Impact of methods for reducing respondent burden on personal network structural measures

We examine methods for reducing respondent burden in evaluating alter–alter ties on a set of network structural measures. The data consist of two sets, each containing 45 alters from respondent free lists: the first contains 447 personal networks, and the second 554. Respondents evaluated the communication between 990 alter pairs. The methods were (1) dropping alters from the end of the free-list, (2) randomly dropping alters, (3) randomly dropping links, and (4) predicting ties based on transitivity. For some measures network structure is captured with samples of less than 20 alters; other measures are less consistent. Researchers should be aware of the need to sample a minimum number of alters to capture structural variation.     

Conflict of Interest in Theories of Organization: Herbert A. Simon and Oliver E. Williamson

Journal of Management and Governance -     

Measuring the complexity of generalized linear hierarchical models

Measuring a statistical model's complexity is important for model criticism and comparison. However, it is unclear how to do this for hierarchical models due to uncertainty about how to count the random effects. The authors develop a complexity measure for generalized linear hierarchical models based on linear model theory. They demonstrate the new measure for binomial and Poisson observables modeled using various hierarchical structures, including a longitudinal model and an areal‐data model having both spatial clustering and pure heterogeneity random effects. They compare their new measure to a Bayesian index of model complexity, the effective number p_D of parameters (Spiegelhalter, Best, Carlin & van der Linde 2002); the comparisons are made in the binomial and Poisson cases via simulation and two real data examples. The two measures are usually close, but differ markedly in some instances where p_D is arguably inappropriate. Finally, the authors show how the new measure can be used to approach the difficult task of specifying prior distributions for variance components, and in the process cast further doubt on the commonly‐used vague inverse gamma prior.     

The abortion issue and Title VII employment discrimination: The microcosm of the law

This paper presents a discussion of a 1989 United States federal appeals court ruling in the case of Doe v. First National Bank. The case is the first ruling on the federal appellate level involving a claim of Title VII employment discrimination based upon alleged employer knowledge of and animus towards an employee who had undergone an abortion. Doe raises the ethical questions of how a highly charged, national social issue can be reduced to interpersonal dealings between a supervisor and her subordinate in the workplace. The facts of the case are presented in a chronological manner, followed by a discussion of both the court rulings in the case and the utility of employing this case as an excellent tool in the teaching of business ethics and society.     

Nonverbal expectancy violations and conversational involvement

A central feature of nonverbal expectancy violations theory is that unexpected behaviors trigger a cognitive-affective appraisal of such behavior, leading to a valencing of the behavior(s) as positive or negative. It has been proposed that communicator reward mediates the interpretation and evaluation of such violations but may be more important when the violative act is ambiguous in meaning than when it is not. Unclear is whether nonverbal behavioral composites introduce greater or less equivocality of interpretation. Two experiments employing multi-cue conversational involvement violations addressed this issue. In the first, dyads (N=51) engaged in a 10-minute baseline interview, after which participants rated each other on several measures of reward valence. One randomly selected member then served as a confederate interviewee during a second interview and either significantly increased or decreased involvement. In the second experiment, reward was manipulated as physical attractiveness, status, and task expertise. Dyads (N = 60) engaged in prolonged problem-solving discussions during which the confederates either committed an involvement violation or not. In both experiments, the involvement changes were sufficiently unexpected, arousing, and distracting to qualify as violations of expectations. Analysis of message interpretations indicated that (1) relative to normal involvement levels, increased nonverbal involvement was interpreted as most immediate/affectionate, receptive, similar, dominant, and composed, and decreased involvement as least so, and (2) reward mediated only the interpretation of formality. High involvement violations in turn produced greater attraction, credibility, and persuasiveness than low involvement violations for high as well as low-reward communicators, as predicted.where Joe Walther and Jim Baesler are doctoral students. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, New Orleans, May 1988.