Collecting samples from online services: How to use screeners to improve data quality

Increasingly, marketing and consumer researchers rely on online data collection services. While actively-managed data collection services directly assist with the sampling process, minimally-managed data collection services, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), leave researchers solely responsible for recruiting, screening, cleaning, and evaluating responses. The research reported here proposes a 2 × 2 framework based on sampling goal and methodology for screening and evaluating the quality of online samples. By sampling goals, screeners can be categorized as selection, which involves matching the sample with the targeted population; or as accuracy, which involves ensuring that participants are appropriately attentive. By methodology, screeners can be categorized as direct, which screens individual responses; and as statistical, which provides quantitative signals of low quality. Multiple screeners for each of the four categories are compared across three MTurk samples, two actively-managed data collection samples (Qualtrics and Dynata), and a student sample. The results suggest the need for screening in every online sample, particularly for the MTurk samples, with the fewest supplier-provided filters. Recommendations are provided for researchers and journal reviewers that provide greater transparency with respect to sample practices.     

大型高新技术企业NPD创意筛选模型研究

创意筛选对于大型高新技术企业新产品开发具有重要意义。在梳理相关文献的基础上,提出大型高新技术企业新产品开发创意筛选的概念模型,并针对创意筛选实践中的关键问题,运用BFPRT算法进行处理,构建了大型高新技术企业创意筛选实施过程,具有一定的理论与实践借鉴意义。     

Development of bank microcredit

We analyze the process by which banks enter the microcredit market while still engaging in traditional credit practices. For this we study a competitive credit market with adverse selection, where lenders are endowed with a screening technology capable of extracting an informative signal about a borrower’s quality if enough time is devoted to process the loan application. The time necessary for signal extraction depends on the borrower’s informational transparency. In the presence of opaque and transparent borrowers, depending on economy parameters, either a separating equilibrium with standard credit or microcredit prevails or a pooling equilibrium with either loan contract prevails.     

生态城市指标体系构建技术方法及案例研究——以潍坊滨海生态城为例

建立生态城市指标体系是指导生态城市建设的主要方法.作者在参考中新天津生态城规划、总结已有生态城指标体系编制经验的基础上,结合潍坊滨海所处的区域发展要求和自身发展特色与条件,介绍了生态城市指标体系构建过程中的技术方法,提出了潍坊滨海生态城指标体系.     

Security culture in the screening checkpoint of Brazilian airports

In a previous study the incidence of errors and human factors in the security screening process at Brazilian airports was identified as a security challenge. This finding led to the analysis of teamwork activity in the screening checkpoints from a security culture perspective. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potentials errors and human factors that might influence the performance of the passengers screening checkpoints of Brazilian airports related to security culture. For this purpose, were analyzed 10 of 60 items of a self-observation questionnaire based on the theory of Generic Error–Modeling System (GEMS) and the framework about human factors recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The exploratory analysis focused on items that were directly linked with security culture and organizational environment. The results indicated the presence of fundamental elements for the formation of an adequate security culture among the professionals. Otherwise, the data also indicate the presence of human factors associated to the security culture with the potential of negatively influencing the performance of the passenger screening activity.     

Information production, banking industry structure and credit allocation

We analyse credit allocation when limited-liable banks can engage in costly information production about borrowers. When perfectly diversified credit portfolios cannot be constructed, we show that credit allocation depends on bank capital and the number of banks that can operate in the same market. A concentrated banking industry, one where bank capital is held by few banks, is shown to lead to credit allocation closer to the social optimum. Moreover, in the absence of banking industry consolidation, we find that the removal of intra-state entry barriers reduces welfare and not all independent banking organizations that were viable in formerly protected markets remain so when markets are integrated.     

Sanctions as revelation regimes

Sanctioning in the face of uncertainty has been investigated from the perspective of signaling models, in which an informed target sends a signal and the sanctioner decides to sanction or not. As the more powerful power, however, the sanctioner could take the lead rather than react to the action of the target. Borrowing from contract theory, I present a new approach to the sanctioning of a target of unknown type in which the sanctioner explicitly structures the target’s options before the target moves. The theory shows that in a situation in which a sanctioning state is ignorant of the target’s willingness to comply, it may be able to elicit the revelation of that information through a careful mix of incentives. I derive the comparative statics and provide historical illustrations. I thank Eric Fisher, Massimo Morelli, Chad Rector, Kuba Zielinski, and Byungwon Woo for valuable suggestions on prior versions.     

Organizational attractiveness in Japan:a screening perspective

This study examines the effects of several organizational characteristics on job applicant attributions of organizational attractiveness in Japan. The results from 11,060 Japanese university students, 3,678 seniors specializing in engineering&science who judged 156 firms and 7,382 seniors majoring in liberal arts who evaluated 150 firms, demonstrate that some of the organizational characteristics studied do serve as organizational attractiveness screening devices (Stiglitz, 1975). First, work-force size was related to organizational attractiveness for both student cohorts, as hypothesized. On the contrary, the age of the organization had no effect on organizational attractiveness for either group. The effects for two other variables, sales and profits, were mixed. Sales was related to organizational attractiveness for the engineering&science cohort, but not for the liberal arts cohort. Alternatively, profits were associated with organizational attractiveness for the liberal art students, but not the engineering&science students.     

银行信贷配给与中小企业贷款——一个内生化抵押品和企业规模的理论模型

本文在吸收其他文献合理成分的基础上 ,通过考虑贷款抵押品的信号甄别机制和银行审查成本对贷款额的影响 ,将借款企业的资产规模、风险类型与抵押品价值相联系 ,构建了内生化抵押品和企业规模的均衡信贷配给模型。根据该模型 ,在信贷配给中被剔除的主要是资产规模小于银行所要求的临界抵押品价值的中小企业和部分高风险企业。本文的理论模型对于更好地理解市场经济及转型经济条件下的中小企业融资难问题提供了启示。     

Evaluation of inequivalent projections of Hadamard matrices of order 24

Screening designs are useful for situations where a large number of factors (q) is examined but only few (k) of these are expected to be important. It is of practical interest for a given k to know all the inequivalent projections of the design into the k dimensions. In this paper we give all the (combinatorially) inequivalent projections of inequivalent Hadamard matrices of order 24 into k=3,4 and 5 dimensions, as well as their frequencies. Then, we sort these projections according to their generalized resolution, generalized aberration and centered L₂-discrepancy measure of uniformity. Then, we study the hidden projection properties of these designs as they are introduced by Wang and Wu (1995). The hidden projection property suggests that complex aliasing allows some interactions to be estimated without making additional runs.