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Important Dimension (important + dimension)
Selected AbstractsPHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF ECOMORPHOLOGICAL DIVERGENCE, COMMUNITY STRUCTURE, AND DIVERSIFICATION RATES IN DUSKY SALAMANDERS (PLETHODONTIDAE: DESMOGNATHUS)EVOLUTION, Issue 9 2005Kenneth H. Kozak Abstract An important dimension of adaptive radiation is the degree to which diversification rates fluctuate or remain constant through time. Focusing on plethodontid salamanders of the genus Desmognathus, we present a novel synthetic analysis of phylogeographic history, rates of ecomorphological evolution and species accumulation, and community assembly in an adaptive radiation. Dusky salamanders are highly variable in life history, body size, and ecology, with many endemic lineages in the southern Appalachian Highlands of eastern North America. Our results show that lifehistory evolution had important consequences for the buildup of plethodontid-salamander species richness and phenotypic disparity in eastern North America, a global hot spot of salamander biodiversity. The origin of Desmognathus species with aquatic larvae was followed by a high rate of lineage accumulation, which then gradually decreased toward the present time. The peak period of lineage accumulation in the group coincides with evolutionary partitioning of lineages with aquatic larvae into seepage, stream-edge, and stream microhabitats. Phylogenetic simulations demonstrate a strong correlation between morphology and microhabitat ecology independent of phylogenetic effects and suggest that ecomorphological changes are concentrated early in the radiation of Desmognathus. Deep phylogeographic fragmentation within many codistributed ecomorph clades suggests long-term persistence of ecomorphological features and stability of endemic lineages and communities through multiple climatic cycles. Phylogenetic analyses of community structure show that ecomorphological divergence promotes the coexistence of lineages and that repeated, independent evolution of microhabitat-associated ecomorphs has a limited role in the evolutionary assembly of Desmognathus communities. Comparing and contrasting our results to other adaptive radiations having different biogeographic histories, our results suggest that rates of diversification during adaptive radiation are intimately linked to the degree to which community structure persists over evolutionary time. [source] Public Opinion as a Constraint against War: Democracies' Responses to Operation Iraqi FreedomFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 2 2006STEVE CHAN A central logic of the democratic peace theory claims that public opinion acts as a powerful restraint against war. Democratic officials, unlike their autocratic counterparts, are wary of going to war because they expect to pay an electoral penalty for fighting even successful wars. Several democracies, however, recently joined Operation Iraqi Freedom despite substantial and even overwhelming domestic opposition. We argue that electoral institutions can heighten or lessen the impact of public opinion on democratic officials' concerns for their reelection prospects, thus pointing to an important dimension of variation that has been overlooked in the democratic peace literature. However, contrary to conventional attributions of a greater incentive motivating the parties and candidates in predominantly two-party systems with majority/plurality decision rules to respond to national public opinion, we suggest mitigating factors that tend to reduce such responsiveness. Conversely, we point out that multiparty competition in proportional representation systems can reduce electoral disproportionality without sacrificing responsiveness to public opinion. The pertinent electoral institutions therefore present varying opportunities (or, conversely, constraints) for democratic officials to override their constituents' sentiments when they are so inclined. [source] A review of international human resource management: Integration, interrogation, imitationINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT REVIEWS, Issue 4 2007Helen De Cieri International human resource management (IHRM) represents an important dimension of international management. Over the past three decades, there has been considerable growth in research and practice in IHRM. While there have been extensive developments in this field, numerous scholars have identified aspects requiring review and revision. Hence, this paper reviews and interrogates the progress in IHRM's theoretical development. The review leads to the conclusion that research in IHRM has tended to emphasize integration over other forms of progress. In response, and in provocation, imitation rather than integration is suggested as an approach for the development of future theoretical and conceptual directions in IHRM. [source] Immigrants working with co-ethnics: Who are they and how do they fare?INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 2 2009Feng Hou Participation in ethnic economies has been regarded as an alternative avenue of economic adaptation for immigrants and minorities in major immigrant-receiving countries. This study examines one important dimension of ethnic economies: co-ethnic concentration at the workplace. Using a large national representative sample from Statistics Canada's 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey, this study addresses four questions: (1) what is the level of co-ethnic concentration at the workplace for Canada's minority groups? (2) How do workers who share the same ethnicity with most of their co-workers differ from other workers in socio-demographic characteristics? (3) Is higher level of co-ethnic concentration at the workplace associated with lower earnings? (4) Is higher level of co-ethnic concentration at the workplace associated with higher levels of life satisfaction? The results show that only a small proportion of immigrants and the Canadian-born work in ethnically homogeneous settings. In Canada's eight largest metropolitan areas about 10 per cent of non-British/French immigrants share a same ethnic origin with the majority of their co-workers. The level is as high as 20 per cent among Chinese immigrants and 18 per cent among Portuguese immigrants. Among Canadian-born minority groups, the level of co-ethnic workplace concentration is about half the level for immigrants. Immigrant workers in ethnically concentrated settings have much lower educational levels and proficiency in English/French. Immigrant men who work mostly with co-ethnics on average earn about 33 per cent less than workers with few or none co-ethnic coworkers. About two thirds of this gap is attributable to differences in demographic and job characteristics. Meanwhile, immigrant workers in ethnically homogenous settings are less likely to report low levels of life satisfaction than other immigrant workers. Among the Canadian-born, co-ethnic concentration is not consistently associated with earnings and life satisfaction. [source] Negotiating Russian Federalism: A Simulation for Comparative PoliticsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 4 2002Christopher Marsh While the use of simulations in the international relations classroom has proliferated over the past decade, this pedagogical tool has been largely neglected in the comparative politics classroom. Simulations in comparative politics can be a useful component in teaching students about the diversity within foreign countries and the dynamic of domestic policymaking. We describe here an informative and easy,to,run simulation on Russian federalism which can be integrated into courses on Russian politics or easily adapted for use in other courses, especially those focusing on countries in which center,regional relations are an important dimension. The simulation is based on the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Federal Assembly, and is a great way to illustrate through experiential learning the quid pro quo of Russian federalism. We provide detailed information on English,language sources that both instructors and students can use during the simulation, along with an Appendix and a Website that provides everything instructors need to run the simulation in their own classes. [source] Musculoskeletal Pain and Risk for Falls in Older Disabled Women Living in the CommunityJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 4 2002Suzanne G. Leveille PhD OBJECTIVES: To determine whether musculoskeletal pain increased risk for falls in older women with disabilities. DESIGN: Prospective population-based cohort study. SETTING: The city and county of the eastern area of Baltimore. PARTICIPANTS: One thousand two women aged 65 and older, participants in the Women's Health and Aging Study, representing the one-third of older women who were living at home with disabilities, followed semiannually for 3 years beginning in 1991. MEASUREMENTS: Pain was categorized into four groups according to severity and location. Widespread pain was defined as pain in the upper and lower extremities and in the axial skeletal region, with moderate to severe pain in at least one region (, 4 on a 10-point numeric rating scale, 10 = excruciating pain). Moderate to severe lower extremity pain that did not meet criteria for widespread pain was the next category. The reference category was no pain or mild pain in one site. The additional category of "other pain" was pain that did not fit into the other three groups. The occurrence of falls and fall-related injuries were assessed at each interview. RESULTS: Of the 940 women who participated in at least one follow-up examination, 39% fell in first year; of the survivors, 36% fell in Year 2, and 39% in Year 3. After adjusting for several major risk factors for falls, women with widespread pain had an increased likelihood of falling during follow-up (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.66, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.25,2.21) compared with those with no or mild pain in only one musculoskeletal site. Women who had other musculoskeletal pain but not widespread pain or lower extremity pain also had an increased risk of falls (AOR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.02,1.82). Among women with musculoskeletal pain, risk for falls was lower in those who used daily analgesic medication. Risk for recurrent falls and self-reported fractures due to falls was also elevated in women with musculoskeletal pain, most consistently in women with widespread pain. CONCLUSIONS: Musculoskeletal pain, particularly widespread pain, is a substantial risk factor for falls in older women with disabilities. These findings add an important dimension to our understanding of the multifactorial processes leading to falls in older persons. J Am Geriatr Soc 50:671,678, 2002. [source] Modelling the development of supply-restricted telecommunications marketsJOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 4 2001Towhidul Islam Abstract A large proportion of the world telecommunications market can be characterized as supply restricted. In ITU (1999) official waiting lists numbered about 50 million worldwide with an average waiting time of two years. More than 100 countries had not eliminated the waiting list for telephone connections and hence a supply restricted market prevailed in all of these countries. Only about 25 countries have succeeded in eradicating their waiting list for basic telephone service. In terms of the pattern of diffusion, the subscriber's flow from waiting applicants to adopters is controlled by supply restrictions adding an important dimension that needs to be addressed when modeling and forecasting demand. An empirical analysis of the diffusion of main telephones in 46 supply-restricted countries is presented to demonstrate the usefulness of a three-stage Bass model that has been proposed to capture the dynamics of supply restrictions. We also compare the forecasting ability of different approaches to estimation when panel data are available. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Venture Creation Speed and Subsequent Growth: Evidence from South AmericaJOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010Joan-Lluis Capelleras Though time is an important dimension of the venture creation process, our understanding of why some entrepreneurs are able to act more quickly than others is limited. Equally, not much is known about the relationship between venture creation speed and the subsequent venture growth. In this paper, we use a resource-based perspective to provide insights into the factors that quicken or retard venture creation and to explore how speed impacts on subsequent growth. This is important because the topic remains generally underresearched and because even less is understood about venture creation speed in the context of South American economies. Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with 647 entrepreneurs in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru. Using a multivariate regression framework, we find that entrepreneurs make use of their human and social capital resources to shape the speed by which their venture is created. Moreover, their perceptions of unfavorable environmental conditions seem to retard venture creation. Findings also suggest that entrepreneurs who take more time to create a more solid resource base tend to receive better growth outcomes. Implications from the findings are discussed. [source] The influence of the interviewing style and the historical context on positioning shifts in the narrative of a Second World War Resistance member1JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 2 2009Dorien Van De Mieroop This article involves a study of the narrative of a Second World War Resistance member by means of an interview in which the interviewer explicitly inserts the historical context by selecting the topics for discussion and asking critical questions. The interview deals with three periods: the Wartime period; the First Wave of Reprisals; and the Second Wave of Reprisals. The analyses show that the interviewee's first and second-level positionings shift along with changes in historical period and that they mirror the general historical image of the Resistance. These different positionings are highly consistent in themselves and this consistency is also present on the third level of positioning, because of the interviewee's fairly muted style of narrating, by which blatant inconsistencies are avoided and a general, ,good' identity is constructed. The article also demonstrates that the interview style adds another, important dimension to the analysis of identities in life stories. [source] Field dependence and classification: Implications for global information systemsJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 6 2009Matthew McCool This article describes research designed to assess the interaction between culture and classification. Mounting evidence in cross-cultural psychology has indicated that culture may affect classification, which is an important dimension to global information systems. Data were obtained through three classification tasks, two of which were adapted from recent studies in cross-cultural psychology. Data were collected from 36 participants, 19 from China and 17 from the United States. The results of this research indicate that Chinese participants appear to be more field dependent, which may be related to a cultural preference for relationships instead of categories. [source] THE "ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE" IN "CREATIVE INDUSTRY CLUSTER" DEVELOPMENT IN SHANGHAIJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2010JANE ZHENG ABSTRACT:,Literature on China's urban development discusses the nature and role of the local state. A set of concepts have been proposed, such as the "entrepreneurial state" (ES) and "local developmental state," and an ongoing debate attempts to ascertain whether the state is "entrepreneurial" in nature. This article uses a newly emerged urban phenomenon, chuangyi chanye jiju qu (CCJQs) or "creative industry clusters," in which the central government is not involved, to explore the nature of local governments, their role in urban development, and the ways in which they perform this role. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The findings of this research reveal a strong revenue-oriented nature of local governments, highlighting the "entrepreneurial state" as an important dimension in their character: they transform spontaneously emerged urban cultural spaces into a new mechanism generating revenues for both urban growth and their own economic benefit. Local governments promote CCJQ development with place promotion strategies, and they are directly involved in CCJQ-related businesses as market players rather than as independent bodies that effectively control and regulate the CCJQ market through policies and regulations. Further, this article reveals a "public,public" coalition as an important mechanism for local state participation. [source] Business Investment under Uncertainty and Irreversibility,OXONOMICS, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 9 JUL 200, Domenico Lombardi This article surveys developments in the literature on business investment that have shed light on important aspects of firms' investment behaviour. Recent contributions emphasize the relevance of idiosyncratic factors affecting investment decisions such as the degree of irreversibility and uncertainty, whose interaction may generate an opportunity cost equivalent to the exercise of an option. They add an important dimension to the neoclassical theory of investment in so far as they emphasize cross-sectional differences in optimal investment behavior. The econometric evidence is consistent with the predictions of these models pointing to a slower response of investment to demand shocks at higher levels of uncertainty. [source] Rumination: Relationship to depression and personality in a clinical samplePERSONALITY AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 4 2009Janet D. Carter Numerous studies indicate rumination has a deleterious impact on the course of depressive symptoms. Very little is known about the factors that account for individual differences in the tendency to ruminate, particularly in clinical samples. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between demographic factors, clinical characteristics of depression, personality and rumination in a clinical sample. Rumination was assessed with the Response Styles Questionnaire in 168 outpatients with a current diagnosis of major depression. Depression characteristics and personality were assessed with both structured clinical interviews and self-report measures. The results indicate that depression severity and personality predict rumination. Specifically, high initial depression severity, cluster B personality disorder symptoms and low self-directedness were significant predictors of rumination. There were no age or gender differences in the tendency to ruminate. Personality functioning appears to be an important dimension that may account for individual differences in the tendency to ruminate in depressed outpatients. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Suburbanisation in relation to education in the Tallinn metropolitan areaPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 4 2007Tiit Tammaru Abstract Significant changes occur in the social stratification order and spatial redistribution of population in countries in transition. One of the important dimensions in the changing social stratification order is related to the increased importance of education. Dominance of suburbanisation is an important dimension in spatial population change. The aim of the current article is to study these two important dimensions of social and spatial change by analysing suburbanisation with regard to the level of education of residential migrants in the Tallinn metropolitan area, Estonia. The study is based on census data from the year 2000 and it employs logistic regression to compare suburbanisers with stayers in Tallinn and its suburbs. The main findings indicate that suburbanisation reduces inequalities in the educational composition of people living in Tallinn and its suburbs on the one hand, but increases socio-spatial segregation within the suburbs on the other. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Countertransference to psychiatric patients in a clinical setting: Development of the Feeling Checklist,Japanese versionPSYCHIATRY AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES, Issue 6 2006FUJIKA KATSUKI rn Abstract, Countertransference is an important dimension of the therapeutic alliance between care providers and patients. The Feeling Checklist (FC) is a self-report questionnaire for the assessment of countertransference by hospital staff toward patients. The FC was translated from English into Japanese and its factor structure, reliability, and validity in the Japanese version (FC-J) were examined. A total of 281 Japanese psychiatric nurses were tested with the FC-J. All nurses were primarily involved in provision of psychiatric care. Principal-component factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed to identify the potential components of the FC-J. In a factor analysis of the FC-J, seven factors were extracted. The five subscales that were determined and labeled included Reject, Distance, Helpfulness, Closeness, and Involvement, which collectively accounted for 56.0% of the variance. Cronbach's ,, a measure of internal consistency, for individual subscales was 0.833 for Reject, 0.763 for Distance, 0.768 for Helpfulness, 0.617 for Closeness, and 0.663 for Involvement. Notably, there was a significant correlation between the FC-J and the Nurse Attitude Scale (P < 0.0001). Moreover, one-way anova was performed with each FC-J subscale to examine differences among psychiatric diagnoses in the study sample. A significant difference was found for Involvement (P < 0.001), with the total score on Involvement being the highest in the personality disorder group. These results are considered to verify the reliability and validity of the FC-J as a scale to measure countertransference among Japanese care providers. The use of this scale allows individual care providers to recognize and be cognizant of their own countertransference objectively and thereby contributes to improve the relationship between patients and care providers. [source] Opening up the innovation process: the role of technology aggressivenessR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2009Ulrich Lichtenthaler Besides acquiring external knowledge, many firms have begun to actively commercialize technology, for example, by means of out-licensing. This increase in inward and outward technology transactions reflects the new paradigm of open innovation. Most prior research into open innovation is limited to theoretical considerations and case studies, whereas other lines of research have focused either on external technology acquisition or exploitation. In an integrative view, we consider inward and outward technology transactions as the main directions of open innovation. Moreover, technology aggressiveness, which constitutes an important dimension of technology strategy, is identified as a major determinant of open innovation. Data from a survey of 154 industrial firms are used to test three hypotheses relating technology aggressiveness, external technology acquisition, and external technology exploitation. In addition, clusters of firms with homogeneous strategies regarding technology aggressiveness and open innovation are identified. [source] Going Public: An Empirical Investigation of U.S. Bound Israeli IPOsFINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 3 2010Iftekhar Hasan Between 1985,2003, more than 120 Israeli companies went public in the U.S., bringing the accumulated number of U.S. bound, Israeli initial public offerings (IPOs) to a figure greater than all other foreign countries combined. In this study, we compare the short and long run performance of Israeli IPOs to that of similar international and U.S. IPOs. Holding all else equal, we find that Israeli IPOs are significantly less underpriced than their local and foreign counterparts. As we examine the characteristics of Israeli issuers, we find that they differ than those of other foreign and local issuers in some important dimensions that compensate investors for information asymmetry and risk. First, compared to their home market capitalization size, U.S. bound Israeli IPOs, are significantly larger than the IPOs conducted by their foreign counterparts. Second, Israeli issuers tend to perform better than other foreign and U.S. local IPOs during our entire period of observation. Third, to a large extent, the Israeli firms in our sample have products, licensing or franchising relationships or venture capital funds with strong roots in the U.S. prior to the IPO. And fourth, the relevant investor community of Israeli IPOs, at least at the early stages, is small and overwhelmingly American. Our findings are consistent with prior studies documenting that firms raising capital outside of their domicile country are typically a select group of high quality firms in need of external financing that cannot be sufficiently provided in their home market. [source] Measuring customer value and satisfaction in services transactions, scale development, validation and cross-cultural comparisonINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 6 2007Frank Huber Abstract Customer value and customer satisfaction are pivotal but at the same time elusive concepts in services marketing theory. This paper focuses on discussing the relationship between these two concepts. We propose operationalization by developing and testing scales, especially operational indicators, for important dimensions and drivers of the services-value construct. A multitrait-multimethod design is used to test the robustness of the operationalization. Furthermore, a cross-cultural data set is used to explore country influences using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models. Results indicate that the measurement construct is robust and useful in country-comparative studies. [source] Prospect Theory and the Cuban Missile CrisisINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2001Mark L. Haas This article tests the predictions of expected-utility and prospect theories against the most important dimensions of the Cuban missile crisis. Largely through use of the most recently released information on the crisis from the American and Soviet governments, I attempt to ascertain the anticipated benefits, costs, and probabilities of success associated with each of the major policy choices that the key leaders in both superpowers perceived before each of the major decisions throughout the crisis was made. Using this information and the logic of extensive-form game-theoretic models of choice, I construct a baseline for expected-utility theory that helps us to understand when prospect or expected-utility theory provides the better explanation for a particular decision. Prospect theory predicts that when individuals perceive themselves to be experiencing losses at the time they make a decision, and when their probability estimates associated with their principal policy options are in the moderate to high range, they will tend to make excessively risky, non,value maximizing choices. I find that the evidence for the Cuban missile crisis supports this prediction for the most important decisions made by both Khrushchev and Kennedy. [source] Designing ubiquitous computing to enhance children's learning in museumsJOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 4 2006T. Hall Abstract In recent years, novel paradigms of computing have emerged, which enable computational power to be embedded in artefacts and in environments in novel ways. These developments may create new possibilities for using computing to enhance learning. This paper presents the results of a design process that set out to explore interactive techniques, which utilized ubiquitous computer technology, to stimulate active participation, involvement and learning by children visiting a museum. Key stakeholders, such as museum curators and docents, were involved throughout the process of creating the exhibition, Re-Tracing the Past, in the Hunt Museum, Limerick, Ireland. The paper describes aspects of the evaluation of the exhibition, which involved 326 schoolchildren (ages 9,12-year-old), and which exemplifies important features of the design and use of the novel technology in the museum. The paper concludes by articulating a series of design guidelines for developing ubiquitous computing to enhance children's learning in museums. These guidelines relate 12 experiential criteria to five supporting design informants and resources. The guidelines encompass important dimensions of children's educational experience in museums, including collaboration, engagement, active interpretation, and materiality. While developed in a museum context, these guidelines could be applied to the development of novel computing to enhance children's learning in other educational environments, both formal and informal. [source] Family Network Support and Mental Health RecoveryJOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY, Issue 1 2010Francesca Pernice-Duca Family members often provide critical support to persons living with a serious mental illness. The focus of this study was to determine which dimensions of the family support network were most important to the recovery process from the perspective of the recovering person. Consumers of a community mental health program completed in-depth structured interviews that included separate measures of social network support and recovery. Consumers named an average of 2.6 family members on the social network, interacted with family on a weekly basis, and were quite satisfied with their contact. This study revealed that support and reciprocity with family members are important dimensions of a personal support network that relates to the recovery process. [source] Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Reform: Lessons From School Finance Litigation in Kentucky, 1984-1995LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 3 2001Michael Paris This article is about legal mobilization by claimant groups seeking left-liberal reform in the United States. Drawing on a growing body of work in political science and legal studies, it takes an interpretive, legal-mobilization approach to one litigation-based reform effort: school finance litigation and education reform in Kentucky. In turn, this case study provides leverage for theorizing about legal mobilization and the role of law and courts in social reform. The article argues that current theoretical approaches either overlook or neglect the implications of important dimensions of legal mobilization by would-be reformers. Specifically, it highlights and explicates the meaning of two related themes: (1) legal translation, taken up here as legal framing and legal construction, and (2) the degree of coherence or fit between the legal and political components of reform projects that include both legal mobilization and extrajudicial strategies and tactics. This article suggests that the "degree of coherence" may have an important but underappreciated relationship to the overall success or failure of such reform projects. [source] Suburbanisation in relation to education in the Tallinn metropolitan areaPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 4 2007Tiit Tammaru Abstract Significant changes occur in the social stratification order and spatial redistribution of population in countries in transition. One of the important dimensions in the changing social stratification order is related to the increased importance of education. Dominance of suburbanisation is an important dimension in spatial population change. The aim of the current article is to study these two important dimensions of social and spatial change by analysing suburbanisation with regard to the level of education of residential migrants in the Tallinn metropolitan area, Estonia. The study is based on census data from the year 2000 and it employs logistic regression to compare suburbanisers with stayers in Tallinn and its suburbs. The main findings indicate that suburbanisation reduces inequalities in the educational composition of people living in Tallinn and its suburbs on the one hand, but increases socio-spatial segregation within the suburbs on the other. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] IV,Romeo, René, and the Reasons Why: What Explanation IsPROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1part1 2008C. S. JenkinsArticle first published online: 26 MAR 200 This paper suggests that our everyday explanation talk exhibits a number of important dimensions of variation, then proposes a functionalist account of explanation to help accommodate them. The functional role of explanations is given in terms of answering why-questions, which in turn is spelled out in terms of the provision of information about non-inferential consequence. Realizers of the explanation role can be found by considering various consequence relations, including (for example) relations of causal and nomic consequence. [source] Discrete Polarisation with an Application to the Determinants of Genocides,THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 533 2008Jose G. Montalvo Inequality and polarisation are two different measures of heterogeneity. As in the case of inequality, the measurement of polarisation was initially developed in the context of a continuous dimension (income). However, in many important dimensions, like ethnicity, there are no available measures of distance across ethnic groups and individuals are mostly separated by the dichotomous perception ,we versus they'. In this article we analyse the theoretical properties of a measure of polarisation based on classifications (discrete polarisation) instead of continuous distances across groups. The second part of the article presents an application of the index of discrete ethnic polarisation to the explanation of genocides. [source] Success in Global New Product Development: Impact of Strategy and the Behavioral Environment of the FirmTHE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2010Ulrike De Brentani Product innovation and the trend toward globalization are two important dimensions driving business today, and a firm's global new product development (NPD) strategy is a primary determinant of performance. Succeeding in this competitive and complex market arena calls for corporate resources and strategies by which firms can effectively tackle the challenges and opportunities associated with international NPD. Based on the resource-based view (RBV) and the entrepreneurial strategic posture (ESP) literature, the present study develops and tests a model that emphasizes the resources of the firm as primary determinants of competitive advantage and, thus, of superior performance through the strategic initiatives that these enable. In the study, global NPD programs are assessed in terms of three dimensions: (1) the organizational resources or behavioral environment of the firm relevant for international NPD,specifically, the global innovation culture of the firm and senior management involvement in the global NPD effort; (2) the global NPD strategies (i.e., global presence strategy and global product harmonization strategy) chosen for expanding and exploiting opportunities in international markets; and (3) global NPD program performance in terms of shorter- and longer-term outcome measures. These are modeled in antecedent terms, where the impact of the resources on performance is mediated by the NPD strategy of the firm. Based on data from 432 corporate global new product programs (North America and Europe, business-to-business, services and goods), a structural model testing for the hypothesized mediation effects was substantially supported. Specifically, having an organizational posture that, at once, values innovation plus globalization, as well as a senior management that is active in and supports the international NPD effort leads to strategic choices that are focused on making the firm truly global in terms of both market coverage and product offering. Further, the two strategies,global presence and global product harmonization,were found to be significant mediators of the firm's behavioral environment in terms of impact on performance of global NPD programs. [source] Inclusion of theory-relevant moderators yield the same conclusions as Sedikides, Gaertner, and Vevea (2005): A meta-analytical reply to Heine, Kitayama, and Hamamura (2007)ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2007Constantine Sedikides Heine, Kitayama and Hamamura (2007) attributed the Sedikides, Gaertner and Vevea (2005) findings to the exclusion of six papers. We report a meta-analysis that includes those six papers. The Heine et al. conclusions are faulty, because of a misspecified meta-analysis that failed to consider two moderators central to the theory. First, some of their effect sizes originated from studies that did not empirically validate comparison dimensions. Inclusion of this moderator evidences pancultural self-enhancement: Westerners enhance more strongly on individualistic dimensions, Easterners on collectivistic dimensions. Second, some of their effect sizes were irrelevant to whether enhancement is correlated with dimension importance. Inclusion of this moderator evidences pancultural self-enhancement: Both Westerners and Easterners enhance on personally important dimensions. The Sedikides et al. conclusions are valid: Tactical self-enhancement is pancultural. [source] Change Management Choices and Trajectories in a Multidivisional FirmBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2010Inger G. Stensaker This paper draws on a comparative case study of the implementation of a planned change initiative across three different divisions of a multidivisional oil company to investigate the influences guiding division-level change agents in their choice of a change management approach and the impact of different approaches on change outcomes. While the contingency perspective suggests that change management approaches should be chosen to fit with change content and context, we found that change agents navigated amongst three concerns: substantive concerns related to goal attainment, political concerns related to conformity to corporate demands, and relational concerns concerning relations with employees. We identified three different change management trajectories across the three divisions based on alternative ways of balancing the concerns. The data show that, regardless of the change management approach adopted, change tends to be diluted in implementation. However, the various trajectories have differential consequences for other important dimensions such as corporate approval and relationships with employees. [source] Extending the Testimony Problem: Evaluating the Truth, Scope, and Source of Cultural InformationCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2006Brian Bergstrom Children's learning,in the domains of science and religion specifically, but in many other cultural domains as well,relies extensively on testimony and other forms of culturally transmitted information. The cognitive processes that enable such learning must also administrate the evaluation, qualification, and storage of that information, while guarding against the dangers of false or misleading input. Currently, the development of these appraisal processes is not clearly understood. Recent work, reviewed here, has begun to address three important dimensions of the problem: how children and adults evaluate truth in communication, how they gauge the inferential potential of information, and how they encode and evaluate its source. [source] Parenting style and obsessive-compulsive symptoms and personality traits in a student sampleCLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY (AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THEORY & PRACTICE), Issue 6 2002Ayse Aycicegi There is widespread acceptance of the idea that aspects of parenting such as overprotectiveness and perfectionism contribute to the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Less resolved is whether the important dimensions of parenting are overprotectiveness, lack of acceptance, authoritarian style, discouragement of risk-taking, and/or induction of guilt. It is also unclear whether different parenting characteristics are associated with the development of symptoms of OCD, compared to the traits of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). OCD symptoms and OC personality traits were measured in a non-clinical, student sample and correlated with students' report of parents' acceptance, disciplinary firmness, and psychological control (a construct which included psychological manipulation and guilt-induction). Following the literature on both clinical and subclinical OCD and OCPD, we predicted that all three scales would correlate with OCD symptoms and OCPD traits. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that psychological control was the unique predictor, controlling for depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, a controlling parenting style was not selectively associated with classical OC symptoms or OC personality traits. Rather, psychological control was associated with a broad-spectrum of anxiety and depressive symptoms which cut across diagnostic boundaries. Findings are generally compatible with a single underlying vulnerability to both OCD and OCPD, as well as generalized/social anxiety and depressive symptoms, which can be shaped by cultural and familial factors to a specific clinical presentation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||