Pep Simo

Intangible liabilities: beyond models of intellectual assets

Purpose – Most models of intellectual capital measurment equal intellectual capital with intellectual assets. Nevertheless, companies sometimes must incur liabilities to make intellectual assets truly actionable. This fact suggests the existence of intangible liabilities. The aim of this paper is to refine the methods of assessment of intellectual capital by refining and extending the concept of intangible liabilities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper consists of a literature review of prior conceptualisations of intangible liabilities, and an empirical exploration of the employer‐employee relationships that can originate intangible liabilities.Findings – The results of the empirical research show that a non‐fulfilment of perceived obligations by the company might cause organisational members to refrain from deploying their organisational knowledge in organisational processes. Thus, these obligations can be conceptualised as intangible liabilities.Research limitations/implications – The research has...

Career attitudes and subjective career success: tackling gender differences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of gender upon the relation between protean and boundaryless career attitudes and subjective career success, in todays dynamic and changing organizational context.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using a questionnaire conducted on 150 graduate and post‐graduate distance learning students. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.Findings – The analysis indicates that womens career success is positively related with self‐direction and negatively related with their reliance on their own values. Furthermore, the authors found a negative relation between organizational mobility preference and mens subjective career success.Research limitations/implications – A potential limitation of this study is that all participants were distance‐learning students, thus limiting the generalizability of the findings to other populations. Furthermore, cross‐sectional designs do not permit drawing conclusions regarding the causal...

Organizational commitment within a contemporary career context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relation between the underlying dimensions of protean (self-direction and values driven) and boundaryless (boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference (OMP)) career attitudes (Briscoe et al., 2006) and organizational commitment, within todays unstable and uncertain business scenario. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 167 professionals attending graduate and postgraduate distance learning courses. The hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis. Findings – Research results suggest that protean career attitudes contribute significantly to individuals’ emotional attachment to their employing organization. Furthermore, OMP was found to be significant in predicting both affective and continuance commitment. Research limitations/implications – First, cross-sectional correlational designs impede conclusive inferences regarding causal relationships among the variables. Second, the use of a sample of professionals attending distance learning business courses could limit the generalizability of the study findings, because the majority of the respondents were homogenous in terms of age and educational background. Practical implications – Fostering individuals’ self-direction results in enhanced affective commitment to their employing organizations. Workshops oriented at clarifying and communicating organizational values, philosophy and principles can be all beneficial for strengthening employees’ commitment to the organization. Originality/value – This is the first paper to test the relationship between boundaryless and protean career attitudes and organizational commitment on a European sample.

Evolution of online discussion forum richness according to channel expansion theory: A longitudinal panel data analysis

The selection and use of communication media has been the center of attention for a great number of researchers in the area of organizational communication. The channel expansion theory combines elements of the main theories in this area; however, these investigations have a static cross-sectional design rather than a longitudinal analysis. With the objective of filling this gap, we research how the perception of media richness varies over time with a longitudinal study. The results suggest that the perception of richness of a channel by different individuals is different but that those variations due to a change in acquired experiences, are influenced in a similar and significant way by all individuals over time. Highlights? How the evolution of the richness perception on discussion forums vary over time. ? Uncommon study due to its longitudinal design rather than the traditional design. ? The time factor has a significant effect on the richness perception. ? The time factor has a significant effect on the usefulness of a communication media.

The frequency of the dyadic influence tactics according to communication media

One of the most important determinants of managerial effectiveness in achieving organisational objectives is the success in influencing subordinates, lateral peers and supervisors through influence tactics. However, little attention has been paid to the use of a communication medium in the context of influence tactics. Our objective is to study the frequency of these dyadic influence tactics on diverse communication media. The study involves a questionnaire-based survey conducted on Spanish post-graduate students who had been working in medium-sized or large companies during the last 2 years or more. The results suggest that the richness of the medium explains most similarities and differences in the frequency of influence tactics for different communication media. Furthermore, in the study of hard influence tactics in communication media with similar richness, it is necessary to introduce social aspects and the level of surveillance in order to explain it fully. This study helps managers to understand the relationships between influence tactics and the use of communication media in order to improve their communication effectiveness.

Past, Present, and Future of Podcasting in Higher Education

Podcasting has become a major phenomenon within both our society and our educational system, as is evidenced by the large quantity of scientific publications on the topic. However, the study of podcasting in higher education remains in its initial phase of study. The results of research on podcasting are notably diverse and are even occasionally contradictory. Thus, this chapter performs a thorough review of the literature with the objective of developing a podcasting model that can establish the necessary guidelines for the study of podcasting. This model is key to defining control variables for sharing and incorporating research results on podcasting. Finally, the chapter proposes a list of future lines of podcasting research based on the literature review and the proposed model for creating podcasts.

Relations between organizational commitment and focal and discretionary behaviours

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relations between organizational commitment (OC) dimensions and two focal and discretionary behaviours (intention to stay and organizational citizenship behaviour). Drawing on a sample of 310 Spanish employees of small services firms, this research reveals that in contrast to recent findings that detected a nonlinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between continuance commitment and intention to stay, the form of the relationships between OC dimensions and the proposed outcomes is linear rather than nonlinear. Furthermore, when dividing continuance commitment into two subcomponents, the research results indicate that the dimension associated with commitment based on few existing employment alternatives is significantly, negatively and linearly related to intention to stay and organizational citizenship behaviour. This suggests that the three-component model of OC suffers from a conceptual inconsistency, which is further discussed.

An Examination of the Effects of Self-Regulatory Focus on the Perception of the Media Richness The Case of E-Mail

Communication is a key element in organizations’ business success. The media richness theory and the channel expansion theory are two of the most influential theories regarding the selection and use of communication media in organizations; however, literature has focused little on the effects of self-regulation by managers and employees in these theories. To analyze these topics, this study develops an empirical investigation by gathering data from 600 managers and employees using a questionnaire. The results suggest that the perception of media richness is positively affected when the individual shows a promotion focus or strategy.

Change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior: analysis of antecedents centered on regulatory theory focus at the workplace

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between a challenging dimension of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and self-regulatory focus in an academic work setting. Job performance indicators were included to assess the nomological validity of regulatory focus measures. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using a questionnaire conducted with 251 Spanish academic workers. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings Results reveal the existence of positive relationships between promotion focus and two of the outcomes: change-oriented OCB and research-oriented performance-enhancement intention. On the other hand, prevention focus had only a significant relationship with teacher-oriented performance-enhancement intention. Research limitations/implications The limitations of this research are twofold: on the one hand, further research should overcome the methodological limitations related with data gathering, looking for third-party measures of performance and favoring longitudinal data collection designs. On the other hand, more research is needed on the malleability of regulatory focus, defining models when prevention and promotion focus act as mediating variables. Practical implications Individuals with high levels of promotion focus will put their efforts on the tasks which are more valued in the processes of tenure, promotion and compensation. On the other hand, individuals with high levels of prevention focus will tend to meet the minimum of requirements and accomplish salient job duties. That can be taken into account when defining human resource policies, giving a high weight in the assessment of tenure and promotion programs to the tasks where the organization wants their promotion focus individuals to center their attention. Originality/value This paper is one of the first efforts of validating the Regulatory Focus at Work Scale in organizational and academic contexts different from the initial validation study. The study also contributes to research on the antecedents of change-oriented OCBs, and defines new measures of intentions to perform in specific working activities.

Study of the robustness of the European air routes network

In this working paper we make analysis on flight flow network structure of Europe. The aim of this study is to analyze the robustness of the European civil European air transportation network from the perspective of the theory of complex networks. This study is based on analyzing the behavior of the network when its nodes (airports) are removed by random attacks and deliberate attacks. The selection of nodes on deliberate attacks is based on four criteria: degree, betweenness, pagerank and eigenvector. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the logistics network of European commercial flights, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses. The calculation of network statistical indicators as degree and betweenness distribution reveals that the flight flow network has the small-world characteristics and scale-free property.