Top management team characteristics and organizational creativity

Drawing on the upper-echelon perspective, we investigated the impact of top management team (TMT) characteristics on organizational creativity. An organizational creativity index was used as a dependent variable to examine creativity at the organizational level. The results of the statistical analysis generally supported our hypotheses. The size of the TMT had a significant and negative impact on organizational creativity. The average age of the TMT was also negatively associated with organizational creativity. However, functional diversity of the TMT had a significantly positive impact on organizational creativity. These findings have important conceptual and practical implications. This study increased our understanding of the relationship between TMT characteristics and organizational creativity by introducing TMT characteristics as antecedents of factors influencing organizational creativity. This study suggests fruitful avenues for further research of this important yet understudied topic and useful managerial tools for composition of an adequate board for enhancing organizational creativity.     

Latino Acculturation and Perceived Educational Achievement: Evidence for a Bidimensional Model of Acculturation among Mexican-American Children

Considerable attention has been paid to the educational fate of Latino children and youths due to mounting evidence that their educational progress has been stagnant. This study investigates the effect of acculturation on perceived educational achievement among Mexican-American children, employing bidimensional acculturation theory to help explain acculturation patterns as related to both ethnic and mainstream identities. Using a sample of 294 Mexican-American children, five acculturation patterns were identified using cluster analysis. We found that the separated group of children had significantly higher educational achievement than the highly assimilated group. The study asserts that the segregated acculturation pattern can be protective for educational achievement of Mexican-American children within ethnically segregated environmental contexts.     

Child maltreatment types and adolescent substance use: The role of deviant peer affiliation

This is the first study to examine the mediating effects of deviant peer affiliation on the association between different types of child maltreatment and adolescent substance use that includes alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. Peer deviance is a well‐established correlate of adolescent substance use, but most studies exploring the relationship between child maltreatment and adolescent substance use have failed to include peer deviance. Structural equation modelling was conducted to examine the direct effects of each type of child maltreatment (i.e., physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and neglect) on adolescent substance use, as well as indirect effects via deviant peer affiliation, using Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect. The results indicated that deviant peer affiliation fully mediated the individuals who had been emotionally abused showed increased deviant peer affiliation, which in turn was associated with higher levels of adolescent substance use. None of the four types of child maltreatment was directly associated with adolescent substance use. The study's findings underscore the importance of early assessment and intervention for the peer relationships of youth who have been emotionally abused.     

A note on the differentiation formula in Stratonovich type for fractional Brownian sheet

We consider a new proof on the differentiation formula in Stratonovich type for fractional Brownian sheet. Our proof is based on the repeated applications of differentiation formulas in Stratonovich form for a one-parameter Gaussian process.     

Goal Orientation and Performance of Family Businesses

Family businesses consist of family members pooling their resources together to achieve a particular goal for the family business. The objectives of this study were to profile the characteristics of the family businesses and business owners by owners’ goal orientation and to examine the influence of goal orientation on family business performance. The mean differences in values of business size, business age, and business liabilities were statistically significant by owners’ goal orientation. The major findings of this study suggest that owner goal orientation had a statistically significant effect on business performance. Specifically, setting a business goal such as growth or a positive reputation with customers had a significant and positive impact on family business performance.     

Older Lesbian Sexuality: Identity,Sexual Behavior,and the Impact of Aging

In response to the very limited and mostly outdated literature on older lesbian sexuality, this exploratory study examined older lesbian sexual identity, romantic relationships, the impact of aging, and experiences of discrimination within these contexts. Utilizing an online survey that recruited via numerous online lesbian communities and snowball sampling, 456 lesbians over the age of 50 responded to closed, Likert scale, and open-ended questions that provided a preliminary understanding of older lesbian sexuality. The results indicated that older lesbians have experienced fluidity in past romantic and sexual relationships, as well as in erotic fantasies, despite strong identification with being lesbian. The findings also indicate a decreased focus on sexuality in the context of relationships, with more focus on stability and continuity. Future research is needed that provides greater specificity and detail about older lesbian conceptions of sexual behavior and sexual identity labels, as well as specific sexual behaviors.     

Economic Crisis and its Consequences

Social Indicators Research - The financial crisis that began in late 1997, led to a catastrophic downturn of economic and social development in Korea. Rather than dealing with the macroeconomic and...     

Procedural priming effects on spontaneous inference formation

Procedural priming refers to how the frequent or recent use of certain cognitive procedures on one task can lead to a greater propensity to use the same procedures on a subsequent task. In this paper, we demonstrate how procedural priming may be used to assess spontaneous inference formation in situations where the inference involves a relationship or rule. We do so in the context of the advertising cost–product quality rule, i.e., that “higher advertising expense implies higher product quality.” Prior research suggests that underlying the advertising cost–quality rule is a basic human attribution (the effort investment rule) that says, if someone invests a lot of effort in a cause, it implies a true belief in that cause. We prime the effort investment rule in an interpersonal context and show that this affects spontaneous generation of the advertising cost–quality rule in an advertising context.     

Least squares variogram fitting by spatial subsampling

Summary. Least squares methods are popular for fitting valid variogram models to spatial data. The paper proposes a new least squares method based on spatial subsampling for variogram model fitting. We show that the method proposed is statistically efficient among a class of least squares methods, including the generalized least squares method. Further, it is computationally much simpler than the generalized least squares method. The method produces valid variogram estimators under very mild regularity conditions on the underlying random field and may be applied with different choices of the generic variogram estimator without analytical calculation. An extension of the method proposed to a class of spatial regression models is illustrated with a real data example. Results from a simulation study on finite sample properties of the method are also reported.