Typologie van den statisticus Hoe men hem ziet en hoe hij

In the popular conception the statistician is a man who collects and groups figures which he publishes in the form of tables and graphs. The real statistician in the modern sense of the word, i.e. the man who does not collect the material but analyses it and draws his conclusions from it, is as yet practically unknown to the general public. It is desirable that more publicity should be given to the characteristic qualities required for this calling, so that those most fitted for i may be drawn towards it.
The aspiring statistician should be taught to think in statistical terms and not along functional or determinist lines, as the mathematician does. The statistician is only interested in individual phenomena insofar as they enable him to draw conclusions of a more general character out of a certain amount of isolated cases. A true sense of proportion is very important as it plays a major part in the framing, the working out and the conclusions to be drawn from the solution of the problems. As the sphere of his activities is so extensive, the statistician should be able to adapt himself quickly to new situations.
Those who are endowed with these varying talents can rely on finding a very useful task as a statistician.     

Discovering and developing collaborative leadership using vectors and videos

Leadership development continues to rely on executive and educational programs that focus on enhancing individuals’ skills, knowledge, or experience. But when leadership is collaborative (i.e., socially achieved by multiple people irrespective of status or title), then currently favored development approaches may be inadequate and inefficient because they do not train the correct skills and therefore waste leadership development dollars. In this paper, we describe a six-step process that can be used in organizations for collaborative leadership development. The six-step process used video recordings of two groups who watched themselves in order to notice and describe the emergence (or not) of collaborative leadership. Before watching themselves, we provided a new graphical language that changed the ways in which the group could see and understand their collaborative activity. The new graphical language (called vectors) made it possible for them to focus and comment on their group practice and not on their practice as individuals. This process of video recording a group and giving them graphical tools to reflect on the practices that they see, provides a simple way for participants to discuss their group patterns and the consequences of these for leadership. Their discussion was developmental in that it naturally helped the group to learn about their own practice. The six-step process seems to be particularly potent because it is based on the group identifying what does and does not advance their collaborative leadership experientially rather than just being taught about behaviors that support or detract from collaborative leadership. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our process for those interested in developing collaborative leadership.     

新疆非英语专业维吾尔族民考民学生英语学习信念调查

学习信念在日常学习中扮演着非常重要的角色,它直接影响学生学习策略的选择,并最终影响学生的学习成就。本研究采用问卷调查的形式调查了新疆某高校非英语专业108名民考民学生,问卷参考了Howitz(1987)的信念调查表,并以此为基础做了修改。调查结果采用SPSS13.0进行了描述性统计。结果发现,在五种信念中,这些少数民族学生具备了一定的自学效能,尽管这种自学效能的信念还不是很高;就外语学习本质而言,他们认识到了外语学习不仅要学习语言形式如语法、词汇等,而且要学习文化知识;但是在语言形式的认识方面,他们又过分倾向于词汇学习。     

Duration of UI periods and the perceived threat effect from labour market programmes

In this paper, we study whether the prospect of compulsory programme participation motivates individuals to leave the unemployment insurance (UI) system prior to participation. In some systems, individuals may experience very different risks of enrolment even when they face identical formal rules. If individuals learn that programme enrolment does not deterministically follow regulations, estimated effects based solely on institutional regulations may be downward biased. This means that the true effect of potential enrolment may be underestimated. We analyse data from the Danish labour market which includes information on a series of reforms that have enforced programme participation in return for unemployment benefit entitlement. First, we find that unemployed individuals do indeed have different risk of compulsory enrolment even when regulations indicate that the risk should be identical. Second, we find that individuals do react strongly and significantly to the prospect of programme enrolment. However, since individuals experience different risks of programme enrolment, the resulting response observed in individuals' hazard out of unemployment is also different as the unemployment spell progresses.     

Purchasing practices in a hospital environment: an ethical analysis

The critical state of the hospital industry, as previously described, generates a difficult decision environment for the materiel manager and those in the purchasing function. The unique life- and death circumstances of hospitals impose a further onus on those who manage them. In the name of saving lives, they can find a convenient excuse to disregard all moral principles, forgetting the Socratic dictum "it is not enough that one lives, but that one lives well." Without the moral "right stuff," they can easily give in to the seductions of momentary gains and glory through ethical short-cuts. There is wisdom and consolation in the words that "nice guys may appear to finish last, but usually they're running in a different race." Studies have established a direct relationship between corporate excellence and ethical values. The reality of competition in the hospital industry dictates that the integration of ethics into the life of the organization should happen by design and not by accident. This is what is meant by strategy. If hospitals would strive for excellence to survive and grow, they should have a strategy with a mission statement that also embodies its moral values and moral agenda. Such an approach does not guarantee that an organization will become immune to moral contamination, but it does provide an antidote.     

Intelligent technology,intelligent workers: A new pedagogy for the high-tech work place

When the focus of technology is on automation, it may be reasonable to have training programs that merely teach workers the objects and actions necessary for them to respond to smart machines. However, as the OTA report clearly points out, “There is uncertainty about how current instructional programs should be revised or expanded. …” This uncertainty comes from the informating function of the technology. As one manager said: “Our competition can buy the same black boxes that we can. Our future depends on how well our people use the information generated by that technology.”When the informating quality of the technology is recognized, the importance of smart people becomes apparent. Traditional training, with its focus on objects and actions, is not enough. In the informated environment, on-line, interactive learning is necessary if people are to create new meanings out of the information generated by computer technology.A pedagogy for meaning is a collective enterprise that can unleash individual and organizational energy in an informated work place. It has implications for (1) rethinking traditional worker-training and management-education programs, (2) transforming the work place into a learning environment, (3) reconceptualizing the roles of workers and managers so that they can become partners in creating meaning, and (4) designing rewards for people who create and participate in an environment of inquiry.A pedagogy for meaning is concerned with peoples learning how to learn. A work force that has learned how to learn is one of the most important competitive levers an organization can have in an environment of ongoing technological change.     

Corporate Environmental Paradigms in Shift: Learning During the Course of Action at UPM–Kymmene

Contrary to the popular conception in the corporate environmental management literature that corporations must learn new ecocentric paradigms before they can be expected to produce environmentally sound performance, the present results suggest that cognitive–level environmental learning in organizations does not inevitably precede behaviour change. Rather, at least partially, such learning is likely to occur in the course of action. The article also proposes that external pressure can set motion, but it alone does not lead to an environmental paradigm shift. In order to undergo such a shift, organizations will have to learn a meaning of their own to support new, more environmentally sound forms of activity.
The present study examines empirically how two companies have learnt to incorporate environmental considerations into their managerial paradigms. It adopts a perspective according to which learning is portrayed as a process in which changes are brought about in the collective beliefs that the organization members hold about the relationship of their business to the natural environment (i.e. environmental management paradigm). Applying the grounded theory approach, the article identifies phases of environmental learning starting from the recognition or rejection of weak signals in 'pockets' of the organization, continuing through the gaining of new knowledge and experience towards 'competition' between old and new assumptions about the business–environment relationship, and finally proceeding to potential frame–break.     

Fair compensation with different social concerns for forgiveness

Forgiveness is an ethical ideal that advocates that a fresh start should be conferred upon those individuals who have changed their preferences and regret their previous decisions. Despite the ethical debate that such an idea generates, only a few papers have dealt with this issue in depth, and they have just focused on the case of full compensation for regret. Therefore, based on efficiency, robustness, and ethical requirements, we characterise a social ordering function that formally connects the ideal of forgiveness to the problem of compensating individuals when they differ in both their preferences and their initial endowment. This social ordering allows us to rank allocations that may or may not be associated with different concerns for forgiveness. Specifically, it proposes reducing inequality between reference-comparable budget sets.     

Patents, Secrets, and the First-Inventor Defense

We analyze optimal patent design when innovators can rely on secrecy to protect their innovations. Secrecy has no fixed term but does not preclude accidental disclosure nor independent creation by other inventors. We derive the optimal scope of the rights conferred to such second inventors, showing that if the patent life is set optimally, second inventors should be allowed to patent and to exclude first inventors who have relied on secrecy. We then identify conditions under which it is socially desirable to increase patent life as much as is necessary to induce first inventors to patent. The circumstances in which it is preferable that they rely on secrecy seem rather limited .     

Why is the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method in information systems not an H-D method?

The hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method is reported to be common in information systems (IS). In IS, the H-D method is often presented as a Popperian, Hempelian, or natural science method. However, there are many fundamental differences between what Popper or Hempel actually say and what the alleged H-D method per Hempel or per Popper means in IS. To avoid possible misunderstanding and conceptual confusion about the basic philosophical concepts, we explain some of these differences, which are not mentioned in IS literature describing the H-D model. Due to these distinctive differences, the alleged H-D method per Hempel or per Popper in IS cannot be regarded as the H-D model per Hempel or per Popper. Further, the H-D model is sometimes confused with another model in IS, the deductive-nomological (D-N) model of explanations. Confusing the H-D and D-N methods can also produce stagnation in the fundamental methodological thinking in IS. As one example, the H-D model (per Hempel or per Popper) does not require hypotheses to be based on existing theories or literature. As a result, misunderstanding the H-D model in IS may seriously limit new hypothesis or theory development, as the H-D model in the philosophy of science allows guessing and imagination as the source for hypotheses and theories. We argue that although IS research (1) generally does not follow the H-D method (per Hempel or per Popper), and (2) should not follow the H-D method, (3) we can still learn from the H-D method and criticisms of it. To learn from the H-D method, we outline method of hypothesis (MoH) approaches for further discussion. These MoH approaches are not hypothetico-deductive, but hypothetico-inductive-qualitative or hypothetico-inductive-statistical. The former MoH endeavors to be suitable for qualitative research, while the latter is aimed for statistical research in IS.     

Deadlines in stochastic contests

We consider a two-player contest model in which breakthroughs arrive according to privately observed Poisson processes. Each player’s process continues as long as she exerts costly effort. The player who collects the most breakthroughs until a predetermined deadline wins a prize.We derive Nash equilibria of the game depending on the deadline. For short deadlines, there is a unique equilibrium in which players use identical cutoff strategies, i.e., they continue until they have a certain number of successes. If the deadline is long enough, the symmetric equilibrium distribution of an all-pay auction is an equilibrium distribution over successes in the contest. Expected efforts may be maximal for a short or intermediate deadline.     

College students and HR professionals: conflicting views on information available on Facebook

Increasingly employers are using social media as a mechanism to screen potential job candidates. This study examined college students' perceptions of the amount and degree of information available to potential employers who use social media. The study employed a survey of college students to determine how much information they felt someone could learn about them through their Facebook page. Results indicated that participants did not perceive much information about key job categories could be derived from their pages and they planned very few changes even though many believed it highly likely an employer would review their page. A subgroup also had their pages reviewed by HR professionals. A comparison analysis revealed that in several key job‐related areas, such as potential unethical behaviours and communication skills, HR personnel felt that they were able to learn significantly more about the participants than the participants believed themselves.     

Homo Economicus Meets G. H. Mead: A Contribution to the Critique of Economic Theory

A bstract .   The relation between economic behavior and morality remains a live issue within economics and cognate disciplines. The standard view among economists themselves has been that while moral positions (understood broadly) may motivate our behavior, they do not capacitate or enable it. On this view the figure of Homo economicus , representing the how as against the why of our actions, must be understood as resolutely amoral. In this article, we attempt to recover the logic of this position, as well as those of critics who would modify the standard view in some way. Although also critical of the conventional economics-and-ethics divide, we argue that Homo economicus would benefit from a more fundamental rethinking, one that takes account of the theory of the self and its acts, as developed by the social psychologist G. H. Mead. On a Meadian view the economic actor would neither have to grow additional capacities in order to coordinate with his or her fellows, as the evolutionary games theorist's agent has to do, nor depart or deviate from purposeful behavior, as does Homo sociologicus . On a Meadian view, economic capacity has to be more richly endowed than standard Homo economicus in order to do what it is supposed to do, but it is recognizably still a single, purposeful capacity.     

企业财务风险及其控制和防范

对企业而言,由于资本结构的不同而形成的财务风险是一柄双刃剑,使用得当,它可以提高企业利润,增加股东财富;反之,安排欠妥,它会加速企业亏损甚至破产。因此掌握好有关财务风险的基本内容,学会如何有效地利用财务杠杆工具,防范财务风险,显得尤为重要。对财务风险的防范并非意味着去减少或消灭它,而是运用管理会计的思想和方法,加强内部管理,其目的是改善经营管理,提高经济效益。     

Communication versus Information Transparency in One‐Shot Interactions: A Labor Market Experiment

This is an experimental study of communication and information transparency in one‐shot labor market relations with incomplete contracts. We find that communication in the form of non‐binding broadcast chat messages increases wages, effort levels, and overall efficiency regardless of the information regime. It serves as a negotiation platform and helps workers and firms learn how to cooperate. Communication outperforms information transparency in motivating trust and cooperative behavior in one‐shot interactions. Although transparency might be important in the long term, it does not improve any of the market outcomes in short‐term relations unless it is combined with communication. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transient Jobs and Lifetime Jobs: Dualism in the British Labour Market

How long does a job last in Britain? We find that many workers have very short jobs and many have very long jobs. We estimate that in 1990, 40 percent of men were in jobs that will last 20 years or more. On the other hand, 24 percent were in jobs lasting less than five years. We conclude that the labour market is still capable of offering ‘lifetime jobs’ to many workers. Policy analysis of issues such as reform of the welfare state, pensions, and training should take note that reports of the death of ‘jobs for life’ appear to be exaggerated.     

Evaluate health plans

For most benefits administrators, this program probably does not automate a function they are now doing manually, but it does bring a consultant/broker function in-house (although this is only one of many such functions). In some organizations, particularly smaller ones that might skimp on analysis of their health plans before negotiating carrier rate changes each year, it might mean that such analysis actually does take place. But it you are a benefits administrator who has been performing yearly, manual evaluations of your plans, be very careful about trying and demonstrating this software. If you think you might not be granted approval by management to purchase it, you may wish you didn't know how well it works.     

基层管理者在推进精益生产方式过程中的角色定位

随着丰田模式精益生产(TPS)方式在全球范围内的扩展,国内几乎所有的汽车制造行业都开始学习并推行精益生产方式。在推行精益生产方式后,有些企业取得了不错的效果,但也有些企业发现推行难度非常之大,或者最终只做成了个"形似"。企业的成本非但没有降低,相关的工具和图表成了宣传和摆设,反而造成浪费。笔者借鉴所在公司(陕西法士特齿轮有限责任公司)推行精益生产3年的经验,来讨论作为公司的一名基层管理者在推进精益生产过程中的态度以及思想误区。     

浅谈如何上好新形势下的技校德育课

德育课,对于学生来说,就是进行思想品德素质和正确的人生观教育。但是,由于学生在中学阶段对政洽课的印象是枯燥乏味,单调呆板,抽象的理论讲解,加之这门课是公共课,因此,学生们对这科不感兴趣。他们认为学习德育课没有必要,只要把专业课学好就行了。在这种情况下,为了把德育课上好,我有以下几点体验。     

Defending your life: When women complain about sexual harassment

Women who complain about sexual harassment in a union work environment may find that they are the focal point of the union’s defense of the alleged harasser. The defense the union uses can be broadly defined as one of four: deny the event, blame management, blame society, and blame the victim. This study investigates the frequency with which these defenses are used and their relative effectiveness. Deny the event and blame the victim were used in more than 80% of the cases. Their use was not significantly changed over time. There was no significant difference in the arbitrator’s decision based on the defense used by the union. It is suggested that unions consider using the blame management defense because it is equally effective but does not have the same negative effects on the victim as denying the event or blaming the victim.