamente por sentimentos patrióticos, por satisfação com as instituições políticas, por moralidade fiscal, por perceções de justiça, por altruísmo ou por influência de normas sociais. Em concreto analisa-se o ato voluntário de pedir fatura com inserção do número de identificação fiscal do comprador, o qual contribui para que seja mais fácil o controlo da evasão fiscal por parte da autoridade tributária. A análise quantitativa e qualitativa da informação recolhida num inquérito por questionário aplicado a uma amostra de cidadãos portugueses com níveis de ensino médio-superior permitiu concluir que as medidas de política fiscal que promovem motivações cívicas aumentam o cumprimento voluntário das obrigações fiscais. Aspetos como a moralidade fiscal e as perceções de justiça influenciam o comportamento dos cidadãos. Conclui-se também que o controlo da corrupção e a boa governação, ao promoverem um espírito de dever cívico, levam os cidadãos a colaborar com a autoridade tributária.</jats:p

"Please give me an invoice": VAT evasion and the Portuguese tax lottery

Purpose The Portuguese tax authority implemented a lottery to encourage citizens to request invoices as a strategy to fight value-added tax (VAT) evasion. As the law does not require citizens to request sales invoices with the consumers' tax number, doing so is a form of voluntary cooperation in tracking down tax evaders. The purpose of this paper is to understand why ordinary citizens decide to join forces with tax authorities in the fight against VAT evasion by requesting invoices with their tax identification number. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study was conducted to explore the underlying motivation for Portuguese consumers to request sales invoices with their personal tax identification. The study combines quantitative and qualitative data. Findings The results from this study show that rewarding citizens is clearly a factor to be considered in any policy to maximize citizens' cooperation in tracking down tax evaders. They indicate that fiscal benefits have a stronger effect on the request of invoices than the lottery and that it is necessary to promote good governance and justice. Practical implications Findings should be used to inform a cost-effective public policy that takes into account citizens' concerns and combine deterrent measures and rewards in the form of tax benefits, rather than tax lotteries. Originality/value This paper provides new insights into VAT lotteries, which seem to be increasingly favored by policy makers but are an area under-researched. By recommending a course of action to maximize citizens' cooperation in tracking down tax evaders, the paper provides useful practical implications and is a contribution for the study of VAT evasion policies

User-system cooperation in document annotation based on information extraction

The process of document annotation for the Semantic Web is complex and time consuming, as it requires a great deal of manual annotation. Information extraction from texts (IE) is a technology used by some very recent systems for reducing the burden of annotation. The integration of IE systems in annotation tools is quite a new development and there is still the necessity of thinking the impact of the IE system on the whole annotation process. In this paper we initially discuss a number of requirements for the use of IE as support for annotation. Then we present and discuss a model of interaction that addresses such issues and Melita, an annotation framework that implements a methodology for active annotation for the Semantic Web based on IE. Finally we present an experiment that quantifies the gain in using IE as support to human annotators.peer-reviewe