Is social identity belief independent?

In this paper we aim to disentangle the effects on in-group favoritism driven by beliefs from those stemming from group identity, with the final goal of testing the relative power of three potential explanations of this bias: The Beliefs Driven Explanation (BDE), the Group Identity Explanation (GIE) and the Belief-mediated Group Identity Explanation (BGE). The BDE suggests that in-group favoritism is only driven by the desire not to let others’ expectations down. The GIE claims that people have a preference, per se, for members of their group. According to the BGE, people also have a preference for members of their group, but this is mediated by their second-order beliefs. To this aim, we built an experimental design able to produce exogenous variations in both group membership and expectations, hence providing a genuine test for the rationale of in-group bias. The results of our experiment suggest that beliefs per se are not a significant explanation of in-group favoritism and hence do not provide support to the BDE. Our experimental evidence does not provide support also to the BGE. We conclude that our experiment suggests to single out the GIE as the most powerful explanation of social identity

Investing in and recovering from work: effects on employees’ health through workaholism and work engagement

Purpose: Workaholism and work engagement are two forms of heavy work investment, involving different consequences on employees’ life. Nevertheless, research has highlighted an overlapping zone between workaholism and work engagement, due to confounding findings about their relation and features they seem to have in common. Recovery––the process that allows employees to replenish individual resources after an effort––could be a critical construct in order to distinguish workaholic and engaged workers. This study aims therefore to consider the capacity to recover as influencing variable on workaholism and work engagement, respectively, and, further, it aims to observe what they, in turn, entail on perceived health. Design/Methodology: This study is based on a cross-sectional design. 265 employees filled in an online questionnaire assessing recovery, workaholism, work engagement, and general health. Data were analyzed through structural equation modeling method. Results: Recovery significantly and negatively predicts workaholism, but it shows no relation with work engagement. Workaholism and work engagement significantly predict individual perceived health in negative and positive direction, respectively. Limitations: The conclusions advanced are limited by the use of self-report measures, cross- sectional design, and a rather small sample size. Practical Implications: HR managers should pay attention to organizational practices protecting employees’ recovery from efforts made at work, since it can prevent health impairments caused by extreme, workaholic approaches to work. Originality/Value: The current study investigates recovery by considering its possible influence simultaneously on workaholism and work engagement

Dare per avere e dare per dare: due universi paralleli

Questo lavoro si propone di distinguere le differenti motivazioni che si trovano alla base delle scelte effettuate in un gioco dell’investimento. In particolare attraverso metodi diretti, basati sull’osservazione dei playoff e delle scelte, e indiretti, basati su questionari, si vogliono distinguere le motivazioni legate a preferenze sociali condizionate (come fiducia e reciprocità) da quelle incondizionate (altruismo e avversione alla diseguaglianza).Conditional and unconditional other-regarding preferences, trust, reciprocity, investment game, frame effect

Towards Drift Correction in Chemical Sensors Using an Evolutionary Strategy

Gas chemical sensors are strongly affected by the so-called drift, i.e., changes in sensors' response caused by poisoning and aging that may significantly spoil the measures gathered. The paper presents a mechanism able to correct drift, that is: delivering a correct unbiased fingerprint to the end user. The proposed system exploits a state-of-the-art evolutionary strategy to iteratively tweak the coefficients of a linear transformation. The system operates continuously. The optimal correction strategy is learnt without a-priori models or other hypothesis on the behavior of physical-chemical sensors. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the approach on a real problem

The Future of the Leader-Member Exchange Theory

This study wants to examine effects of job insecurity on several work-related outcomes (perceived work-related symptoms, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions) by developing a moderated mediation model. The model emphasizes the role played by the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) in mediating the relation between perceived job insecurity and outcomes related to work, and the moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS) in influencing the mediation. Survey data from 510 workers at Italian organizations were collected, and regression was used to evaluate the hypotheses. After age, gender, education, and organizational tenure were controlled, results showed that perceived quality of LMX carried the effect of job insecurity on all outcomes, and that this relationship was stronger for employees who reported higher levels of POS. This study makes important theoretical and practical contributions to job insecurity, LMX, and POS research, underlining the importance of promoting the leader-member relationships quality in an ethical and supportive work environment

Entanglement and squeezing of continuous-wave stationary light

Spectral components of continuous squeezed fields are entangled. In this article we review and clarify this phenomenon by analyzing systematically the relations between the correlations of modes filtered from stationary continuous fields and the cross power spectrum between the operators of the corresponding spectral components. Moreover, we study the specific spectral components that are filtered in homodyne or heterodyne detections and their entanglement properties. In particular, we establish the equivalence between two-mode squeezing variance and logarithmic negativity for the spectral components of continuous stationary fields, thereby demonstrating that the measurement of the homodyne or heterodyne spectrum is, in fact, a direct measurement of the logarithmic negativity between specific spectral modes. As an illustrative example, we apply these concepts to the analysis of entanglement in ponderomotive squeezing.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

The effect of organizational culture on deviant behaviors in the workplace

This study investigated the impact of organizational culture (OC) on deviant behaviors in the workplace (workplace deviant behaviors: WDB). We tested the hypothesis that different types of OC (according to the Competing Values Framework model) had an impact on WDB, in addition to the effect of Big Five personality traits. Survey research was undertaken with 954 employees of 30 enterprises in the public and private field, using a hierarchical model approach (HLM) to test the effects of four types of OC (Clan; Adhocracy; Market, Hierarchy) on WDB, over and above the effect of Five Personality traits. The HLM results partially supported our hypotheses, showing that the OC had a significant effect on WDB, with the adhocracy and clan cultures characterized by lower levels of WDB. Managerial implications about the importance of managing the OC are discussed