Small is beautiful: Implications of reliability and statistical power for testing the efficacy of HR interventions

The development of optimal human resource practices is often contingent on the accurate statistical testing of potential interventions. Testing the efficacy of HR interventions can be enhanced by taking additional measures to improve statistical power, but the traditional means of increasing power through sample size are often beyond the cost and ability of HR professionals to pursue. This article, therefore, focuses on measurement procedures as an alternative way to increase statistical power for detecting HR intervention effects. Selection of reliable and appropriate measures and subsequent instrumentation are examined as efficacious and cost‐beneficial techniques that can be employed during the planning and designing stage of a study for augmenting statistical power to optimize business decision making. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Emotional intelligence and resilience as predictors of leadership in school administrators

This mixed‐method study of 48 P–12 school administrators across three southeastern states was done to begin investigation of the impact of nontraditional leadership factors. As evidenced by the results, there is a strong correlation between the factors of emotional intelligence and resilience and leadership success.     

AGENCY COSTS AND THE PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL JOINT VENTURE INTERNALIZATION

Recent studies have examined the determinants of international joint venture (IJV) formations and stock market reactions to such investments. Less is known, however, about the evolution of IJVs and the attendant performance implications for parent firms. This paper examines one specific type of IJV evolution, IJV internalization, whereby one firm acquires the IJV by buying out its partner(s). Standard agency theory variables are hypothesized to influence parent firm valuation effects. The results indicate that parent firm valuation effects are positively related to the parent firm equity owned by insiders and the interaction of debt financing and free cash flow. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An approximation of the relative real per capita GDP of the People's Republic of China

This paper presents a rough estimate of the real per capita GDP of the People's Republic of China, relative to that of the U. S. and other countries, with a 1975 reference date.     

Why do diners tip: rule-of-thumb or valuation of service?

When diners decide how much to tip, is the decision based on social convention or on conscientious appraisal of server productivity? Previous researchers in economics and social psychology are generally inconclusive on this question. A common finding in the literature is that tip size and service quality are unrelated, a result usually obtained from OLS regressions. OLS is only appropriate if service quality is exogenous. It is argued that service quality is very likely endogenous in any regression of tip size; good quality encourages good tips, but server expectations of good tips encourage good quality. This simultaneity is accounted for by jointly estimating percentage tips and customer rankings of service quality on a sample of 247 diners in a Central Minnesota restaurant. Included are explanatory variables consistent with both the social psychology and economic views of tipping. In contrast to previous studies, it is found that service quality significantly affects tip size and when servers expect higher tips, customers rank service quality higher. Also it is found that patronage frequency and coupon redemption have no effect on percentage tips, but server gender influences quality significantly. It is concluded that the results are generally supportive of an economic hypothesis of tipping.     

Internationalizing audit education

Audit education is typically offered only to accounting majors. We argue that auditing provides a way of thinking that could serve as a framework for an accounting curriculam. We describe two parts of a course content that could be incorporated into an existing auditing course or a begining accounting course. The first section emphasizes accountability; the second emphasizes the role of the auditor in the accountability process. The concepts are best taught within an international paradigm that permits examination of various institutional environments.     

Learning Why More Learning Takes Place in Some Classrooms Than Others

Abstract. The relatively poor average performance of German students on the recent PISA international evaluations of 15- and 16-year-olds' literary skills (2000) and mathematical skills (2003) and the wide variation in performance, with low-income students scoring particularly poorly, have led to calls for reforms of the German educational system. Understanding why students in some classrooms learn more than do those in other classrooms is an important first step in considering alternative reform strategies. Possible explanations include differences in teacher quality, class sizes and peer groups, and also differences among the types of secondary schools that parents select for their children. This paper illustrates a set of techniques that are useful in examining the roles these factors play in predicting why, net of family background and prior achievement, the average achievement of children in some classrooms is much higher than that of children in other classrooms. We illustrate the use of these techniques with a dataset from Bogotá, Colombia, that has two attractive properties. First, some teachers teach multiple classes of students. Second, students are enrolled in schools in two sectors (public and private). Application of the techniques described in this paper could shed light on the reasons why the average academic achievement of German students attending some schools is much higher than that of German students attending other schools.     

Ownership structure and hospital service costs and fees: A decomposition approach

This paper analyzes hospital characteristics that are associated with higher average costs and charges for venipuncture, computed tomography procedures (computerized axial tomography [CAT] scans), and electrocardiograms (EKG). Using data from a Medicare database, our results indicate that higher wages, larger hospital sizes, and greater service quality are associated with higher procedure costs, whereas system membership is generally associated with lower procedure costs. Blinder‐type decompositions, which are the main focus of this study, suggest (a) that venipuncture costs are about 17% to 19% lower at proprietary hospitals than at nonprofit or government hospitals, (b) CAT scan costs are about 6% to 12% lower at nonprofit hospitals than at proprietary and government hospitals, and (c) that EKG costs are about 3% lower at proprietary hospitals than at nonprofit or government hospitals. Lastly, large portions of each of these differences are found to be due to both differences in mean values of the hospitals' characteristics by ownership type and differences in the mechanism by which the hospitals' characteristics are transmitted to procedure costs.