Strategic individual assessment: Issues in providing reliable descriptions

Individual assessment involves one psychologist making an assessment of an individual for personnel-related purposes. Individual assessment practice is reviewed, and research on reliability is presented. A study examining the comparability of conclusions reached by consumers is presented. Eighty-six students and thirty-eight managers read nine narrative assessment reports (three of each of three job candidates) and attempted to determine which reports described the same candidate. None of the subjects could correctly group the nine reports; a sizeable proportion did no better than chance in grouping the reports. Implications for assessors and consumers of individual assessments are discussed.     

Do borrowers know their mortgage terms?

We assess whether borrowers know their mortgage terms by comparing the distributions of these variables in the household-reported Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to the distributions in lender-reported data. We also examine the characteristics of SCF respondents who report not knowing these contract terms. Although most borrowers seem to know basic mortgage terms, borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages appear likely to underestimate or to not know how much their interest rates could change. Borrowers who could experience large payment changes if interest rates rose are more likely to report not knowing these contract terms. Difficulties with gathering and processing information appear to be a factor in borrowers' lack of knowledge.     

A Trinomial Logit Analysis of Household Composition

This article analyzes the effects on the marriage and household composition decisions of characteristics of the householder and of the place of residence. High housing costs reduced the probability of living alone. For female householders, increases in income decreased the probability of living alone rather than with unrelated individuals; the reverse was true for male householders. An increase in income decreased the probability of marriage for female householders over twenty-three years of age and increased the probability of marriage for male householders. Non-white householders over forty were less likely to be married than white householders over forty.     

Cross-border restaurant price and exchange rate interactions

Purchasing power parity suggests that international price ratios for identical goods should approximate nominal exchange rates for the currencies in which the prices are denominated. Deviations of the price ratios from exchange rates can occur for a number of reasons and mixed evidence has been recorded for how long those deviations last. Empirical evidence for international restaurant prices in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico confirms that menu item price ratios are strongly correlated with the peso/dollar exchange rate. An earlier exploratory study of eight individual products also indicated that half-life deviations in this market are very short. This study utilizes additional data from a larger and more extensive sample to examine if the prior results are confirmed.     

Political consequences of ethical investing: The case of South Africa

This paper discusses the economic impact and political consequences of ethical investing, with particular attention to the case of South Africa. The origins of ethical investing are examined, along with the institutions and strategies by which ethical investing operates today. Of immediate relevance to managers is a recent judicial decision upholding Baltimore's divestment ordinance. The discussion concludes with an assessment of the likely consequences of ethical investing for U.S. multinationals in Southern Africa. Dr. Paul is an Associate Professor of Management at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She took her Ph.D. from Emory University in 1974. She has published and presented widely on the subject of Business Ethics and Business and Public Policy. Her current research interest in business and South Africa has taken her to South Africa on a Fulbright Fellowship. Dr. Paul has also been named a Radcliffe Peace Fellow for 1987–88. She has just edited Business Environment and Business Ethics: The Social, Moral, and Political Dimensions of Management (1987) for Ballinger Press.Mr. Aquila has been a full time Lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology since 1984. He took his M.B.A. degree from New York University in 1980 and is just finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester in American History. Mr. Aquila was awarded the David Parker Memorial Prize in History from the University of Rochester in 1986.     

Perceptions of Power Within a Membership-based Seniors' Community Center

As opportunities for citizenship diminish in everyday life amid increasing consumption and privatization, there is a growing realization of the importance of participation and citizen power, particularly for older adults. Gaventa's (1980) Gaventa, J. (1980). Power and powerlessness: Quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar] concepts of visible, invisible, and hidden power and Arnstein's ladder of citizen power (1969) framed this study, which used participatory methods, including creation and facilitation of a members' group at a small seniors' center, to address the question: What are the factors that undermine or cultivate citizen power at a small community center for seniors? The data were organized under three power-related themes: powerlessness, reluctance to claim power, and claiming power. Findings suggest that negative social constructions associated with aging act as instruments of invisible power. Further, community center membership, to be considered meaningful, should be imbued with visible power, so that seniors can be involved in decision making and leadership.     

Understanding Active Loyalty Behavior in Hotel Reward Programs Through Customers’ Switching Costs and Perceived Program Value

Whether loyalty programs have become part of the lexicon of buzzwords or not, the hotel industry continues to adopt loyalty/rewards programs as a major channel to nurture customers’ active loyalty as well as to reap return business. This study examins the structural relationships among perceived program value, switching costs, and active loyalty. The proposed model is supported by an online survey dataset collected from United States (US) tourists. The findings show that perceived program value is less effective in driving active loyalty compared with switching costs. This implies a need for strategic thinking on the part of hoteliers and the industry. Rather than aggressively spending money or copying schemes used by competitors to gear up program value, the value of a defensive tactic of increasing switching costs should be considered.     

“You Can't Make a Good Wine without a Few Beers”: Gatekeepers and knowledge flow in industrial districts

Knowledge sharing sometimes plays a key role in the performance of clustered organizations, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), however, SMEs also face significant knowledge-related disadvantages due to their lack of absorptive capacity and functional expertise. This study investigates the influence of technical specialists on knowledge flow in a wine cluster in Australia. The main contribution of this paper is a finding that the technical specialist's gatekeeping role both links clustered SMEs to the global wine “systemworld” by transferring knowledge of technical developments and innovation, and simultaneously develops and refines regional winemaking styles by sharing locally specific, experientially derived knowledge. Technical specialists drew on bridging and bonding social capital to identify and retrieve specialist knowledge, and were capable of assimilating complex technical knowledge into the cluster. These findings are particularly significant because recipients were typically small and micro-firms, which are frequently located outside cluster knowledge-network.     

How much to give? — The effect of donation size on tactical and strategic success in cause-related marketing

In cause-related marketing (CM), companies promise a donation to a cause every time a consumer makes a purchase. We analyze the impact of the size of this donation on brand choice (tactical success) and brand image (strategic success). Our results reveal different effects of donation size on these success measures. For brand choice, the effect of donation size is moderated by a financial trade-off for consumers, whereas the effect on brand image is moderated by donation framing. Specifically, we show that donation size has a positive effect on brand choice if consumers face no financial trade-off; i.e., if they do not have to choose between triggering a donation or saving money. The effect is negative if a trade-off exists such that higher donations come at higher costs. Brand image is enhanced by larger donations if the framing is nonmonetary (e.g., the campaign promises the provision of vaccinations), whereas donation size has a negative effect if donation framing is monetary (e.g., the campaign states the Euro amount). If campaigns use a combination of both frames, the effect of donation size on brand image has an inverted U shape. Our results suggest that CM enhances tactical and strategic success only if firms select the right donation size, taking into account donation framing and financial trade-offs.