Assessing Liability for Sexual Harassment: Reactions of Potential Jurors to Email Versus Face-to-Face Incidents

This paper investigates reactions of potential jurors to sexual harassment incidents. Email and face-to-face incidents are compared to determine the importance of context on decision-making. The paper considers juror decision-making for both guilt and level of award to randomly assigned scenarios involving multiple levels of harassment. Results found that email harassment was perceived more harshly, consistent with a context-based hypothesis. The paper concludes with organizational implications for better handling sexual harassment awareness training as well as Internet usage guidelines.     

Do Individual Preferences Affect the Environmental Decision‐Making Process in Teams? The Role of Participation

Literature on organizations and the natural environment has focused on the importance of individual managers and leaders. However, this literature has scarcely ever focused on individuals in the team context, even when teams have been considered to be key for a firms’ environmental progress. Although teams’ environmental decisions can be enriched by the different contributions of team members, it is necessary that team members actually participate and contribute their preferences during the decision‐making process. We used an adaptation of the legislative dilemma task with 84 students to contribute to environmental management literature by analyzing members’ participation during the team decision‐making process. The results of this paper show how those members with environmentally proactive preferences have a higher participation during the decision‐making process, and as a consequence they have a greater influence on the team decision. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The New Venture Decision: An Analysis Based on the GEM Project Database

The new venture decision is a crucial stage in the process of creating a new business and is influenced by a series of social, demographic, cultural and economic factors, amongst others. These factors have been the subject of several studies, though there is still no widely accepted agreement on exactly how they affect the decision to create a new enterprise. This study will provide evidence on which variables affect the new venture decision, as well as the extent of their influence based on the analysis of a sample of 7524 cases, using information obtained via the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 Project. At the same time, we provide evidence to show that there are differences in the way these variables affect new ventures born out of need or out of opportunity.     

Context Variables as Cognitive Effort Modulators in Decision Making Using an Alternative-Based Processing Strategy

This paper examines how a number of decision context variables affect the cognitive effort required for decision making on dichotomical choice tasks. Subjects are trained in the use of a strategy in which information processing is alternative-based. The correlation between the attributes of the alternatives and the mean and variance of the difference between the attributes is manipulated. The results show that the effort needed for decision making increases as the mean of the differences decreases. Yet, neither the variance of the differences nor the correlation context affect the decision making effort in this type of strategies.     

组织遗忘与知识刚性：创业导向和环境动态性的调节效应

企业发展过程中总是面临着知识刚性现象,但是对如何克服知识刚性,现有研究关注甚少。为此,本文以中国东部沿海地区的187家高技术企业为研究样本,从组织遗忘视角来研究知识刚性的克服问题,并进一步分析了创业导向和环境动态性在其中所发挥的作用。研究发现：组织遗忘有助于克服知识刚性,其对知识刚性的两个维度（学习刚性和经验刚性）都具有负向效应;环境动态性越高、创业导向越强,组织遗忘对知识刚性的克服效应越好。该研究探究了组织遗忘对知识刚性的克服机制,丰富和拓展了知识刚性克服的相关研究,对企业管理决策具有一定的指导意义。     

Use of a Markov decision process model for treatment selection in an asymptomatic disease with consideration of risk sensitivity

Some potentially dangerous diseases are completely asymptomatic. Their diagnosis as incidental findings of ever-more-sensitive medical imaging can leave patients and physicians in something of a quandary. The patient feels well, and potential interventions to stave off long-term deterioration or death bring with them immediate risks. We discuss the use of a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model (rather than Monte Carlo simulation of a Markov Model) to create a tool for analyzing individual treatment decisions for asymptomatic chronic diseases where a patient’s condition cannot improve. We formulate a finite-horizon MDP model to determine optimal treatment plans and discuss three distinct optimality criteria: (a) maximizing expected quality-adjusted-life years with and without discounting, (b) maximizing the expected number of life years in good health, and (c) maximizing the expected utility for number of years in good health. In (c) we assume exponential utility and consider different risk aversion factors reported in the medical literature. We illustrate the model’s use by considering asymptomatic intracranial aneurysm. Our model builds on a simulation model [19] created to examine treatment recommendations based on cost-effectiveness. We demonstrate that incorporating risk aversion leads to “no treatment” recommendations for some types of aneurysm. Furthermore, the use of alternate patient-selected criteria leads to recommendations that vary from [19] in several scenarios. We also discuss the use of the software as a decision support tool to help make individualized treatment recommendations and demonstrate that the computational performance of the algorithm makes its use feasible during a short office visit.     

Lessening the difference is more – the relationship between diversity management and the perceived organizational climate for gay men and lesbians

With a growing number of European companies following a variety of diversity management strategies, the number of companies including the ‘sexual orientation’ dimension in their diversity programs is increasing. Partially explained by the lack of research on that topic, most companies apply the risk-minimizing strategy of copying actions implemented by companies which have already done more in that field. In this context, this paper aims to provide more profound evidence for evaluating the interrelation between sexual orientation diversity management and the perceived organizational climate for gay and lesbian employees. Study 1 compares Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and a German equivalent, showing that companies including ‘sexual orientation’ in their diversity programs can be associated with a more supportive organizational climate for gay men and lesbians. Applying a Heideggerian theoretical framework, Study 2 compares regression models based on a sample of 1308 gay men and lesbians working in Germany. It is shown that those organizational practices that lessen the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality within the organization are more strongly related to positive psychological climates than those practices that accentuate the difference. Equalization of heterosexual and homosexual partnerships, internal thematization of homosexuality and gay marketing are associated with positive climate perceptions; LGBT networks and mentoring are not.     

基于贝叶斯方法的项目投资风险决策

由于投资受政策、社会环境、经济环境、管理水平等诸多因素的制约，因而投资成败的不确定性极大。本文将贝叶斯决策理论应用于投资决策中，建立了投资贝叶斯风险决策模型，分析了决策模型中各种参数的确定方法，并阐述了该模型对降低决策风险的作用。在风险决策中，信息的价值可以定量，运用贝叶斯公式分析在风险决策中增大信息量，有益于降低决策风险。     

The Norwegian banking crisis: Managerial escalation of decline and crisis

This paper examines the impact and nature of managerial contribution to the Norwegian banking crisis. Numerous findings are reviewed which suggest that many bank managers produced inappropriate responses to the initial decline and subsequent crisis, and thus contributed to the crisis, due to a set of common managerial misrepresentations of the situation. These include: external attribution of failure, overoptimism and overconfidence, the confirmation trap, the illusion of control, irrational escalation of commitment and insufficient adjustment.