Business Commons^™

On Empirical Validation Of Compactness Measures For Electoral Redistricting And Its Significance For Application Of Models In The Social Science, Christine Chou, Steven O. Kimbrough, Frederic H. Murphy, John Sullivan-Fedock, C. Jason Woodard

C. Jason Woodard

Use of optimization models in science and policy applications is often problematic because the best available models are very inaccurate representations of the originating problems. Such is the case with electoral districting models, for which there exist no generally accepted measures of compactness, in spite of many proposals and much analytical study. This article reports on an experimental investigation of subjective judgments of compactness for electoral districts. The experiment draws on a unique database of 116 distinct, legally valid districting plans for the Philadelphia City Council, discovered with evolutionary computation. Subjects in the experiment displayed, in the aggregate, remarkable agreement …

Valuation, Pricing, And Performance Of Initial Public Offerings On The Ghana Stock Exchange, Mohammed Sani Abdulai

Mohammed Sani Abdulai

In recent years, the initial public offerings (IPOs) on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) witnessed some level of undersubscriptions. The purpose of this research was to investigate the extent to which valuation, pricing, and performance of prior IPOs listed on the GSE contributed to this state of undersubscriptions. The research was informed by the valuation and pricing framework of Roosenboom. The research questions addressed whether IPOs on the GSE were under/overpriced and whether the projected and pre-issue financials were free from forecasting errors and earnings management. A cross-sectional, explanatory research design was employed to examine a dataset of 30 sampled …

A Lexical Approach To Classifying Computer Games, Xiaowen Fang, Susy S. Chan, Chitra Nair

Xiaowen Fang

According to the Entertainment Software Association (2009), more than two-thirds of all American households play computer games. This vast audience is fueling the growth of the multi-billion dollar computer game industry and bringing jobs to communities across the nation. The rising popularity and proliferation of computer games call for systematic research on the design of computer games and their impact on game players. Systematic research on computer games inevitably requires an accurate description of the traits or characteristics of games. However, the traits of computer games haven’t been well studied. Currently, computer games are often classified into genres by the …

Working Copy Exploring The Impact Of Stakeholder Pressure On Environmental Management Strategies At The Plant Level And Industry.Docx, Teresa K. Betts, F. Wiengarten, S. Tadisina

Teresa Betts

A Multilevel Analysis Of The Effect Of Prompting Self-Regulation In Technology-Delivered Instruction, Traci Sitzmann, Bradford S. Bell, Kurt Kraiger, Adam Kanar

Bradford S Bell

Two studies were conducted to examine the effect of prompting self-regulation, an intervention designed to improve learning from technology-delivered instruction. In Study 1, trainees who were prompted to self-regulate gradually improved their declarative and procedural knowledge over time, relative to the other conditions, whereas test scores declined over time for trainees who were not prompted to self-regulate. In Study 2, basic performance remained stable over time and strategic performance improved over time for trainees who were prompted to self-regulate, relative to the other conditions, whereas performance declined over time for trainees who were not prompted to self-regulate. Trainees’ cognitive ability …

Retrenchment In Higher Education: Public Perceptions And Marketing Implications, Oscar T. Mcknight, Ronald Paugh, Jamie Waltz, Jordan Mcknight

Oscar T McKnight Ph.D.

Many institutions in higher education are actively engaged in the retrenchment process; that is, eliminating, redacting or restructuring administrators, staff, faculty, programs and services in order to achieve financial stability. This research examined public perceptions of retrenchment by conducting a series of modified Delphi groups. Results suggest a public awareness and belief that retrenchment will not impact academic or experiential quality. Presented is REDUCE – a retrenchment strategy and process for university administrators and marketing professionals.

Collective Failure: The Emergence, Consequences, And Management Of Errors In Teams, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

The goal of the current chapter is to examine the emergence, consequences, and management of errors in teams. We begin by discussing the origin and emergence of errors in teams. We argue that errors in teams can originate at both the individual and collective level and suggest this distinction is important because it has implications for how errors propagate within a team. We then consider the paradoxical effects of errors on team performance and team learning. This discussion highlights the importance of error management in teams so that errors can prompt learning while at the same time mitigating their negative …

Work Groups And Teams In Organizations: Review Update, Steve W. J. Kozlowski, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

This review chapter examines the literature on work team effectiveness. To begin, we consider their nature, define them, and identify four critical conceptual issues—context, workflow, levels, and time—that serve as review themes and discuss the multitude of forms that teams may assume. We then shift attention to the heart of the review, examining key aspects of the creation, development, operation, and management of work teams. To accomplish objectives of breadth and integration, we adopt a lifecycle perspective to organize the review. Topics involved in the team lifecycle include: (1) team composition; (2) team formation, socialization, and development; (3) …

The State Of The Art In Performance Management: Learnings From Discussions With Leading Organizations, Bradford S. Bell, Christopher J. Collins

Bradford S Bell

Performance management is one of the fundamental HR tools that has been part of organizational life for decades and has long been the backbone of other activities of the HR system (e.g., pay decisions, development plans). Despite the importance of performance management, it has historically been rated by employees, managers, and the HR function itself as one of the least effective and understood HR practices. Given the stagnation in academic research on the topic and discontent on the part of organizational stakeholders, we decided it was an opportune time to meet with leading companies to understand the state of the …

Rigor And Relevance, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] As the incoming editorial team, our goal is to build on this position of strength and to advance both the reputation and readership of the journal. One way in which we intend to do this is by staying true to the mission that has guided P-Psych since its inception, which is to publish rigorous psychological research centered around people at work. Over the years, this focused mission has enabled the journal to publish seminal articles in personnel selection (Barrick & Mount, 1991), person-organization fit (Schneider, 1987), organizational citizenship behavior (Organ & Ryan, 1995), and many other areas of industrial-organizational …

Three Conceptual Themes For Future Research On Teams, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Tannenbaum, Mathieu, Salas, and Cohen (2011) identify three change themes – dynamic composition, technology/distance, and delayering/empowerment – that are affecting the nature of teams and discuss future research directions within each thematic area. They acknowledge that these emerging research needs may require new theories, research methods, and analyses and describe a few specific approaches that may hold promise, but focus their attention largely on describing the substantive issues and questions research should target going forward. We do not dispute that these themes are important – they are garnering substantial research attention (see Bell, 2007; Chen & Tesluk, in press; …

Team Learning: A Theoretical Integration And Review, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski, Sabrina Blawath

Bradford S Bell

With the increasing emphasis on work teams as the primary architecture of organizational structure, scholars have begun to focus attention on team learning, the processes that support it, and the important outcomes that depend on it. Although the literature addressing learning in teams is broad, it is also messy and fraught with conceptual confusion. This chapter presents a theoretical integration and review. The goal is to organize theory and research on team learning, identify actionable frameworks and findings, and emphasize promising targets for future research. We emphasize three theoretical foci in our examination of team learning, treating it as multilevel …

Institutional Maximization And Path Dependency – The Delay Of Implementation Of The Eu Public Sector Information Directive In Sweden, Jan Kallberg, Erik Lakomaa

Jan Kallberg

The implementation of the EU public sector information (PSI) directive was expected to open up European governmental data sources for commercialization and create, conservatively estimated, a € 32 billion European public information market. Institutional arrangements and governmental path dependency has delayed the directive’s implementation in several countries, most notably Poland and Sweden. In this paper we use the Swedish case to examine how bureaucratic inertia and path dependence can stall the implementation of EU directives that conflicts with the member state’s internal bureaucratic agenda. Sweden usually implements EU directives rapidly and extensively. In the case of the PSI-directive however, the …

Real Wages And Labour Productivity In Tanzania: How Do They Link?, Abel A. Kinyondo, Rizwanul Islam, Joseph Nganga

Abel Alfred Kinyondo

Using data from national level surveys, the present paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the linkage between labour productivity and real wages in Tanzania. After making tabular presentations of growth in labour productivity and real wages by industry and sector (public and private), regression analysis is undertaken to examine the factors that influence incomes. Granger causality test is applied to explain the nature of the relationship between rel wages and productivity for manufacturing industries. The paper finds no clear pattern in link between real wages and productivity. Real incomes in the private sector have registered negative growth while the opposite …

The “Babe” Vegetarians: Bioethics, Animal Minds And Moral Methodology, Nathan Nobis

Nathan M. Nobis, PhD

Here I discuss the role the film “Babe” has played in helping people address these challenges and make this moral progress. It is thought that a significant number of young people (mostly girls, now young women) became vegetarians due to their seeing “Babe.” These people are often called “Babe Vegetarians,” influence by what has been called “The Babe Effect.” Many of their stories are found on the internet.

Male Breadwinner Ideology And The Inclination To Establish Market Relationships: Model Development Using Data From Germany And A Mixed-Methods Research Strategy, Michaela Haase, Ingrid Becker, Alexander Nill, Clifford J. Shultz, James W. Gentry

Clifford J Shultz

The Role Of Family Ownership In International Entrepreneurship: Exploring Nonlinear Effects, Salvatore Sciascia, Pietro Mazzola, Joseph H. Astrachan, Torsten M. Pieper

Torsten M Pieper

Empirical research on international entrepreneurship is growing, but results on the role of family ownership in this phenomenon are inconsistent. We believe these inconsistencies owe to prior researchers having not yet investigated nonlinear relationships. Drawing on opposing perspectives of stewardship and stagnation, we explore potential benefits and drawbacks of family ownership for international entrepreneurship and explore nonlinear relationships among these two variables. Using a sample of 1,035 US family businesses and applying ordinal regression analysis, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between family ownership and international entrepreneurship: International entrepreneurship is maximized when family ownership stands at moderate levels. We discuss …

Conceptual Model Of Website Design Elements That Influences Credibility And Trustworthiness, Karthikeyan Umapathy, Chris Lavalley

Karthikeyan Umapathy

In today’s competitive environment, it is important for web designers to understand what design elements are essential for attracting visitors, making the visitor trust the website, and perform intended actions like placing an order and revisiting the site. Trustworthiness of a website heavily relies on a good first impression and visitor’s visual perception of the user interface. Therefore, the focus of this research is to investigate the effects of visual design elements on trustworthiness of a site. In this research-in-progress paper, we develop a conceptual model to depict the relationships among website design elements and trustworthiness. This conceptual model aids …

The State Of The State - Basic Investigations.Pdf, Lisa Dubose

Lisa Dubose

‘Concentration Camps For Lost And Stolen Pets’: Stan Wayman’S Life Photo Essay And The Animal Welfare Act, Bernard Unti

Bernard Unti, PhD

In the 1960s, LIFE was America's single most important general weekly magazine, its photo-essay formula catering to a middle class constituency of millions. By the halfway point of that tumultuous decade, readers were accustomed to seeing searing and unpleasant images of a changing nation, one racked by civil unrest and entangled in a bloody war in Southeast Asia. But when LIFE's February 4, 1966 issue landed on newsstands and in mailboxes across the United States, with the cover's warning "YOUR DOG IS IN CRUEL DANGER," tens of millions of readers became acquainted for the first time with another kind of …

The Class B Dealer: Down And Out?, Bernard Unti

Bernard Unti, PhD

The supply of dogs and cats to laboratories by Class B animal dealers has been a contentious matter for decades. The subject engenders heated debate whenever it surfaces, most recently in September 2005 when Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) proposed an amendment to the FY 2006 agriculture funding bill to withhold federal monies to research institutions that purchase animals from Class B dealers.

Can Wealth Taxes Be Justified, Eric Rakowski

Eric Rakowski

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Culture On Creativity: How Cultural Tightness And Cultural Distance Affect Global Innovation Crowdsourcing Work, R.Y.J. Chua, Y. Roth, J. Lemoine

Roy CHUA

No abstract provided.

Internal Control Opinion Shopping And Audit Market Competition, Nathan J. Newton, Julie Persellin, Dechun Wang, Michael S. Wilkins

Michael S Wilkins

This study examines whether audit clients engage in internal control opinion shopping activities and whether audit market competition appears to facilitate those activities. Regulators have long been concerned about the impact of both audit market competition and opinion shopping on audit quality. We adopt the framework developed in Lennox (2000) to construct a proxy to measure the tendency that clients engage in internal control opinion shopping activities. Our empirical results suggest that clients are successful in shopping for clean internal control opinions. In addition, we find evidence that successful internal control opinion shopping occurs primarily in competitive audit markets. Finally, …

Workplace Management And Employee Misuse: Does Punishment Matter? Journal Of Computer Information Systems, Qinyu Liao, Xin Luo, Anil Gurung, Long Li

Anil Gurung

With the ubiquitous deployment of Internet, workplace Internet misuse has raised increasing concern for organizations. Research has demonstrated employee reactions to monitoring systems and how they are implemented. However, little is known about the impact of punishment-related policies on employee intention to misuse Internet. To extend this line of research beyond prior studies, this paper proposes an integrated research model applying Theory of Planned Behavior, Deterrence Theory, and Theory of Ethics to examine the impact of punishment-related policy on employees’ Internet misuse intentions. The results indicate that perceived importance, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms have significant influence on employee …

Validation Of A 5k Age And Weight Run Handicap Model, Paul M. Vanderburgh, Lloyd L. Laubach

Paul M. Vanderburgh

Though increasing age and body weight (BW) have been widely known to be associated with slower distance run times, the common convention in 5K road races is to categorize competitors by age and, sometimes, BW. This has the disadvantage of assigning only small numbers of competitors to age categories and giving advantage to runners close to the minimum age or BW values allowable. Using recent advances in the modeling of distance run performance by BW combined with empirical evidence quantifying the independent effect of age on cardiovascular endurance, we previously published the derivation of the 5K Handicap (5KH), an age …

Body Weight Penalties In The Physical Fitness Tests Of The Army, Air Force, And Navy, Paul M. Vanderburgh, Todd A. Crowder

Paul M. Vanderburgh

Recent research has empirically documented a consistent penalty against heavier service members for events identical or similar to those in the physical fitness tests of the Army, Air Force, and Navy. These penalties, not related to body fatness, are based on biological scaling models and have a physiologic basis. Using hypothetical cases, we quantified the penalties for males, 60 vs. 90 kg body weight, and females, 45 vs. 75 kg, to be 15-20% for the fitness tests of these three services. Such penalties alone can adversely impact awards and promotions for heavier service members. To deal equitably with these penalties …

Too Rare To Be A Token: An Anthropologist In A Management Department, Alex Stewart

Alex Stewart

No abstract provided.

Multidimensionality Of Entrepreneurial Firm-Level Processes: Do The Dimensions Covary?, Phil E. Stetz, Roy Howell, Alex Stewart, John D. Blair, Myron D. Fottler

Alex Stewart

Covariance (or not) among the first-order dimensions of firm-level entrepreneurial processes underpins a fundamental and non-trivial difference between the entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial posture constructs. Utilizing a typology developed for multi-dimensional constructs, we operationalized each construct according to its specific conceptualization (relationships among the dimensions) and compared and contrasted each construct in an identical nomological network. Although we found support for both theories, the entrepreneurial orientation construct was more robust in explaining additional variance in growth. Additionally, our findings suggest that the means through which the first-order dimensions are operationalized—latent vs. summates— significantly affect the analysis.

Entrepreneurial Capabilities And Resources: Sustainable Competitive Advantage Through Innovation And Opportunism, Kevin E. Learned, Alex Stewart

Alex Stewart

Firm resource theory specifies the conditions under which resources and capabilities may lead to sustainable competitive advantage. Using the emerging organization as an example, we use firm resource theory to identify some of the resources important to the entrepreneurial capabilities of innovation and opportunism.