Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Capital humain – Psychologie »

Ces dernières années, les concepts de capital psychologique positif (PsyCap) et du comportement innovant au travail (IWB) ont attiré l’attention des académiques et des professionnels des ressources humaines en raison des avantages qu’ils apportent aux organisations. Les objectifs de cet article sont les suivants : a) présenter une vue d’ensemble du PsyCap, de sa relation et de son influence en tant qu’antécédent, médiateur et modérateur de l’IWB ; b) analyser la variété des instruments qui ont été utilisés pour mesurer ces deux concepts dans les articles examinés. Une analyse systématique de la littérature a été menée pour obtenir et analyser 39 publications dans lesquelles les termes « capital psychologique » et « comportement innovant au travail » apparaissaient, en adoptant une série de critères d’exclusion et d’inclusion dans notre liste finale. Nos résultats démontrent la relation entre les différents rôles de PsyCap et de l’IWB, et présentent les outils les plus couramment utilisés pour explorer cette relation, ainsi qu’une série de suggestions pour faciliter la recherche future.

The scientific basis of energy strategies is represented by the sciences of natural-humanitarian synthesis that study the "nature-man-society" system: ergodynamics, system theory of capital, the science of harmony, synthetic evolutionary ecology. Method of their construction is a deductive one: from the laws of socio-natural development to the society and an individual. National wealth, or country (national) capital, is the main indicator of the state of societies. It is considered as the structural energy (energy potential) of societies in value terms. Country capital is calculated as the sum of physical, human, social and natural capital. Natural capital includes reproducible (ecocapital) and non-reproducible (paleocapital) components. Index of the life quality of societies (changes from 0 to 1) is the arithmetic mean of the ratio of the private capital production of each society to the maximum values of the production of these capitals among all the societies under consideration. The purpose of economic strategies is to ensure the systemic progress of societies. It is implemented with the growth over time of the specific (per person) country capital and, accordingly, the quality of life index. Maximum progress takes place with harmonious resolution of the opposites existing in societies. The article proposes a method for calculating country capital, its components and the life quality index.

The accumulation of human and social capital plays a significant role in influencing migrants’ earnings and economic integration in the host society. Although the effects of foreign domestic workers’ bargaining power on their labor market outcome is constrained due to their unique migrant status, domestic workers may still strive to make use of various resources to secure “ideal” jobs as much as possible. Using a randomly selected unique data set collected in Hong Kong in 2017, this study examines whether foreign domestic workers’ human and social capitals are associated with their salary scale, working conditions, and work rights protection. We use education, previously held jobs, migration duration, and language proficiency to measure human capital, and friendship networks and church attendance to indicate social capital. We found that previously having middle-level job experience can reduce the likelihood of experiencing underpay and increase the likelihood of having overpay, taking the legal minimum salary as a reference. English language proficiency could also give them some leverage to access a better pay scale. Previous human capital accumulation is associated with having a private room in the employer’s home. It is also associated with better protection of work rights such as being less likely to experience a “no pay” month. For social capital, frequent participation in Sunday gathering with friends is mainly associated with rights protection. These findings indicate that although foreign domestic workers may be constrained in using their capital accumulation to improve their market value substantially, the capital accumulation can still give some leverage for them to bargain for a slightly improved salary, better working conditions, and protection of their rights.

Si l’étude des pratiques organisationnelles favorables à la performance et à l’implication des travailleurs a suscité un grand intérêt de la part des chercheurs, celle des pratiques favorables à leur santé psychologique est encore à ce jour en gestation. L’objectif général de la présente thèse était de contribuer à l’enrichissement de ce champ de la littérature scientifique au travers de : (1) la conceptualisation des Pratiques Organisationnelles Vertueuses (POV) fondée sur le modèle Psychologically Healthy Workplace de l’Association Américaine de Psychologie (AAP), (2) la création d’un outil permettant de mesurer les POV et (3) l’identification des liens existant entre les POV d’une part et le bien-être psychologique, les intentions et les comportements des travailleurs d’autre part. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, trois études ont été conduites. La première étude, composée de trois sous-études, a consisté à développer une mesure psychométriquement valide des POV (i.e., l’Inventaire des Pratiques Organisationnelles Vertueuses, IPOV) auprès d’une population de travailleurs français issus des secteurs privé, public et associatif. La deuxième étude a démontré que les POV étaient positivement associées à la satisfaction au travail, à la croissance professionnelle et à l’équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée, via la médiation du capital psychologique. Enfin, la troisième étude a mis en évidence que les POV étaient associées positivement à l’intention de rester et aux comportements de citoyenneté organisationnelle des travailleurs, via la médiation de l’adéquation personne-organisation. Ce travail doctoral apporte une contribution novatrice à la littérature scientifique consacrée aux déterminants organisationnels du bien-être psychologique, des attitudes et des comportements positifs des salariés et propose aux acteurs de terrain un outil intégratif et valide de mesure des pratiques organisationnelles vertueuses
While the study of organizational practices favorable to the performance and involvement of workers has aroused great interest among researchers, the study of practices favorable to their psychological health is still in gestation. The general purpose of this doctoral dissertation was to contribute to the enrichment of this field of scientific literature through: (1) the conceptualization of Virtuous Organizational Practices (VOP) based on the Psychologically Healthy Workplace model of the American Psychological Association (APA), (2) the development of a tool to assess VOP, and (3) identification of the existing links between VOP on the one hand, and the psychological well-being, intentions and behaviors of workers on the other. To achieve these aims, three studies were conducted. The first, comprising three sub-studies, developed and validated a reliable tool to assess VOP (i.e., Virtuous Organizational Practices Inventory, VOPI)among a population of French workers from the private, public and associative sectors. The second study demonstrated that VOP were positively associated with job satisfaction, thriving at work and work-life balance, through the mediation of psychological capital. Finally, the third study found that VOP positively impacted the person-organization fit, which in turn promoted the intention to stay and the organizational citizenship behaviors of workers. This doctoral dissertation makes an innovative contribution to the scientific literature on organizational determinants of psychological well-being, positive attitudes and behaviors of workers and offersactors in the field an integrative and reliable tool to assess virtuous organizational practices

This dissertation consists of three essays concerning the effects of human capital and health capital on the labor market. Chapter 1 presents a structural model that incorporates a health capital stock to the traditional learning-by-doing model. The model allows health to affect future wages by interrupting current labor supply and on-the-job human capital accumulation. Using data on sick time from the Panel Study Income of Dynamics the model is estimated using a nonlinear Generalized Method of Moments estimator. The results show human capital production exhibits diminishing returns. Health capital production increases with the current stock of health capital, or better current health improves future health. Among prime age working men, the effect of health on human capital accumulation is relatively small. Chapter 2 explores the role of another form of human capital, noncognitive skills, in explaining racial gaps in wages. Chapter 2 adds two noncognitive skills, locus of control and self-esteem, to a simple wage specification to determine the effect of these skills on the racial wage gap (white, black, and Hispanic) and the return to these skills across the wage distribution. The wage specifications are estimated using pooled, between, and quantile estimators. Results using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 show these skills account for differing portions of the racial wage gap depending on race and gender. Chapter 3 synthesizes the idea of health and on-the-job human capital accumulation from Chapter 1 with the idea of noncognitive skills in Chapter 2 to examine the influence of these skills on human capital and health capital accumulation in adult life. Chapter 3 introduces noncognitive skills to a life cycle labor supply model with endogenous health and human capital accumulation. Noncognitive skills, measured by degree of future orientation, self-efficacy, trust-hostility, and aspirations, exogenously affect human capital and health production. The model uses noncognitive skills assessed in the early years of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and relates these skills to health and human capital accumulation during adult life. The main findings suggest individuals with high self-efficacy receive higher future wages.

In recent years, there has been a growing commitment to studying the economic lives of the poor by better understanding their psychological lives (Banerjee and Duflo, 2007; Schilbach et al., 2016). These developments stem from the failure to empirically detect poverty traps, which have been at the core of the development literature for decades (Dean et al., 2017). Instead, empirical studies document the existence of very large rates of returns to investment, which, however, are not matched by observed consumption growth rates (Kremer et al., 2019). Several behaviors of the poor, which do not fit with traditional models, puzzled economists. Why do poor micro-entrepreneurs keep borrowing at extremely high interest rates instead of saving some of their profit to borrow less with each passing day (Ananth et al., 2007)? If using fertilizer has such high rates of return, why don't poor farmers purchase it (Duflo et al., 2008)? If the poor remain poor because they do not get enough calories, why do they spend their money on other things besides food (Banerjee and Duflo, 2007)? Such questions led to the rise of the subfield of Behavioral Development Economics, which applies insights from psychology and behavioral economics to study the economic behavior of the poor; trying to explain why and how it departs from standard economic models. Behavioral biases, studied extensively in Behavioral Economics, may be much more consequential for the poor. Failing to resist to the temptation of a hedonistic reward after a hard day of work will have very different implications for a poor person than for a rich one. This thesis aims to contribute to this new strand of literature, in particular to one of its branches titled "the psychology of poverty", which studies the impact poverty has on cognitive function and economic behavior. One influential theory in this field is the scarcity/mental bandwidth theory (Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013), which states that poverty implies not only lack of financial resources, but also lack of mental resources to focus on other things besides pressing concerns. At any time, a poor person's mind will be preoccupied with worries about bills, school fees or health problems; and how to best manage all of them with very limited resources. While this makes the poor better at decisions regarding the pressing issue at hand (Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013), it also makes them neglect other important domains which may not appear urgent enough (Shah et al., 2012, 2015). While the theory may help explain many puzzling behaviors of the poor, up to now there has been little evidence on real-world economic outcomes. The first two chapters of this thesis try to bring the framework closer to real-world economic decisions even though restricted to the lab setting. The main challenge with studying the psychology of poverty outside the lab is the fact that even exogenous changes in income will affect several other channels besides mental bandwidth, making it very challenging to pin down the precise mechanism. Given this, the first two chapters are limited to varying mental bandwidth in a lab setting, keeping income fixed. The novel aspect is that the decisions participants make mimic closely everyday life purchasing decisions, involving real products. I note however, that due to limited funding and ethical considerations, in both chapters decisions are only weakly incentivized: only 1% of participants actually receive the goods they selected. The first chapter explores the relationship between the psychology of poverty, investment in human capital, and financial incentives. Empirical evidence indicates that the poor are less attentive parents, investing less in the human capital of their children (McLoyd, 1998; Evans, 2004). This contributes to the inter-generational transmission of poverty because investing in human capital has extremely high rates of return, highest in early childhood (Cunha and Heckman, 2007; Cunha et al., 2010). The question is why don't the poor invest more? Traditional answers to this question put the blame on lack of knowledge of parenting practices, wrong beliefs on the expected returns or lower altruism. We propose an alternative explanation based on the scarcity theory. Poor parents may fail to invest the required time and resources in their child because their minds are preoccupied with other more urgent concerns. When there is uncertainty about how the next bill will be paid, spending time doing educational activities with the child may shift out of focus. When such behaviors keep repeating on a regular basis, a gap emerges between poor and non-poor children in the amount of cognitive and emotional stimulation they receive. The challenge is how to test this hypothesis. Given the identification issues with disentangling such channels with observational data, we bring it to the lab. Parents of toddlers, living in the UK, are invited to participate in an online experiment. First, they are asked to answer how their family would deal with various hypothetical financial scenarios which vary in severity (hard for the treatment group, easy for the control group). Among the treated, the scenarios aim to bring financial worries to mind, trying to capture what people living in poverty experience on a regular basis. After completing the scenarios, parents receive a budget of pounds 30 to be spent as they choose in an experimental market on 3 types of goods: necessities, child investment goods, and luxury goods. Half of parents are incentivized to purchase more child investment goods by being offered a 50% discount. This treatment investigates if financial worries change how parents respond to such incentives, and is motivated by the results in Das et al. (2013) which find that accounting for household re-optimization in response to a policy is crucial when evaluating its effects. We find that the incentive increases investment in human capital among lower income parents only when financial worries are not salient. When worries become salient, low income parents do not invest more but instead use the additional money to increase their demand of necessities. In addition, they also lower their demand for luxury goods to zero. When no discount is offered, we do not find financial worries to lower investment, which is likely to be explained by floor effects. Among higher income parents, financial worries do not affect behavior. The effects among lower income participants are driven by those who were further away from their last paycheck at the time of the experiment - an indicator of real world monetary scarcity. This finding increases the external validity of our main results. The second chapter departs from studying the human capital of children, focusing instead on the human capital of adultsootnote{However, the behavior studied is likely to have negative externalities also on children (e.g. domestic violence).}. Addictive (or temptation) goods have been at the core of academic and policy debates for decades. With Becker and Murphy (1988), addiction was rationalized as a utility maximizing decision where the individual fully internalizes the costs of consuming such goods. In this framework, the only scope for intervention is to balance out the externalities -- the costs that individuals place on society through consumption decisions (e.g. healthcare costs). Gruber (2001) questioned theoretically and empirically the rational framework, showing that with inconsistent time preferences, individuals do not fully internalize the cost of their behavior. Further studies have confirmed these findings which increased the scope of policy interventions (Gruber and Kőszegi, 2004; O’Donoghue and Rabin, 2006; Allcott et al., 2019a). The most widely used policy tools to limit the over-consumption of temptation are "sin" taxes, popular among governments because they bring large revenues. However, such taxes have sparked debates regarding their effects on income distribution. Since the poor tend to spend a higher share of their budget on temptation, they are likely to pay a higher cost. On the other hand, they are also the ones expected to benefit more in terms of health by consuming less. Traditionally, such taxes were placed on tobacco and alcohol. Recently, several governments have started adding taxes also on the consumption of unhealthy foods, such as sugary drinks and beverages. Crucial to determining the effect of the tax is the elasticity of demand with respect to price and the degree to which individuals are not internalizing their choices (Allcott et al., 2019a). The second chapter integrates the economics of temptation with the scarcity theory, and investigates if financial worries affect (i) the demand for temptation and (ii) the elasticities of demand with respect to price (sin taxes). The first question is not straightforward in the scarcity framework. While poverty is scarcity of financial resources, it is also scarcity of immediate gratification. The poor have stressful lives and jobs which are often less rewarding and highly physically demanding. Compensating for these struggles is harder since they can only access a small set of potential alternatives to addictive goods (e.g. going to nice restaurant and travelling are not really in the choice set of the poor). Following a similar design as in the first chapter but with a less specific population (adults living in the UK), we randomly trigger financial worries before asking participants to choose between necessities and temptation goods in an experimental market. The basket of temptation goods offered includes tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods and we simulate "sin taxes" by randomly increasing the price of temptation by 10% or 20%. We find that triggering financial worries lowers the demand for temptation but also dampens demand elasticities. The effects are stronger among low income participants. When financial worries are salient, their demand curve is actually slightly upward sloping. The finding is puzzling: financial worries appear to limit over-consumption of temptation, but they also hurt the poor the most when additional taxes are introduced. We find suggestive evidence that both effects are mediated by an increased focus on urgent necessities. The first two chapters integrated the scarcity framework into public policies. The results are very consistent across studies and have clear policy implications. Among the poor, when monetary concerns are top of mind: (i) incentivizing investments in human capital may not achieve its desired outcome, (ii) (dis)incentivizing consumption of temptation through new taxes may harm the poor the most since they do not lower their demands in response to price increases, which leads, through taxation, to a transfer of funds from the poor to the nonpoor without having any corrective effects (see Bernheim and Rangel, 2004; Bernheim and Taubinsky, 2018). However, I must note that both chapters make only speculative policy recommendations given that they lack the normative counterfactual. Further research is needed to rigorously establish the welfare implications of financial worries. The third chapter takes a step back from economic decisions to studying how violence exposure affects cognitive function in children. Unfortunately violence and poverty are closely linked in a vicious cycle. Economically deprived neighborhoods are in general also more violent. In addition to monetary concerns, the minds of the poor are likely to be preoccupied with safety concerns. This study attempts to apply the framework in Mullainathan and Shafir (2013), focusing on security concerns instead of monetary ones. While the link between the scarcity framework and violence as scarcity of security is novel and up for debate, the chapter is closely connected with the literature on the impact of emotions on cognition and decision making (Loewenstein and Lerner, 2003; Lerner et al., 2003, 2015; Callen et al., 2014; Bogliacino et al., 2017). In a lab-in-the-field experiment, primary school children in El Salvador are randomly assigned to recall episodes of violence exposure before or after taking cognitive tests. I find that recalling violence exposure before taking the tests, increases cognitive performance by 0.2 standard deviations, effect significantly stronger for children reporting higher exposure. The estimates contrast previous findings on the effect of violence and cognitive function (Sharkey, 2010; Sharkey et al., 2012; Bogliacino et al., 2017) and call for further research in the field.

In recent years, there has been a growing commitment to studying the economic lives of the poor by better understanding their psychological lives (Banerjee and Duflo, 2007; Schilbach et al., 2016). These developments stem from the failure to empirically detect poverty traps, which have been at the core of the development literature for decades (Dean et al., 2017). Instead, empirical studies document the existence of very large rates of returns to investment, which, however, are not matched by observed consumption growth rates (Kremer et al., 2019). Several behaviors of the poor, which do not fit with traditional models, puzzled economists. Why do poor micro-entrepreneurs keep borrowing at extremely high interest rates instead of saving some of their profit to borrow less with each passing day (Ananth et al., 2007)? If using fertilizer has such high rates of return, why don't poor farmers purchase it (Duflo et al., 2008)? If the poor remain poor because they do not get enough calories, why do they spend their money on other things besides food (Banerjee and Duflo, 2007)? Such questions led to the rise of the subfield of Behavioral Development Economics, which applies insights from psychology and behavioral economics to study the economic behavior of the poor; trying to explain why and how it departs from standard economic models. Behavioral biases, studied extensively in Behavioral Economics, may be much more consequential for the poor. Failing to resist to the temptation of a hedonistic reward after a hard day of work will have very different implications for a poor person than for a rich one. This thesis aims to contribute to this new strand of literature, in particular to one of its branches titled "the psychology of poverty", which studies the impact poverty has on cognitive function and economic behavior. One influential theory in this field is the scarcity/mental bandwidth theory (Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013), which states that poverty implies not only lack of financial resources, but also lack of mental resources to focus on other things besides pressing concerns. At any time, a poor person's mind will be preoccupied with worries about bills, school fees or health problems; and how to best manage all of them with very limited resources. While this makes the poor better at decisions regarding the pressing issue at hand (Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013), it also makes them neglect other important domains which may not appear urgent enough (Shah et al., 2012, 2015). While the theory may help explain many puzzling behaviors of the poor, up to now there has been little evidence on real-world economic outcomes. The first two chapters of this thesis try to bring the framework closer to real-world economic decisions even though restricted to the lab setting. The main challenge with studying the psychology of poverty outside the lab is the fact that even exogenous changes in income will affect several other channels besides mental bandwidth, making it very challenging to pin down the precise mechanism. Given this, the first two chapters are limited to varying mental bandwidth in a lab setting, keeping income fixed. The novel aspect is that the decisions participants make mimic closely everyday life purchasing decisions, involving real products. I note however, that due to limited funding and ethical considerations, in both chapters decisions are only weakly incentivized: only 1% of participants actually receive the goods they selected. The first chapter explores the relationship between the psychology of poverty, investment in human capital, and financial incentives. Empirical evidence indicates that the poor are less attentive parents, investing less in the human capital of their children (McLoyd, 1998; Evans, 2004). This contributes to the inter-generational transmission of poverty because investing in human capital has extremely high rates of return, highest in early childhood (Cunha and Heckman, 2007; Cunha et al., 2010). The question is why don't the poor invest more? Traditional answers to this question put the blame on lack of knowledge of parenting practices, wrong beliefs on the expected returns or lower altruism. We propose an alternative explanation based on the scarcity theory. Poor parents may fail to invest the required time and resources in their child because their minds are preoccupied with other more urgent concerns. When there is uncertainty about how the next bill will be paid, spending time doing educational activities with the child may shift out of focus. When such behaviors keep repeating on a regular basis, a gap emerges between poor and non-poor children in the amount of cognitive and emotional stimulation they receive. The challenge is how to test this hypothesis. Given the identification issues with disentangling such channels with observational data, we bring it to the lab. Parents of toddlers, living in the UK, are invited to participate in an online experiment. First, they are asked to answer how their family would deal with various hypothetical financial scenarios which vary in severity (hard for the treatment group, easy for the control group). Among the treated, the scenarios aim to bring financial worries to mind, trying to capture what people living in poverty experience on a regular basis. After completing the scenarios, parents receive a budget of pounds 30 to be spent as they choose in an experimental market on 3 types of goods: necessities, child investment goods, and luxury goods. Half of parents are incentivized to purchase more child investment goods by being offered a 50% discount. This treatment investigates if financial worries change how parents respond to such incentives, and is motivated by the results in Das et al. (2013) which find that accounting for household re-optimization in response to a policy is crucial when evaluating its effects. We find that the incentive increases investment in human capital among lower income parents only when financial worries are not salient. When worries become salient, low income parents do not invest more but instead use the additional money to increase their demand of necessities. In addition, they also lower their demand for luxury goods to zero. When no discount is offered, we do not find financial worries to lower investment, which is likely to be explained by floor effects. Among higher income parents, financial worries do not affect behavior. The effects among lower income participants are driven by those who were further away from their last paycheck at the time of the experiment - an indicator of real world monetary scarcity. This finding increases the external validity of our main results. The second chapter departs from studying the human capital of children, focusing instead on the human capital of adultsootnote{However, the behavior studied is likely to have negative externalities also on children (e.g. domestic violence).}. Addictive (or temptation) goods have been at the core of academic and policy debates for decades. With Becker and Murphy (1988), addiction was rationalized as a utility maximizing decision where the individual fully internalizes the costs of consuming such goods. In this framework, the only scope for intervention is to balance out the externalities -- the costs that individuals place on society through consumption decisions (e.g. healthcare costs). Gruber (2001) questioned theoretically and empirically the rational framework, showing that with inconsistent time preferences, individuals do not fully internalize the cost of their behavior. Further studies have confirmed these findings which increased the scope of policy interventions (Gruber and Kőszegi, 2004; O’Donoghue and Rabin, 2006; Allcott et al., 2019a). The most widely used policy tools to limit the over-consumption of temptation are "sin" taxes, popular among governments because they bring large revenues. However, such taxes have sparked debates regarding their effects on income distribution. Since the poor tend to spend a higher share of their budget on temptation, they are likely to pay a higher cost. On the other hand, they are also the ones expected to benefit more in terms of health by consuming less. Traditionally, such taxes were placed on tobacco and alcohol. Recently, several governments have started adding taxes also on the consumption of unhealthy foods, such as sugary drinks and beverages. Crucial to determining the effect of the tax is the elasticity of demand with respect to price and the degree to which individuals are not internalizing their choices (Allcott et al., 2019a). The second chapter integrates the economics of temptation with the scarcity theory, and investigates if financial worries affect (i) the demand for temptation and (ii) the elasticities of demand with respect to price (sin taxes). The first question is not straightforward in the scarcity framework. While poverty is scarcity of financial resources, it is also scarcity of immediate gratification. The poor have stressful lives and jobs which are often less rewarding and highly physically demanding. Compensating for these struggles is harder since they can only access a small set of potential alternatives to addictive goods (e.g. going to nice restaurant and travelling are not really in the choice set of the poor). Following a similar design as in the first chapter but with a less specific population (adults living in the UK), we randomly trigger financial worries before asking participants to choose between necessities and temptation goods in an experimental market. The basket of temptation goods offered includes tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods and we simulate "sin taxes" by randomly increasing the price of temptation by 10% or 20%. We find that triggering financial worries lowers the demand for temptation but also dampens demand elasticities. The effects are stronger among low income participants. When financial worries are salient, their demand curve is actually slightly upward sloping. The finding is puzzling: financial worries appear to limit over-consumption of temptation, but they also hurt the poor the most when additional taxes are introduced. We find suggestive evidence that both effects are mediated by an increased focus on urgent necessities. The first two chapters integrated the scarcity framework into public policies. The results are very consistent across studies and have clear policy implications. Among the poor, when monetary concerns are top of mind: (i) incentivizing investments in human capital may not achieve its desired outcome, (ii) (dis)incentivizing consumption of temptation through new taxes may harm the poor the most since they do not lower their demands in response to price increases, which leads, through taxation, to a transfer of funds from the poor to the nonpoor without having any corrective effects (see Bernheim and Rangel, 2004; Bernheim and Taubinsky, 2018). However, I must note that both chapters make only speculative policy recommendations given that they lack the normative counterfactual. Further research is needed to rigorously establish the welfare implications of financial worries. The third chapter takes a step back from economic decisions to studying how violence exposure affects cognitive function in children. Unfortunately violence and poverty are closely linked in a vicious cycle. Economically deprived neighborhoods are in general also more violent. In addition to monetary concerns, the minds of the poor are likely to be preoccupied with safety concerns. This study attempts to apply the framework in Mullainathan and Shafir (2013), focusing on security concerns instead of monetary ones. While the link between the scarcity framework and violence as scarcity of security is novel and up for debate, the chapter is closely connected with the literature on the impact of emotions on cognition and decision making (Loewenstein and Lerner, 2003; Lerner et al., 2003, 2015; Callen et al., 2014; Bogliacino et al., 2017). In a lab-in-the-field experiment, primary school children in El Salvador are randomly assigned to recall episodes of violence exposure before or after taking cognitive tests. I find that recalling violence exposure before taking the tests, increases cognitive performance by 0.2 standard deviations, effect significantly stronger for children reporting higher exposure. The estimates contrast previous findings on the effect of violence and cognitive function (Sharkey, 2010; Sharkey et al., 2012; Bogliacino et al., 2017) and call for further research in the field.

This dissertation presents three empirical studies on how to improve human capital in the public sector. In reverse chronological order, the essays ask who is attracted to public sector jobs (Paper 3); consider who can actually get a public sector job (Paper 2); and evaluate how current civil servants can be more effective at doing their job (Paper 1). In doing so, the dissertation presents tools that public managers can use to improve human capital within the constraints of government. Paper 1 focuses on the rising trend of teleworking options in the US federal government. Using eight years of rich administrative data on 10,000 employees at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), I evaluate the impact of instituting a program that allows employees to work from home full time, not only on those who telework, but also on their peers who remain in the office. I find considerable impact on organizational effectiveness. Teleworkers display increased retention and two divergent effects on output: while productivity per hour of examination time goes down, teleworkers examine more applications per quarter because they spend more of their workday examining cases and fewer hours in meetings. Interestingly, having more teleworking peers increases productivity for those who stay in the office, but it also increases their sick leave and attrition, a proxy for burnout. I hypothesize that this is due to increased monitorability and task visibility in the office. This study shows that teleworking programs affect organizations beyond their direct impact on teleworkers and that these additional effects must be incorporated into the overall evaluation of whether teleworking works for organizations. Paper 2 considers how to improve diversity in the civil service, with a focus on the police. The paper reports the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted in cooperation with a UK police force that was experiencing a disproportionate drop in minority applicants at one stage in its assessment process, the Situational Judgment Test (SJT). Drawing on insights from the literatures on stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995), belonging uncertainty (Walton & Cohen, 2007), and values affirmation exercises (Harackiewicz et al., 2014), we redesigned the wording on the email inviting applicants to participate in the SJT. The results show a 50 percent increase in the probability of passing the test for black and minority ethnic applicants in the treatment group; the intervention had no effect on white applicants. Therefore, the intervention closed the racial gap in the probability of passing the test without lowering the recruitment standard or changing the assessment questions. Paper 3 considers how to increase the number and diversity of people who are attracted to the police in the first place. The study presents the results of a field experiment that varied job advertisements on a postcard. The results suggest that, contrary to popular wisdom, public service motivation (PSM) messages are ineffective at attracting candidates that would not have applied anyway. Rather, messages that focus on the challenge of being a police officer are twice as effective at attracting new candidates, bringing in 16 out of the 70 new applicants compared to eight who received a PSM message. Non-white individuals disproportionately respond to messages that focus on the challenge and career advancement. Overall, messages that focus on the personal benefits of applying to a job are three times as effective at getting individuals to apply as messages that focus on serving the community, without an observable loss in applicant quality.
Public Policy

Organisations worldwide spend a substantial proportion of revenue on salaries and benefits (compensation) as an investment in employees who are regarded as human capital. The justification behind this investment is the theoretical assertion that investments in human capital predict financial performance but empirical support for this relationship is limited. The present study contributes to the extant literature by examining the relationship between human capital effectiveness (HCE) and financial performance. A further contribution of the research is to consider alternative criteria of financial performance as findings may be dependent on operationalisation of the criterion. The relationships we tested were between Human Capital Return on Investment (HCROI) and (1) Return on Assets and (2) Return on Equity. Drawing on the Resource Based View theory, we conducted a study using 10 years of data from a sample that comprised the Global 1000 (highest revenue, listed firms domiciled across 45 countries). We used a retrospective correlational study. Spearman Correlation (rs) analysis revealed significant effects for the relationships we investigated in all years. Moreover, meta-analysis showed these effects to be significant on average across the 10 years, showing moderate strength and relative stability. A corollary of the study is that we established global benchmarks for HCROI and provided the first empirical evidence that supports a positive relationship between HCE and financial performance. These findings may be useful to investors who seek possible indicators of expected financial performance from HCE. In doing so, the study suggests we should expand financial reporting to include HCE indicators. Implications of findings and study limitations are noted.

This doctoral thesis discusses the competence structures and the development of human capital in the graphic arts and media sector. The study has focused on exploring the new media landscape and in particular the structural changes that influence the sector, the print-versuselectronic- media debate and the future of print media. The influence of new technologies and management concepts on the graphic arts and media sector has also been investigated, as has the role and the importance of people in new societal and industrial settings as well as new ways of managing and developing people in changing media environments.

The primary research objective was to identify the competence requirements and characteristics for existing and potential employees in the graphic arts and media sector and, in particular, the areas of digital printing and cross-media publishing. The second objective was to elucidate the various actions and strategies established and applied for the professional development of people in the graphic arts and media sector, such as further training, recruitment policies and the evaluation and certification of competence. The third objective of the study was to suggest the formation of a strategy for the professional development of people in the graphic arts and media sector – namely the creation of a human capital development strategy. An important issue was to identify the various components (or substrategies) of the strategy and determine if it was possible to integrate them under a common platform.

The work has been based on literature studies, industry reports and observations, market analyses and forecasts, and empirical studies. Participatory research methods have also been used. In addition, case-study research has been performed at the company and sector levels. Human resource management and development concepts have been surveyed to determine whether they are efficient for the professional development of people in the entire spectrum of an industry sector.

The graphic arts and media sector – including print media – will remain active for the foreseeable future; however, the results presented here show that the sector has been significantly influenced by structural changes that have taken place over the last decade, affecting organizations, companies and people involved in the sector, and this process of change will continue.

The study shows that there is indeed a need for new competence in people employed in or to be recruited to the graphic arts and media sector. The initial identification and description of the competences for the new structure of the graphic arts and media industry is proposed. Various actions for the development of people in the sector, mainly regarding education, further and continuous learning, and recruitment, are also identified. However, these activities have been established mainly at the national level by various organizations (educational institutes, industrial partners and the governmental/European Union authorities).

Finally, the principal characteristics of a human capital development strategy are described, and components (or substrategies) that form a strategy that could be introduced for the graphic arts and media sector in Europe are proposed.

Keywords: Graphic arts and media sector, digital printing, cross-media publishing, human capital, intellectual capital, human resource management and development, human capital development strategy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the processes of formulation and implementation of policies regarding the integration of disabled children in the mainstream schools of a Brazilian South-eastern State Capital. The investigation was carried out through a documentary analysis and through the application of a questionnaire and an interview to 25 head teachers of the primary State schools of VitOria. The intention was to identify gaps between what is mandated by laws or suggested by other relevant documents and what is actually reported as practice by the head teachers, and how integration was being interpreted and defined at the school level in that Capital. In doing so it was hoped that some of the problems in making integration policies would be identified and practical suggestions for their solutions would be likely to be provided. The study also included a comparative part in which integration policies of four European countries (Spain, Denmark, Holland and the U.K.) were analysed and differences and similarities were highlighted in an attempt to further illustrate and discuss some of the main issues of policy-making in and practice of integration which at the time were being debated world-wide.

Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The management of human capital requires meaningful measures of human capital effectiveness that enable better strategic human resource decision-making. Existing measures, such as Human Capital Return on Investment (HCROI), allow human resource managers to quantify the bottom-line impact of human capital expenditure, but little is known about how HCROI varies within the population of listed companies. As a result, users of these metrics rarely know how they ‘measure up’ against their competitors in the absence of normative information. If human capital is considered a source of competitive advantage, measures of human capital effectiveness should also allow for normative comparisons. The present study extracted audited financial data from McGregor BFA (2010) and described the central tendency and dispersion of HCROI of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies (N = 319). In doing so, it established a set of benchmarks for human capital effectiveness measures across industry and company size categories, as well as described temporal changes over the financial years surveyed (2006 - 2010). Even though South Africa is considered to have a very low labour force productivity level compared to other countries (Schwab, 2010 in World Competitive Report, 2010/2011), the results showed that the grand median HCROI ratio for South African listed companies was higher (M = 3.03) than those from published figures from the USA, EU and UK (PwC Saratoga, 2011). This descriptive research also explored the influence of company size (small, medium or large) and company industry (N = 42) on human capital effectiveness (as indexed by HCROI). No statistically significant differences (p > .05) between the median HCROI ratios across company size categories were found, although notable differences in medians of HCROI across company industry categories were observed. HCROI also showed temporal fluctuations over the study period, reflecting economic cycle influences, but year-on-year changes were bigger when the mean HCROI was used — median HCROI remained relatively stable year-on-year. From the research, several recommendations are made regarding the appropriate use of these HCROI benchmark data. Also, this descriptive study lays a solid foundation for future explanatory research aimed at investigating the antecedents, correlates and consequences of human capital return-on-investment (HCROI) as an indicator of human capital effectiveness. The present study contributes to human capital metrics literature by demonstrating how human capital effectiveness indicators can be calculated from audited financial results available in the public domain, and in doing so, attempts to encourage greater use of human capital reporting in financial reporting standards.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die bestuur van mensekapitaal vereis betekenisvolle metings van menskapitaaleffektiwiteit wat beter strategiese menslike hulpbron-besluitneming tot gevolg het. Bestaande metings, soos Menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs (HCROI), laat menslike hulpbronbestuurders toe om die finansiële impak van die menskapitaaluitgawe te kwantifiseer, maar min is bekend oor hoe menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengste tussen die populasie van gelyste maatskappye varieer. Die gevolg is dat die gebruikers van hierdie metrieke aanduiders (metrics) selde weet hoe hulle ‘opmeet’ teen hul mededingers in die afwesigheid van normatiewe inligting. Indien menskapitaal as ‘n bron van ykmerk (benchmark) oorweeg kan word, moet die meting van menskapitaaleffektiwiteit ook normatiewe vergelykings toelaat. Die huidige studie het geouditeerde finansiële data vanaf McGregor BFA (2010) onttrek en die sentrale neiging en verspreiding van menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs van die maatskappye wat op die Johannesburgse Effektebeurs gelys is (N = 319), beskryf. Sodoende het dit ‘n stel ykmerke vir menskapitaaleffektiwiteit-metings daargestel oor die industrie- en maatskappy-grootte kategorieë heen, sowel as om reële veranderinge oor die finansiële jare (2006 – 2010) wat ondersoek is, te beskryf. Alhoewel Suid-Afrika met ‘n baie lae arbeidsmag produktiwiteitsvlak geag word in vergelyking met ander lande (Schwab, 2010 in World Competitive Report, 2010/2011), het die resultate getoon dat die algehele mediaan menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs ratio vir Suid-Afrikaans-gelyste maatskappye hoër (M = 3.03) was as die gepubliseerde syfers van die V.S.A., Europa en die Verenigde Koninkryk (PwC Saratoga, 2011). Hierdie beskrywende navorsing het ook die invloed van maatskappy-grootte (groot, medium of klein) en maatskappy-sektore (N = 42) op menskapitaaleffektiwiteit (soos geïndekseer deur die menskapitaal-beleggingsopbrengs) ondersoek. Geen statistiese beduidende verskille (p > .05) is tussen die menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs mediaan ratio’s oor die maatskappy-grootte kategorieë gevind nie, alhoewel daar noemenswaardige verskille in die mediaan van menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs oor die maatskappy-sektor kategorieë waargeneem is. Menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs het ook temporale skommelinge oor die studieperiode getoon, wat ekonomiese siklus-invloede reflekteer het, maar jaar-op-jaar veranderinge was groter indien die gemiddelde (mean) menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs gebruik was – mediaan menskapitaalbeleggingopbrengs het relatief stabiel van jaar-tot-jaar gebly. Uit hierdie navorsing word verskeie aanbevelings gemaak rakende die toepaslike gebruik van die menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs ykmerk-data. Die beskrywende studie lê ook ‘n vaste fondament vir toekomstige verklarende navorsing wat daarop gerig is om die voorafgaande veranderlikes (antecedents), korrelate en gevolge van menskapitaalbeleggingsopbrengs as ‘n indikator van menskapitaaleffektiwiteit te ondersoek. Die huidige studie dra tot die menskapitaalmaatstawweliteratuur by deur te demonstreer hoe menskapitaaleffektiwiteit indikatore vanaf geouditeerde finansiële resultate kan bereken word wat op die openbare domein beskikbaar is. Daardeur word gepoog om groter gebruik van menskapitaalrapportering in finansiële verslagdoeningstandaarde aan te moedig.

The monograph examines the current problems related to the development of human capital, presents the results of research on the conditions, means and methods of effective formation of responsibility in the process of human capital development. Prepared on the basis of the results of research carried out within the framework of the university-wide complex topic of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation "Socio-political, economic and legal conditions for the development of human potential, society and the state. Socio-political, psychological and linguistic factors of civilizational development in conditions of instability". It is intended for managers of personnel departments, researchers, teachers, postgraduates, doctoral students and students of higher educational institutions. The materials can be used in the educational process when reading courses "Management Psychology", "Labor Psychology", "Organizational Psychology", "Personnel Management", etc.

This chapter analyzes the relation between Positive Psychology, Psychological Capital, and Well-Being. Positive psychology pursues information that flourishes on life. Positive psychology improves the quality of life and investigates the paths towards positive individual characteristics and developing communities through actions that increase well-being and prevents discomfort in situations where life is vicious and meaningless. Psychological capital is associated with many positive results for employees and the organization and promises to increase productivity in today's workplace. In this chapter, the transformation of positive psychology into the concept of psychological capital is explained in the field of organizational behavior, and the state of well-being and psychological capital are examined from a theoretical perspective. Besides, it is explained how psychological capital improves employee wellbeing. Psychological capital and well-being are very effective concepts on employee workplace performance, and there are strong relationships between them.

This chapter analyzes the relation between Positive Psychology, Psychological Capital, and Well-Being. Positive psychology pursues information that flourishes on life. Positive psychology improves the quality of life and investigates the paths towards positive individual characteristics and developing communities through actions that increase well-being and prevents discomfort in situations where life is vicious and meaningless. Psychological capital is associated with many positive results for employees and the organization and promises to increase productivity in today's workplace. In this chapter, the transformation of positive psychology into the concept of psychological capital is explained in the field of organizational behavior, and the state of well-being and psychological capital are examined from a theoretical perspective. Besides, it is explained how psychological capital improves employee wellbeing. Psychological capital and well-being are very effective concepts on employee workplace performance, and there are strong relationships between them.

This chapter takes a critical look at the interplay of three key engagement elements: transactions, conversations, and relationships as they relate to innovation dynamics. It further pinpoints the importance of tracking four key factors—self-organization, tacit knowledge, social capital, and human nature—for the development of innovation rich social relationships. Most significantly, the author identifies a new dynamic organizational component: the shared-access domain or organizational sweet spot, and its significance to the innovative capacity of an enterprise. Research from such diverse fields as anthropology, evolutionary psychology, social neuroscience, and complex adoptive systems are used in an attempt to show commonalities in these disciplines in determining the effects of various organizational contexts/ecologies on the expansion or contraction of the shared-access domain. In essence, the chapter identifies methodologies and interrelated multidisciplinary factors for managing, or rather “unmanaging,” knowledge professionals.

Digitization is a milestone calling for a link back to the origin of social science in Antique Greece. The link is Neuroeconomics, an interdisciplinary field between neurology, psychology, and economics based on modern high-resolution brain scanners. The humanities expresses the human aspiration for positive relations among humans in contrast to the negative aspect of individual fighting for survival in the Elder Stone Age. The breakthrough of positive human relations is enabled by economic growth that provides the average consumer in the industrialized world with an existential freedom over at least 50% of their income. This happy situation is threatened by both an ecological catastrophe by the green-house effect and alienation of traditional human relations. Neuroeconomics explains how the rise of the creative class can overcome alienation by an inclusive democratic culture with sustainable solutions across the center. An independent production factor in this complex development is economics structured for dissemination of human capital.

This chapter introduces the book and the fact that it is motivated by a belief that theories of economic development can move beyond the generally known factors and mechanisms of such development, with the aim being to analyse deeper and more fundamental causes of uneven development. In particular, influences such as innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge, and human capital are widely acknowledged as key levers of development. However, what are the sources of these factors, and why do they differ in their endowment across places? This chapter indicates that the book seeks to theoretically argue and to empirically illustrate that differences in human behaviour across cities and regions are a significant deep-rooted cause of uneven development. Fusing a range of concepts relating to culture, psychology, human agency, institutions, and power, it proposes that the uneven economic development and evolution of cities and regions within and across nations are strongly connected with the underlying forms of behaviour enacted by humans both individually and collectively.

Abstract The prospect of human venture into space has always raised the disconcerting prospect of discovering either nothing or something. While the loneliness of nihilism has always been possible, it lacks dramatic potential. To find something is a very different story. Since its inception, science fiction has become the popular medium for portraying that something—the presence in the universe that challenges (or confirms) the anthropocentric presumptions of the great monotheistic civilizations of Western society. As Stanley Kubrick was fond of noting, the psychologist Carl Jung predicted that any encounter with transcendent intelligence would tear the reins from our hands, “and we would find ourselves without dreams. We would find our intellectual and spiritual aspirations so outmoded as to leave us completely paralyzed.” Quite aptly, therefore, Kubrick said of his film masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey: “I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001—but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God.”1 He recognized that space travel is nothing less than a voyage into time: into the future and into the past, toward end time and back to creation.

A retention and motivation issue exists in organizations among Generation Y in the United States. The exploratory case study design allowed the researcher to garner in-depth analysis of the participants' perspectives regarding human capital as a function of innovation in organizational culture. The diffusion of Innovation and the human capital theory were the foundation guiding the study. Three themes emerged from the data: 1) training and development, 2) rules and regulations, 3) motivation. Training and development involved training focused on career development and upward mobility. Rules and regulations involved inflexible guidelines that impede innovation. Motivation involved the necessary culture needed to engage Generation Y employees and build morale. Three recommendations were provided for organizational leadership: 1) leadership acquire a good understanding of Generation Y employees, 2) invest in Generation Y's training and career development, 3) adopt ways to motivate Generation Y employees.

Abstract The science of mental illness diagnosis and its treatment has taken shape over the last half of the 20th century (see U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995). Sophisticated talk and drug therapies are now available to treat many mental illnesses. Most of these treatments remain ephemeral and only partially effective, however, and mental illness continues to disable individuals, families, and communities. The investment of capital into the study of the etiology and treatment of mental disorders has not reduced the inflow of patients and has not led to the alleviation of widespread suffering. Clearly, this nation must find ways to prevent the early onset of mental disorders and to suggest new techniques for prolonging remission and preventing disorder.

The current article analyzes human capital analytics and develops a model for the drivers and outcomes of human capital analytics. A total of 81 articles have been analyzed using content analysis and a model has been developed using systematic literature review. The model identifies four drivers and seven outcomes of human capital analytics. The drivers include organizational culture, employee hard & soft skills, employee competencies and skilled workforce. The outcomes include stronger inter-departmental relationships, improved employee experience and behaviour, knowledge-based decisions, improved company performance, provision of competitive edge, risk reduction and enhancement of strategic organizational capability. We see that human capital analytics is an emerging phenomenon and yet much literature does not exist on the phenomenon. Considering minimal exploration of HR data analytics and its hidden role in the company's performance, the area has been less approached. Our review addresses the mentioned shortcoming and provides a roadmap for the future research.

The quality of human capital plays decisive role in the social and economic development of the country. Education and its quality are essential issue to government. In the learning process the students’ comprehension is important in achieving the determined goal. However there are various factors that affect the students’ performance as socio-demographic, economic and psychologic factors. This paper is aimed to investigate the effect of psychologic factors on academic achievements of students in higher education in the case of the Kyrgyz Turkish ‘Manas’ University. Psychological factors were analyzed using ordered probit model and data that was obtained in 2014 by conducting a questionnaire to 3133 students. According to the results psychological factors significantly affect academic performance of students.

This study analyses the predictors of opposition towards immigrants of “different ethnic groups” and “poor countries” in 5 European countries (Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, France and United Kingdom), using data from the European Social Survey 1 (Jowell & the Central Coordinating Team, 2003). Besides Portugal, a country that has moved from being one of net emigration to being a new host country for immigrants, the other countries were selected according to their main policies of immigrants’ integration. Opposition towards immigration (OTI) is analysed using three theoretical models: a) the economic self-interest model that proposes that opposition towards immigration may be due to economic factors; b) the social capital model according to which social trust and self-reliance on political and social system may shape peoples’ opinions on the benefits of immigration; c) Schwartz’s human values model, based on which it is possible to predict that some values facilitate OTI, whereas others facilitate openness to immigration. The hypotheses tested are: a) there is a negative correlation between economic well-being and OTI; b) a negative correlation between social capital and OTI; c) a positive correlation between both conservation and self-enhancement values and OTI, and a negative correlation between both self-transcendence and openness to change values and OTI; d) the social values model will further predict opposition towards immigration over and above the other models. Results globally support the formulated hypotheses.

What it is the Motivation from Students? It is a course, a need from a social success, too promoted in society? Motivation to learn is the primary segment of school success and is a fundamental issue for educational psychology. Product quality and the educational performance depend a lot on the interest of the client, not only by the teacher's role. I think this is important for the quality of human capital and forming a society we are going to. This paper presents you a research from undergraduates in 1st year of the Faculty of Geography, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The motivation for learning is very important not only in the family for a good example for children but also in society. In this way any teacher wishes to stimulate undergraduate's motivation for learning need to now own motivation (as well she can). I think a good motivated teaching activity may involve the undergraduates in an active way and capture their interest. We need a very good human interrelationship and good competence of the educational system. The goal of the research is to make a descriptive analysis of the motivational factors involved in learning in higher education at the University, to make the teaching- learning- assessing process more efficient and to increase the success of the school. We have used the method of descriptive analysis as well as descriptive comparison. The goal of processing and interpreting the results was to get to better know the motivation for learning in the undergraduates of our university and to get to act more efficiently to increase motivation for learning and education success.