The Relationship Between HR Practices and Firm Performance: Examining Causal Order

Significant research attention has been devoted to examining the relationship between HR practices and firm performance, and the research support has assumed HR as the causal variable. Using data from 45 business units (with 62 data points), this study examines how measures of HR practices correlate with past, concurrent, and future operational performance measures. The results indicate that correlations with performance measures at all three times are both high and invariant, and that controlling for past or concurrent performance virtually eliminates the correlation of HR with future performance. Implications are discussed

Well-being as a Function of Person-Country Fit in Human Values

It is often assumed that incongruence between individuals’ values and those of their country is distressing, but the evidence has been mixed. Across 29 countries, the present research investigated whether well-being is higher if people’s values match with those of people living in the same country or region. Using representative samples, we find that person-country and person-region value congruence predict six well-being measures (e.g., emotional well-being, relationship support; N = 54,673). Crucially, however, value type moderates whether person-country fit is positively or negatively associated with well-being. People who value self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism more and live in countries and regions where people on average share these values report lower well-being. In contrast, people who value achievement, power, and security more and live in countries and regions where people on average share these values, report higher well-being. Additionally, we find that people who moderately value stimulation report the highest well-being

Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors Protect Oligodendrocytes from Acute Ischemia in the Mouse Optic Nerve.

Studies by Bruce Ransom and colleagues have made a major contribution to show that white matter is susceptible to ischemia/hypoxia. White matter contains axons and the glia that support them, notably myelinating oligodendrocytes, which are highly vulnerable to ischemic-hypoxic damage. Previous studies have shown that metabotropic GluRs (mGluRs) are cytoprotective for oligodendrocyte precursor cells and immature oligodendrocytes, but their potential role in adult white matter was unresolved. Here, we report that group 1 mGluR1/5 and group 2 mGluR3 subunits are expressed in optic nerves from mice aged postnatal day (P)8-12 and P30-35. We demonstrate that activation of group 1 mGluR protects oligodendrocytes against oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) in developing and young adult optic nerves. In contrast, group 2 mGluR are shown to be protective for oligodendrocytes against OGD in postnatal but not young adult optic nerves. The cytoprotective effect of group 1 mGluR requires activation of PKC, whilst group 2 mGluR are dependent on negatively regulating adenylyl cyclase and cAMP. Our results identify a role for mGluR in limiting injury of oligodendrocytes in developing and young adult white matter, which may be useful for protecting oligodendrocytes in neuropathologies involving excitoxicity and ischemia/hypoxia