Martin Gächter, David A. Savage and Benno Torgler
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between workplace factors and the intentions of police officers to quit their current department.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between workplace factors and the intentions of police officers to quit their current department.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from a survey of Baltimore officers, designed to examine the relationship between police stress and domestic violence in police families were used. Using multivariate regression analysis, the authors focus on the officers' stated intentions to look for alternative employment, with proxies for social and workplace factors.
Findings
Higher levels of cooperation (trust), interactional justice and work‐life‐balance reduce police officers' intentions to quit. While high levels of physical and psychological strain and trauma are not correlated with intentions to quit.
Research limitations/implications
A discernible limitation of this study is the age of the data analyzed and that many changes have occurred in recent times (policing and social). It would be of great interest to repeat this study to gauge the true effect.
Practical implications
There are policy implications for retention and recruitment: it may possible to decrease the ethnic and gender gaps, through identifying officers at risk and creating programs to hold existing minorities, recruit more, whilst maintaining a strong, happy and healthy department.
Originality/value
This study examines the impact of workplace factors on quitting intention for police officers. It is demonstrated that social capital, fairness and work‐life balance are moderators for quitting, adding to the literature on worker retention, as little research has been done using multivariate analysis on quitting intentions.
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Martin Gächter, Davd A. Savage and Benno Torgler
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of social capital with the negative externalities associated with stress, or the psychological and physiological strains…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of social capital with the negative externalities associated with stress, or the psychological and physiological strains experienced by police officers.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data collected in 1999 from a survey of Baltimore Police officers designed to examine questions about the relationship between police stress and domestic violence in police families and using multivariate regression analysis, the paper focuses on five different proxies for stress and strain, and two proxies for social capital and conducting several robustness checks.
Findings
Results show that an increase in social capital is significantly correlated to a decrease in the level of strain, in the psychological, physical, burnout and health areas.
Research limitations/implications
While this study examines the social capital/strain relationship with US officers, more research is needed, as these findings may not extrapolate well into other national settings. It may also be interesting to further explore sub‐cultures within departments. Additionally, the data may be dated and, as major changes and events have occurred since the survey, a newer study of officers would be needed to observe whether these changes have had significant impact.
Practical implications
From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that stress reduction programs should actively engage employees to build stronger social networks.
Originality/value
This study comprehensively examines the ability of social capital at negating the impacts of strains, and significantly reduces the impact of major trauma events. This paper adds to the literature as there are few multivariate analyses of the social capital/strain relationship.
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Laboratory studies of social interaction have revealed a wide range of phenomena that are difficult to explain using standard economic models. For example, people will often…
Abstract
Laboratory studies of social interaction have revealed a wide range of phenomena that are difficult to explain using standard economic models. For example, people will often sacrifice their own earnings in order to be generous, cooperative, punitive, and retributive in interactions with anonymous strangers. “Behavioral” models that redefine agents’ preferences attempt to provide an account of these phenomena as reflecting a “taste for fairness” or altruism, aversion to inequality, concern about others’ beliefs, and so on. Such models either fail to account for the rich sensitivity of actions to context or in allowing for rich context-dependence, these models ultimately substitute description for explanation. Hayek’s work provides a foundation for thinking about how to explain these phenomena, by conceiving of people as both purpose-seeking (as in economic models) and rule-following. Decisions are shaped both by material interests and by a normative framework that is evoked by context and helps people decide what one ought to do in a particular situation. The implication of this approach is that rather than trying to understand heterogeneity across individuals in terms of preferences, experimenters should instead try to understand heterogeneity across contexts in terms of the rules and norms that operate in the background and guide or constrain people’s purpose-seeking tendencies. What economics needs, then, is a theory of how and why these rules and norms vary with context as they do.
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Nilendu Chatterjee and Tonmoy Chatterjee
The world has witnessed rapid changes as far as growth and convergence of economies are concerned. Over the past decades, many less-developed or developing economies have been…
Abstract
The world has witnessed rapid changes as far as growth and convergence of economies are concerned. Over the past decades, many less-developed or developing economies have been catching up with the industrialized economies; a few have even surpassed them, as far as growth is concerned. Also there have seen emergence of new economic powers in the world, where growth rates of these upcoming economies have not only converged with that of developed economies, but have gone ahead of them as well. In this chapter, by the help of beta convergence and sigma convergence, an attempt has been taken to find out the nature and causes of convergence among few developed and developing economies in the last three decades, that is, after 1990, which also covers the period of post-globalization in these developing nations. Main concerned variables are Per-capita GDP, Life expectancy at birth and Foreign Direct Investment. Such analysis would help to find how far globalization has been effective or helpful to the developing economies, as far as catching up with developed economies is concerned. The results suggest that in the post-globalization era, nations have been converging both absolutely as well as conditionally and the variance is also diminishing, which indicates the presence of sigma convergence as well.
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We present an overview of research on spillover effects within firms and introduce a classification of the literature. We divide spillovers into either technological or social in…
Abstract
We present an overview of research on spillover effects within firms and introduce a classification of the literature. We divide spillovers into either technological or social in nature. In our classification, a technological spillover is one in which an agent rationally responds to a cue in the workplace that does not rely on the identity or characteristics of a coworker. Social spillovers, on the other hand, may be thought of as arising from the social preferences of an individual or social norms established in the organization.
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What is behavioral economics? This chapter explores a mismatch between what is included in the field of behavioral economics and some of the most visible Austrian critiques of…
Abstract
What is behavioral economics? This chapter explores a mismatch between what is included in the field of behavioral economics and some of the most visible Austrian critiques of behavioral economics. While paternalism, nudging, and a focus on irrationalities and biases are a big part of modern behavioral economics, the portrayal of the field of behavioral economics as being focused predominately upon those areas leaves a swath of low-hanging fruit that would be beneficial for Austrian scholars to consume and use in their own work.
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We use a laboratory experiment to examine a multitask environment common to practice, in which managers have multiple responsibilities, including both managerial reporting, as in…
Abstract
We use a laboratory experiment to examine a multitask environment common to practice, in which managers have multiple responsibilities, including both managerial reporting, as in participative budgeting settings, and effort provision toward daily tasks. Consistent with typical contracting arrangements, we examine incomplete contracts where honesty and effort are not enforceable. In such a multitask environment, when employers choose to offer comparatively generous wages to managers, we predict that managers will elect to provide higher effort. Meanwhile, we remain agnostic ex ante about the degree of misreporting due to findings in studies on gift exchange, moral licensing, and moral wiggle room. Overall, we find evidence that reciprocity, consistent with the gift-exchange model, does extend across both tasks. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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Brian K. Laird and Charles D. Bailey
Traditional agency theory assumes monitoring is good for the principal, but we investigate an unintended effect: diminishment of the agent’s preference for honesty. We hypothesize…
Abstract
Traditional agency theory assumes monitoring is good for the principal, but we investigate an unintended effect: diminishment of the agent’s preference for honesty. We hypothesize greater dishonest behavior in a monitored environment than in a non-monitored environment, when the agent has the opportunity to cheat outside the scope of monitoring. Relevant theories to explain such behavior are behavioral agency theory, where trust and reciprocity are thought to alter contractual outcomes, and the fraud-triangle theory, where the ability to rationalize deviant acts affects behavior. We utilize participants who have been acclimated to either a monitored or an unmonitored condition in an immediately preceding experiment and seamlessly continue that treatment. Within each of these conditions, participants perform a simple task with a performance-based monetary reward. Half self-report and can safely cheat, while the other half are verified; the difference between verified and self-reported scores is a proxy for dishonest reporting. As hypothesized, unmonitored individuals reciprocate with honest behavior, while monitored individuals tend toward dishonest behavior when the opportunity arises. Implications for fraud prevention are discussed.
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Paolo Antonetti and Danae Manika
The purpose of this paper is to examine cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions caused by online petition campaigns against cases of perceived corporate malpractice, while…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions caused by online petition campaigns against cases of perceived corporate malpractice, while also contributing to the ongoing debate over the spill-over effects of online activism to offline contexts. A dual pathway model is advanced based on the individual’s motivation to help the people affected by irresponsible corporate behavior and punish the deviant corporation.
Design/methodology/approach
Two studies (USA and UK) are used to gather cross-sectional and longitudinal data, which are analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Online petition campaigns relying on the display of victims affected by irresponsible behavior trigger feelings of compassion and anger. While the former leads to campaign support motivated by a desire to help, the latter causes intentions to punish. Intentions to support the petition resulting from this dual pathway influence the actual signing of the petition online and self-reported offline negative word of mouth against the company.
Social implications
Both identified pathways should be activated by online petition campaigns to increase online support and spreading offline negative word of mouth. To do so, such campaigns need to increase perceptions of unfairness and victim’s similarity, and likeability.
Originality/value
Scant research has examined the psychological processes that explain the effectiveness of online petition campaigns against businesses and the motivations to sign an online petition and engage in subsequent offline behavior. Implications for businesses are also discussed.
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Gordon Bowen, Richard Bowen, Deidre Bowen, Atul Sethi and Yaneal Patel
Successful smart cities' implementation will require organisational leadership decision-making competences. The foundation of smart cities is digital technologies; many of these…
Abstract
Successful smart cities' implementation will require organisational leadership decision-making competences. The foundation of smart cities is digital technologies; many of these technologies are emerging technologies that require IT skills, which are scarce and will exacerbate the battle for talent between organisations. Filling the talent gap will necessitate global hiring, which has implications for organisational culture, cultural diversity and organisational leadership. Organisational cultural mix is an important contributor to leadership decision-making. However, decision-making is underpinned by trust. Blockchain is an emerging technology that has the potential to engender organisational trust in decision-making and, by extension, in the leadership with the ‘right’ organisational culture. Smart cities will be required to leverage emerging technologies to give business performance a competitive advantage and use emerging technologies’ applications to build a sustainable competitive advantage.