Commentary. Mid-life confessions

Although he recalls times in his work as a hospital chaplain when he cared for people superficially, the author notes that patients themselves ministered to him, teaching him more compassionate ways to serve.     

An ordered choice model of promotion rules

This paper continues an important but short line of research investigating non-pecuniary outcomes of collective bargaining. These outcomes define the rules governing the employment relationship. The determinants of one of the most important of these rules — the one that governs the intrafirm allocation of labor — are analyzed. Specifically, micro-level data are used to estimate the determinants of promotion rules in major collective bargaining agreements in U.S. manufacturing. A multinomial choice model is estimated once these rules have been ordered along the joint dimension of increasing weight attached to seniority across a broadening seniority unit. The evidence suggests that contracts involving small, capital-intensive firms, whose technologies value specific training, in single-employer bargaining units, that contain an increasing proportion of men, are most likely to exhibit promotion rules that heavily weight company-wide seniority. This paper has greatly benefited from the comments of Cynthia Gramm, Wallace Hendricks, Jan Ondrich, Michael Wasylenko, and the participants in workshops at The Metropolitan Studies Program, Syracuse University, and at The New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, and from an anonymous referee. Excellent research assistance was provided by Sally Wallace. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Commentary. Caring for Leah

Noticeably absent from the ethics consultation is a sense of who the patient is and what her connections to her family, religion, and culture are. A group of Orthodox Jewish women discuss the case, trying to piece together a picture of Leah and the resources at hand to help her deal with this crisis.     

Commentary. The pastor as patient

During his hospitalization for treatment of prostate cancer, this pastor-author found that the ill are often not put off by the shortcomings of those who would provide spiritual care. They are able to see beyond any shortcomings of their minister to the life and power of the liturgy itself and the pastor's "loving intentions."     

Self concept and product choice: An integrated perspective

The literature examining the hypothesis that consumers have greater preference for brands/products which are more congruent with their self concept is discussed to identify crucial issues in this area of inquiry. An integrated perspective is developed and an empirical study addressing some of the identified issues is reported. Marketing implications and directions for future research in this area are also discussed.     

Introduction to Dr. Leonore Tiefer's Commentary

No abstract available for this article.     

Introduction to Dr. Walter Everaerd's Commentary

No abstract available for this article.     

An approximate dual-self model and paradoxes of choice under risk

We derive a simplified version of the model of Fudenberg and Levine, 2006, Fudenberg and Levine, 2011 and show how this approximate model is useful in explaining choice under risk. We show that in the simple case of three outcomes, the model can generate indifference curves that “fan out” in the Marschak–Machina triangle, and thus can explain the well-known Allais and common ratio paradoxes that models such as prospect theory and regret theory are designed to capture. At the same time, our model is consistent with modern macroeconomic theory and evidence and generates predictions across a much wider set of domains than these models.     

Commentary

It is a privilege to be invited by your editor to comment upon Mrs. Chamberlain's excellent paper. Her finding that the typology has potential for use in the process of objectifying student evaluation is naturally of great interest to me. Most educators would agree that we are very much in need of a firmer base for objective evaluation, especially in the area of field performance. I find myself in complete agreement with Mrs. Chamberlain's interpretations of her findings as presented in her article. To begin with one of the statements in her concluding paragraph, I would support wholeheartedly her opinion that objective measurements are no substitute for “an evaluation arrived at in collaboration with the student in a supportive supervisory relationship”. This, however, in no way lessens the importance of underpinning such an evaluation with as much objective data as possible.     

Commentary

The political and cultural milieu and the differential distribution of power among individuals and groups within a society constrain creative activity in science, art, and entrepreneurship. Standard psychological theories view creativity as arising largely from the unique or extraordinary characteristics of individuals (e.g., mental processes, background knowledge, intellective style, personality, motivation, etc.), giving voice to social attitudes and beliefs about the folklore of such terms as the lone genius, brilliant inventor, estranged artist, or ruthless entrepreneur. In fact, any creative product emerges from a unique coincidence of individual intellective abilities; the nature and relative sophistication of a scientific, artistic or entrepreneurial domain; the complexity and structure of the field of legitimization; and the distribution of power and resources within a group, community, or society.