The program-length commercial: A study of the effects of television/toy tie-ins on imaginative play

A study was done examining the impact of toy-based television programs and program-related toys on children. One hundred and ten first- and second-grade children participated in an experiment which focused on imaginative play. The results indicated that, in general, the combination of watching a toy-based cartoon, followed by playing with a set of cartoon-related toys, produced stories that were more imitative of the immediately preceding experience, whereas watching the cartoon alone or playing with the cartoon-related toys alone led to more imaginative productions from other sources. However, for certain aspects of imagination at a more advanced cognitive level, the cartoon, especially when combined with cartoon-related toys, actually stimulated the imaginative processes of the younger children, thus serving as a learning tool at a transitional stage of cognitive development.     

HMOs may be dangerous to your company wealth

Here's help for those who determine corporate health benefit policies. This article explains how health service costs really operate and what happens when an HMO moves to town.     

Learning to manage: development experiences of hospital frontline managers

In high performing human resource management (HRM) systems, much responsibility for managing employees and associated processes is typically devolved to frontline managers (FLMs). Research indicates that undeveloped FLM HRM ability can impact performance, particularly in health‐care organisations. We present the incidence and characteristics of HRM‐oriented learning and development programs for FLMs in hospitals with high performing systems of HRM, and experiences of FLMs directly participating in them. We combine data from 50 Australian hospital accreditation reports with interviews from eight ‘high performance HRM’ cases. We find: almost all high performers develop FLM HRM ability; development programs are extremely diverse between hospitals and succession planning is deficient. While primarily focused on understanding ability, the study contributes to the ability, motivation, opportunity framework, proposing a model and new interrelationships between these variables in the FLM context.     

The Effect of Ethical Orientation and Professional Commitment on Earnings Management Behavior

The purpose of this study is twofold. The first objective is to examine the impact of an individual’s ethical ideology and level of professional commitment on the earnings management decision. The second objective is to observe whether the presence of a personal benefit affects an individual’s ethical orientation or professional commitment within the context of an opportunity to manage earnings. Using a sample of 375 undergraduate business majors, our results suggest a significant relationship between an individual’s ethical orientation and decision-making. Further, participants with higher levels of professional commitment seem to be less likely to engage in earnings management behavior and less likely to behave opportunistically. These results have the potential to add to our understanding of certain behaviors in entry-level personnel and should be of interest to managers, practitioners, academicians, and researchers.