Two elementary schools’ developing potential for sustainability of engineering education

The Next Generation Science Standards present a way for engineering lessons to be formally integrated into elementary classrooms at a national level in the United States. Professional development programs are an important method for preparing teachers to enact the new engineering practices in their science classrooms. To better understand what contextual factors help a professional development program have a sustained effect on the implementation of engineering, we closely examined two elementary schools within the same school district that participated in the same professional development program but had very different outcomes in their lasting implementation of engineering. Using the case study method, we corroborate quantitative and qualitative sources of data measuring students’ learning and attitudes; teachers’ learning, attitudes, and implementation fidelity; perceived teacher community; and administrative support. Our analysis revealed that although the professional development program had district-level administrative support, there was considerable variation between schools in how teachers’ perceived school level support. In addition, teachers at the sustaining school collaborated and co-taught with one another. Our findings support previous literature on the role of administrative support and teacher learning communities. We discuss practical ways that professional development programs can seek to foster a context which is supportive of sustaining curriculum change for engineering.     

Corporations as agents of social change: A case study of diversity at Cummins Inc.

This case study on the American multinational Cummins Inc. calls into question traditional, normative theories of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although the dominant literature views CSR as a response to society, Cummins’ promotion of diversity dates back to the 1940s, making their efforts well in advance of society’s expectations. The article shows that Cummins’ management pushed for civil and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights at times when society viewed these actions as being illegitimate and against community values. The study suggests that leaders for diversity at Cummins were able to gain support during these difficult times due to their high level of influence and by connecting the value of diversity to Cummins’ organisational identity.     

Communities of Practice versus Organizational Climate: Which One Matters More to Dispersed Collaboration in the Front End of Innovation?*

Dispersed collaboration provides many benefits such as members' closeness to local cultures and markets and reachability of talent worldwide. Hence, it is no surprise that dispersed collaboration is frequently being used by product development teams. A necessary but not sufficient condition for innovation performance is the sharing of tacit, non‐codified and explicit, codified knowledge by the team. Situated learning theory, however, predicts that tacit knowledge sharing will be largely prevented by “decontextualization.” Therefore, increasing usage of dispersed collaboration will decrease levels of tacit knowledge—crucial to innovation and organizational performance—in the business unit. This research investigates the moderating role of mechanisms believed to enable tacit knowledge transfer in the front end of innovation. Using data from 116 business units, the moderating role of communities of practice and organizational climate on the relationship between the proficiency of dispersed collaboration and front end of innovation performance is investigated. Encouragement of communities of practice is found to moderate the relationship between proficiency of dispersed collaboration and front end of innovation performance on the business unit level. More specifically, proficiency of dispersed collaboration is not related at all to front end of innovation performance in business units with low support for communities of practice; but a positive relationship exists in business units with high support for communities of practice. This study does not provide support for the moderating effect of organizational climate on the relationship between proficiency in dispersed collaboration and front end of innovation performance. However, supportiveness of climate has a significant direct effect on front end of innovation performance. The findings of this study suggest that managers should simultaneously invest in increasing proficiency in dispersed collaboration and supporting communities of practice. Either one by itself is insufficient. Because of its significant direct effect, managers should also nurture an open climate favoring risk taking, trust, and open interaction.     

An experimental test of warm glow giving

This paper reports the results of an experimental test of the warm glow hypothesis. A participant is presented with the opportunity to contribute from her own endowment to a charity of choice. The experiment is designed so that a pure altruist has no incentive to donate. The amount the designated charity will receive is preset; any contribution by the participant crowds out dollar-for-dollar giving by the proctor. We find that participants, on average, donated 20% of their endowments and that approximately 57% of the participants made a donation.     

Können Musikgeschmack und Reisepräferenzen die kulturelle Anpassung von Auslandsentsandten vorhersagen? Ergebnisse einer empirischen Untersuchung

Die kulturelle Anpassung von Auslandsentsandten ist eine wesentliche Voraussetzung für einen erfolgreichen Auslandseinsatz. Trotz zahlreicher Studien der Faktoren, welche die kulturelle Anpassung begünstigen, ist dieses Forschungsfeld immer noch durch einen Mangel an gesicherten Erkenntnissen gepr?gt. Die vorliegende Studie betrachtet zwei bislang noch nicht thematisierte Faktoren, n?mlich den Musikgeschmack und die individuellen Reisepr?ferenzen, und testet deren Einfluss auf die kulturelle Anpassung von 140 Auslandsentsandten in Lateinamerika. Eine Regressionsanalyse zeigt einen signifikanten Einfluss der Pr?ferenz für Folk- und Weltmusik sowie für Erlebnisreisen auf. Diese Pr?ferenzen k?nnen im Auswahlprozess von Entsandten als relativ leicht messbare Selektionskriterien eingesetzt werden.     

The changing geography of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in a warmer world

The Olympic Winter Games (OWG) and the Paralympic Winter Games (PWG) are showcases for winter sports. With their high dependence on weather conditions, accelerating climate change poses a challenge to these mega-events. Two indicators are used to assess the climate reliability of locations to host the Games (OWG in February, PWG in March) in the future under a low (RCP 2.6) and high (RCP 8.5) greenhouse gas emission scenario. Climate change will alter the geography of the Games over the twenty-first century. In a low-emission scenario, only 13 of 21 locations remain climate reliable for the OWG in the 2050s and 12 in the 2080s, whereas only 10 are reliable for the PWG (both in the 2050s and 2080s). The impact of a business-as-usual high-emission scenario is far greater, reducing the number of locations reliable for the OWG to 10 in the 2050s and 8 in the 2080s, with even fewer reliable for PWG (8 in the 2050s and only 4 in the 2080s). Adaptive responses are considered, including strengthening the climatological assessment requirements in forthcoming bid processes, the unification of the OWG and PWG (in the month of February), and considering dual host countries/regions.     

Auditor Lobbying for Accounting Standards: The Case of Banks and Savings and Loan Associations

This study examines auditor lobbying on seven proposed US accounting standards which affect banks and savings and loan associations. Evidence is provided in support of the Watts and Zimmerman (1982, 1986) theory on auditor lobbying. Watts and Zimmerman (WZ) hypothesise that auditor lobbying is a function of the client-manager position and a set of wealth effect variables. These variables may provide an incentive for auditors to disagree with their clients on proposed accounting issues. The WZ model is modified by including an audit risk variable. Results show that the model is statistically significant and that the identified wealth and audit risk effects are significant explanatory variables of auditor lobbying behaviour.     

Post-Enron Implicit Audit Reporting Standards: Sifting through the Evidence

Summary The accounting scandals and the demise of Andersen have increased auditors’ ex ante business risk. As a result, stock markets revised downward the value of the external audit (Callen and Morel (2002); Chaney and Philipich (2002); Krishnamurthy et al. (2002); Asthana et al. (2003)). One commonsensical reaction on behalf of auditors should have been to apply the existing rules more carefully and, thus, issue more non-clean opinions on the financial statements they have audited. This is exactly what we see. Closer scrutiny reveals that the higher incidence of non-clean audit opinions is not due to the (substantial) changes in the audit client list or their balance sheets. This study mirrors earlier results where auditors relaxed their standards following a drop in business risk (Geiger and Raghunandan, (2001), (2002); Francis and Krishnan, (2002)).Authors are listed just by alphabetical order. We gratefully acknowledge useful comments from participants at the 2004 American Accounting Association Midyear Auditing Section conference, and outstanding suggestions from an anonymous referee for De Economist. Any remaining errors are ours.     

The role of hospital heterogeneity in measuring marginal returns to medical care: a reply to Barreca, Guldi, Lindo, and Waddell

In Almond et al. (2010), we describe how marginal returns to medical care can be estimated by comparing patients on either side of diagnostic thresholds. Our application examines at-risk newborns near the very low birth weight threshold at 1500 g. We estimate large discontinuities in medical care and mortality at this threshold, with effects concentrated at “low-quality” hospitals. Although our preferred estimates retain newborns near the threshold, when they are excluded the estimated marginal returns decline, although they remain large. In low-quality hospitals, our estimates are similar in magnitude regardless of whether these newborns are included or excluded.