Strategies and instruments for organising CSR by small and large businesses in the Netherlands

This paper analyses the use of strategies and instruments for organising ethics by small and large business in the Netherlands. We find that large firms mostly prefer an integrity strategy to foster ethical behaviour in the organisation, whereas small enterprises prefer a dialogue strategy. Both large and small firms make least use of a compliance strategy that focuses on controlling and sanctioning the ethical behaviour of workers. The size of the business is found to have a positive impact on the use of several instruments, like code of conduct, ISO certification, social reporting, social handbook and confidential person. Also being a subsidiary of a larger firm has a significant positive influence on the use of instruments. The most popular instrument used by small firms is to let one member of the board be answerable for ethical questions, which fits the informal culture of most small firms. With respect to 2 sectorial differences, we find that firms in the metal manufacturing and construction sectors are more actively using formal instruments than firms in the financial service sector and retail sector. The distinction between family and non-family firms hardly affects the use of instruments.Comparison of small and large firms; ethics strategies; ethics instruments; organisation of corporate social responsibility

Triaxial orbit-based modelling of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster

We construct triaxial dynamical models for the Milky Way nuclear star cluster using Schwarzschild's orbit superposition technique. We fit the stellar kinematic maps presented in Feldmeier et al. (2014). The models are used to constrain the supermassive black hole mass M_BH, dynamical mass-to-light ratio M/L, and the intrinsic shape of the cluster. Our best-fitting model has M_BH = (3.0 +1.1 -1.3)x10^6 M_sun, M/L = (0.90 +0.76 -0.08) M_sun/L_{sun,4.5micron}, and a compression of the cluster along the line-of-sight. Our results are in agreement with the direct measurement of the supermassive black hole mass using the motion of stars on Keplerian orbits. The mass-to-light ratio is consistent with stellar population studies of other galaxies in the mid-infrared. It is possible that we underestimate M_BH and overestimate the cluster's triaxiality due to observational effects. The spatially semi-resolved kinematic data and extinction within the nuclear star cluster bias the observations to the near side of the cluster, and may appear as a compression of the nuclear star cluster along the line-of-sight. We derive a total dynamical mass for the Milky Way nuclear star cluster of M_MWNSC = (2.1 +-0.7)x10^7 M_sun within a sphere with radius r = 2 x r_eff = 8.4 pc. The best-fitting model is tangentially anisotropic in the central r = 0.5-2 pc of the nuclear star cluster, but close to isotropic at larger radii. Our triaxial models are able to recover complex kinematic substructures in the velocity map.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The hidden cost of microtransactions:Buying in-game advantages in online games decreases a player’s status

With the advent of the internet, computer games have undergone substantial changes. Many games now contain some form of social interaction with other players. Furthermore, many games offer players the opportunity to buy upgrades using microtransactions. Based on social psychological theories on social comparisons, deservedness, and envy, we tested whether the use of these microtransactions would affect how players perceive another player using them. In one survey and two experimental scenario-studies with active gamers as participants (total N = 532), we found evidence supporting the idea that a player using microtransactions will be judged more negatively. More specifically, we find that gamers dislike it more when microtransactions allow the buying of functional benefits (that provide an in-game advantage) than when they are merely ornamental, and players who buy these functional benefits are respected less. In Studies 2 and 3 we found that players who use microtransactions are perceived as having a lower skill and status. This happens both when the microtransaction-using player is an enemy who bought a competitive advantage, as well as in games where one cooperates with the microtransaction-using player and the advantage is thus effectively shared. The findings have important practical implications for game-design. They indicate how micro-transactions can be implemented so that they have fewer negative social consequences, demonstrate the value of social psychological theories in predicting online behavior, and provide several avenues for further theoretical exploration. Keywords: Microtransactions, free-to-play, real money transactions, social comparisons, status, multiplayer gamin

The social impact of emotional tears

The question what specific functions the production of emotional tears fulfills has received only limited attention of behavioral scientists. We report the results of two studies on the social impact of emotional tears. In Study 1 (96 Dutch females), perceived helplessness and felt connectedness predicted the willingness to help a person depicted as crying tearfully, while perceived friendliness did not. In Study 2 (US sample, 128 males, 68 females) all three of these variables mediated the effect the display of tears had on the willingness to help. Our results replicate and extend previous work and add to current knowledge by showing that tearful crying facilitates helping behavior and by identifying reasons why people are more willing to help criers. These findings help to put forth novel predictions on the impact of tearful crying on others. Keywords: Tears, Crying, Empathy, Prosocial behavior, Personality, Friendliness, Social connectednes

Are Ecosystem Engineering Traits Fixed or Flexible : A Study on Clonal Expansion Strategies in Co-occurring Dune Grasses

Many vegetated coastal ecosystems are formed through ecosystem engineering by clonal vegetation. Recent work highlights that the spatial shoot organization of the vegetation determines local sediment accretion and subsequently emerging landscape morphology. While this key engineering trait has been found to differ between species and prevailing environmental conditions, it remains unknown how the interplay of both factors drive shoot organization and therefore landscape morphology. Here, we compared the spatial shoot organization of young, clonally expanding plants of the two dominant European dune grass species: sand couch (Elytrigia juncea) and marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) across a range of coastal dune environments (from Denmark to France). Our results reveal that, on average, sand couch deployed a more dispersed shoot organization than marram grass, which has a patchy (Lévy-like) organization. Whereas sand couch exhibited the same expansion strategy independent of environmental conditions, marram grass demonstrated a large intraspecific variation which correlated to soil organic matter, temperature and grain size. Shoot patterns ranged from a clumped organization correlating to relatively high soil organic matter contents, temperature and small grain sizes, to a patchy configuration with intermediate conditions, and a dispersed organization with low soil organic matter, temperature and large grain size. We conclude that marram grass is flexible in adjusting its engineering capacity in response to environmental conditions, while sand couch instead follows a fixed expansion strategy, illustrating that shoot organization results from the interaction of both species-specific and environmental-specific trait expression