Capabilities of PR professionals for key activities lag: Asia-Pacific study shows theory and practice gaps

A number of studies of the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs), competencies and capabilities of public relations and communication professionals have been carried out in the USA, UK and other countries. However, most have not engaged to any significant extent with literature in the human resource development field which specializes in defining and developing these characteristics. Also, few studies to date have related the KSAs, competencies and capabilities of practitioners to the key activities of public relations and communication management required for the future. This article presents findings and analysis from a regional survey conducted in 22 Asia-Pacific countries in 2017/18 that compared, for the first time, the capabilities of practitioners in relation to activities identified as the most important over the next three years. This data, and comparison with equivalent regional surveys in Europe and Latin America, confirm a gap in capabilities in relation to key communication activities and suggest a gap in theory as well as practice. The findings and conclusions present a challenge for higher education and professional development for public relations and communication management and point to potential future directions in theory building.     

Bounds for how much influence an observation can have

That outliers or influential observations can affect the results in a regression is well-known. But it is not clear how much influence a specific observation can have on other statistics. In time series, especially in predictive situations, the effect of additional observations is of singular importance. We here examine bounds for the effect of an additional observation on the mean, variance, Mahalanobis distance, product moment correlation, and coefficients of linearity and monotonicity.     

Same or different? A comparative study of habitus—ultra-orthodox and secular students of teaching

Although the state ideology assumes that by virtue of their affiliation with the “same” religion, Jewish citizens of Israel are a culturally homogeneous population, the school system makes room for institutions with different orientations to the faith. To assess whether teachers in schools that differ in their approach to religion are likely to educate children toward a unified Israeli–Jewish culture, we investigated aspects of the habitus, the configuration of dispositions into which student teachers had been socialized. The inquiry is based on research literature related to choosing teaching as a vocation and to the significance of habitus in education. A closed questionnaire on motives for choosing to teach disclosed that secular students cited intrinsic motives (creativity, individual interest), and ultra-orthodox students placed more emphasis on extrinsic motives (gaining a livelihood, community esteem). Findings from semi-structured interviews highlight conspicuous differences between the groups in their conceptions of habits, their processing of attitudes, their values, and their orientation to the functions of teaching. We conclude that an intensive program of intercultural education is needed to overcome the structural and curricular divisions institutionalized in the Israeli school system.     

Simple diagnostic tools for inverstigating linear trends in time series

This paper presents a simple diagnostic tool for time series. Based on a coefficient α that veries between 1 and 0, the tool measures the approximation of a time series to an arithmetic progression (i.e., a linear function of time). The proposed α is based on the ratio of the average squared second difference to the average squared first difference of the ginven series. As such, α reduces to the Von Neumann ratio η of the series of first differences, namely, α = 1-η/4. For an arithmetic progression α = 1, and deviations therefrom cause it to decrease. Unlike the correlation coefficient (between the entries and the indics), α is sensitive to local, or piecewise, linearity. Here α is evaluated for an assortment of simple time series models such as random walk, AR(1) and MA(1). Large-sample distribution yields a number of commonly used stochastic models including non-normal process. For most standard deterministic and stochastic models, α stabilizes as n approaches infinity, and provides a statistic that is capable of distinguishing between many different standard random and deterministic models. A further measure τ, which together with α distinguisches between random walks and deterministic trend plus i.i.d., is also suggested. Some examples based on empirical data are also studied.