Evaluation of open items using the many-facet Rasch model

The goal of this study is to analyze the quality of ratings assigned to two constructed response questions for evaluating the written ability of essays in Portuguese language from the perspective of the many-facet Rasch (MFR [15 J.M. Linacre, Many-facet Rasch Measurement, 2nd ed., MESA Press, Chicago, 1994. [Google Scholar]]) model. The analyzed data set comes from 350 written tests with two open-item tasks that were developed based on a rating process independently marked by two rater coordinators and a group of 42 raters. The MFR model analysis shows the measurement quality related to the examinees, raters, tasks and items, and classification scale that has been used for the task rating process. The findings indicate significant differences amongst the rater severities and show that the raters cannot be interchanged. The results also suggest that the comparison between the two task difficulties needs further investigation. An additional study has been done on the scale structure of the classification used by each rater for each item. The result suggests that there have been some similarities amongst the tasks and a need of revision for some criteria of the rating process. Overall, the scale of evaluation has shown to be efficient for a classification of the examinees.     

Distorted Views Through the Glass Ceiling: The Construction of Women's Understandings of Promotion and Senior Management Positions

The article explores the issue of whether women's under‐representation in senior management positions can be explained in part by the messages they are given about the promotion process and the requirements of senior jobs. Through interviews with over 50 male and female junior and senior managers in a UK high street bank, issues relating to the required personality and behaviour characteristics seen to be associated with success and with the long hours culture emerged as important. In many cases men and women identified the same issues but the significance of them for their own decision‐making and the way others interpreted their behaviour varied — particularly in relation to the perceived incompatibility between active parenting and senior roles. The findings provide an account of the context in which women make career choices which highlights the limitations of analyses which see women's absence as the result either of procedural discrimination or women's primary orientation towards home and family. The findings also highlight the problems of treating commitments towards gender equality as an isolated issue and stress the importance of understanding responses to policies and ways of achieving change within the broader context of an analysis of the organization's culture.     

Integrating normative values and/in value creation: A strategic management decision aid tool for social enterprises' values practices

Normative values are one of the most central motives for the creation of nonprofits and social enterprises. Nevertheless, their actual role in the management of these organizations has been little explored. Furthermore, the social enterprise literature has typically approached the concept of value from a value creation perspective. This paper looks at the role played by normative values in the strategic management decisions of a nonprofit social enterprise and unpacks the dynamics between the enactment of these values and the creation of social and economic value. In terms of practical implications, this research allows for proposal of a value‐based, strategic management decision aid tool that emerged from the in‐depth, longitudinal study of a work integration social enterprise. Our findings suggest that the enactment of normative values can actually feed in economic value creation, which, in turn, allows for strengthened respect of the normative values, thus generating virtuous cycles that ultimately help the organization to find a coherence between its social mission and market.     

A multilevel analysis of the determinants of willingness to pay to prevent environmental pollution across countries

This paper discusses the extent to which individual and contextual level factors influence the likelihood of individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) to prevent environmental pollution. A multilevel probit regression framework was set up to explain WTP to prevent environmental pollution. We use data from the World Values Survey (WVS), which contains socio-economic and socio-demographic information, and merged it with country level covariates. Compared to many previous studies, our dataset encompasses a more indepth set of individual level covariates. We find that rich people, individuals with higher education, as well as those who possess post-materialist values are more likely to be concerned about environmental pollution. This study reveals that in developed countries, 90% of country variation in WTP to prevent environmental pollution can be explained by individual characteristics. This portion reduces to 80% in the case of developing countries. An interesting feature in our study is the ability to investigate the effect of contextual factors on individuals’ willingness to contribute for the environment. We observe that both democracy and government stability reduce individuals’ intention to donate to prevent environmental damage mainly in developed countries.     

Pesticide exposure and sprayer's task goals: comparison between vineyards and greenhouses

Plant protection products are used in agriculture to improve yields, but this use can cause contamination of the environment and is also likely to have adverse short and long term effects on agricultural workers. The field study took place in greenhouses and vineyards where operators are involved in high levels of pesticide spraying. The objective of this intervention was to identify factors explaining the influence of task factors on the exposure of greenhouse growers and vineyard workers. Thirteen operators were selected for detailed observations during one session of spraying. Video recordings provide counts of physical contacts between the operator and all the surrounding surfaces during the spraying operation. Both in vineyards and in greenhouses, physical and temporal constraints are the predominant factors in establishing a specific spraying procedure. Every action taken by the operator is a result of a compromise between safety, task performance and quality.     

Immigration Provisions in the Violence Against Women Act: Implications for Asian Indian Marriage Migrants

We explore the perspectives of 26 domestic violence advocates from 14 nonprofit organizations on gaps in the immigration-related provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as these relate to the intersectional needs and experiences of Asian Indian marriage migrants. Findings indicate that, based on immigration status and other intersectional locations, policy provisions differentially affect this population. In addition, because agencies focus on broadly defined populations (immigrants or women), but victims’ locations are intersectional, intersectional policy analysis and coordination between and across agencies formulating and administering policies are required to meet the needs of abused Asian Indian marriage migrants.     

The double-edged sword of CEO/chairperson duality in corporatized state-owned firms: evidence from top management turnover in China

This study examines how board leadership structure (CEO duality) affects the corporate governance of corporatized state-owned firms where the state shareholders use these firms to serve both profit and non-profit objectives. We propose that CEO duality will generate a positive (negative) significant impact on the firms’ corporate governance when state owners tend to monitor their CEOs on the basis of profit (non-profit) considerations. We test our hypotheses by examining the relations between CEO duality and CEO turnover in Chinese listed companies that are ultimately controlled by central or local governments. We find that CEO duality is negatively related to turnover in marginal profit-making firms where turnover would be value-enhancing. This suggests that CEO duality is detrimental to these firms’ corporate governance because it entrenches relatively poorly performing CEOs. Duality is also negatively related to turnover in high-profitability firms where turnover would be non-value-enhancing. This suggests that CEO duality might positively contribute to the corporate governance of these firms by reducing the occurrence of non-value enhancing turnover. Overall, our study suggests that CEO duality is a double-edged sword in corporatized state-owned firms.