52 research outputs found
The Influence of Job Insecurity on Task and Contextual Performance in Italy and the U.S.: Only Negative Effects?
No full textPurpose. Using samples from Italy and the U.S., we examine the mechanisms through which job insecurity affects task and contextual performance. Drawing on a two-dimensional stressor framework, it is hypothesized that job insecurity may affect behavioural outcomes differentially. On one hand, job insecurity may have a negative affect (hindrance stressor) and, on the other hand, it may positively affect behavioural outcomes (challenge stressor). The model attempts to disentangle both mechanisms by introducing overall job attitude (job satisfaction and affective commitment) as a mediating variable. The research permits us to examine cross-cultural generalizations.
Methodology. Data were collected from 322 blue-collar workers in Italy and 320 staff in the U.S. The meditational model was tested using SEM with bootstrapping estimates of indirect effects.
Results. In both countries, job insecurity is found to be a hindrance stressor that induces strain reactions: one way to cope with such a stressor is to behaviourally withdraw from the situation, i.e., reduced performance and OCB.
Limitations. Because of the cross-sectional design, no inferences were made about true causal relationships.
Practical Implications. Job insecurity does not act as a challenge stressor to motivate employees’ performance. This suggest that managers should communicate clearly about change initiatives to reduce job insecurity, enhance affective commitment and job satisfaction, thereby indirectly improving productive behaviours
Originality. This paper contributes to the cross-cultural generalizability of job insecurity and performance outcomes. Further, it compares challenge and hindrance affects of job insecurity
Locus of control as a moderator of the effects of COVID-19 perceptions on job insecurity, psychosocial, organisational and job outcomes for MENA region hospitality employees
No full textWe develop and test an integrated model to understand how individual differences based on internal or external locus of control influence the effects of COVID-19 perceptions on job insecurity, anxiety, alienation, job satisfaction, customer orientation, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and turnover intention among customer service employees within hospitality organisations in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. The investigation utilises variance-based structural equation modelling to evaluate a sample of 847 subject responses. We found that externally controlled employees are more likely to develop negative emotions resulting from pandemic-triggered job insecurity as well as poorer customer orientation and engagement in OCB due to worsened job satisfaction than those internally controlled. Wholistically, COVID-19 perceptions tend to indirectly hit externally controlled employees’ anxiety, customer orientation, and OCB more intensely than those with internal locus of control
Who’s more vulnerable? A generational investigation of COVID-19 perceptions’ effect on Organisational citizenship Behaviours in the MENA region: job insecurity, burnout and job satisfaction as mediators
No full textBackground
This paper is an empirical investigation that examines a path model linking COVID-19 perceptions to organisational citizenship behaviour (OCBs) via three mediators: job insecurity, burnout, and job satisfaction. The research examines the path model invariance spanning Generations X, Y, and Z. Three countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) were the focus of the study.
Methods
The data was collected from a sample of employees in service companies (n = 578). We used a Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse the data.
Results
Our findings reveal that COVID-19 perceptions positively predict job insecurity, which positively impacts burnout levels. Burnout negatively predicts job satisfaction. The findings established that job satisfaction positively predicts OCBs. The mediation analysis determined that job insecurity, burnout and job satisfaction convey the indirect effects of COVID-19 perceptions onto OCBs. Finally, our hypothesised model is non-equivalent across Generations X, Y and Z. In that regard, our multi-group analysis revealed that the indirect effects of COVID-19 perceptions on OCBs were only valid amongst younger generations, i.e., Generation Y and Generation Z. Specifically, younger generations are substantially more vulnerable to the indirect effects of COVID-19 perceptions on their engagement in OCBs than Generation X whose job satisfaction blocks the effects of COVID-19 perceptions on OCBs.
Conclusions
The present study extends our knowledge of workplace generational differences in responding to the perceptions of crises or pandemics. It offers evidence that suggests that burnout, job attitudes and organisational outcomes change differently across generations in pandemic times
How Laws Affect Contracts: Evidence from Yankee Bond Covenants
No full textWe examine how country-level legal and institutional differences in creditor and shareholder rights shape the use of bond covenants. Using comprehensive debt covenant information for a sample of Yankee bonds issued by firms from more than 50 countries, we find that bond contracts for firms incorporated in countries with stronger creditor rights use fewer restrictive covenants. This finding suggests that creditor rights laws substitute for debt covenants in reducing the agency cost of debt. On the other hand, bond contracts for firms incorporated in legal regimes with stronger shareholder rights include more covenants, suggesting that greater shareholder rights may actually increase the shareholder-bondholder agency conflict. These results are robust to alternative measures of creditor rights and shareholder rights. We also document that stronger firm-level corporate governance is positively related to the use of restrictive covenants even after controlling for country institutions.Covenants, contracts, creditor rights, shareholder rights, corporate governance
Pharmaceuticals and the Worldwide HIV Epidemic: Can a Stakeholder Model Work?
No full textThe worldwide HIV-AIDS epidemic has generated intense criticism of pharmaceutical drug prices, a natural consequence of the industry's unique cost structure. A number of persons have proposed that the industry adopt what might be called a stakeholder model in place of the traditional profit-driven model. But the rapid drop in HIV drug prices, combined with generic entry and de facto abandonment of patent rights, has revealed the extremely limited role played by drug prices and access in the face of fundamental problems in infrastructure, prevention, and other essential elements in battling HIV-AIDS. Adoption of a stakeholder approach is likely to undermine essential R&D while doing little to curtail the HIV-AIDS epidemic.Health and Safety, Regulatory Reform, Other Topics
A focalização do sujeito no português brasileiro
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em LinguisticaO objetivo desta dissertação é descrever e analisar o fenômeno da focalização do sujeito em português brasileiro (doravante PB), tendo como base a Teoria Gerativa. Para tanto, é estabelecida, primeiramente, a noção de foco e a sua relação com a pressuposição e a prosódia. Apresentamos as propriedades que distinguem o foco do tópico, argumentando que apenas o foco é um constituinte de natureza quantificacional, embora estes dois constituintes preencham posições de especificadores das categorias FocP e TopP, respectivamente. No que diz respeito ao sujeito no PB, mostramos que o parâmetro pro-drop é elaborado como contendo o seguinte conjunto de propriedades: sujeito nulo; inversão livre do sujeito; movimento longo do sujeito a partir de uma ilha-Qu; pronome resumptivo nulo em sentenças encaixadas; aparente violação do filtro that-t. Uma língua que se ajusta plenamente ao parâmetro apresenta irrestritamente todas essas propriedades; o oposto complementar se aplica a uma língua não pro-drop. Se consideramos a propriedade da inversão livre como uma estratégia para focalizar o sujeito, podemos entender por que o italiano, o espanhol e o português europeu focalizam o sujeito em posição pós-verbal, enquanto o inglês e o francês nunca o fazem. Estudos sobre o PB apontam que é muito saliente o preenchimento da posição de sujeito por um pronome, exceto quando o sujeito é expletivo, isto é, o PB é considerado uma língua de sujeito nulo parcial. Quando se trata da focalização do sujeito, às vezes ele é focalizado antes do verbo e outras vezes depois, a focalização pós-verbal sendo a mais restrita. Este estado de coisas permite apontar uma simetria relacionando as duas propriedades em questão: o PB é parcial tanto no que diz respeito ao sujeito nulo quanto no que diz respeito à focalização do sujeito em posição pós-verbal. Argumentamos que esta correlação é previsível se o sujeito nulo e a inversão livre são duas propriedades do mesmo parâmetro
Spatial memory dissociations in mice lacking GluR1.
No full textGene-targeted mice lacking the AMPA receptor subunit GluR1 (GluR-A) have deficits in hippocampal CA3-CA1 long-term potentiation. We now report that they showed normal spatial reference learning and memory, both on the hidden platform watermaze task and on an appetitively motivated Y-maze task. In contrast, they showed a specific spatial working memory impairment during tests of non-matching to place on both the Y-maze and an elevated T-maze. In addition, successful watermaze and Y-maze reference memory performance depended on hippocampal function in both wild-type and mutant mice; bilateral hippocampal lesions profoundly impaired performance on both tasks, to a similar extent in both groups. These results suggest that different forms of hippocampus-dependent spatial memory involve different aspects of neural processing within the hippocampus
Spatial reference memory in GluR-A-deficient mice using a novel hippocampal-dependent paddling pool escape task.
No full textGenetically modified mice lacking the L-alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate (AMPA) receptor subunit, GluR-A (GluR1), and deficient in hippocampal CA3-CA1 long-term potentiation (LTP), were assessed on a novel, hippocampal-dependent spatial reference memory, paddling pool escape task. The mice were required to use the extramaze cues around the laboratory to find a hidden escape tube that was in a constant location at one of 12 possible positions around the perimeter of the paddling pool, in order to escape from shallow water. The knockout mice performed well on this task. They displayed a small initial impairment (in terms of both escape latencies and choice errors), but they were soon as efficient as the wild-type mice in escaping from the water. This was further demonstrated by performance during a 20-s probe trial in which the exit tube was blocked. Both groups of mice spent most of the time searching in the quadrant of the pool in which the exit tube had previously been located. In a subsequent experiment, entirely normal spatial acquisition was observed in the knockout mice when the paddling pool was moved to a novel spatial environment. The GluR-A -/- mice were also unimpaired in a further reversal phase in which the correct exit location was moved by 180 degrees around the perimeter wall. These results are consistent with previous watermaze studies, providing further demonstration of intact hippocampus-dependent spatial reference memory in GluR-A knockout mice. They contrast strikingly with the profound deficits in hippocampus-dependent, short-term, flexible spatial working memory observed in these knockout mice. This study also demonstrates a novel behavioral task for assessing spatial memory in genetically modified mice. This task shares the behavioral profile of the well-established watermaze paradigm, but may have advantages for the study of genetically modified mice
- …
