A Note on Job Mobility Among Workers with Disabilities

This article uses data from the 1990 and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to analyze relationships between disability status and job mobility. We identify individuals who experienced voluntary or involuntary job separations over a 20-month period and examine the effect of disability status on rates of job change and wage growth following a job change. The results show that disabled workers are more likely to experience involuntary job changes than are nondisabled workers, but there is little difference in the wage effects of job changes by disability status.     

Facing the new facts of retirement income adequacy

A range of new factors is responsible for the current problem with insufficient retirement resources. Changes inside and outside the organization share partial responsibility, as do employee behaviors. In addition, other factors simply have been overlooked as employers and employees think about retirement income adequacy. The authors describe the current situation, discuss the significant risks it creates for both employers and employees and advise employers on what they should do to help employees build a more secure future in retirement.     

Cross-functional interface and disruption in CRM projects: Is marketing from Venus and information systems from Mars?

Because of the inherently cross-functional nature of customer relationship management, the use of cross-functional teams in CRM project implementations is virtually mandatory to achieve critical marketing and sales objectives. This study examines the effects of functional membership as well as team and individual performance evaluations on project members' perceptions of disruption and cooperation during CRM project implementations. The results show that IS project members are more likely to perceive internal volatility and manifest interfunctional conflict and less likely to perceive interfunctional cooperation than project members from either sales/marketing or general management. We also find that team performance evaluations are negatively associated with disruption and positively associated with cooperation, while individual evaluations are negatively associated with internal volatility.     

Predicting the Frequency and Amount of Health Care Expenditures

Abstract

This article extends the standard two-part model for predicting health care expenditures to the case where multiple events may occur within a one-year period. The first part of the extended model represents the frequency of events, such as the number of inpatient hospital stays or outpatient visits, and the second part models expenditure per event. Both component models also use independent variables that consist of an individual’s demographic and access characteristics, socioeconomic status, health status, health insurance coverage, employment status, and industry classification. The second part of the model also includes a variable representing the number of events to predict the expenditure per event, thus capturing dependencies between the first and second parts. This article introduces closed-form predictors of annual total expenditures and demonstrates how to create simulated predictive distributions for individuals and groups. The data for this study are from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). MEPS panels 7 and 8 from 2003 were used for estimation; panels 8 and 9 from 2004 were used to validate predictions. This annual expenditures model provided a better fit to the data than standard two-part models. The count variable was significant in predicting outpatient expenditures. The aggregate expenditures model provided better point predictions of held-out total expenditures than competing models, including the standard two-part model. The predictive distribution for aggregate expenditures for small groups is long tailed, with both the variability and skewness decreasing as the group size increases, an important point for programs designed to manage expenditures.     

A Statistical Method for Monitoring a Change in the Rate of Nonacceptable Inpatient Claims

Abstract

This paper is an extension of earlier work (Rosenberg 1998; Rosenberg, Andrews, and Lenk 1999; Rosenberg and Griffith 2000) that introduced a statistical control model to supplement current efforts inexpensively to help reduce unnecessary expenditures. The application of the study was to predict the rate of nonacceptable inpatient claims (NACs). In that work, a statistical model was proposed to link information obtained through an expensive audit with inexpensive information that is readily available to estimate the probability that a claim is a NAC. The premise was that a statistical system can be developed to supplement the expensive audit for additional control between audits.

Estimates of the NAC rate obtained from the statistical model are used as input in a statistical monitor to assess whether the NAC rate had changed over time. The statistical monitor is the subject of this paper. The idea is that subgroups of claims can be analyzed inexpensively with the statistical monitor to determine whether any current intervention is required prior to the time of the next scheduled audit, or whether adjustments are needed in the determination of claims to be sampled for the audit. In this study, the estimate for the NAC rate at t ₀ is compared against the estimate of the NAC rate at some later time t ₁. A decision rule is proposed to assess whether a change in the NAC rate has occurred for that subgroup. The methodology is also applicable to other health care measurements.     

When hospitals provide HR practices tailored to older nurses,will older nurses stay? It may depend on their supervisor

This longitudinal study tested a model of the mechanisms through which HR practices are linked to older nurses' intention to remain with their hospital. The participants were 528 registered nurses aged 45 to 67 years. The study focused on two HR practices, flexible work options and performance evaluation practices, which are more directly under the influence of the immediate supervisor. Supervisor-related procedural justice mediated the relationship between the HR practices and perceived supervisor support (PSS), and in turn, PSS was associated with enhanced perceived organisational support (POS). POS partially mediated the relationship between PSS and affective commitment, and affective commitment fully mediated the relationship between POS and older nurses' intention to remain with their hospital. The findings indicated that fostering older nurses' commitment and ultimately retention requires HR practices relevant to older nurses, supportive and fair supervisors, and a hospital that values their contribution and cares about their well-being.