Research Report On Phase 3 of the Cornell University/Gevity Institute Study – Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices and Firm Performance In Small Businesses

[Excerpt] Improving company performance is something of interest to all small business leaders. Small business leaders have many tools at their disposal — from finance to marketing to customer service — that could potentially improve the performance of their company. Among these tools is the way that small business leaders manage their people. As has been mentioned in previous reports, research has shown that people management does indeed impact company performance, even at the financial level. Studies show increases in value per employee of up to $40,000 and survival rates for IPO firms as much as 20% higher for companies that effectively manage their human resources. The Cornell University/Gevity Institute study of human resource management practices in small businesses is attempting to answer two important questions faced by small business leaders: 1. Do people contribute to the success of small businesses? 2. What human resource management strategies and practices can small business leaders employ to foster firm success? In phase two of the study, we found that employee management practices help small employers improve workforce alignment, which was defined as having the right people with the right skills in the right jobs. Firms with high levels of workforce alignment experience higher performance than firms with lower levels of workforce alignment. Building on these findings, the third phase of the study addresses the positive employee outcomes that can result from effective people management and seeks to understand which employee outcomes or behaviors tend to lead to different types of performance outcomes important to small business leaders. The results for this study were taken from a sample of 111 small companies where responses were received from both the top manager as well as the employees. Companies ranged in size from 10 to 165 employees with an average size of approximately 30 employees representing a broad range of industries. The results of the study will be presented as follows: First, we briefly discuss what is known about how human resource management impacts performance through employees. Second, we discuss the performance outcomes, and employee outcomes and behaviors that were studied as well as the specific employee behaviors and outcomes that seem to drive the different kinds of performance. Finally, we present some key takeaways from the results of this study

Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices and Firm Performance in Small Businesses

[Abstract] Improving company performance is something of interest to all small business leaders. Small business leaders have many tools at their disposal — from finance to marketing to customer service — that could potentially improve the performance of their company. Among these tools is the way that small business leaders manage their people. As has been mentioned in previous reports, research has shown that people management does indeed impact company performance, even at the financial level. Studies show increases in value per employee of up to $40,000 and survival rates for IPO firms as much as 20% higher for companies that effectively manage their human resources. The Cornell University/Gevity Institute study of human resource management practices in small businesses is attempting to answer two important questions faced by small business leaders: 1. Do people contribute to the success of small businesses? 2. What human resource management strategies and practices can small business leaders employ to foster firm success? In phase two of the study, we found that employee management practices help small employers improve workforce alignment, which was defined as having the right people with the right skills in the right jobs. Firms with high levels of workforce alignment experience higher performance than firms with lower levels of workforce alignment. Building on these findings, the third phase of the study addresses the positive employee outcomes that can result from effective people management and seeks to understand which employee outcomes or behaviors tend to lead to different types of performance outcomes important to small business leaders. The results for this study were taken from a sample of 111 small companies where responses were received from both the top manager as well as the employees. Companies ranged in size from 10 to 165 employees with an average size of approximately 30 employees representing a broad range of industries. The results of the study will be presented as follows: First, we briefly discuss what is known about how human resource management impacts performance through employees. Second, we discuss the performance outcomes, and employee outcomes and behaviors that were studied as well as the specific employee behaviors and outcomes that seem to drive the different kinds of performance. Finally, we present some key takeaways from the results of this study

Design of blended rolled edges for compact range main reflectors

A procedure to design blended rolled edge terminations for arbitrary rim shape compact range main reflectors is presented. The reflector may be center-fed or offset-fed. The design procedure leads to a reflector which has a continuous and smooth surface. This procedure also ensures small diffracted fields from the junction between the paraboloid and the blended rolled edge while satisfying certain constraints regarding the maximum height of the reflector and minimum operating frequency of the system. The prescribed procedure is used to design several reflectors and the performance of these reflectors is presented

Monitoring adaptation to enhance food security: a survey of approaches and best practice

As adaptation to climate change is a major theme for CCAFS, the programme needs a method for monitoring and evaluating interventions intended to foster adaptation and enhance adaptive capacity across food systems. This report explored current approaches to monitoring and evaluation of climate change adaptation projects and specifically how food security outcomes are being addressed. It emerged that monitoring and evaluation of adaptation projects is fairly new, and most documents outline frameworks rather than report on specific experiences. This was particularly true for food security per se, which was not an explicit focus of many of the adaptation projects that were assessed. This made it difficult to summarize best practice and to describe the most reliable indicators for assessing impacts of adaptation interventions on food security outcomes. Consequently, in line with recent discussions within CCAFS about the goals of using monitoring and evaluation to foster adaptive management and social learning the approach was shifted toward an outcome- oriented focus. This promotes active learning from monitoring and evaluation as the programme activities are implemented

Lead-zinc deposits of Cordillera Blanca and northern Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru

Base metal deposits in the central and southern Cordillera Blanca and the northern Cordillera Huayhuash comprise 6 mineral districts, 5 in the Departamento cle Ancash and 1 in the neighboring Departamento de Huanuco. Although many of the deposits were prospected and some mined on a small scale during the Spanish Colonial period, most activity has taken place in the last hundred years. Concentrates were produced in 194S and 1949 at the rate of about 1,000 tons annually, and the rate of production during ceveral previous years was evidently about the same. Silver-bearing galena concentrate is the chief product. Sphalerite either is not mined or is discarded because its value lias been too low to cover costs of production and transportation. The sedimentary rock units of the region are Jurassic (?) marine quartzites and phyllites, Lower Neocomian iluviatile and brackish-water sandstones, shales, and coals, Barremian marine and nonmarine limestones, marls, shales, and tuffs, and Middle Cretaceous marine limestones. During a period of orogeny beginning at the end of the Cretaceous the sedimentary sequence was compressed, commonly forming upright folds, but also some recumbent folds, many small bedding-plane faults, and some large reverse faults. At or near the end of deformation the sedimentary rocks were intruded by a batholith of granodiorite. The sedimentary rocks are slightly metamorphosed on a regional scale as a result of folding and locally are more highly metamorphosed in zones bordering igneous bodies. During subsequent uplift of the Andean block the sedimentary rocks were dislocated along normal faults and intruded by igneous stocks, dikes, and sills. Deposition of base metals is thought to have accompanied or immediately followed this stage of igneous activity. The most common sulflde minerals in the deposits are galena, sphalerite, and pyrite; chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite-teunantite, arsenopyrite, and stibuite may also be present. Silver occurs in galena, in the copper sulfides, or as free sulfides. The sulflde minerals are oxidized to shallow depths, and the upper parts of many veins have been secondarily enriched in silver. Common non-metallic gangue minerals in most deposits are quartz and carbonates; fluorite and barite are found in some deposits, and silicate minerals are found in contact deposits in calcareous rocks. Most deposits are fissure filling veins along small fault or shear zones, but a number are replacements of wall rock along small faults, certain sedimentary beds, or contact zones. The fissure filling veins occur in any type of country rock, sedimentary, metaseclimentary, or igneous. Most replacement deposits are in calcareous rocks, but a few are in other rock types. Mineralogy and textures of the deposits indicate that nearly all are within the range of inesotherrual-epithermal origin.Mineralized faults and shear zones are from several hundred meters to more than a kilometer long and have vertical extents of at most a few hundred meters; they are generally from 0.0 to 1 meter wide. Ore shoots containing argentiferous galena occupy only a fraction of such structures, have sporadic distribution, and in most deposits are small and lenticular, with galena ranging in tenor from 5 to SO percent. Replacement deposits have a wide range in size and are characterized by a low tenor of galena. At most mines ore is mined selectively, crushed, and concentrated by hand. For this reason fissure-filling veins containing ore shoots with high tenor of galena are preferred by miners. Small concentrators in the Quebrada Honda-Vesuvio and the Pachapaqui districts treat ore from only a few deposits. The size of ore bodies in most deposits precludes larger scale mining or mechanizations of operations, and it is concluded that only minor expansion of production is possible under existing conditions. The greatest deterrent to increased production is the high cost of transportation of concentrates by pack animals to roadheads. It is recommended that access roads be constructed to, or at least part way to, four of the mineral districts. With reduced transportation costs, miners could extract lower grade ore. Construction of small mills in other districts would also permit mining of lower grade ore. Replacement deposits of lead-zinc sulfides in the Pacllon-Llamac and Pachapaqui districts and copper sulfldes in the Antamina-Contonga district contain large reserves of possibly minable material. However, development of these deposits would require large investments in roads, concentrating plants, and mining machinery

Cache County Recycling and GreenwasteService Study: Phase I Report

This report summarizes the results of a survey project examining the attitudes and behaviors of Cache County residents regarding recycling and greenwaste disposal programs. The surveys were conducted by Utah State University on behalf of the City of Logan and the Cache County Service District No. 1 in the summer and fall of 2004. The purposes of the overall project were to gain a better understanding of the recycling behaviors of county residents, with particular focus on their views towards current recycling programs and feedback on the design of possible new county recycling efforts. In addition, we sought to evaluate the performance of two intensive recycling programs active in the area. These included the private “Sunrise Recycling” service (which is no longer in business) and the ongoing public curbside “Greenwaste” collection program

Innovation platforms to support natural resource management

Available in Chinese, English, Hindi, Thai and Vietnames

On the General Ericksen-Leslie System: Parodi's Relation, Well-posedness and Stability

In this paper we investigate the role of Parodi's relation in the well-posedness and stability of the general Ericksen-Leslie system modeling nematic liquid crystal flows. First, we give a formal physical derivation of the Ericksen-Leslie system through an appropriate energy variational approach under Parodi's relation, in which we can distinguish the conservative/dissipative parts of the induced elastic stress. Next, we prove global well-posedness and long-time behavior of the Ericksen-Leslie system under the assumption that the viscosity $\mu_4$ is sufficiently large. Finally, under Parodi's relation, we show the global well-posedness and Lyapunov stability for the Ericksen-Leslie system near local energy minimizers. The connection between Parodi's relation and linear stability of the Ericksen-Leslie system is also discussed