Are “outsiders” in? Exploring the impact of outsourced workers’ perceived insider status and job value status on job performance

IntroductionOutsourcing, one of the nonstandard employment forms, has been increasingly popular with a wide variety of industries and employers. However, much less is known about its consequences at the employee level, especially relative to standard-employed colleagues. Drawing on social categorization theory and the human resource architecture model, the study was to investigate how outsourced (vs. standard) employment form impacts employees’ perceived insider status and then job performance, as well as the moderating role of job value status.MethodsTo examine these effects, we collected two-wave and multi-source questionnaires from a sample of 147 outsourced employees, 279 standard employees, and their immediate supervisors. And interviews with 31 employees, their supervisors, and human resources personnel provided further support for our findings.ResultsThe results showed that relative to standard employees, outsourced employees were lower in perceived insider status and indirectly worse in job performance. Furthermore, both the comparative effects were stronger among core-status than peripheral-status employees.DiscussionOur study contributes to outsourcing and widely nonstandard employment literature, bringing the research focus from employers to outsourced employees’ psychological and behavioral consequences. Also, we extended literature on the human resource architecture, through a deeper investigation on the issue of employment form-job value status (mis)matching as well as its impacts on employees

Golden single-atomic-site platinum electrocatalysts

Bimetallic nanoparticles with tailored structures constitute a desirable model system for catalysts, as crucial factors such as geometric and electronic effects can be readily controlled by tailoring the structure and alloy bonding of the catalytic site. Here we report a facile colloidal method to prepare a series of platinum–gold (PtAu) nanoparticles with tailored surface structures and particle diameters on the order of 7 nm. Samples with low Pt content, particularly Pt 4 Au 96 , exhibited unprecedented electrocatalytic activity for the oxidation of formic acid. A high forward current density of 3.77 A mg Pt −1 was observed for Pt 4 Au 96 , a value two orders of magnitude greater than those observed for core–shell structured Pt 78 Au 22 and a commercial Pt nanocatalyst. Extensive structural characterization and theoretical density functional theory simulations of the best-performing catalysts revealed densely packed single-atom Pt surface sites surrounded by Au atoms, which suggests that their superior catalytic activity and selectivity could be attributed to the unique structural and alloy-bonding properties of these single-atomic-site catalysts

Misfits in Organization Design: Information Processing as a Compensatory Mechanism

<p>We propose a compensatory misfits theory which holds that an “over-fitting” organization structure can compensate for an “under-fitting” structure, thereby reducing the total misfit. In organizations, over-fit occurs when structural features misfit the core contingencies because the structural level is too high to fit the contingencies. An under-fit occurs when structural features misfit the contingencies because the structural level is too low. When an under-fit is compensated by an over-fit, the combination can produce performance outcomes that approximate those from fit. The reason inheres in information processing being a higher level factor that cuts across different contingencies and structural features that are mis-fitted to each other, so that compensation is possible. We identify the specific conditions that must be fulfilled for compensation to occur, and we discuss implications for organization design theory and practice.</p

Some new theoretical developments in structural contingency theory

This thesis is concerned with the structural contingency theory of organizations. As the theory itself has changed over time since its original form, this thesis identifies some important developments and then proposes its own new initiatives. The objective is to strengthen and extend the structural contingency theory of organizations, so as to increase its coherence, explanatory power and practical implications for organizational design.The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the structural contingency theory and the main research topics of this thesis. The second chapter defends the contingency imperative tradition of structural contingency theory in the context of structure fitting to multiple contingencies, by making the original argument that equifinality is rare and can be avoided by structural separation. The third chapter continues to defend contingency imperative by demonstrating that structural consistency theory is not a replacement for structural contingency theory. This chapter also offers an original analysis of the relationship between structural contingency fit and structural consistency and the implications of this relationship for organizational design.The fourth chapter develops a multivariate asymmetry theory of structural contingency misfits, by extending asymmetry theory from one-misfit to multiple-misfit contexts. It establishes the uniqueness of multivariate asymmetry theory from bivariate asymmetry theory, by revealing the supplementary effect of the overfit of a structural variable on the underfit of another structural variable in an original analysis.The fifth chapter provides a formal modeling of recently developed hetero-performance theory, in both contexts of one-contingency and multiple-contingency. Particularly, it makes the original argument that for the hetero-performance theory to be coherent, the positive hetero-performance effect of the internal contingency needs to be weaker than the negative effect on performance of misfit.The sixth, closing chapter discusses interactions between the new concepts of the four main thesis chapters, the managerial implications of these chapters, and future research directions.In sum, this thesis defends and develops structural contingency theory

Clarifying the effect of organization learning on service innovation: the mediating role of intellectual capital

The study of intellectual capital has gained interest in today’s highly competitive landscape. Using intellectual capital as a mediator, this paper developed an integrated model to examine whether organization learning affects and increases the capacity for new service development (NSD). The results from the study of 598 hotel managers support this model across multi-dimensions of intellectual capital and show that intellectual capital plays a mediating role between organizational learning and NSD. This paper also finds exploitative organization learning enhances the positive effect of organization capital because it fosters a positive link between relational capital and human capital. The study also discusses how this intriguing pattern of mediation could be explained by using theory and research with a regulatory focus

The human resource architecture model: a twenty-year review and future research directions

The human resource (HR) architecture model has been influential in the field of strategic human resource management since its inception. This study offers a comprehensive review on this model’s contributions to management literature by analyzing 205 journal articles which have substantively cited the three classic articles on HR architecture. Specifically, we develop a framework along two dimensions (that is, the content and the use of the HR architecture model) based on which we systematically discuss the current findings in terms of the theoretical application, empirical validation, and extension and critiques of the HR architecture model. Based on the review, we identify the research gaps in the literature of HR architecture, propose important future research directions and discuss their implications

Downscaling Sentinel-3 Chlorophyll-a Concentration for Inland Lakes Based on Multivariate Analysis and Gradient Boosting Decision Trees Regression

Downscaling Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration derived from satellite image is crucial for refined applications such as water quality monitoring. However, the precision of downscaling is usually constrained by various environmental factors. In this paper, we develop a downscaling method for Chl-a concentration to improve precision, especially for inland lakes with different surrounding environment. The method downscales the Sentinel-3 Chl-a concentration from 300 m to 30 m, based on the multivariate analysis (MVA) and the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) model. Firstly, we analyzed 21 Chl-a concentration related indices to identify optimal factors for Chl-a concentration variability. Secondly, a GBDT model is constructed to convey the non-linear relationship between the optimal factors and Chl-a concentration at coarse resolution. Finally, fine-resolution Chl-a concentrations were produced by employing the model to refine cofactors for 12 distinct lakes. The results indicated that the proposed MVA-GBDT method effectively inferred the variability of Chl-a concentration with a mean RMSE of 4.505 mg&#x002F;m3, an improvement of 5&#x0025;&#x2013;39&#x0025; over other methods. Furthermore, for lakes with large water quality heterogeneity, the method led to a cross validation RMSE and a difference in accuracy of 5.371 mg&#x002F;m3 and 0.866 mg&#x002F;m3, respectively. In addition, this study examined the significance of the auxiliary factors and found that the NDCI and WST were the two most important factors for MVA-GBDT to detect Chl-a concentration distributions, particularly for NDCI in lakes with high nutrient contrasts. These findings contribute to the generation of fine-scale Chl-a concentrations in lakes and support related applications

Vehicle Information Influence Degree Screening Method Based on GEP Optimized RBF Neural Network

Due to the continuous progress in the field of vehicle hardware, the condition that a vehicle cannot load a complex algorithm no longer exists. At the same time, with the progress in the field of vehicle hardware, a number of studies have reported exponential growth in the actual operation. To solve the problem for a large number of data transmissions in an actual operation, wireless transmission is proposed for text information (including position information) on the basis of the principles of the maximum entropy probability and the neural network prediction model combined with the optimization of the Huffman encoding algorithm, from the exchange of data to the entire data extraction process. The test results showed that the text-type vehicle information based on a compressed algorithm to optimize the algorithm of data compression and transmission could effectively realize the data compression, achieve a higher compression rate and data transmission integrity, and after decompression guarantee no distortion. Therefore, it is important to improve the efficiency of vehicle information transmission, to ensure the integrity of information, to realize the vehicle monitoring and control, and to grasp the traffic situation in real time