Registered nurses' perspectives on health care and the 2008 presidential election

As this historic presidential election draws near, what do RNs think of our nation's priorities? Which candidates do they think will be most effective in shaping our health care system and addressing the most pressing issues of our time? The results of this survey show that RNs do not identify overwhelmingly with one political ideology or party and, in fact, they closely resemble the public on these political dimensions. The data also show that RNs identify health care issues as the most important problem facing the nation. RNs who believe that it is the responsibility of the government to provide health insurance to those without it, have more confidence in the government to achieve this outcome, and are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. The presidential election is expected to be highly contested and could be determined by a relatively small margin of votes and, thus, nurses should recognize their chances of influencing the outcome of the election. The data from this survey provide baseline information potentially useful to increasing the political influence of the nursing profession, informing other organizations about where they might align with nurses, and helping candidates and the political parties compete more effectively in seeking the support of roughly 3 million RN voters.     

Public perceptions of nursing careers: the influence of the media and nursing shortages

The high public regard for nurses has not necessarily translated into an adequate supply of individuals who are willing to be nurses. The expected future demand for nurse labor challenges us to look more closely at the public's perceptions of nursing and nursing careers, and consider how they are shaped by personal experience, media messages, and socio-demographic factors. As part of ongoing efforts to examine factors shaping the future of the nursing workforce, a national survey of Americans was conducted to probe attitudes toward the nursing profession and their experiences with nurses. The data in this national survey of the public about nursing demonstrate that the nursing profession is highly respected and that the vast majority of the general public would recommend nursing careers to qualified students. If the profession is so well thought of and so highly recommended, why are there persistent concerns that not enough people are becoming RNs to avoid or at least slow down the development of future shortages? A prolonged and persistent effort is needed to educate people about nursing careers, to stimulate the expanded production of nursing faculty, and to bring creative approaches to financing nursing education and workforce improvements to convert the large number of seriously interested candidates into the nursing profession.     

HRM practices and organizational commitment profiles

In this study, we examined how employee perceptions of development-oriented, stability-oriented, and reward-oriented human resource management (HRM) practices affected the likelihood of affective and continuance commitment profile membership. Our focus on profiles of combined commitment components is a departure from a literature dominated by studies of the separate forms of employee commitment. Drawing from self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 2000) we described the nature of the psychological states believed to underlie the specific profiles under investigation, then tested a series of theoretical predictions concerning the link between HRM practices and the likelihood of profile membership. Predictor and criterion data for this study were collected from 317 respondents working in a variety of Canadian-based organizations. Our findings suggest ways that organizations can use HRM practices strategically to help shape the nature of overall employee commitment.     

Exploring accounting history and accounting in history

Accounting history, as the history of accounting and the consideration of accounting in history, provides insight into an understanding of accounting in the past, for the present, and into the future. Whilst often viewed as a routine, rule driven practice, the accounting history discipline recognises accounting as having a much wider pervasiveness as social practice and even moral practice. As social practice, accounting affects individual, organisational and societal behaviour. This collection of articles demonstrates the importance of looking at history to provide context and illustrates that understandings of the past lead to comprehension of the present and foresight for the future. The articles in this special issue, international in essence, epitomise the diversity of the accounting history field in exploring accounting in diverse organisations, in investigating accounting in its wider context and in employing different theoretical approaches. In considering the accounting phenomenon that occurred, there is additionally the insight of that which did not occur, the relevance of past events and non-events as an ingredient to better understanding the present and to potentially reshaping the future.The articles explore of the role of actors/agents around accounting and organisational change, how key individuals and networks of individuals, can influence others, both within and external to the organisation, to enact change or prevent change in areas where accounting contributes. It is suggested that these studies could be extended, to consider more widely the influence of the interaction of individuals via prosopographical or similar studies. This collection of articles has global reach, and we make an additional call for more international, interactional or comparative approaches to studies in accounting history. Accounting history studies can further investigate organisational contexts and situations, exploring reporting internally and externally to the organisation and informing current and future accounting and related practices.     

Eliciting Willingness to Pay without Bias using Follow-up Certainty Statements: Comparisons between Probably/Definitely and a 10-point Certainty Scale

Correction for hypothetical bias using follow up certainty questions often takes one of two forms: (1) two options, “definitely sure” and “probably sure”, or (2) a 10-point scale with 10 very certain. While both have been successful in eliminating hypothetical bias from estimates of WTP by calibrating based on the certainty of yes responses, little is known about the relationship between the two. The purpose of this paper is to compare the two using data from three field experiments in a private good, dichotomous choice format. We compare four types of yes responses that differ in the criterion used to determine if there is sufficient certainty for a hypothetical yes response to be considered a true yes response. We make several comparisons, but focus on determining which values on the 10-point scale give the same estimates of WTP as “definitely sure” hypothetical yeses and real yeses (actual purchases). Values that produce equivalence are near 10 on the certainty scale.     

Disclosure of contingent legal liabilities

There has long been user dissatisfaction with firm’s disclosure of contingent legal liabilities, and the FASB, IASB, and SEC have all considered compliance issues and standard amendments on this topic in recent years. This study uses a sample of employment discrimination cases to provide evidence on the extent to which current contingent legal liability disclosures provide useful contingency evaluations. Consistent with legal concerns influencing reporting decisions, I find that current disclosure practices provide limited quantitative detail regarding the magnitude of the expected loss. However, the text of the disclosures does provide qualitative indicators of the probability of loss. I find evidence that statements about the inestimable nature of the loss and statements about the firm’s willingness to consider a settlement are related to higher probabilities of loss and higher loss amounts. I also find evidence that statements regarding an existing accrual for losses and warnings about materiality reflect a higher likelihood of a nontrivial loss. These results emphasize firms’ strong resistance to quantitative disclosures of legal contingencies but suggest that existing SFAS 5 disclosures do contain qualitative information useful for evaluating the loss contingency.     

Adapting tax systems for population aging

Population aging is occurring around the world, presenting a number of policy challenges. Most notably, it will increase dependency ratios, making it more difficult for governments to support their older populations. As a result, tax policy will need to be changed in ways that result in more revenues collected, including strengthening tax incentives for work and reducing features that distort business decisions. Population aging also means that more people will be at risk of hardship because of limited financial resources in retirement, implying that tax systems should be changed in ways that better encourage retirement saving. Finally, the lower interest rates that have resulted in part from population aging and the resulting complications for monetary policy mean that governments would also be well served by changing tax systems to include more automatic stabilizers.     

Who do we blame for abusive supervision?

Research has looked extensively at one side of abusive supervision (that is employee perceptions) and subsequently linked this phenomenon to supervisors' actual behaviour. We address this research gap by investigating the other side—employee characteristics as a factor related to the perception of abusive supervision (AS). Data collected from 443 employees within the Pakistani telecommunications industry revealed that employees' intimidation behaviours was positively related to their perceptions of AS, mediated by emotional exhaustion. In addition, recognition (from top management) was found to moderate the indirect effects of intimidation on AS via emotional exhaustion. Our findings challenge the assumption that supervisors are to blame for exhibiting abusive behaviour and identify a new, underlying factor related to AS.