Nonlinear effect of employee ownership on organizational financial misdeeds: The moderating role of organizational size.

We used threshold theory to investigate the relationship between employee ownership and financial misdeeds. In particular, we theorized that monitoring and incentive benefits of employee ownership coupled with longer term orientation are two primary theoretical drivers for decreasing the incidence of financial misdeeds in employee-owned firms. Using a sample of 388 investment firms representing 3,421 firm-year observations between 2000 and 2015, we found that employee ownership has an inverted-J-shaped relationship with organizational financial misdeeds such that the negative effect of employee ownership is significant only at medium-to-high levels. We also found that the inverted-J-shaped relationship was stronger when an organization was smaller or practiced giving short-term incentives. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Relative bed allocation for COVID-19 patients, EHR investments, and COVID-19 mortality outcomes.

Managing flexibility in the relative bed allocation for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients was a key challenge for hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT), we propose that the local electronic health record (EHR) systems could improve patient outcomes through improved bed allocation in the local area. In an empirical analysis of county-level weekly hospital data in the US, relative capacity of beds in hospitals with higher EHR was associated with lower 7-, 14-, and 21-day forward-looking COVID-19 death rate at the county-level. Testing for cross-state variation in non-pharmaceutical interventions along contiguous county border-pair analysis to control for spatial correlation varying between state variations in non-pharmaceutical intervention policies, 2SLS analysis using quality ratings, and using foot-traffic data at the US hospitals our findings are generally supported. The findings have implications for policymakers and stakeholders of the local healthcare supply chains and EHR systems.

Right of association and new business entry: country-level evidence from the market sector.

Labor market institutions (LMIs) could enable new firm entry by lowering burdens to attracting and retaining human capital or restrict new firm entry by increasing concerns of additional demands on ventures facing liabilities of newness and smallness. In this study, we focus on the LMI of the right of association, and whether its relationship with new business entry depends on the vertical ordering of bargaining (represented in the centralization of collective bargaining) or the horizontal synchronization of wage-setting (represented in the coordination of wage-setting). In a panel of 44 countries covering the period 2005-2019, we find that the right of association in the market sector is positively associated with new business entry; however, with increasing centralization of collective bargaining, the association becomes negative. Coordination of wage-setting does not significantly affect the relationship between the right of association and new business entry. The results are robust to accounting for both serial correlation and cross-sectional correlation in the panel regressions and carry implications for policymakers regarding the effects of LMIs on new business creation.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hours lost by self-employed racial minorities: evidence from Brazil.

Drawing on minority enclave theory and resilience theory in entrepreneurship, we test whether, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the self-employed lost more hours than the employed and whether traditionally disadvantaged self-employed racial minorities faced harsher penalties in the form of reduced hours of work. Though spatially concentrated ethnic minority colocations could improve business outcomes in the non-crisis period, with the pandemic affecting all the members in the enclave, the very dependencies in minority enclaves could be a liability. Using a large-scale survey during the COVID-19 pandemic conducted by the Brazilian government, we draw on a one-to-one nearest neighbor matched pair sample of 19,626 employed (public or private sector) and self-employed individuals, and control for industry-sector-interview-location fixed effects. The results show that self-employed people, compared to employed, reported a greater loss of hours. At the sample level, black self-employed people on aggregate lost 9,051 hours per month, and mixed race self-employed people on aggregate lost 27,880 hours per month. The disproportionate loss of work hours by the self-employed from racial minority groups during the COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country context calls for a closer examination and assessment of the long-term impact of COVID-19 on racial minorities.

Change in psychological distress in response to changes in reduced mobility during the early 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence of modest effects from the U.S.

RATIONALE: During the early 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, several US states had implemented stay-in-place orders (SIPOs) with varying degrees of stringency which resulted in inter-state differences in mobility (i.e., longer presence at home). We test whether the inter-state differences in mobility influenced changes in reported psychological distress. Our study is not on the surge in COVID-19 in the later part of 2020. OBJECTIVE: To identify whether the change in state-level mobility is associated with the change in individuals' reported psychological distress during the early COVID-19 pandemic and whether the intensity of the association varies by older individuals, females, and nonwhites. METHODS: We use differences in state-level mobility and change in reported psychological distress between the two dates of interviews of 5,132 individuals who participated in March and April 2020 waves of Understanding America Study (UAS). RESULTS: We find support for modest effects, i.e., a one standard deviation decline in mobility was associated with a 3.02% higher psychological distress [95% CI: 0.4%-5.64%], and the effects are robust to controlling for reported changes in exercise intensity, alcohol consumption, cannabis use, recreational drug use, and meditation intensity. We also find support for a stronger association for females, but not for older individuals or non-whites. Further, we do not find support for the mediation effects from change in chance of running out of money or change in chance of getting COVID-19. CONCLUSION: Our findings show that reduced mobility from lockdowns during the early COVID-19 wave in the US is associated with a modest increase in reported psychological distress, especially for females. However, these conclusions should not be construed as a small increase in psychological distress in general, as a variety of non-mobility related factors associated with COVID-19 could have exacerbated psychological distress during the early COVID-19 wave in the US.

Self-employment, depression, and older individuals: A cross-country study.

BACKGROUND: Self-employment has become an increasingly popular occupational choice, and there are substantial mental health and well-being benefits that can accrue for individuals who remain active and engaged later in life. In this study, we examine the association between reduced depression symptoms and self-employment in aging workers. METHODS: Drawing from The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data, our study examines a longitudinal sample of 35,717 individuals aged 50 years or older. RESULTS: Our results indicate that self-employment is negatively associated with depression among aging workers. Additionally, we find that this relationship weakens as aging self-employed individuals grow older, and that gender moderates this relationship such that older female self-employed individuals report lower depression symptoms than their male counterparts. LIMITATIONS: Our sample is limited to European workers aged 50 years and older, and as such might have limited generalizability to younger self-employed individuals from other geographic regions. Moreover, although we control for factors that could play a role in the association between depression symptoms and self-employment (e.g. quality of life, personality traits, etc.), additional research will be needed in order to determine the potential mediating and moderating roles such factors might have on this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: The results we present demonstrate the important and nuanced nature between self-employment and depression symptoms in aging workers. These findings call to light the need to continue to foster and develop systems and programs that help to facilitate self-employment for individuals as they transition into older ages.

The Association Between Participation in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program and Smoking in India.

BACKGROUND: This paper examines whether participating in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program (NREGA) is associated with the likelihood of smoking among program participants in India. METHODS: We use two-stage residual inclusion (2SRI) estimation method and two waves of India Human Development Surveys completed before (2005) and after (2012) NREGA implementation. RESULTS: The likelihood of smoking increased with NREGA participation. For every 10% increase in NREGA income, the likelihood of smoking bidis (but not cigarettes) increased by 0.88 percentage point. A bidi, a stick of unprocessed tobacco wrapped in temburini leaves, is a significantly cheaper alternative to cigarettes. Nonparticipants who had a comparable increase in income between the two India Human Development Survey waves did not show an increase in likelihood of smoking. The heterogeneity in NREGA treatment effect shows that smoking tendency is not influenced by caste/religion or literacy. CONCLUSIONS: NREGA, as the largest workfare program, most certainly has had a significantly positive influence on the rural poor in India. The findings highlight its small but meaningful influence of a negative health behavior, greater likelihood of uptake of smoking bidis/hookah among program participants. IMPLICATIONS: Existing studies have found mixed evidence of an exogenous increase in income among low-income adults and its impact on smoking. No studies to date have tested the influence of workfare programs in rural areas of developing countries, where unemployment rates are higher and a substantial share of population in those areas is poor. Based on participation in employment guarantee programs as a proxy for exogenous increase in guaranteed income among rural population in India, we find that participants in the program were more likely to smoke bidis/hookah but not cigarettes.

Light pollution and insufficient sleep: Evidence from the United States.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to test whether light pollution is associated with lower or insufficient sleep. The American Medical Association recently issued a public notice cautioning against the effects of nighttime light on sleep quality and quantity. Light pollution, through the suprachiasmatic nucleus, disrupts circadian rhythm by reducing the secretion of melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone. METHODS: I used 282 403 individual self-reports of sleep hours and insufficient sleep from the 2014 and 2016 metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area (MMSA) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the prevalence of insufficient sleep during 2014 in 2823 US counties from the County Health Rankings. The nighttime artificial light data are from the cloud-free Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US. RESULTS: At the MMSA level, for a 10-unit increase in nighttime light (nW/[cm2 sr]) the estimated decline in sleep was about 5.59 minutes per day and the odds of reporting insufficient sleep (<7 hours) increased by 13.77%. At the county-level, for a 10-unit increase in nighttime light, the prevalence of insufficient sleep increased by 2.19%. CONCLUSIONS: Although light pollution was negatively associated with sleep outcomes, the practical effect sizes were small. The small effects suggest that the effects at the population level are negligible, and the effect of nighttime light pollution is more idiosyncratic.

Effect of Genetic Propensity for Obesity on Income and Wealth Through Educational Attainment.

OBJECTIVE: This study contributes to the literature on the income and wealth consequences of obesity by exploiting recent discoveries about the genetic basis of BMI. METHODS: The relation between a genetic risk score (GRS) for BMI, which reflects the genetic predisposition to have a higher body weight, and income and wealth was analyzed in a longitudinal data set comprising 5,962 individuals (22,490 individual-year observations) from the US Health and Retirement Study. RESULTS: Empirical analyses showed that the GRS for BMI lowers individual income and household wealth through the channel of lower educational attainment. Sex-stratified analyses showed that this effect is particularly significant among females. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides support for the negative effects of the GRS for BMI on individual income and household wealth through lower education for females. For males, the effects are estimated to be smaller and insignificant. The larger effects for females compared with males may be due to greater labor market taste-based discrimination faced by females.

ADHD and later-life labor market outcomes in the United States.

This study analyzes the relation between attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and later-life labor market outcomes in the United States and whether these relationships are mediated by educational attainment. To overcome endogeneity concerns in the estimation of these relationships, we exploit the polygenic risk score (PRS) for ADHD in a cohort where the diagnosis of and treatment for ADHD were generally not available. We find that an increase in the PRS for ADHD reduces the likelihood of employment, individual income, and household wealth. Moreover, it increases the likelihood of receiving social security disability benefits, unemployment or worker compensation, and other governmental transfers. We provide evidence that educational attainment mediates these relationships to a considerable extent (14-58%).

Transactive memory systems in context: A meta-analytic examination of contextual factors in transactive memory systems development and team performance.

Research on transactive memory systems (TMS) has been conducted in a variety of teams, a range of task types and increasingly, in settings around the world. Despite this proliferation, there has been relative inattention to contextual factors that produce TMS and explain heterogeneity in the TMS to team performance relationship. TMS studies are typically conducted in homogeneous settings (i.e., teams located in a single country) and often with sources of potential variation (i.e., environmental volatility, leadership, team human capital, and diversity) in TMS development controlled. Collating these individual studies, we use meta-analytic techniques to illuminate key contextual factors that may shape TMS and influence the TMS-performance association. Using 76 empirical studies representing 6,869 sampling units, we find that the strength of the TMS to performance relationship varies, depending on features of the national cultural context-the impact of TMS is stronger in cultural contexts where power distance and in-group collectivism are higher. Our results also suggest that environmental volatility, leadership effectiveness, and team human capital are positively associated with TMS, and informational and gender diversity are negatively associated with TMS development. Our findings also indicate fruitful areas for future research specifically aimed toward disentangling the effects of environmental, team, and national cultural context on TMS and team performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

County-level job automation risk and health: Evidence from the United States.

RATIONALE: Previous studies have observed a positive association between automation risk and employment loss. Based on the job insecurity-health risk hypothesis, greater exposure to automation risk could also be negatively associated with health outcomes. OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this paper is to investigate the county-level association between prevalence of workers in jobs exposed to automation risk and general, physical, and mental health outcomes. METHODS: As a preliminary assessment of the job insecurity-health risk hypothesis (automation risk → job insecurity → poorer health), a structural equation model was used based on individual-level data in the two cross-sectional waves (2012 and 2014) of General Social Survey (GSS). Next, using county-level data from County Health Rankings 2017, American Community Survey (ACS) 2015, and Statistics of US Businesses 2014, Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regression models were fitted to predict county-level health outcomes. RESULTS: Using the 2012 and 2014 waves of the GSS, employees in occupational classes at higher risk of automation reported more job insecurity, that, in turn, was associated with poorer health. The 2SLS estimates show that a 10% increase in automation risk at county-level is associated with 2.38, 0.8, and 0.6 percentage point lower general, physical, and mental health, respectively. CONCLUSION: Evidence suggests that exposure to automation risk may be negatively associated with health outcomes, plausibly through perceptions of poorer job security. More research is needed on interventions aimed at mitigating negative influence of automation risk on health.

The effects of skin tone, height, and gender on earnings.

Using a theoretical approach grounded in implicit bias and stereotyping theories, this study examines the relationship between observable physical characteristics (skin tone, height, and gender) and earnings, as measured by income. Combining separate streams of research on the influence of these three characteristics, we draw from a sample of 31,356 individual-year observations across 4,340 individuals from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) 1997. We find that skin tone, height, and gender interact such that taller males with darker skin tone attain lower earnings; those educated beyond high school, endowed with higher cognitive ability, and at the higher income level (>75th percentile) had even lower levels of earnings relative to individuals with lighter skin tone. The findings have implications for implicit bias theories, stereotyping, and the human capital literature within the fields of management, applied psychology, and economics.

Height-income association in developing countries: Evidence from 14 countries.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess whether the height-income association is positive in developing countries, and whether income differences between shorter and taller individuals in developing countries are explained by differences in endowment (ie, taller individuals have a higher income than shorter individuals because of characteristics such as better social skills) or due to discrimination (ie, shorter individuals have a lower income despite having comparable characteristics). METHODS: Instrumental variable regression, Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, quantile regression, and quantile decomposition analyses were applied to a sample of 45 108 respondents from 14 developing countries represented in the Research on Early Life and Aging Trends and Effects (RELATE) study. RESULTS: For a one-centimeter increase in country- and sex-adjusted median height, real income adjusted for purchasing power parity increased by 1.37%. The income differential between shorter and taller individuals was explained by discrimination and not by differences in endowments; however, the effect of discrimination decreased at higher values of country- and sex-adjusted height. CONCLUSIONS: Taller individuals in developing countries may realize higher income despite having characteristics similar to those of shorter individuals.

Negative Association of Hospital Efficiency Under Increasing Geographic Elevation on Acute Myocardial Infarction In-Patient Mortality.

Although variation in-patient outcomes based on hospitals' geographic location has been studied, altitude of hospitals above sea level may also affect patient outcomes. Possibly, because of negative physical and psychological effects of altitude on hospital employees, hospital efficiency may decline at higher altitudes. Greater focus on hospital efficiency, despite decreasing efficiency at higher altitudes, could increase demands on hospital employees and further deteriorate patient outcomes. Using data envelopment analysis on a sample of 840 hospital-year observations representing 95,504 patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in the United States, and controlling for patient, hospital, and county characteristics and controlling for hospital, state, and year fixed effects, we find support for the negative association between hospital altitude and efficiency; for 1 percentage point increase in efficiency and every 1,000 feet increase in altitude above the sea level, the mortality of patients with AMI increases by 0.66 percentage points. The findings have implications for hospital performance at increasing geographic elevation and introduces to the literature the notion of "health economics of elevation," to suggest that elevation of a hospital may be an important criterion for consideration for policy makers and insurance firms.

Taxicab tipping and sunlight.

Does the level of sunlight affect the tipping percentage in taxicab rides in New York City? We examined this question using data on 13.82 million cab rides from January to October in 2009 in New York City combined with data on hourly levels of solar radiation. We found a small but statistically significant positive relationship between sunlight and tipping, with an estimated tipping increase of 0.5 to 0.7 percentage points when transitioning from a dark sky to full sunshine. The findings are robust to two-way clustering of standard errors based on hour-of-the-day and day-of-the-year and controlling for day-of-the-year, month-of-the-year, cab driver fixed effects, weather conditions, and ride characteristics. The NYC cab ride context is suitable for testing the association between sunlight and tipping due to the largely random assignment of riders to drivers, direct exposure to sunlight, and low confounding from variation in service experiences.

Multisource feedback, human capital, and the financial performance of organizations.

We investigated the relationship between organizations' use of multisource feedback (MSF) programs and their financial performance. We proposed a moderated mediation framework in which the employees' ability and knowledge sharing mediate the relationship between MSF and organizational performance and the purpose for which MSF is used moderates the relationship of MSF with employees' ability and knowledge sharing. With a sample of 253 organizations representing 8,879 employees from 2005 to 2007 in South Korea, we found that MSF had a positive effect on organizational financial performance via employees' ability and knowledge sharing. We also found that when MSF was used for dual purpose (both administrative and developmental purposes), the relationship between MSF and knowledge sharing was stronger, and this interaction carried through to organizational financial performance. However, the purpose of MSF did not moderate the relationship between MSF and employees' ability. The theoretical relevance and practical implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Attributing Responsibility: Hospitals Account for 20% of Variance in Acute Myocardial Infarction Patient Mortality.

Applying a log-logistic accelerated failure time mixed effects model to a sample of 95,504 in-hospital patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between 2005 and 2010 in the United States, we measured the relative contribution of hospitals (vs. patients) in explaining in-hospital AMI mortality. Before adjusting for age, race, income, 29 comorbidities of AMI patients, and primary payer, hospital characteristics explained 19.93% of the variance in AMI in-hospital mortality. After controlling for these, variance explained declined by 5.65%, to 14.28%. These findings have implications for policymakers in assessing hospitals' "responsibility" for AMI patient mortality, for hospitals in allocating resources toward improving AMI patient care, and for medical intermediaries in making liability judgments and payment allocations to hospitals.

Is it better to be average? High and low performance as predictors of employee victimization.

Given increased interest in whether targets' behaviors at work are related to their victimization, we investigated employees' job performance level as a precipitating factor for being victimized by peers in one's work group. Drawing on rational choice theory and the victim precipitation model, we argue that perpetrators take into consideration the risks of aggressing against particular targets, such that high performers tend to experience covert forms of victimization from peers, whereas low performers tend to experience overt forms of victimization. We further contend that the motivation to punish performance deviants will be higher when performance differentials are salient, such that the effects of job performance on covert and overt victimization will be exacerbated by group performance polarization, yet mitigated when the target has high equity sensitivity (benevolence). Finally, we investigate whether victimization is associated with future performance impairments. Results from data collected at 3 time points from 576 individuals in 62 work groups largely support the proposed model. The findings suggest that job performance is a precipitating factor to covert victimization for high performers and overt victimization for low performers in the workplace with implications for subsequent performance.

Unlocking the black box: exploring the link between high-performance work systems and performance.

With a growing body of literature linking systems of high-performance work practices to organizational performance outcomes, recent research has pushed for examinations of the underlying mechanisms that enable this connection. In this study, based on a large sample of Welsh public-sector employees, we explored the role of several individual-level attitudinal factors--job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and psychological empowerment--as well as organizational citizenship behaviors that have the potential to provide insights into how human resource systems influence the performance of organizational units. The results support a unit-level path model, such that department-level, high-performance work system utilization is associated with enhanced levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and psychological empowerment. In turn, these attitudinal variables were found to be positively linked to enhanced organizational citizenship behaviors, which are further related to a second-order construct measuring departmental performance.