An oxytocin/vasopressin-related neuropeptide modulates social foraging behavior in the clonal raider ant

Oxytocin/vasopressin-related neuropeptides are highly conserved and play major roles in regulating social behavior across vertebrates. However, whether their insect orthologue, inotocin, regulates the behavior of social groups remains unknown. Here, we show that in the clonal raider ant Ooceraea biroi, individuals that perform tasks outside the nest have higher levels of inotocin in their brains than individuals of the same age that remain inside the nest. We also show that older ants, which spend more time outside the nest, have higher inotocin levels than younger ants. Inotocin thus correlates with the propensity to perform tasks outside the nest. Additionally, increasing inotocin pharmacologically increases the tendency of ants to leave the nest. However, this effect is contingent on age and social context. Pharmacologically treated older ants have a higher propensity to leave the nest only in the presence of larvae, whereas younger ants seem to do so only in the presence of pupae. Our results suggest that inotocin signaling plays an important role in modulating behaviors that correlate with age, such as social foraging, possibly by modulating behavioral response thresholds to specific social cues. Inotocin signaling thereby likely contributes to behavioral individuality and division of labor in ant societies.

Disentangling the mechanisms linking dispersal and sociality in supergene-mediated ant social forms

The coevolution between dispersal and sociality can lead to linked polymorphisms in both traits, which may favour the emergence of supergenes. Supergenes have recently been found to control social organization in several ant lineages. Whether and how these ‘social supergenes’ also control traits related to dispersal is yet unknown. Our goal here was to get a comprehensive view of the dispersal mechanisms associated with supergene-controlled alternative social forms in the ant Formica selysi. We measured the production and emission of young females and males by single-queen (monogyne) and multiple-queen (polygyne) colonies, the composition of mating aggregations, and the frequency of crosses within and between social forms in the wild. We found that males and females from alternative social forms did not display strong differences in their propensity to leave the nest and disperse, nor in their mating behaviour. Instead, the social forms differed substantially in sex allocation. Monogyne colonies produced 90% of the females flying to swarms, whereas 57% of the males in swarms originated from polygyne colonies. Most crosses were assortative with respect to social form. However, 20% of the monogyne females did mate with polygyne males, which is surprising as this cross has never been found in mature monogyne colonies. We suggest that the polygyny-determining haplotype free rides on monogyne females, who establish independent colonies that later become polygyne. By identifying the steps in dispersal where the social forms differ, this study sheds light on the behavioural and colony-level traits linking dispersal and sociality through supergenes.

Introducing the EU exit index measuring each member state’s propensity to leave the European Union

Which member states could leave the European Union in the years ahead? To answer this question, I develop the ‘EU Exit Index’ measuring the exit propensities of all European Union member states. The index highlights that the United Kingdom was an outlier and uniquely positioned to leave the European Union. While all other states are far behind the United Kingdom, the index still reveals substantial variation among them. Moreover, the index allows monitoring the development of exit propensities over time. It shows that the European Union is in better shape today than before the Brexit referendum and that, currently, no further exits are on the horizon. Still, this could change in the future and the EU Exit Index provides systematic and reproducible measurements to track this development.

Examining antecedents of retail employees' propensity to leave

PurposeIn this study, the authors examine the impacts of two facets of retail employees' cognitive support and affective commitment on emotional labor-related outcomes.Design/methodology/approachTo test the study hypotheses, 521 retail service employees participated in the survey. By using the structural equation modeling, the results show that employees' perceived organizational support directly and positively employees' affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion.FindingsBy using the structural equation modeling, the results show that employees' perceived organizational support directly and positively influence employees' affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion. The extent of employees' affective organizational commitment directly and negatively influences emotional labor and exhaustion. Furthermore, employees' emotional exhaustion exerts an influence on retail employees' propensity to leave.Research limitations/implicationsDrawing on social exchange and conservation of resources theories, this study contributes to emotional labor research and practices by examining factors that potentially influences employees' propensity to leave. For future studies, researchers can expand the proposed framework of the current study to other retailing settings.Practical implicationsFindings of the study suggest that retail organizations need to manage employees' support and commitment concerning to understand emotional labor.Originality/valueThe current study found that employees' affective commitment influences key emotional labor constructs including emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Employees who have a high level of identification, involvement and emotional attachment toward the organization, they are less likely to feel of overload and inefficiency. Given the importance of emotional labor in the retailing setting, the proposed model and findings of this study contribute the existing knowledge of retail employees' behavior.

Servant leadership and work-family enrichment among hotel employees in Russia

This study investigates work-to-family enrichment (WFE) and family-to-work enrichment (FWE) as the two intervening mechanisms linking servant leadership to propensity to leave work early (PLE) and service recovery performance (SRP). Data gathered from hotel customer-contact employees via a time-lagged survey design and their immediate supervisors in Russia were used to assess the aforesaid relationships through structural equation modelling. As predicted, servant leadership stimulates both WFE and FWE and boosts SRP, while it alleviates PLE. Consistent with the study prediction, WFE partly mediates the linkage between servant leadership and SRP. As hypothesized, FWE partly mediates the relationship between servant leadership and PLE. The rest of the linkages are not supported by the empirical data.

The Directional Nature of Organizational Relationships and Their Effect on Individual Performance and Turnover

The article identifies how differences in employee relationships with supervisors and co-workers affect employee performance and propensity to leave the organization. The study uses the leader–member exchange (LMX) and co-worker exchange (CWX) perspectives to understand these differences and the social capital theory to identify their impact, resulting in four relationship configurations with varying potential for success and vulnerability in organizations.

The effect of school closings on teacher labor market outcomes and teacher effectiveness

School closings displace thousands of teachers in the U.S. every year. This paper explores how elementary school teachers in North Carolina respond to this labor market shock. After documenting that declining enrollment is a key driver of school closings in our study, we find that while most displaced teachers move to new schools in the same district, a considerable share leave public education altogether. We find that the increase in the propensity to leave teaching is largest for experienced teachers. It is also marginally larger for the highest and lowest value-added teachers compared to teachers in the middle of the value-added distribution, and, strikingly, twice as large for black teachers than white teachers even from the same closing school. Moving schools after a school closing has no impact on teacher effectiveness as measured by value-added. Although the primary goal of school closings is typically to move students out of declining or failing schools, school closings also affect the overall distributions of important teacher characteristics such as experience, race, and effectiveness in raising test scores.

Not just good for her: A temporal analysis of the dynamic relationship between representation of women and collective employee turnover

Many organizations aim to increase the representation of women in their workforce, yet such efforts are often challenged by women’s relatively higher propensity to leave a job compared to men. Overlooked so far has been the temporal relationship between the representation of women and an organization’s collective employee turnover. We suggest that a substantive and rapid increase in the representation of women positively affects women and results in positive spillover effects for men, leading to a decrease in collective turnover. In our theoretical development, we explain how higher representation of women is associated with higher job embeddedness for all employees, which results in a subsequent decrease in collective employee turnover. We use latent curve model (LCM) analysis to examine a population of 499 organizations over a 14-year time span, and find support for our hypotheses. We suggest opportunities for future research and offer implications for practicing managers.