Employee Compensation: Research and Practice

[Excerpt] An organization has the potential to remain viable only so long as its members choose to participate and engage in necessary role behaviors (March & Simon, 1958; Katz & Kahn, 1966). To elicit these contributions, an organization must provide inducements that are of value to its members. This exchange or transaction process is at the core of the employment relationship and can be viewed as a type of contract, explicit or implicit, that imposes reciprocal obligations on the parties (Barnard, 1936; Simon, 1951; Williamson, 1975; Rousseau, 1990). At the heart of that exchange are decisions by employers and employees regarding compensation

Motivation - A selected bibliography

Bibliography of publications on motivatio

Innovator resilience potential: A process perspective of individual resilience as influenced by innovation project termination

Innovation projects fail at an astonishing rate. Yet, the negative effects of innovation project failures on the team members of these projects have been largely neglected in research streams that deal with innovation project failures. After such setbacks, it is vital to maintain or even strengthen project members’ innovative capabilities for subsequent innovation projects. For this, the concept of resilience, i.e. project members’ potential to positively adjust (or even grow) after a setback such as an innovation project failure, is fundamental. We develop the second-order construct of innovator resilience potential, which consists of six components – self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, optimism, hope, self-esteem, and risk propensity – that are important for project members’ potential of innovative functioning in innovation projects subsequent to a failure. We illustrate our theoretical findings by means of a qualitative study of a terminated large-scale innovation project, and derive implications for research and management

The innovation of cotton fiber from recycled cloth as coloring agent for polypropylene via injection moulding

Plastics can be coloured in many different ways. In the present application, the colouring agent that is used in the plastic industries are the dyes and pigments. Both methods are sustantially different and produce specific results. Dyes are defined as colourants that are (completely) soluble in a polymer at the processing temperature. Pigments are organic or inorganic solid particles that are insoluble in polymers..

The Subjective Well-Being Challenge in the Accounting Profession: The Role of Job Resources

The main activity of the accountant is the preparation and audit of the financial information of a company. The subjective well-being of the accountant is important to ensure a balanced professional judgment and to offer a positive image of the profession in the face of the incorporation and retention of talent. However, accountants are subjected to intense pressures that affect their well-being in the performance of their tasks. In this paper, the job demands–resources theoretical framework is adopted to analyze the relationships between job demands, job resources, and the subjective well-being of a large sample of 739 accounting experts at the European level. Applying a structural equations model, the results confirm, on the one hand, the direct effects provided in the theoretical framework and, on the other, a new mediating role of job demands–subjective well-being relationship resources

Social Interaction and R & D Project Performance

[Excerpt] The purpose of this working paper is to present some initial findings from research currently being conducted on the effect of informal structures of communication and interaction on the product development process. The general hypothesis of the study is that higher levels of communication are associated with more effective working relationships among the different functional groups working on product innovation. The first part of this paper will review previous work in the area. Part II develops the questions of the current study. Part III outlines the methods used to address the research questions. Part IV presents the results from an initial pilot study performed within one organization. The final section discusses these results in terms of their implications for the management of innovation

Do Decision Makers' Debt-risk Attitudes Affect the Agency Costs of Debt?

Over the past 25 years, traditional agricultural co-operatives have been challenged by competition from local investor-owned firms and multinational companies, deregulation and globalization of trade, and increased market concentration in suppliers and purchasers. At the same time, co-operatives have constantly been seeking to add value to their member services through expansion and/or adoption of new technology. The capital investment needed for these endeavours has to be financed, and for traditional co-operatives the major source of financing new investments has been long-term borrowing. As a result some co-operatives are characterized by high debt loads, which may result in increased financial risk exposure. Important factors that may influence the level of financial risk exposure are the potential conflicts between managerial self-interest and the interest of the owners of the firm (Jensen, 1986; Jensen and Meckling, 1976) and the impact of these differences on the choice of capital structure (Friend and Lang, 1988; Firth, 1995; Matthews et al., 1994). Despite the considerable literature (e.g., Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Lewis and Sappington, 1995), the impact that differences in attitudes between managers and directors/members have upon the decision making process has remained a relatively unexplained aspect of agency problems, especially in member-owned firms. This article assesses the social-psychological and demographic variables that affect co-operative decision makers’ attitudes toward long-term debt financing and their intentions to increase long-term borrowing.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy,

An asset-based approach of the Romanian research-development and innovation system

The present paper experiments a new model of analysis for the Research-Development and Innovation (RDI) field of research, namely the Asset-Based Development strategy or Appreciative Planning and Action, which unfolds at the community level the same core principle that Appreciative Inquiry Methods at the organizational level: strengths elevating, strengths combining, strengths extending systems. Following the four “D stages” (Discovery, Dream, Design and Destiny/ Deliver) pattern, the authors outlined many strengths and achievements of the Romanian RDI system in order to depict the positive trends, structures and mechanism, as well as to map out the main routes towards fulfilling a new vision. Building upon ideas, opinions, studies, interviews of different representatives of the research community (managers, scientists, professors, users etc) expressed in specialised literature, newspapers, journals, or in direct contact and dialogue with them, we intended this approach encompass the appreciative contributions of the main stakeholders: universities, public and private research institutes, the business sector, public policy-makers. In this complex and rather rigid RDI system, whose elements are heterogeneous institutions and communities, that interacting each other in a special environment such as a network structure, effective change is still to be brought by individuals who possess the necessary power to continue transform their mind and attitudes and thus to initiate, diffuse change and, influencing the RDI environment. This might be a viable way to improve, in a positive manner, the RDI system’s efficiency.Asset-Based Development; Appreciative Inquiry; Romanian RDI System; Appreciative evaluation; Appreciative intervention; Summative assessment

Investigation into employee psychosocial needs as a factor of managerial development

The following dissertation addresses psychosocial needs of employees as a form of motivational strategies in the workforce and how these strategies can form an integral part of the total functioning of an organisation. The initial procedures involved in developing an argument upon which to base the research question ('Can jobs become more satisfying if the manager applies psychological theories to managerial practise?') are in the form of investigation executed by way of an action research approach. The outcomes of the investigation have enabled the researcher to formulate a theory based on employee needs. The theory is tested by conducting a Literature Review addressing two principal themes: psychology and management. The outcomes of the Literature Review not only test the theory but offer implications of addressing employee needs in the total organisational concept. Finally, the researcher suggests possible future directions and further implications of addressing employee psychosocial needs in the workforce as a form of managerial development