Law without justice: The dilemmas of formalization and fairness in the legalistic organization

There is growing evidence of a litigation mentality rampant in organizations, which has created a legalistic mindset in many managers. Increasingly, managerial decisions are becoming dominated by a concern for what is legally defensible at the expense of broader social considerations such as justice and fairness. The papers in this special issue explore how this legalistic mindset has created new organizational and social dilemmas, and situations of law whithout justice.     

A numerical representation of semiorders on a countable set

Let be a semiorder on a countable setX and letx⁰ y if and only if either there existsx withxxy or there existsx withxxy. Then ⁰ is a preference relation with transitive indifference, which can be represented by a utility functionf of the usual sort. It is well known that is represented by a pair of real-valued functionsu, v, in the sense thatxy if and only ifu(x)>v(y). We prove that there exists a pair of functionsu, v, representing , such thatu+v is the utility function which represents in the usual sense. Moreover it is easily seen that, for such a pair of functionsu, v, we havex⁰ y if and only if eitheru(x)>u(y) or (u(x)=u(y) andv(x)>v(y)).

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Sommario Consideriamo unsemiordine su un insiemeX numerabile e poniamox⁰ y se e solo se esistex tale chexxy, oppure esistex tale chexxy. In questo caso ⁰ è unordine debole, che può essere rappresentato da una funzione di utilitàf nel senso usuale. D'altra parte è rappresentato da una coppia di funzioniu, v, nel senso chexy se e solo seu(x)>v(y). In questo lavoro si prova che ammette una rappresentazioneu, v tale chex⁰ y se e solo seu(x)+v(x)>u(y)+v(y). Si dimostra altresì che, con riguardo ad una siffatta rappresentazioneu, v di , riescex⁰ y se e solo seu(x)>u(y) oppure (u(x)=u(y) ed anchev(x)>v(y)).

     

Employee-initiated defamation lawsuits: Organizational responses and dilemmas

The fast-growing category of defamation lawsuits in the United States involves actions by employees against their employers. Over the last decade, the courts have increasingly ruled in favor of the employee plaintiffs, thus creating an employee's right to reputation. This article identifies a variety of responses undertaken by organizations to reduce their legal liability and lessen the likelihood of employee defamation lawsuits. We argue that while organizational actions to reduce their legal liability may appear rational, such responses may also be creating situations in which employers, employees, and the public may be the unintended victims of a law without justice. The article concludes with a discussion of balancing the freedom necessary for managers to communicate about employees and the fairness of that communication.     

Estimation problems for rectangular distributions (or the taxi problem revisited)

The problem of estimating the unknown upper bound on the basis of a sample of sizen from a uniform or rectangular distribution on [0, ] has considerable interest. This or the analogous discrete version is variously known as the Taxi-problem or the German bomb (or Tank) problem and has a long history. The emphasis here is on estimation of through the lengths of the observed gaps or spacings which seem natural for this problem.     

Eine Invarianzeigenschaft für Startverteilungen einer Klasse stochastischer Prozesse

Summary This paper discusses some concepts of mixing for stochastic processes with discrete time. The idea of mixing, which is defined with respect to a starting distribution , means that the tranjectories of the process get out of any set with -measure zero with probability one. Such -mixing processes satisfy an invariance property; an asymptotic event has probability zero under any starting distribution, provided that it has probability zero under the starting distribution . Concerring stationary Markov chains these results imply a weak zero-one-law the relation of which with well-known stronger versions especially for aperiodic Harris chains and with the notions of weak ergodicity and a.s. triviality is studied.     

Das maximale signifikanzniveau des Tests: “LehneH o ab,wennk untern gegebenen tests zur ablehnung führen”

Summary On one sample space there aren tests with critical regionsK ₁ and levels of significance _i ,i=1, ...,n (resp.n eventsK _i in a probability space with probabilities not greater than _i ,i=1, ...,n). In this paper we calculate the smallest upper bound of the level of significance of the test reject the hypothesis, if at leastk among the,n tests do so (resp. of the probability of the event at leastk among then events are realized). By the way, we will show, that this smallest upper bound does not change, if we replace at leastk by exactlyk.     

Optimality of block designs with variable block sizes and random block effects

We consider the simple block model with random block effects, the block effects having variance _b ² =²;, with ² the variance of the errors. It is assumed that the experimenter can vary the sizes of the blocks. The universal optimality of certain designs for all over all designs with the same number of blocks and the same number of observations is shown. It is of interest to note that if Balanced Incomplete Block Designs compete, then they perform equally well for =0 and for =, i.e. in the one way classification model and in the simple block model with fixed block effects, but they perform worse for every (0, ).The result is, however, theoretical in nature. It treats a situation which is not very likely to happen in practice. The interest lies in the fact that it provides a counterexample to a conjecture on optimality of designs in mixed models.     

Relationship between generalizedh-Statistics and polykays

Summary In this paper, relationships between generalizedh-statistics which estimate powers and products of central moments unbiasedly and the polykays by using ordered partitions are established. A table expressing generalizedh-statistics of weight 12 in terms of polykays and vice versa is presented. Expressions of weight less than 12 are obtained from this table.

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Zusammenfassung In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird mittels geordneter Zerlegungen eine Beziehung zwischen verallgemeinerterh-Statistik, welche Potenzen und Produkte von zentralen Momenten erwartungstreu abschätzt, und polykays hergestellt. Eime Tabele mit verallgemeinerterh-Statistik vom Gewicht 12 in polykay-Termen, und umgekehrt, wird gegeben. Gewichtsausdrücke kleiner als 12 werden aus dieser Tabelle gewonnen.

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This research has been supported by a grant from FINEP/Ministério do Planejamento e Coordenacão Geral to the IMUFRJ.     

A characterization of entropies of degree α

The functional equation has been studied by several authors under various assumptions onf and onk, l. Here we solve this equation iff is measurable andk 3,l 2 are fixed integers. Using the solution we characterize the entropies of degree for all real . Our results generalize the results ofBehara/Nath [1973],Kannappan [1974] andMittal [1976].     

Die asymptotische Verteilung des Prognosefehlers bei Prognosen mit Hilfe eines dynamischen ökonometrischen Modells höherer als erster Ordnung

Zusammenfassung In dieser Arbeit wird die asymptotische Verteilung des Prognosefehlers, wie er sich im Rahmen einer dynamischen Simulation eines allgemeinen autoregressiven ökonometrischen Modells der Ordnungp (einschließlich verzögerter exogener Variabler der Ordnungq) ergibt, abgeleitet. Daran anschließend werden einige Fragestellungen, die damit in unmittelbarem Zusammenhang stehen, diskutiert: Die Frage der relativen Effizienz der Prognoseschätzung, basierend auf der unrestricted- bzw. der derived reduced form, die Verwendung der asymptotischen Verteilung des Prognosefehlers für einen predictive test des Modells. Außerdem werden asymptotische simultane Prognoseintervalle abgeleitet.

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Summary The asymptotic distribution of the forecast error in the dynamic simulation of a higher than first order linear dynamic econometric model is derived and related topics are discussed.

     

Bootstrapping Confidence Intervals for Linear Programming Efficiency Scores: With an Illustration Using Italian Banking Data

This article suggests a method for introducing a stochastic element into Farrell measures of technical efficiency as calculated via linear programming techniques. Specifically, a bootstrap of the original efficiency scores is performed to derive confidence intervals and a measure of bias for the scores. The bootstrap generates these measures of statistical precision for the nonstochastic efficiency measures by using computational power to derive empirical distributions for the efficiency measures.     

Una luce nuova su una vecchia storia: La “scindibilitá” di Cantelli-insolera e la struttura a termine dei tassi d'interesse

Si mostra come la moderna teoria della struttura a termine dei tassi d'interesse consenta di definire diversi esempi (più o meno naturali) di leggi di capitalizzazione a tre variabili, e dunque sostanzialmente del tipo di quelle considerate da Insolera. La relativa condizione di scindibilità, già oggetto di polemica con Cantelli, appare formulabile in più di una versione, una delle quali equivale alla odierna ipotesi di equilibrio del mercato finanziario.

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Summary The modern theory of term structure of interest rates leads one, in a natural way, to consider several models of accumulation factors which depend on three variables, and can therefore be counted among those considered in this time by the Italian finance mathematician F. Insolera. The question of how to formulate the principle of consistency for such factors has been the subject of an animated debate between Insolera and F.P. Cantelli. The present paper shows that it admits more than one solution; one of the possible versions rendering the principle equivalent to the market equilibrium condition.

     

Effective participative decision making: A joint responsibility for success

Much of the current research on participative decision making focuses on the increasing need for broad-based decision-making systems, on the different outcomes associated with different forms of participation, or on the problems associated with poorly managed participative decision-making systems. This article considers the responsibilities of employees who participate in organizational decision making and the responsibilities of employers who expect to share decision-making tasks. A Bill of Responsibilities for Employees and a Bill of Responsibilities for Employers are presented. Pitfalls associated with neglecting these responsibilities are discussed.     

Vergleich des verallgemeinerten nichtzentralent-Tests mit dem Binomialtest

Zusammenfassung Es sei {F _,(x); –<<, >0} mitF _,(x)=F((x–)/)–F(x) eine standardisierte Verteilungsfunktion — die Familie der zulässigen Verteilungsfunktionen. Der (früher eingeführte) verallgemeinerte nichtzentralet-Test für die Hypothese {PP ₀} mitP:=F _,(x ₀) gegen die Alternative {P>P ₀} zum Niveau wird mit dem entsprechenden nichtparametrischen Test (Test für die Hypothese {pP ₀} über den Parameterp einer Binomialverteilung gegen die Alternative {p>P ₀}) verglichen. Für dent-Test wird die relative asymptotische Effizienz bestimmt.Beide Tests lassen sich als Tests für das zur WahrscheinlichkeitP ₀ gehörende Quantil einer Verteilungsfunktion interpretieren. Der klassische zentrale Student-Test ergibt sich als Spezialfall (F(x)=(x),P ₀=0,5).

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Summary Let {F _,(x);–<<, >0} withF _,(x ₀):=F((x–)/–F(x) a standarized distribution function — the family of admissible distribution functions. The (earlier introduced) generalized noncentralt-test for the hypothesis {PP ₀} withP:=F _,(x ₀) against the alternative {P>P ₀} at level of significance is compared with the corresponding nonparametric test (Binomial test). The relative asymptotic efficiency of thet-test is determined. Both kinds of tests can be interpreted as quantiltests. In caseF(x)=(x),P ₀=0,5 one gets the classical central Student-test.

     

Some brief notes on the “unfinished business” of qualitative inquiry

The paper argues that there are a variety of implicit issues in qualitative inquiry that need to be addressed if the area is to develop in some normal science sense. This unfinished business is concerned with a deeper investigation of basic terms that are now simply taken for granted, such as theme and pattern. It also includes the need to develop rules which will assist in making and justifying how qualitative interpretations are made from the implicit processes of inference. Specific suggestions are made for accomplishing these issues.     

State competition in higher education: A race to the top,or a race to the bottom?

How does competition affect higher education? This paper explores this question for public and private universities. Theory indicates that competition can push higher education policy in one of two different directions. On the one hand, competition may increase spending. For states, this would occur if states treat higher education as developmental; for private universities this would occur if they view spending as a means to attract students and prestige. On the other hand, competition may decrease spending if states treat higher education spending as redistributive, and competition may decrease spending by private schools if lower spending enhances their ability to attract students with low tuition. To determine which of these perspectives is most valid, we examine higher education policy choices in the 1980s and 1990s. We find that states appear to act as if higher education funding is redistributive while private schools appear to compete more on the basis of tuition than spending. These results demonstrate the important effects competition and governance structure have on higher education.Received: August 2001, Accepted: May 2002, JEL Classification: I2, I22, H72, I3     

Some results about averaging in stochastic approximation

The paper presents some results concerning the averaging approach in a general linear regression model in one dimension under suitable conditions about the martingale structure of errors. At first asymptotics of the primary and averaged estimators are discussed. Then it is shown that variances of estimators can be consistently estimated by appropriate integrated squared deviations functionals. Finally applications to the construction of confidence regions are considered.     

On the reliability of the chi-square test

Summary The classical ₂ test of goodness of fit depends on the partition chosen to calculate it. In this work the covariance structure of the family of all ₂ tests obtained by translation (modulo 1) of a uniform partition of the interval [0, 1) it is determined, under the hypothesis of uniform distribution on [0, 1). This is used to define and compute an index which measure the indeterminacy of the ₂ test due to the arbitrary choice of the partition to compute it.     

Die Charakterisierung der Normalverteilung nach Gauß

A proof is offered for the best possible version of the following Gauss type characterization of normality: LetF () be a family of distribution functions with translation parameter such thatF (0) has a densityf with certain regularity properties, and letM{1, 2, ...}. If the mean of every sample of any sizemM is a maximum likelihood estimate of , thenF (0) is normal with zero expectation. While in the best prior version of this theorem,f satisfies a continuity assumption andM={2, 3}, here no regularity condition is needed, andM can be any of the sets {3}, {4}, ....     

Sequential allocation to two treatments that converges to an α-superior treatment

Summary Two treatments are being compared as to which has the higher mean response. The response for the 2 treatments is assumed to be normally distributed, with unknown means. Observations are being allocated sequentially to the different treatments, the purpose is to locate the superior treatment, the one with the higher mean response. We are going to find a treatment for which we have 1— confidence of its being superior, we call it then an -superior treatment, Allocation schemes are discussed for which there will be a convergence on an -superior treatment, while heuristically trying to reduce the number of allocations to the inferior treatment. No stopping rule is applied and there is no point at which the experiment is terminated and the use begins, the scheme assures that the allocation will eventually converge on one treatment.