Predicting Emergency Evacuation and Sheltering Behavior: A Structured Analytical Approach

We offer a general approach to predicting public compliance with emergency recommendations. It begins with a formal risk assessment of an anticipated emergency, whose parameters include factors potentially affecting and affected by behavior, as identified by social science research. Standard procedures are used to elicit scientific experts' judgments regarding these behaviors and dependencies, in the context of an emergency scenario. Their judgments are used to refine the model and scenario, enabling local emergency coordinators to predict the behavior of citizens in their area. The approach is illustrated with a case study involving a radiological dispersion device (RDD) exploded in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. Both groups of experts (national and local) predicted approximately 80-90% compliance with an order to evacuate workplaces and 60-70% compliance with an order to shelter in place at home. They predicted 10% lower compliance for people asked to shelter at the office or to evacuate their homes. They predicted 10% lower compliance should the media be skeptical, rather than supportive. They also identified preparatory policies that could improve public compliance by 20-30%. We consider the implications of these results for improving emergency risk assessment models and for anticipating and improving preparedness for disasters, using Hurricane Katrina as a further case in point.     

Alternative Models for Antecedents and Outcomes of Work Centrality and Job Satisfaction of High-Tech Personnel

Alternative causal models were developed,relating Work Centrality and Job Satisfaction toantecedents and outcomes. The antecedents examined weredemographics and need for achievement, and the outcomes included performance, wages, organizationalcommitment, and career planning. The models were testedusing data of Israeli high-tech personnel. Resultsindicated that organizational commitment, careerplanning, and wages were significantly affected by workcentrality, while performance was positively butnonsignificantly related to it. While all models provedto be acceptable, the best model posited JobSatisfaction as an antecedent rather than an outcome of WorkCentrality. It also revealed the importance ofdemographics for outcomes. Implications arediscussed.     

Employability: a substitute for loyalty?

Within the theme of contemporary innovative work arrangements and new psychological contracts, a new buzzword has been introduced: employability. This paper offers an analytical assessment of the idea, how it came into life, and the prospects of its adoption by organizations. A critical review is followed by a field study conducted to examine reaction to the idea, based on exploratory, in-depth interviews with HR directors. Based on a theoretical and management development perspective, as well as logical analysis, the paper concludes that the idea is flawed. Views expressed were mostly negative. It is implied that, though the concept of employability is beneficial for individuals, it would be unacceptable for organizations to 'sell' it to employees as a replacement for long-term commitment or loyalty and trust-based relationships.     

Communicating About Xenotransplantation: Models and Scenarios

Xenotransplantation entails using organs from genetically modified animals as a way to solve the shortage of human organs for transplantation. As with other novel technologies, if xenotransplantation is to be judged fairly, proponents must explain its complex, uncertain, and unfamiliar risks and benefits. Xenotransplantation's risks include the possibility of a recombinant virus infecting human transplant recipients, potentially causing an epidemic of an unfamiliar disease. Using materials vetted by scientific experts, we communicated the variables and relationships determining this risk in three formally equivalent formats: (a) a graphic model, (b) scenarios structured by the graphic model, and (c) both the model and the scenarios. Participants were randomly assigned to receiving one set of materials. They rated them as equally clear and studied them equally long, suggesting similar ease of cognitive processing. Compared to participants receiving the scenarios, those who received the graphic model better identified causes and effects of the risk, and saw less risk of xenotransplantation. Participants who received both the model and the scenarios generally showed intermediate responses. The study demonstrates a general procedure for developing and evaluating formally equivalent graphic and scenario communications regarding highly uncertain risks. In this application to xenotransplantation, presenting a graphic representation improved people's understanding of the risk.     

Transaction analysis: A framework and an application to insurance decisions

Creating or interpreting people's choices requires attention to a great many details. A framework initially presented in this journal (Fischhoff and Furby, 1988) specifies those details. It is applied here to several insurance-related choices appearing in Johnson et al. (1993) and elsewhere. These specific applications suggest alternative explanations for the results of these studies. The approach as a whole provides an alternative perspective regarding reliance on experiments and markets to study people's preferences.     

What Number is “Fifty‐Fifty”?: Redistributing Excessive 50% Responses in Elicited Probabilities

Studies using open-ended response modes to elicit probabilistic beliefs have sometimes found an elevated frequency (or blip) at 50 in their response distributions. Our previous research suggests that this is caused by intrusion of the phrase "fifty-fifty," which represents epistemic uncertainty, rather than a true numeric probability of 50%. Such inappropriate responses pose a problem for decision analysts and others relying on probabilistic judgments. Using an explicit numeric probability scale (ranging from 0-100%) reduces thinking about uncertain events in verbal terms like "fifty-fifty," and, with it, exaggerated use of the 50 response. Here, we present two procedures for adjusting response distributions for data already collected with open-ended response modes and hence vulnerable to an exaggerated presence of 50%. Each procedure infers the prevalence of 50s had a numeric probability scale been used, then redistributes the excess. The two procedures are validated on some of our own existing data and then applied to judgments elicited from experts in groundwater pollution and bioremediation.     

Risk Perception and Communication Unplugged: Twenty Years of Process1

Over the past twenty years, risk communication researchers and practitioners have learned some lessons, often at considerable personal price. For the most part, the mistakes that they have made have been natural, even intelligent ones. As a result, the same pitfalls may tempt newcomers to the field. This essay offers a personal (even confessional) history of the field over this period. It identifies a series of developmental stages. Progress through the stages involves consolidating the skills needed to execute it and learning its limitations. Knowing about their existence might speed the learning process and alert one to how much there still is to learn.     

Response Rate in Academic Studies — A Comparative Analysis

A study was conducted to explore what could andshould be a reasonable response rate in academicstudies. One hundred and forty-one papers which included175 different studies were examined. They were published in the Academy of Management Journal, HumanRelations, Journal of Applied Psychology, OrganizationalBehavior and Human Decision Processes , and Journal ofInternational Business Studies in the years 1975, 1985, and 1995, covering about 200,000respondents. The average response rate was 55.6 with astandard deviation of 19.7. Variations among thejournals such as the year of publication and othervariables were discussed. Most notable is the declinethrough the years (average 48.4, standard deviation of20.1, in 1995), the lower level found in studiesinvolving top management or organizationalrepresentatives (average 36.1, standard deviation of 13.3), andthe predominance of North American studies. It issuggested that the average and standard deviation foundin this study should be used as a norm for future studies, bearing in mind the specific referencegroup. It is also recommended that a distinction is madebetween surveys directed at individual participants andthose targeting organizationalrepresentatives.