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Executive Abilities (executive + ability)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Working memory and multi-tasking in paranoid schizophrenia with and without comorbid substance use disorder

ADDICTION, Issue 5 2008
Patrizia Thoma
ABSTRACT Aims Addiction is a frequent comorbid disorder in schizophrenia and associated with poor outcome. The present study sought to determine whether addicted and non-addicted schizophrenic patients are impaired differentially on the executive abilities of working memory and multi-tasking which are relevant for maintaining abstinence. Design Comparisons of executive performance in clinical and control groups. Setting In-patient setting. Participants The cognitive profile of schizophrenic patients with and without comorbid substance abuse disorder was compared with that of patients suffering from major depression or alcoholism and healthy participants. Measurements A range of cognitive tasks was used to assess: (i) the ability to update continuously context information in working memory and to use it for action selection; and (ii) the capacity to divide attention between different sensory input channels and to coordinate verbal and manual responses. Findings Single-diagnosis schizophrenic patients showed pronounced impairments on measures of online maintenance and use of context information. Their ability to coordinate different sensory input channels (divided attention) was also impaired. Addicted schizophrenics showed evidence of impaired sensory input management and of reduced context sensitivity, when age differences were controlled. Conclusions The present study indicates severe working memory and multi-tasking deficits in schizophrenia which are, however, not exacerbated by comorbid addiction. [source]

Role of executive dysfunction in predicting frequency and severity of violence

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 5 2010
Megan Hancock
Abstract The adverse consequences of violence on society are tremendous. The proportion of offenders incarcerated for violent offenses is large, and the cost of keeping these offenders incarcerated is startling. Understanding and treating the causal underpinnings of violent crime is of utmost importance for individuals and society as a whole. Several factors have been identified as potential contributors to violent crime, including cognitive deficits in executive functioning [Hoaken et al., 2007]. To investigate this further, 77 offenders from Fenbrook Institution, a federal facility, were tested on a battery of executive functioning measures. Offenders were found to have broad and pervasive dysfunction in their executive abilities. In addition, specific scores from the battery were found using regression techniques, to predict the frequency and severity of past violent offending but not nonviolent offending. This speaks of the possibility of a new type of correctional rehabilitation program, one that focuses on the rehabilitation of basic executive functions. Aggr. Behav. 36:338,349, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Pay Without Performance: Overview of the Issues

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 4 2005
Lucian A. Bebchuk
In their recent book, Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation, the authors of this article provided a comprehensive critique of U.S. executive pay practices and the corporate governance processes that produce them, and then offered a number of proposals for improving both pay and governance. This article presents an overview of their analysis and proposals. The authors' analysis suggests that the pay-setting process in U.S. public companies has strayed far from the economist's model of "arm's-length contracting" between executives and boards in a competitive labor market. In place of this conventional model, which is standard in corporate law as well as economics, the authors argue that managerial power and influence play a major role in shaping executive pay, and in ways that end up imposing significant costs on investors and the economy. The main concern is not the levels of executive pay, but rather the distortion of incentives caused by compensation practices that fail to tie pay to performance and to limit executives' ability to sell their shares. Also troubling are "the correlation between power and pay, the systematic use of compensation practices that obscure the amount and performance insensitivity of pay, and the showering of gratuitous benefits on departing executives." To address these problems, the authors propose three kinds of changes: 1)increases in transparency, accomplished in part by new SEC rules requiring annual corporate disclosure that provides "the dollar value of all forms of compensation" (including "stealth compensation" in the form of pensions and other post-retirement benefits) and an analysis of the relationship between the past year's pay and performance, as well as more timely and informative disclosure of insider stock purchases and sales; 2)improvements in pay practices, including greater use of "indexed" stock and options to limit "windfalls," tougher limits on executives' freedom to sell shares, and greater use of "clawback" provisions in bonus plans that would force executives to return pay for performance that proves to be temporary; and 3)improvements in board accountability to shareholders, including limits on the use of staggered boards and granting shareholders the right to nominate directors and propose changes to governance arrangements in the corporate charter. [source]

Community as a factor in implementing interorganizational partnerships: Issues, constraints, and adaptations

NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 1 2003
Elizabeth A. Mulroy
This article reports findings from a community-based study of collaboration among seven nonprofit human service agencies in a very low-income urban neighborhood. The project, funded by a federal demonstration grant, was developed to prevent child abuse and neglect as an alternative to the existing public child welfare system. Findings suggest that privatization, funding uncertainties, and community-level factors posed external stressors that constrained executives' ability to collaborate. The article identifies five key stressors, analyzes how each constrained the partnership, and then discusses specific adaptations made by executive leadership in political, technical, and interpersonal areas that facilitated strategic adjustment and realignment in a very complex interorganizational arrangement and set of relationships. Finally, implications are drawn for nonprofit managers, social policy, and nonprofit research. [source]