Applying continuous improvement to teaching in another culture

As international business programs proliferate, the mixing of many cultures in the classroom creates new teaching challenges. This paper reports on how an American accounting professor coped with cultural differences at INSEAD in France. Student evaluations for the first course taught at INSEAD revealed a variety of problems that the professor tried to resolve by applying the principles of continuous improvement in the next course he taught. Confronting the students directly with the problem, enlisting their aid in improving the course, and eliciting specific feedback all combined to substantially raise the level of student satisfaction. The principles applied in this intervention are broadly applicable to college professors, not only those working with “international” students.     

Competing priorities as constraints in event travel careers

An event travel career is a potentially lifelong pattern of travel to events linked with an individual’s preferred leisure activity. This paper applies the concept of an event travel career to non-elite triathletes. For these active sport tourists, ongoing pursuit of an event travel career is arguably constrained by competing priorities that intervene between everyday life and their pursuit of an event travel career. In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 triathletes identified as pursuing an event travel career. Interpretive analysis revealed seven domains of competing priorities that could work to constrain their event travel career aspirations. These domains included familial relationships, domestic responsibilities, sociability, finances, leisure, wellbeing, and work/education. The seven competing priority domains were interrelated, and cyclical in their constraining effects. Data assisted in clarifying some defining characteristics of the event travel career concept, and challenged notions of leisure participation as entirely positive and fulfilling.     

Creating a Testable, Estimable Model to Inform Our Response to the Test-Score Gap Crisis

The test-score gap between black and white students should be seen as a crisis. We propose a testable model based on readily available data that will allow us to estimate the impact and interrelationships of a multitude of factors that may be partially responsible for the problem. The estimation of this model will require the joint efforts of experts in many areas of education as well as of experts in multilevel structural equation modeling.     

Factors associated with single-vehicle and multi-vehicle road traffic collision injuries in Ireland

Generalised linear regression models were used to identify factors associated with fatal/serious road traffic collision injuries for single- and multi-vehicle collisions. Single-vehicle collisions and multi-vehicle collisions occurring during the hours of darkness or on a wet road surface had reduced likelihood of a fatal/serious injury. Single-vehicle ‘driver with passengers’ collisions occurring at junctions or on a hill/gradient were less likely to result in a fatal/serious injury. Multi-vehicle rear-end/angle collisions had reduced likelihood of a fatal/serious injury. Single-vehicle ‘driver only’ collisions and multi-vehicle collisions occurring on a public/bank holiday or on a hill/gradient were more likely to result in a fatal/serious injury. Single-vehicle collisions involving male drivers had increased likelihood of a fatal/serious injury and single-vehicle ‘driver with passengers’ collisions involving drivers under the age of 25 years also had increased likelihood of a fatal/serious injury. Findings can enlighten decision-makers to circumstances leading to fatal/serious injuries.     

College Choice and Subsequent Earnings: Results Using Swedish Sibling Data*

Using data on 19,000 whole siblings, it is shown that earnings vary significantly among students who have graduated from different colleges. The cross‐section estimates are up to twice the within‐family estimates, indicating that a regression estimator of college effects that does not adjust properly for family characteristics will overestimate the earnings premium of college. This study also shows that the effects of college choice vary between sisters and brothers and that there is a relationship between teacher quality and the college effects. These findings suggest that there is no straightforward interpretation of college in individual earnings equations.     

Evaluating a Global Vector Autoregression for Forecasting

Global vector autoregressions (GVARs) have several attractive features: multiple potential channels for the international transmission of macroeconomic and financial shocks, a standardized economically appealing choice of variables for each country or region examined, systematic treatment of long-run properties through cointegration analysis, and flexible dynamic specification through vector error correction modeling. Pesaran et al. (2009) generate and evaluate forecasts from a paradigm GVAR with 26 countries, based on Dées, di Mauro et al. (2007). The current paper empirically assesses the GVAR in Dées, di Mauro et al. (2007) with impulse indicator saturation (IIS)??a new generic procedure for evaluating parameter constancy, which is a central element in model-based forecasting. The empirical results indicate substantial room for an improved, more robust specification of that GVAR. Some tests are suggestive of how to achieve such improvements.     

Importance of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and critical issues it faces

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides essential, trustworthy, highly visible statistics that promote economic efficiency. However, its ability to do so is threatened by many challenges, chief among which is its funding situation. This article updates important stakeholders, such as those at NABE, on the situation at BLS. The paper reviews evidence on the vital role played by BLS products, how BLS maintains high data integrity, and evidence of users’ trust in the data. This is followed by discussion of the agency’s continuous efforts to improve efficiency. Despite the agency’s importance and efficiency, its funding has been flat in nominal terms since 2009, leading to a $90 million shortfall (15% below that needed) in real terms by FY2018. The BLS has needed to curtail spending in ways that are not sustainable, slowing modernization and raising the risk of data errors or delayed releases. With adequate funding, BLS could greatly speed modernization and better serve its customers in many ways. The paper concludes with a call to action: steps that NABE economists and other data users should take to help assure that BLS continues to provide the data that we all need in order to preserve our national vitality.     

Accounting Quality in Eastern Europe after Communism

Research Question/Issue: This study, in the taxonomy of Schiehll and Martins (2016 Schiehll, E. and H. C. Martins. 2016. Cross-national governance research: A systematic review and assessment. Corporate Governance: An International Review 24 (3):181–99. doi:10.1111/corg.12158.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), examines cross-national corporate governance, within their “legal” category. It rests on the understanding that to fully grasp corporate governance it is essential to understand the embedded institutions. The research question is: Does an increase in legal quality cause an associated increase in the quality of corporate governance in the form of financial reports to investors? If so, this supports the fundamental importance of legal systems to earnings quality. Reliable evidence on whether there is an association between legal quality and financial reporting quality would be an empirical association showing that where legal quality is higher, earnings quality is also higher, and conversely.

Research Findings/Insights: The results show clearly that in 2005 and 2010, when adequate data are available for testing, earnings quality is poor: far more companies show small gains than small losses. A great deal of managerial discretion is exercised in arriving at accounting figures, since many amounts depend on forecasts of future events. A significant number of firms use that latitude to show positive earnings. As to patterns of earnings management among three clusters of countries, the small number of firms generally precludes strong statistically supported evidence of management within the clusters. Nevertheless, the whole is the sum of the parts, and the parts (clusters) indicate the clusters most responsible for the overall result. There is little evidence of small gains exceeding small losses in the Baltics, greater differences in the Visegrád countries, and big differences in southern Europe.

Theoretical/Academic Implications: Based on both (a) the historical background of legal systems and (b) attitudes concerning legal quality measured at the same time as the earnings measures, the accounting results are consistent with the prediction of a strong legal culture driving effective corporate governance.

Practitioner/Policy Implications: The results show that eastern firms, on aggregate, have yet to reach the level of their western counterparts. However, the differences do not seem highly significant, and indicate that convergence is close in this area. This, in turn, should guide and encourage legislators in their work.