Toward A Model of International Compensation and Rewards: Learning From how Managers Respond to Variations in Local Host Contexts

Managers and researchers recognize that the tensions created by the interplay of globalization and national environments influence the behaviors of multinational enterprises (MNEs). In order to develop a model that is useful for understanding the effects of the global and local host environments on managerial compensation, we undertook a grounded theory building study of managers in several multinationals. We use the information gained to extend two contemporary perspectives of IHRM: national culture, and strategic alignment. We develop the idea that it is the relative degree of variation (flexibility) within the local host context that is critical to understanding managers\u27 ICRS decisions. We present a different, pragmatic experimentation view of managers\u27 ICRS decision making, which we believe offers insights into the effects of the interplay of the MNE pressures to create integrated global systems and the pressures generated within the local host environments

Dynamics of a spherical minority game

We present an exact dynamical solution of a spherical version of the batch minority game (MG) with random external information. The control parameters in this model are the ratio of the number of possible values for the public information over the number of agents, and the radius of the spherical constraint on the microscopic degrees of freedom. We find a phase diagram with three phases: two without anomalous response (an oscillating versus a frozen state), and a further frozen phase with divergent integrated response. In contrast to standard MG versions, we can also calculate the volatility exactly. Our study reveals similarities between the spherical and the conventional MG, but also intriguing differences. Numerical simulations confirm our analytical results.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; submitted to J. Phys.

Simulating the Mammalian Blastocyst - Molecular and Mechanical Interactions Pattern the Embryo

Mammalian embryogenesis is a dynamic process involving gene expression and mechanical forces between proliferating cells. The exact nature of these interactions, which determine the lineage patterning of the trophectoderm and endoderm tissues occurring in a highly regulated manner at precise periods during the embryonic development, is an area of debate. We have developed a computational modeling framework for studying this process, by which the combined effects of mechanical and genetic interactions are analyzed within the context of proliferating cells. At a purely mechanical level, we demonstrate that the perpendicular alignment of the animal-vegetal (a-v) and embryonic-abembryonic (eb-ab) axes is a result of minimizing the total elastic conformational energy of the entire collection of cells, which are constrained by the zona pellucida. The coupling of gene expression with the mechanics of cell movement is important for formation of both the trophectoderm and the endoderm. In studying the formation of the trophectoderm, we contrast and compare quantitatively two hypotheses: (1) The position determines gene expression, and (2) the gene expression determines the position. Our model, which couples gene expression with mechanics, suggests that differential adhesion between different cell types is a critical determinant in the robust endoderm formation. In addition to differential adhesion, two different testable hypotheses emerge when considering endoderm formation: (1) A directional force acts on certain cells and moves them into forming the endoderm layer, which separates the blastocoel and the cells of the inner cell mass (ICM). In this case the blastocoel simply acts as a static boundary. (2) The blastocoel dynamically applies pressure upon the cells in contact with it, such that cell segregation in the presence of differential adhesion leads to the endoderm formation. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to combine cell-based spatial mechanical simulations with genetic networks to explain mammalian embryogenesis. Such a framework provides the means to test hypotheses in a controlled in silico environment