The Effects of Research and Development Intensity on Managerial Compensation in Large Organizations

Agency theory, leading edge, and administrative life cycle perspectives all predict that organizations having high levels of Research and Development (R&D) intensity will follow different compensation strategies than organizations that are less R&D intensive. Using data from 110 organizations over a 5 year period, and controlling for organization differences in employee and job characteristics, we found support for this general prediction. Specifically, high R&D intensity organizations tended to have higher relative base pay, higher relative bonus pay, and greater relative eligibility for long-term incentive payments. We discuss the importance of further research into compensation decisions in R&D intensive firms, particularly the effects of such decisions on firms\u27 competitiveness

Voluntary Turnover and Job Performance: Curvilinearity and the Moderating Influences of Salary Growth, Promotions, and Labor Demand

In this study we investigated the relation between job performance and voluntary employee turnover for 5,143 exempt employees in a single firm in the petroleum industry. As hypothesized, we found support for Jackofsky\u27s (1984) curvilinear hypothesis as turnover was higher for low and high performers than it was for average performers. Three potential moderators of this curvilinearity were examined in an attempt to explain conflicting results in the performance turnover literature and contradictory predictions from turnover models. As predicted, pay growth, promotions, and labor demand each differentially influenced the turnover patterns of low, average, and high performers. Most notably, paying high performers according to their performance predicted substantial decrements in turnover. A utility analysis indicated that the benefits of paying high performers according to their performance more than offset the costs and that such an approach was a superior strategy when compared to a more egalitarian pay growth policy

Voluntary Turnover and Job Performance: Curvilinearity and the Moderating Influences of Salary Growth and Promotions

[Excerpt] The relationship between job performance and voluntary employee turnover was investigated for 5,143 exempt employees in a single firm. As hypothesized, support was found for E. F Jackofsky\u27s (1984) curvilinear hypothesis, as turnover was higher for low and high performers than it was for average performers. Two potential moderators of the curvilinearity were examined in an attempt to explain conflicting results in the performance-turnover literature. As predicted, low salary growth and high promotions each produced a more pronounced curvilinear performance-turnover relationship. Most notably, salary growth effects on turnover were greatest for high performers, with high salary growth predicting rather low turnover for these employees, whereas low salary growth predicted extremely high turnover. Additionally, once salary growth was controlled, promotions positively predicted turnover; with poor performer turnover most strongly affected

The Case for Sites and Services Schemes

This work on urban research strategies in Egypt is the product of several factors. First of all is the challenge, excitement, diversity and stimulation of living in Egyptian cities, Cairo above all. Not only are Egyptian cities rooted in deep antiquity, but they have the richly stratified layers of a host of great civilizations. Modern urban Egypt is immeasurably complex in its own right, but its quite astounding past only adds to its wonderment. Thus, the chief inspiration for this publication is the wealthy cultural and historical context in which these scholars were assembled and where they sought to interpret a range of adjustments and reacdons to modern urban life. The second factor is found in the intellectual fecundity and the traditions of the Social Research Center (SRC) at the American University in Cairo which has, for three decades, been at the epicenter of social investigation and evaluation in Egyptian society. Its contribution is truly without adequate definition in terms of published works, academic interaction, research and development. The SRC represents the intellectual birthplace of a host of Egyptian, American and other foreign scholars who have come to study Egypt. The creation of the Urban Development Unit in 1982 as a section of the SRC has underscored the pioneering on another area of specialized research in Egypt. The workshop held on 6-7 June 1982 on Strategies for Urban Research in the 1980s\u27 was sponsored by this new unit of the SRC. The third factor which made the workshop possible was represented in the unpaid, voluntary contributions of time and effort of the assembled participants and contributors and especially of the Workshop Preparatory Committee, composed mainly but not exclusively of the following: Mark Kennedy, Ibrahim Omar, Madiha Al-Safty, Marina Ottaway, Barbara Ibrahim, Nick Hopkins, Saneya Saleh, Assad Nadim, Soha Abdel Kader, Tim Sullivan and myself. Finally, the pleasant atmosphere, ample luncheons and refreshments, secretarial support and other details. of the workshop\u27s inf ras true ture were sustained through the generosity of the Cairo office of the Ford Foundation and its Director, John Gerhart. Here, appreciation for all of the above is very gratefully recorded. Some of the participants were invited only to enjoy the academic interaction and to enrich the base of discussion with comments from their own pertinent experiences. Others were invited to prepare papers for the workshop. As far as possible, the papers were reproduced and circulated before and during the workshop to make a qualitative contribution to the depth and intensity of the discussion which followed each group of papers. For various reasons, all of the papers originally presented are not published here but certain among them were selected and edited for this special publication. Also, while the discussions followed each unit of grouped papers, the versions presented here are really a distillation of this stimulating dialogue. Special mention needs to be made to the Editorial Board of CAIRO PAPERS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE at the American University in Cairo which has been willing to publish these papers as Volume 6, Number 2 of this journal. Since the decision was made, I have been asked to join the Editorial Board and have benefitted from the collegial criticisms and general support of the Board. In this context, particular note is due for the contribution of Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil. His workshop paper was actually a condensed version of a larger work on the same topic which Md already been submitted to CAIRO PAPERS for publication. Since the study of the urban informal sector was so strongly featured in the workshop discussions, the Editorial Board concluded and Dr. Abdel-Fadil agreed that hie paper would be best published in its entirety in this publication. I believe that we all benefit from his flexibility and understanding. The other papers represent on-going research and/or were specially prepared for the workshop. Finally, acknowledgement of the critical secretarial support for this publication is very gratefully offered to Hekmat. Wasef, Yvonne Shunbo, Mona Tawfik, Brenda Carpenter and Joan Bickelhaupt who helped with some of the transcriptions of the taped discussion.https://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1858/thumbnail.jp

Cognitive Stopping Rules in a New Online Reality

This research is a conceptual replication of a study by Browne, Pitts, and Wetherbe (2007) that explores information stopping rules in an online search context. Information stopping rules consider the cognitive reasons decision makers determine when enough information is collected to make a decision. Previous research outlines five stopping rules decision makers use and applies them in different decision context. The original research considers three information search tasks (search for a television, map, and job) and hypothesizes the relationship between structure of the task and the stopping rule employed. This research replicates that study in a new information environment with new search methodologies and technology. We find that structured tasks use similar stopping rules to the original study; however further analysis shows distinct differences in the nature of the two tasks presented. Poorly structured tasks potentially involve the use of different stopping rules than previously determined. The updated findings suggest information systems used for poorly structured search tasks might also benefit from highlighting the uniqueness of information in order to encourage a user to continue searching for information

Is It Worth It To Win The Talent War? Evaluating the Utility of Performance-Based Pay

While the business press suggests that “winning the talent war,” the attraction and retention of key talent, is increasingly pivotal to organization success, executives often report that their organizations do not fare well on this dimension. We demonstrate how, through integrating turnover and compensation research, the Boudreau and Berger (1985) staffing utility framework can be used by industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists and other human resource (HR) professionals to address this issue. Employing a step-by-step process that combines organization-specific information about pay and performance with research on the pay-turnover linkage, we estimate the effects of incentive pay on employee separation patterns at various performance levels. We then use the utility framework to evaluate the financial consequences of incentive pay as an employee retention vehicle. The demonstration illustrates the limitations of standard accounting and behavioral cost-based approaches and the importance of considering both the costs and benefits associated with pay-for-performance plans. Our results suggest that traditional accounting or behavioral cost-based approaches, used alone, would have supported rejecting a potentially lucrative pay-for-performance investment. Additionally, our approach should enable HR professionals to use research findings and their own data to estimate the retention patterns and subsequent financial consequences of their existing, and potential, company-specific performance-based pay policies

Measurement Error in Research on Human Resources and Firm Performance: Additional Data and Suggestions for Future Research

Gerhart and colleagues and Huselid and Becker recently debated the presence and implications of measurement error in measures of human resource practices. This paper presents data from three more studies, one of large organizations from different industries at the corporate level, one from commercial banks, and the other of autonomous business units at the level of the job. Results of all three studies provide additional evidence that single respondent measures of HR practices contain large amounts of measurement error. Implications for future research are discussed

Myo/Nog cells are nonprofessional phagocytes

Myo/Nog cells were discovered in the chick embryo epiblast. Their expression of MyoD reflects a commitment to the skeletal muscle lineage and capacity to differentiate into myofibroblasts. Release of Noggin by Myo/Nog cells is essential for normal morphogenesis. Myo/Nog cells rapidly respond to wounding in the skin and eyes. In this report, we present evidence suggesting that Myo/Nog cells phagocytose tattoo ink in tissue sections of human skin and engulf cell corpses in cultures of anterior human lens tissue and magnetic beads injected into the anterior chamber of mice in vivo. Myo/Nog cells are distinct from macrophages in the skin and eyes indicated by the absence of labeling with an antibody to ionized calcium binding adaptor molecule 1. In addition to their primary roles as regulators of BMP signaling and progenitors of myofibroblasts, Myo/Nog cells behave as nonprofessional phagocytes defined as cells whose primary functions are unrelated to phagocytosis but are capable of engulfment

The Fox/Forkhead transcription factor family of the hemichordate Saccoglossus kowalevskii

Background: The Fox gene family is a large family of transcription factors that arose early in organismal evolution dating back to at least the common ancestor of metazoans and fungi. They are key components of many gene regulatory networks essential for embryonic development. Although much is known about the role of Fox genes during vertebrate development, comprehensive comparative studies outside vertebrates are sparse. We have characterized the Fox transcription factor gene family from the genome of the enteropneust hemichordate Saccoglossus kowalevskii, including phylogenetic analysis, genomic organization, and expression analysis during early development. Hemichordates are a sister group to echinoderms, closely related to chordates and are a key group for tracing the evolution of gene regulatory mechanisms likely to have been important in the diversification of the deuterostome phyla. Results: Of the 22 Fox gene families that were likely present in the last common ancestor of all deuterostomes, S. kowalevskii has a single ortholog of each group except FoxH, which we were unable to detect, and FoxQ2, which has three paralogs. A phylogenetic analysis of the FoxQ2 family identified an ancestral duplication in the FoxQ2 lineage at the base of the bilaterians. The expression analyses of all 23 Fox genes of S. kowalevskii provide insights into the evolution of components of the regulatory networks for the development of pharyngeal gill slits (foxC, foxL1, and foxI), mesoderm patterning (foxD, foxF, foxG), hindgut development (foxD, foxI), cilia formation (foxJ1), and patterning of the embryonic apical territory (foxQ2). Conclusions: Comparisons of our results with data from echinoderms, chordates, and other bilaterians help to develop hypotheses about the developmental roles of Fox genes that likely characterized ancestral deuterostomes and bilaterians, and more recent clade-specific innovations

Co-option of an anteroposterior head axis patterning system for proximodistal patterning of appendages in early bilaterian evolution

AbstractThe enormous diversity of extant animal forms is a testament to the power of evolution, and much of this diversity has been achieved through the emergence of novel morphological traits. The origin of novel morphological traits is an extremely important issue in biology, and a frequent source of this novelty is co-option of pre-existing genetic systems for new purposes (Carroll et al., 2008). Appendages, such as limbs, fins and antennae, are structures common to many animal body plans which must have arisen at least once, and probably multiple times, in lineages which lacked appendages. We provide evidence that appendage proximodistal patterning genes are expressed in similar registers in the anterior embryonic neurectoderm of Drosophila melanogaster and Saccoglossus kowalevskii (a hemichordate). These results, in concert with existing expression data from a variety of other animals suggest that a pre-existing genetic system for anteroposterior head patterning was co-opted for patterning of the proximodistal axis of appendages of bilaterian animals