THE SOCIAL CAPITAL FOUNDATIONS OF TRUST IN GLOBAL AGRI-FOOD SYSTEM TRANSACTIONS

The concept of social capital is defined as a third process (along with individual incentives and authority relationships) for assuring transaction cost efficiency. Social capital is especially relevant to international transactions because cultural differences, large distances, and limited international institutional scope lessen the effectiveness of incentives and authority relationships while social capital can be built within the context of specific international transactions. Methods for building social capital in international settings are explored. A research agenda is articulated as well as a list of managerial implications for using social capital in an international context.Agribusiness,

Brand Information Mitigating Negative Shocks on Animal Welfare: Is It More Effective to “Distract†Consumers or Make Them Aware?

To create and sustain a competitive advantage in markets that increasingly value animal welfare attributes, meat companies need to meet public and private production standards while communicating to final consumers through their brands. Data are collected from a representative sample of 460 U.S. residents through an on-line experiment on McDonald’s chicken breast sandwiches and analyzed with Latent Growth Modeling. This study assesses which content of positive brand information effectively mitigates the risk of negative information shocks on animal welfare. On average, brand information has the same positive impact on consumers’ beliefs and attitudes, regardless of whether it is related or unrelated to animal welfare. However, there is strong market segmentation in terms of consumers’ response when exposed to brand information, suggesting that brand managers would benefit from tailoring brand information according to consumers’ age, education, gender and income.animal welfare, brand, information, consumer behavior, multivariate statistics, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries, Q1,

A FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE INDUSTRY STRATEGIC PLANNING

As agricultural commodity industries strategically plan for their future, they need to consider the systemic and synergistic effects of such factors as changing government regulations, demand expansion or contraction, globalized markets, increased competitive pressures, and greater customer quality requirements. This article discusses a framework developed to help industries strategically plan within the context of these dynamic factors. This framework, based upon relevant theory and an accumulation of experiences with this type of strategic planning, provides one possible approach for addressing the strategic needs of an entire industry. In this way, a commodity industry as a whole can identify and address key industrywide strategic issues to maintain and enhance its competitiveness, profitability, or at the very least, its survival in increasingly global markets.framework, industry, strategic planning, Agribusiness,

Quitting the Boss? The Role of Manager Influence Tactics and Employee Emotional Engagement in Voluntary Turnover

Employees commonly cite their managers’ behavior as the primary reason for quitting their jobs. We sought to extend turnover research by investigating whether two commonly used influence tactics by managers affect their employees’ voluntary turnover and whether employees’ emotional engagement and job satisfaction mediate this relationship. We tested our hypotheses using survey data collected at two time points from a sample of financial services directors and objective lagged turnover data. Using multilevel path modeling, we found that managers’ use of pressure and inspirational appeals had opposite effects on employee voluntary turnover and that employees’ emotional engagement was a significant and unique mediating mechanism even when job satisfaction, the traditional attitudinal predictor of turnover, was also included in the path model. Our findings contribute to turnover research by demonstrating a relationship between specific managerial behaviors and employee turnover and shed light on a key mediating mechanism that explains these effects

The Effects of Voice Pitch on Perceptions of Robots

While previous research in human-robot interaction (HRI) has shown people respond similarly to vocal cues in robot speech as they do with human speech, there has been minimal research into the effects of voice pitch. This study investigates whether vocal pitch in robot speech will evoke stereotypical evaluations of the robot speaker. To explore this, multiple voices were synthesized from various text-to-speech applications and then manipulated to have a raised or lowered pitch. Participants will be asked to rate these voices on various scales such as competence, trustworthiness, and likeability. We expect our results to conform with the current literature on human voice pitch and encourage further research on the effects of the voice on HRI

Heterogeneity in susceptibility dictates the order of epidemiological models

The fundamental models of epidemiology describe the progression of an infectious disease through a population using compartmentalized differential equations, but do not incorporate population-level heterogeneity in infection susceptibility. We show that variation strongly influences the rate of infection, while the infection process simultaneously sculpts the susceptibility distribution. These joint dynamics influence the force of infection and are, in turn, influenced by the shape of the initial variability. Intriguingly, we find that certain susceptibility distributions (the exponential and the gamma) are unchanged through the course of the outbreak, and lead naturally to power-law behavior in the force of infection; other distributions often tend towards these "eigen-distributions" through the process of contagion. The power-law behavior fundamentally alters predictions of the long-term infection rate, and suggests that first-order epidemic models that are parameterized in the exponential-like phase may systematically and significantly over-estimate the final severity of the outbreak

Understanding well-being at work: Development and validation of the eudaimonic workplace well-being scale

Given the amount of time and effort individuals pour into work, scholars and practitioners alike have spent considerable time and resources trying to understand well-being in the workplace. Unfortunately, much of the current research and measurement focuses on workplace well-being from only one perspective (i.e. hedonic well-being rather than eudaimonic well-being) or by generalizing between workplace well-being and general well-being. In this study, we sought to integrate the workplace context into the current eudaimonic perspective to develop an 8-item measure of eudaimonic workplace well-being. Using multi-wave data, we developed and validated a reliable, two-dimensional eudaimonic workplace well-being scale (EWWS). The measure replicated over seven samples and across 1346 participants and showed strong convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. Furthermore, we combined EWWS with an existing measure of hedonic workplace well-being and the resulting model of overall workplace well-being explained a significant amount of variance in key organizational constructs over and above existing hedonic well-being measures. Overall, the present study suggests that the EWWS is a valuable and valid measure and, when taken together with hedonic workplace well-being, captures what it means to have a holistic sense of well-being at work

Assessing Stream-Aquifer Connectivity in a Coastal California Watershed

We report the results of field and laboratory investigations of stream-aquifer interactions in a watershed along the California coast to assess the impact of groundwater pumping for irrigation on stream flows. The methods used include subsurface sediment sampling using direct-push drilling, laboratory permeability and particle size analyses of sediment, piezometer installation and instrumentation, stream discharge and stage monitoring, pumping tests for aquifer characterization, resistivity surveys, and long-term passive monitoring of stream stage and groundwater levels. Spectral analysis of long-term water level data was used to assess correlation between stream and groundwater level time series data. The investigations revealed the presence of a thin low permeability silt-clay aquitard unit between the main aquifer and the stream. This suggested a three layer conceptual model of the subsurface comprising unconfined and confined aquifers separated by an aquitard layer. This was broadly confirmed by resistivity surveys and pumping tests, the latter of which indicated the occurrence of leakage across the aquitard. The aquitard was determined to be 2–3 orders of magnitude less permeable than the aquifer, which is indicative of weak stream-aquifer connectivity and was confirmed by spectral analysis of stream-aquifer water level time series. The results illustrate the importance of site-specific investigations and suggest that even in systems where the stream is not in direct hydraulic contact with the producing aquifer, long-term stream depletion can occur due to leakage across low permeability units. This has implications for management of stream flows, groundwater abstraction, and water resources management during prolonged periods of drought