Attraktivität, Reziprozität und Lehrveranstaltungsevaluation

In this article we investigate the relationship between academic teachers’ attractiveness and their students’ evaluations of teaching. Furthermore it is examined, whether teachers’ grading influences students’ evaluations of teaching. Using data from an experimental design, hypotheses about attractiveness effects, frog-pond-effects, moderating gender effects and influences of grading are empirically tested. Controlling for confounding factors we find a very weak attractiveness effect, which can partly, but not only be ascribed to beauty’s productivity enhancing influence. Thereby, independently from the raters’ sex, female teachers profit from their looks. In contrast to that attractive male teachers are even sanctioned more strongly by their students for difficult tests than unattractive teachers. The frog-pond-hypothesis cannot empirically be supported: the attractiveness of teachers’ colleagues has no influence on the attractiveness effect. However, reciprocal evaluation behavior can consistently be found in the theoretical expected manner. It is substantially more relevant for students’ evaluations of teaching than attractiveness effects are. Alternative explanations for this grading effect can be excluded.     

Compliance check of gambler and youth protection in German amusement arcades: a pilot study

German gambling operators are required to identify problem gamblers at an early stage and exclude them from gambling on their premises. The main aim of this pilot study was to investigate the compliance of staff in Bremen’s amusement arcades. While visiting 29 of 111 amusement arcades, covert gamblers simulated signs of problematic gambling behaviour, arranged self-exclusions, monitored observance of the exclusion list and made fieldnotes about the staff’s reactions. The application of age checks was also tested. The findings showed that only in six cases (5%) did the staff adequately respond to evident signs of problematic gambling behaviour. Although 18 of 29 cases (62%) eventually resulted in self-exclusions or ban-like agreements, in some instances it was necessary to overcome major obstacles that emanated from the staff’s behaviour. During 15 subsequent follow-up visits, 13 banned mystery gamblers (87%) had no problems gambling on amusement-with-prizes (AWP) machines. Finally, just 26% of the 20- to 25-year-old mystery gamblers had their ID checked. The results indicate the necessity of regular external evaluations regarding the implementation of gambling harm-minimization measures in order to identify any shortcomings. In addition, the level of staff compliance may be increased by amending current legislation (e.g. by introducing a nationwide self-exclusion programme).     

Migration and Pacific Mortality: Estimating Migration Effects on Pacific Mortality Rates Using Bayesian Models

Pacific people living in New Zealand have higher mortality rates than New Zealand residents of European/Other ethnicity. The aim of this paper is to see whether Pacific mortality rates vary by natality and duration of residence. We used linked census-mortality information for 25- to 74-year-olds in the 2001 census followed for up to three years. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling provided a means of handling sparse data. Posterior mortality rates were directly age-standardized. We found little evidence of mortality differences between the overseas-born and the New Zealand–born for all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. However, we found evidence for lower all-cause (and possibly cancer and CVD) mortality rates for Pacific migrants resident in New Zealand for less than 25 years relative to those resident for more than 25 years. This result may arise from a combination of processes operating over time, including health selection effects from variations in New Zealand’s immigration policy, the location of Pacific migrants within the social, political, and cultural environment of the host community, and health impacts of the host culture. We could not determine the relative importance of these processes, but identifying the (modifiable) drivers of the inferred long-term decline in health of the overseas-born Pacific population relative to more-recent Pacific migrants is important to Pacific communities and from a national health and policy perspective.     

On the independence of history: experience spill-overs between experiments

A central understanding in experimental economics is that subjects’ decisions in the lab are independent of history. We test whether this assumption of between-experiment independence is indeed justified. We analyze experiments with an allocation decision (like a dictator or ultimatum game) and find that participation in previous experiments tends to increase the amount subjects allocate to themselves. Hence, independence between experiments cannot be presumed if subjects participate repeatedly. The finding has implications for the interpretation of previous allocation decision results and deserves attention when running future experiments.     

An Exploratory Study of Procurement Strategies for Multi‐Item RFQs in B2B Markets: Antecedents and Impact on Performance

This research explores procurement strategies for multi‐item requests for quotation (RFQs) in business‐to‐business (B2B) markets using responses from 825 purchasing professionals. The study first establishes procurement strategies that differ based on their level of strategic emphasis, i.e., the importance that is placed on the pursuit of four strategic objectives. Underlying objectives, which are obtained via factor analysis, include the focus on price, security of supply, internal procurement efficiencies, and bundle building. Next, cluster analysis is used to derive prototypical strategic approaches. The three cluster groups that emerge possess the same relative ranking of the four objectives, but differ based on the intensity with which these objectives are pursued. The clusters are labelled as the three strategic groups of strategists, opportunists, and responders. The research then explores, using an industrial buyer behavior lens, the impact of environmental antecedents in determining a particular strategy. Environmental variables include purchase importance, market uncertainty, supply base availability, buyer bargaining power, item experience, and supply base experience. Finally, the study tests the impact of procurement strategy on the buyer's perceived performance, suggesting that strategists, placing more emphasis on the pursuit of strategic sourcing objectives, achieve better performance than opportunists and responders.     

The Financial Impact of FSC Certification in the United States: A Contingency Perspective

This article focuses on an important and emergent standard for sustainable operations management: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. Unlike similar certifications, its focus is on the entire upstream supply chain, reflecting the criticality of supply chain management to ensure sustainable products. We investigate the financial impact from FSC certification, offering valuable decision support for managers considering this certification. Taking a contingency perspective, we view a firm's supply chain position and its prior certification to the ISO 14001 standard as influencing the results. Drawing on signaling theory, we suggest that firms farther downstream in the supply chain realize significantly greater abnormal financial performance benefits than firms upstream in the supply chain. We further hypothesize that firms that were not ISO 14001 certified at the time of FSC certification realize significantly greater abnormal financial performance benefits than firms that did have the ISO 14001 certification. To test these hypotheses, we utilize financial data of all publicly traded firms in the United States that have obtained the FSC certification, and assess whether FSC certification leads to abnormal performance benefits considering the above contingencies. Data collected from the FSC Certificate Database and Compustat, employed in an event study, provide support for our hypotheses. Overall, our findings contribute to research on decision making in the context of sustainable operations management, and offer a plausible explanation for contradictory results in prior studies. We highlight the applicability of signaling theory to decision sciences research, and stress the need to consider contingencies in sustainability management research.     

Matching With (Branch‐of‐Choice) Contracts at the United States Military Academy

Branch selection is a key decision in a cadet's military career. Cadets at USMA can increase their branch priorities at a fraction of slots by extending their service agreement. This real‐life matching problem fills an important gap in the market design literature, providing strong empirical legitimacy to a series of elegant theoretical works on matching with contracts. Although priorities fail a key substitutes condition, the agent‐optimal stable mechanism is well defined, and in contrast to the current USMA mechanism it is fair, stable, strategy‐proof, and respects improvements in cadet priorities. Adoption of this mechanism benefits cadets and the Army. This new application shows that the matching with contracts model is practically relevant beyond traditional domains that satisfy the substitutes condition.     

The role of environmental perceptions in migration decision-making: evidence from both migrants and non-migrants in five developing countries

Research has demonstrated that, in a variety of settings, environmental factors influence migration. Yet much of the existing work examines objective indicators of environmental conditions as opposed to the environmental perceptions of potential migrants. This paper examines migration decision-making and individual perceptions of different types of environmental change (sudden vs. gradual environmental events) with a focus on five developing countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Nicaragua, and Peru. The survey data include both migrants and non-migrants, with the results suggesting that individual perceptions of long-term (gradual) environmental events, such as droughts, lower the likelihood of internal migration. However, sudden-onset events, such as floods, increase movement. These findings substantially improve our understanding of perceptions as related to internal migration and also suggest that a more differentiated perspective is needed on environmental migration as a form of adaptation.     

Integrated approach for optimizing quality control in international manufacturing networks

Abstract

This article aims at providing an integrated approach for optimizing quality control in International Manufacturing Networks (IMN) which can be characterized by consisting of numerous plants acting autonomously according to an individual target system. A key challenge is to ensure the overall process quality despite distributed value creation processes and differing target systems in dynamic environments. Hence, the developed approach allows for identifying potentials in the quality control strategy using a value stream-based method to visualize quality characteristics and procedures in the production process chain. Furthermore, the approach contains a framework for identifying possible improvement measures and a simulation-based evaluation concept to evaluate the effects of different measures with respect to individual target systems. The simulation combines elements of a discrete-event simulation in order to depict the value stream with agent-based modelling for realizing different target systems by considering distinctive plant roles. The article concludes with a case study of a globally operating automotive supplier to apply the approach. A forward research agenda is proposed that evaluates the approach in multiple cases, deriving patters across companies or industries.