Motivating Russian Workers: Analysis of Age and Gender Differences

What motivates Russians to work? This paper utilizes survey data collected in May/June 2000 from 1200 employees in three regions of Russia to analyze the gender and generational differences in factors influencing motivation to work. Five main results emerge. First, Russians are not significantly different from their counterparts in the United States in terms of what is important to them at their place of work. Organizational commitment, however, emerges as only weakly positive among Russian workers; among managers the signal is much stronger. Second, there is little confusion on the part of managers regarding what is important to their workers. Managers' only mistake was to think workers valued their praise. Third, Russian workers have very low expectations of receiving any reward which they desire. This result, similar to results generated by American workers in the mid-1980s, is especially strong among the women and the older generation of workers participating in this survey. Fourth, gender differences involve the relative importance of particular motivators rather than differences in the ranking of motivators from most important to least important. That is, the Russian women participating in this project tended to express stronger feelings toward each of the motivators than the men, but the women did not rank order the motivators any differently than the men. Fifth, in many instances, generational differences disappeared when work experience was held constant. Age was only significant when expectation of receiving a particular reward was involved.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39850/3/wp466.pd

Barriers to Investment by Russian Firms: Property Protection or Credit Constraints?

A multitude of explanations for low investment by Russian firms have been offered: high inflation, high interest rates, falling production, falling GDP, an underdeveloped banking system, a confiscatory tax regime, calls for the re-nationalization of industry, excessive regulations, and an underdeveloped legal system, among others. This paper's basic premise is that investment in Russia will not occur if firms are unable to ensure the security of their property and property rights; that is, if the risk of destruction or expropriation is high. Nor will investment occur if access to investment funds is limited. Data collected from 264 Russian firms in the spring and fall 2001 are used to construct a security index and credit index in order to evaluate the relative importance of property protection and access to financing on the investment activities of manufacturing, retail, and other service sector firms in Moscow, Rostov, Taganrog, and Vladivostok. For the firms participating in this survey, the reported percentage of profit reinvested is significantly higher among firms which responded positively to questions about the effectiveness of police and courts in protecting their property and property rights, and significantly lower among firms which made above-average payments (official and unofficial) for property protection. Unofficial payments alone lower investment by 20%. Firms with access to credit reported reinvesting a significantly greater share of their profits. All other things equal, firms in Moscow, and firms in food processing and food distribution reinvested a significantly greater share of their profits. Manufacturing firms reported reinvesting a significantly smaller share of their profits in comparison to retail shops or other service sector companies. These results do not vary with the amount of collateral a firm has; that is, whether the firm owns or leases its premises.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39853/3/wp469.pd

Motivating Russian Workers: Analysis of Age and Gender Differences

What motivates Russians to work? This paper utilizes survey data collected in May/June 2000 from 1200 employees in three regions of Russia to analyze the gender and generational differences in factors influencing motivation to work. Five main results emerge. First, Russians are not significantly different from their counterparts in the United States in terms of what is important to them at their place of work. Organizational commitment, however, emerges as only weakly positive among Russian workers; among managers the signal is much stronger. Second, there is little confusion on the part of managers regarding what is important to their workers. Managers' only mistake was to think workers valued their praise. Third, Russian workers have very low expectations of receiving any reward which they desire. This result, similar to results generated by American workers in the mid-1980s, is especially strong among the women and the older generation of workers participating in this survey. Fourth, gender differences involve the relative importance of particular motivators rather than differences in the ranking of motivators from most important to least important. That is, the Russian women participating in this project tended to express stronger feelings toward each of the motivators than the men, but the women did not rank order the motivators any differently than the men. Fifth, in many instances, generational differences disappeared when work experience was held constant. Age was only significant when expectation of receiving a particular reward was involved.Russia, motivation, gender, transition

Job Satisfaction Among Russian Workers

Why do Russians work without wages? This paper investigates the extent to which job satisfaction and attitude toward work in general may account for the observed behavior of Russian workers. To analyze the level and determinants of job satisfaction among Russian workers, this paper utilizes survey data collected from 1,200 workers and managers employed in seventy-six organizations in Moscow, Saratov and Taganrog The paper is divided into five parts. Part 1 presents the three measures of job satisfaction used in this analysis. Response patterns, analyzed by occupational status, gender, and generation, are discussed. Part 2 first explores gender and generational differences in attitudes toward work in general, and then examines the relationship between attitude toward work and job satisfaction. The results indicate that both gender and generation are significant in response patterns regarding attitudes toward work. Generational differences also are significant in response patterns relating the results of working hard to performance, productivity, and doing the job well. Regression analysis documents the positive relationship between attitude toward work and the level of job satisfaction. Part 3 focuses on the relationship between job satisfaction and performance. Three noteworthy results emerge. First, regardless of the specification or measure, there is a strong positive correlation between job satisfaction and performance. The relationship is not affected by gender, age, or educational attainment level of the respondents. Second, it is not possible using these data to establish causality between job satisfaction and performance. It appears, instead, that unspecified factors may be affecting the two conditions simultaneously. Finally, the results generated from these data are not significantly different from results based on previous surveys of U.S. workers, as well as a survey completed in 1996 of Russian and Polish workers. Part 4 analyzes the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Among the workers participating in this survey there is, generally, only a moderate degree of organizational commitment. Commitment is highest among workers who feel they are making a contribution. The results document a positive relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment, although the causality is not well-defined. Concluding remarks are offered in Part 5.Russia, job satisfaction, performance, organizational commitment

Barriers to Investment by Russian Firms: Property Protection or Credit Constraints?

A multitude of explanations for low investment by Russian firms have been offered: high inflation, high interest rates, falling production, falling GDP, an underdeveloped banking system, a confiscatory tax regime, calls for the re-nationalization of industry, excessive regulations, and an underdeveloped legal system, among others. This paper's basic premise is that investment in Russia will not occur if firms are unable to ensure the security of their property and property rights; that is, if the risk of destruction or expropriation is high. Nor will investment occur if access to investment funds is limited. Data collected from 264 Russian firms in the spring and fall 2001 are used to construct a security index and credit index in order to evaluate the relative importance of property protection and access to financing on the investment activities of manufacturing, retail, and other service sector firms in Moscow, Rostov, Taganrog, and Vladivostok. For the firms participating in this survey, the reported percentage of profit reinvested is significantly higher among firms which responded positively to questions about the effectiveness of police and courts in protecting their property and property rights, and significantly lower among firms which made above-average payments (official and unofficial) for property protection. Unofficial payments alone lower investment by 20%. Firms with access to credit reported reinvesting a significantly greater share of their profits. All other things equal, firms in Moscow, and firms in food processing and food distribution reinvested a significantly greater share of their profits. Manufacturing firms reported reinvesting a significantly smaller share of their profits in comparison to retail shops or other service sector companies. These results do not vary with the amount of collateral a firm has; that is, whether the firm owns or leases its premises.Russia, investment, property protection, credit, transition cost

Gender Differences in Personality and Earnings: Evidence from Russia

Does personality affect earnings? If so, are there gender differences in personality that explain part of the gender wage gap? We use survey data collected from over 2,600 Russian employees between 2000 and 2003 to evaluate the impact on earnings of two personality traits: locus of control (Rotter 1966) and challenge-affiliation (Hill et al. 1985). We find that gender differences in personality traits are significant. Men are more likely to exhibit an internal locus of control and need for challenge, while women are more likely to exhibit an external locus of control and need for affiliation. Moreover, there are differences in the effect of personality on earnings by gender – women’s earnings are affected by personality, while men’s earnings are not. Among participating employees in our study, the “unexplained” portion of the gender wage gap falls by as much as 12% when personality traits are included.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40177/3/wp791.pd

How Do Workers Fare During Transition? Perceptions of Job Insecurity among Russian Workers, 1995-2004

Labor market conditions deteriorated substantially in the1990s during Russia’s transition from plan to market, generating pervasive and prolonged economic insecurity. Our objective is to document perceptions of job insecurity among Russian workers over the course of the transition period and evaluate whether these perceptions are consistent with actual economic outcomes. We use RLMS data to examine perceptions of job insecurity among Russian workers between 1995 and 1998, when economic conditions were relatively chaotic, and between 2000 and 2004, when economic conditions had stabilized. We employ two measures to assess worker perceptions of job insecurity: one reflects workers’ concerns about job loss, and the second evaluates their concern about ability to find employment in case of a lay-off. Our descriptive analysis focuses on workers who perceived their job situation as insecure during this period, categorizing workers based on their socio-demographic characteristics, job characteristics and region of residence. Using ordered probit analysis, we study conditional distributions of our measures of perceived job insecurity, and how those varied by worker characteristics, current economic conditions, and over time. Similar to studies conducted in developed market economies, we find that perceptions of job security are higher among workers with more education, among workers with status positions (supervisory responsibilities), and among workers who live in locales that are not adversely affected by economic conditions. Unlike these studies, however, we find that perceptions differ between men and women; age is negatively, rather than positively, correlated with confidence in keeping one’s current job; and longer job tenure does not improve perceptions of job security. We find that worker perceptions are largely consistent with actual labor market conditions. Specifically, perceptions of job security were very low in years of major economic change and uncertainty (1995-1998), but improved during the years of relative economic stability (2000-2004). In both periods, workers with relatively weak positions in the labor market tended to have lower perceptions of job insecurity.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57251/1/wp871 .pd

On continuum modeling of sputter erosion under normal incidence: interplay between nonlocality and nonlinearity

Under specific experimental circumstances, sputter erosion on semiconductor materials exhibits highly ordered hexagonal dot-like nanostructures. In a recent attempt to theoretically understand this pattern forming process, Facsko et al. [Phys. Rev. B 69, 153412 (2004)] suggested a nonlocal, damped Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation as a potential candidate for an adequate continuum model of this self-organizing process. In this study we theoretically investigate this proposal by (i) formally deriving such a nonlocal equation as minimal model from balance considerations, (ii) showing that it can be exactly mapped to a local, damped Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, and (iii) inspecting the consequences of the resulting non-stationary erosion dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 2 Postscript figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. B corrected typos, few minor change

Embodied stress: The physiological resonance of psychosocial stress

Psychosocial stress is a ubiquitous phenomenon in our society. While acute stress responses are necessary and adaptive, excessive activation of neurobiological stress systems can predispose an individual to far-reaching adverse health outcomes. Living in a complex social environment, experiencing stress is not limited to challenges humans face individually. Possibly linked with our capacity for empathy, we also display the tendency to physiologically resonate with others’ stress responses. This recently identified source of stress raises many interesting questions. In comparison to the wealth of studies that have advanced our understanding of sharing others’ affective states, the physiological resonance of stress has only recently begun to be more closely investigated. The aim of the current paper is to review the existing literature surrounding the emerging area of “stress contagion”, “empathic stress” or “stress resonance”, as it has been variably called. After a brief introduction of the concepts of stress and empathy, we discuss several key studies that paved the way for the merging of empathy with the concept of physiological resonance. We then delineate recent empirical studies specifically focusing on the physiological resonance of stress. In the final section of this review, we highlight differences between these studies and discuss the variability in terminology used for what seems to be the same phenomenon. Lastly, potential health implications of chronic empathic stress are presented and possible mechanisms of physiological stress transmission are discussed

Attitudes and Performance: An Analysis of Russian Workers

This paper investigates the relationship between locus of control and performance among Russian employees, using survey data collected at 28 workplaces in 2002 in Taganrog and at 47 workplaces in 2003 in Ekaterinburg. We develop a measure that allows us to categorize the Russian employees participating in our survey as exhibiting an internal or external locus of control. We then assess the extent to which there are significant differences between “internals” and “externals” in work-related attitudes that may affect performance. In particular, we focus on (1) attitudes about outcomes associated with hard work, (2) level of job satisfaction, (3) expectation of receiving a desired reward, and (4) loyalty to and involvement with one’s organization. In each case we identify where gender and generational differences emerge. Our main objective is to determine whether Russian employees who exhibit an internal locus of control perform better than employees with an external locus of control. Our performance measures include earnings, expected promotions, and assessments of the quantity and quality of work in comparison to others at the same organization doing a similar job. Controlling for a variety of worker characteristics, we find that (1) individuals who exhibit an internal locus of control perform better, but this result is not always statistically significant; (2) even among “internals,” women earn significantly less than men and have a much lower expectation of promotion; (3) even among “internals,” experience with unemployment has a negative influence on performance.locus of control, Russia, motivation, performance, gender