Human Resource Flexibility as a Mediating Variable Between High Performance Work Systems and Performance

Much of the human resource management literature has demonstrated the impact of high performance work systems (HPWS) on organizational performance. A new generation of studies is emerging in this literature that recommends the inclusion of mediating variables between HPWS and organizational performance. The increasing rate of dynamism in competitive environments suggests that measures of employee adaptability should be included as a mechanism that may explain the relevance of HPWS to firm competitiveness. On a sample of 226 Spanish firms, the study’s results confirm that HPWS influences performance through its impact on the firm’s human resource (HR) flexibility

Use of trade-off theory to advance understanding of herbivore-parasite interactions

1. Trade-off theory has been extensively used to further our understanding of animal behaviour. In mammalian herbivores, it has been used to advance our understanding of their reproductive, parental care and foraging strategies. Here, we detail how trade-off theory can be applied to herbivore-parasite interactions, especially in foraging environments. 2. Foraging is a common mode of uptake of parasites that represent the most pervasive challenge to mammalian fitness and survival. Hosts are hypothesized to alter their foraging behaviour in the presence of parasites in three ways: (i) hosts avoid foraging in areas that are contaminated with parasites; (ii) hosts select diets that increase their resistance and resilience to parasites; and (iii) hosts select for foods with direct anti-parasitic properties (self-medication). We concentrate on the mammalian herbivore literature to detail the recent advances made using trade-off frameworks to understand the mechanisms behind host-parasite interactions in relation to these three hypotheses. 3. In natural systems, animals often face complex foraging decisions including nutrient intake vs. predation risk, nutrient intake vs. sheltering and nutrient intake vs. parasite risk trade-offs. A trade-off framework is detailed that can be used to interpret mammal behaviour in complex environments, and may be used to advance the self-medication hypothesis. 4. The use of trade-off theory has advanced our understanding of the contact process between grazing mammalian hosts and their parasites transmitted via the faecal-oral route. Experimental manipulation of the costs and benefits of a nutrient intake vs. parasite risk trade-off has shown that environmental conditions (forage quality and quantity) and the physiological state (parasitic and immune status) of a mammalian host can both affect the behavioural decisions of foraging animals. 5. Naturally occurring trade-offs and the potential to manipulate their costs and benefits enables us to identify the abilities and behavioural rules used by mammals when making decisions in complex environments and thus predict animal behaviour

Downsizing and deknowledging the firm

Organizations in many OECD economies have undergone a decade of downsizing, restructuring and transition. For example, workforce reductions were a dominant feature of firm behaviour in Australia throughout the 1990s. These wide-ranging organizational transitions are expected to continue. What do the new organizational forms and new job structures mean in relation to skill trends? This article examines the changing paradigms for understanding long-term skill change and assesses their relevance by empirically examining the relationship between downsizing, deskilling/upskilling and contingent labour use in larger firms. The analysis is based on a comprehensive, longitudinal data set of 4153 companies. A key finding is that downsizing was used as a vehicle for a different form of `deskilling' across the 1990s. Alongside the `knowledge organization', there are processes of deknowledging the firm

The USA Patriot Acts (et al.): convergent legislation and oligarchic isomorphism in the \u27politics of fear\u27 and state crime(s) against democracy (SCADs)

The irrelevance of habeas corpus and the abolition of “double jeopardy,” secret and protracted outsourcing of detention and torture, and increasing geographic prevalence of surveillance technologies across Anglo-American “democracies” have many citizens concerned about the rapidly convergent, authoritarian behavior of political oligarchs and the actual destruction of sovereignty and democratic values under the onslaught of antiterrorism hubris, propaganda, and fear. This article examines synchronic legislative isomorphism in responses to 9/11 in the United States, the United Kingdom and European Union, and Australia in terms of enacted terrorism legislation and, also, diachronic, oligarchic isomorphism in the manufacture of fear within a convergent world by comparing the “Politics of Fear” being practiced today to Stalinist—Russian and McCarthyist—U.S. abuse of “fear.” The immediate future of Anglo-American democratic hubris, threats to civil society, and oligarchic threats to democratic praxis are canvassed. This article also raises the question as to whether The USA PATRIOT Acts of 2001/2006, sanctioned by the U.S. Congress, are examples, themselves, of state crimes against democracy. In the very least, any democratically inclined White House occupant in 2009 would need to commit to repealing these repressive, and counterproductive, acts. Copyright @2009, SAGE Publication