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JAQM Volume 11, Issue 2 - June 30, 2016
Contents
Public Service Motivation and Employee Outcomes in the Italian Public Sector: Testing the Mediating Effect of Person-Organization Fit
Raffaela PALMA
This article examines the relationship between Public Service Motivation and the following outcomes, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Individual Performance and Quit Intention, essential outcomes in the life of any organization though in my work it is the school which is focused upon. Using a sample of 296 public teachers in the Italian public sector, a mediation model is outlined and tested empirically using Partial Least Squares-Path Modeling. Our results show that Public Service Motivation positively affects the congruence between employees’ values and organizational mission, known as “Person Organization-fit”, which in turn has significant positive associations with Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Individual Performance, but negative associations with Quit Intentions. All of these outcomes improve the performance in public and private organizations. In general, our findings suggest that if public managers want to improve the organizational performance and avoid their employees to quit the organization they belong to, then they must favor more in general Public Service Motivation, but more specifically the achievement of the above mentioned congruence.
Determination of Parameters in Chemical and Biochemical Non-Linear Models using Simulated Data with Gaussian Noise Perturbation
Victor MARTINEZ-LUACES, Leticia SILVA
The Michaelis-Menten kinetics is a well-known model in biochemistry, widely used in enzyme-substrate interaction (Nelson and Cox, 2008). The same mathematical formula is called Langmuir equation (Masel, 1996) when is used to model generic adsorption of chemical species, and finally, an empirical equation of this form is applied to microbial growth and it is called J. Monod kinetics (Martinez-Luaces, 2008). A typical problem in chemistry and/or biochemistry consists in determining the parameters of these equations from experimental data. In order to solve this problem, several methods were proposed, Lineweaver-Burk, Hanes-Woolf, Hofstee, Scatchard and Cornish-Bowden-Eisenthal are the most important ones (Nelson and Cox, 2008). In this paper, all these methods are analysed and compared in terms of exactitude and precision. For this purpose, simulated data were generated and perturbed using Gaussian noise with different amplitudes. The same methodology was used in a previous work (Martinez-Luaces, 2009). Absolute and relative errors of the different methods are compared, and taking into account the results, general conclusions about their robustness are obtained. This is particularly important in order to choose the best method when the relation between trend and noise tends to increase.
Children’s Scientific Knowledge in Morocco: a Gender approach Analysis TIMSS’s Scores Decomposition
Aomar IBOURK
This work is one of works trying to understand, and to assess the differences of children educational achievement by genre. In fact, this work tries to find answers of two sequential questions: can we accept the hypothesis, often allowed, which stipulates that boys are more performing than girls in science subjects? If yes, how to analyze a possible difference in terms of its determinants? In this regard, we’ll try to explain the achievement differences between boys and girls in the 4th year of primary using TIMSS-2011’s database. The applied methodology is the decomposition developed by Oaxaca and Blinder (1973), and generalized by Neumark (1988) and Oaxaca and Ransom (1988, 1994). Even if our results confirm that the girls are more performants than boys, the performance of the educational system and Moroccan is still very mediocre in general.
CSR and Profitability in Romanian IT SMEs
Sebastian Ion CEPTUREANU
A growing number of European small and medium IT promotes social responsibility strategies as a result of social pressure, environmental and economic crises. These businesses seek to influence decisions of the parties that interact: employees, shareholders, investors, and customers, the public and non-governmental organizations. In this respect, companies are investing in their future and it is expected that a voluntary commitment that we make to help increase firm profitability. The European Union attaches great importance of corporate social responsibility it can contribute significantly to the strategic objective set in Horizon 2020 EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy with a high level of employment and social cohesion work. This paper is a study of the CSR practices of 121 small-size companies drawn from IT sector in Romania. The empirical analysis shows a high level of incidence of CSR in these SMEs, particularly on the factors that translate into management benefits. Thus, the practice of CSR is seen to both correlate and contribute to the management efforts of the SMEs.
Critical Review of Vision Fitness Testing within the South African Driving License Testing and Road Safety Context
Solani MATHEBULA, Samuel Bert BOADI-KUSI, Johan KOK
In the South African context visual fitness testing prior to issuing a learner's, driving license or authorizing the renewal of a driving license has been legislated since 1998. Of all the medical fitness disqualifiers, visual fitness has been prioritized as perhaps the most important medical condition to be verified through eye-testing procedure at a licensing authority. All other medical conditions are disclosed or declined through a concise declaration by the applicant. This study shows firstly, that the causal factors of certain vehicle accidents are not significantly related to visual fitness. Secondly, considering the substantiated low failure rate through eye-testing at driving license testing centres, the study suggests there is no justification for the current prescribed eye-testing procedure and accompanying operational and capital budget implications without the other relevant eye-testing procedures.
Thermal Manipulation in Broilers and Layers
B.C. RAKSHIT, M. Ohid ULLAH, D. MISHRA
Thermal manipulation during incubation has been shown to have positive effects on performance and mortality of broilers in later life. This only holds when chickens are exposed to temperatures in later life they already experienced during the embryonic phase. Hardly known are the effects of thermal manipulation in layer chickens and furthermore the consequences of a mismatch between incubation temperature and later life ambient temperature. In this study, both cold and warm thermal manipulation was investigated in broilers and layers and the effects in later life during high temperatures. During d 7 to 16 of incubation broiler and layers eggs were exposed to an eggshell temperature (EST) of 37.5oC (C), a high EST of 39.5oC for 12 h per d (H), or a low EST of 36.5oC for 12h per d (L). Hatchability was not affected by breed, but was higher in the H treatment (96.3%) than in both other treatments (92.3% on average). Yolk free body mass was higher in C chickens, followed by H and L chickens in both breeds, whereas the opposite was found for the residual yolk. Body weight till 28d of age was hardly affected by incubation temperature treatment, but body temperature was higher in L chickens than in C and H chickens till 14d of rearing in broilers and till 21d in layers. Mortality during rearing was not affected by breed, but was considerable higher in L chickens (6.7%) than in C (1.8%) and H (1.2%) chickens. Based on this study, we concluded that layers act more or less comparable during and after thermal manipulation than broilers. Secondly, a mismatch between incubation temperature and rearing temperature will not only result in higher body temperatures, but also in considerable higher mortality in later life.
Findings regarding Corporate Social Responsibility in Romanian IT SMEs
Eduard Gabriel CEPTUREANU
CSR has its origins necessity of implementing different from one organization to another, depending on several factors: company size, products, activities, territorial dispersion, suppliers, leadership and reputation etc. However, the common factor is that in a responsible and application of sustainable development strategies go beyond considerations on building a reputation, being directly associated business continuity, employee morale and market expansion. Ideally, CSR policies at the organization operates as a self-regulatory mechanism integrated into the organization's functioning by companies to monitor and ensure compliance with legislation, ethical standards of operation and not least the international standards. Unfortunately, the importance of using CSR in small and medium enterprises continues to be negatively influenced by reporting against multinationals and large companies practices. Consequently, it is common practice that the judge SMEs in terms of strategies, methods and objectives set in companies mentioned above. The results of our research highlights the peculiarities of CSR in small firms, generated by a unique combination of features and their chronic lack of resources allocated for this purpose.