One size fits all? Managing trust and privacy on social networking sites in Russia and Germany

When it comes to platform sustainability, mitigating user privacy concerns and enhancing trust represent two major tasks providers of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are facing today. State-of-the-art research advocates reliance on the justice-based measures as possible means to address these challenges. However, as providers are increasingly expanding into foreign markets, the effectiveness of these measures in a cross-cultural setting is questioned. In an attempt to address this set of issues, in this study we build on the existing model to examine the impact of culture on the robustness of four justice-based means in mitigating privacy concerns and ensuring trust. Survey responses from German and Russian SNS members are used to evaluate the two structural equation models, which are then compared. We find that perceptions regarding Procedural and Informational Justice are universally important and hence should be addressed as part of the basic strategy by the SNS provider. When expanding to collectivistic countries like Russia, measures enhancing perceptions of Distributive and Interpersonal Justice can be additionally applied. Beyond practical implications, our study makes a significant contribution to the theoretical discourse on the role of culture in determining individual perceptions and behavior.

Illegitimate Tasks: Accumulating Evidence for a New Stressor Concept

INTRODUCTION: Task stressors typically refer to characteristics such as not having enough time or resources, ambiguous demands, or the like. We suggest the perceived lack of legitimacy as an additional feature of tasks as a source of stress. Tasks are “illegitimate” to the extent that it is perceived as improper to expect employees to execute them – not because of difficulties in executing them, but because of their content for a given person, time, and situation; they are illegitimate because a) they are not conforming to a specific occupational role, as in “non-nursing activities” (called unreasonable) or b) there is no legitimate need for them to exist (called unnecessary; Semmer et al., 2007). These features make illegitimate tasks a unique task-related stressor. The concept of illegitimate tasks grew from the “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” theory (SOS; Semmer et al, 2007); it is conceptually related to role stress (Kahn et al., 1964; Beehr & Glazer, 2005) and the organizational justice tradition (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Greenberg, 2010). SOS argues that a threat to one’s self-image is at the core of many stressful experiences. Violating role expectations, illegitimate tasks can be regarded as a special case of role conflict. As roles shape identities, this violation is postulated to constitute a threat to one’s professional identity. Being assigned a task considered illegitimate is likely to be considered unfair. Lack of fairness, in turn, contains a message about one’s social standing, and thus, the self. However, the aspects discussed have not received much attention in the role stress or the justice/fairness tradition. OBJECTIVE: Illegitimate tasks are a rather recent concept that has to be established as a construct in its own right by showing that it is associated with well-being/strain while controlling for other stressors, most notably role conflict and lack of justice. The aim of the presentation is to present the evidence accumulated so far. METHODS AND RESULTS: We present several studies employing different designs, using different control variables, and testing associations with different criteria. Study 1 demonstrates associations of illegitimate tasks with self-esteem, feelings of resentment against one’s organization, and burnout, controlling for distributive justice, role conflict, and social stressors (i.e. tensions). Study 2 yielded comparable results, using the same outcome variables but controlling for distributive as well as procedural / interactional justice. Study 3 demonstrated associations between illegitimate tasks and feelings of stress, sleeping problems, and emotional exhaustion, controlling for demands, control, and social support among medical doctors. Study 4 showed that feeling appreciated by one’s superior acted as a mediator between illegitimate tasks and job satisfaction and resentments towards the military in Swiss military officers. Study 5 demonstrated an association of illegitimate tasks with counterproductive work behavior (Semmer et al. 2010). Studies 1 to 5 were cross-sectional. In Study 6, illegitimate demands predicted irritability and resentments towards one’s organization longitudinally. Study 7 also was longitudinal, focusing on intra-individual variation in multilevel modeling; occasion-specific illegitimate tasks predicted cortisol among those who judged their health as comparatively poor. Studies 1-3 and 6 used SEM, and measurement models that used unreasonable and unnecessary tasks as indicators (isolated parceling) yielded a good fit. IMPLICATIONS & CONCLUSIONS: These studies demonstrate that illegitimate tasks are a stressor in its own right that is worth studying. It illuminates the social meaning of job design, emphasizing the implications of tasks for the (professional) self, and thus combining aspects that are traditionally treated as separate, that is, social aspects and task characteristics. Practical implications are that supervisors and managers should be alerted to the social messages that may be contained in task assignments (cf. Semmer & Beehr, in press).

Fairness

Die Fairnessnorm wird als eine der grundlegenden gesellschaftlichen Regeln für menschliches Entscheidungsverhalten betrachtet. Im folgenden Beitrag werden nach einer kurzen Einführung zunächst klassische moralphilosophische Auffassungen skizziert und grundlegende Vorstellungen über Gerechtigkeit und Fairness präsentiert. Dabei werden insbesondere distributive Fairnessprinzipien erläutert. Die empirische Evidenz zeigt, dass die Auswahl von Fairnessprinzipien und die Entscheidung, ob eine Fairnessnorm befolgt wird, kontextabhängig ist. Im Beitrag wird daher auch auf die Frage eingegangen, welche Motive von Akteuren ursächlich für die Befolgung einer Fairnessnorm sind. Es werden in diesem Zusammenhang Geltungsbedingungen und Entstehungsmechanismen für prosoziales Verhalten erörtert. Zur theoretischen Fundierung normorientierten Verhaltens wurden in den letzten beiden Dekaden Erweiterungen nutzentheoretischer Konzepte vorgeschlagen, die neben selbstinteressierten Präferenzen von Akteuren auch soziale Präferenzen berücksichtigen. Vorgestellt werden dabei nutzentheoretische Modelle, die sich mit egalitären Verteilungsprinzipien beschäftigen. Im Anschluss wird empirische Evidenz zur Fairnessnorm präsentiert, wobei insbesondere auf die Evidenz distributiver Fairnessprinzipien eingegangen wird und auf die Robustheit der Fairnessnorm im Rahmen experimenteller und feldexperimenteller Studien.

Sheaf representations of MV-algebras and lattice-ordered abelian groups via duality

We study representations of MV-algebras -- equivalently, unital lattice-ordered abelian groups -- through the lens of Stone-Priestley duality, using canonical extensions as an essential tool. Specifically, the theory of canonical extensions implies that the (Stone-Priestley) dual spaces of MV-algebras carry the structure of topological partial commutative ordered semigroups. We use this structure to obtain two different decompositions of such spaces, one indexed over the prime MV-spectrum, the other over the maximal MV-spectrum. These decompositions yield sheaf representations of MV-algebras, using a new and purely duality-theoretic result that relates certain sheaf representations of distributive lattices to decompositions of their dual spaces. Importantly, the proofs of the MV-algebraic representation theorems that we obtain in this way are distinguished from the existing work on this topic by the following features: (1) we use only basic algebraic facts about MV-algebras; (2) we show that the two aforementioned sheaf representations are special cases of a common result, with potential for generalizations; and (3) we show that these results are strongly related to the structure of the Stone-Priestley duals of MV-algebras. In addition, using our analysis of these decompositions, we prove that MV-algebras with isomorphic underlying lattices have homeomorphic maximal MV-spectra. This result is an MV-algebraic generalization of a classical theorem by Kaplansky stating that two compact Hausdorff spaces are homeomorphic if, and only if, the lattices of continuous [0, 1]-valued functions on the spaces are isomorphic.

"Let's Talk Cash": Cantons' Interests and the Reform of Swiss Federalism

In 2004 the Swiss people accepted a new equalization scheme and a new distribution of competences between the federal state and the cantons. It was argued that the reform was successful because of the capacity of veto-players to overcome their interests and adopt a ‘problem-solving’ interaction mode. We propose a different interpretation and argue that distributive issues and the accommodation of actors' interests crucially mattered. We identify three mechanisms that contribute to a successful reform, i.e. package-deals, side-payments and the downsizing of the reform. Our in-depth, mainly qualitative study of both the content of the reform and related decision-making process supports the pertinence of these strategies for the explanation of the successful reform of Swiss federalism.

Admissibility via natural dualities

It is shown that admissible clauses and quasi-identities of quasivarieties generated by a single finite algebra, or equivalently, the quasiequational and universal theories of their free algebras on countably infinitely many generators, may be characterized using natural dualities. In particular, axiomatizations are obtained for the admissible clauses and quasi-identities of bounded distributive lattices, Stone algebras, Kleene algebras and lattices, and De Morgan algebras and lattices.

Exact Unification and Admissibility

A new hierarchy of "exact" unification types is introduced, motivated by the study of admissible rules for equational classes and non-classical logics. In this setting, unifiers of identities in an equational class are preordered, not by instantiation, but rather by inclusion over the corresponding sets of unified identities. Minimal complete sets of unifiers under this new preordering always have a smaller or equal cardinality than those provided by the standard instantiation preordering, and in significant cases a dramatic reduction may be observed. In particular, the classes of distributive lattices, idempotent semigroups, and MV-algebras, which all have nullary unification type, have unitary or finitary exact type. These results are obtained via an algebraic interpretation of exact unification, inspired by Ghilardi's algebraic approach to equational unification.

Groupes sociaux

L'initiative « contre l'immigration de masse » a été acceptée en votation populaire. - La question de l'application de l'initiative « pour le renvoi des criminels étrangers » est toujours en négociation au parlement. - Le Conseil fédéral a adapté la révision de la loi sur les étrangers aux nouvelles dispositions découlant de l'acceptation de l'initiative « contre l'immigration de masse ». - Cette même initiative a suscité le dépôt de deux motions visant à lutter contre la pénurie de main d'ouvre qualifiée. - L'initiative visant à rayer l'interruption volontaire de grossesse du catalogue des prestations remboursées par l'assurance-maladie obligatoire a été refusée en votation populaire. - Suite à de longs débats, le parlement s'est accordé sur un projet de légalisation du diagnostic préimplantatoire, qui sera soumis au peuple en 2015.

Affective Commitment and Job Satisfaction among Non-family Employees: Investigating the Roles of Justice Perceptions and Psychological Ownership

Due to numerous characteristics often attributed to family firms, they constitute a unique context for non-family employees’ justice perceptions. These are linked to non-family employees’ pro-organizational attitudes and behaviors, which are essential for family firms’ success. Even though scholarly interest in non-family employees’ justice perceptions has increased, more research is still needed, also because the mechanism connecting justice perceptions and favorable outcomes is not fully understood yet. We address this gap by explicitly investigating non-family employees’ justice perceptions and by introducing psychological ownership as a mediator in the relationships between justice perceptions (distributive and procedural) and common work attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction). Our analysis of a sample of 310 non-family employees from Germany and German-speaking Switzerland reveals that psychological ownership mediates the relationships between distributive justice and affective commitment as well as job satisfaction. This represents valuable contributions to family business research, organizational justice and psychological ownership literature, and to practice.

Psychological Ownership of Employees as a Mediator in the Justice - Affective Commitment Relationship

Numerous scholars have accumulated evidence on the positive effects that employees’ organizational justice perceptions exert on work-related outcomes such as affective commitment. However, research still lacks understanding of the underlying mechanisms connecting the two constructs. In this article we aim to narrow this gap by examining the concept of psychological ownership as a possible mediator between organizational justice perceptions and affective commitment. Investigating a sample of 619 employees, we find distributive justice to be positively related to psychological ownership, and observe psychological ownership as a full mediator of the distributive justice and affective commitment relationship. These insights offer a new explanation in understanding the justice-commitment connection, contributing to both organizational justice and psychological ownership literature and opening up ways for promising future research.

The Committed and the Happy: Exploring the Effects of Justice and Ownership Perceptions among Non-family Employees

A main challenge that family businesses face is fostering non-family employees' val-ue-creating attitudes, such as affective commitment and job satisfaction. While justice perceptions have been identified as being critical in the creation of these outcomes, the process how they actually evolve is less clear, especially in family firms. We address this gap by introducing psychological ownership as a mediator in the relationships between justice perceptions (distributive and procedural) and common work attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction). Our analysis of a sample of 310 non-family employees from family firms in German-speaking Switzerland and Germany reveals that psychological ownership mediates the relationships between distributive justice and affective commitment as well as job satisfaction. This leads to valuable contributions to family business research, organizational justice and psychological ownership literatures, and to practice.