The Use of Video Modeling,Prompting, and Feedback to Increase Credit Card Promotion in a Retail Setting

We evaluated the use of video modeling, role play, prompting, and feedback to increase credit card promotion by sales associates in a retail setting. We first used the Performance Diagnostic Checklist (Austin, 2000 Austin, J. 2000. “Performance analysis and performance diagnostics”. In Handbook of applied behavior analysis, Edited by: Austin, J. and Carr, J. E. 321–349. Reno, NV: Context Press.  [Google Scholar]) to identify the variables contributing to the poor performance of two sales associates. Based on the results, we developed an intervention package that included a video model, instructional prompt cards, role play, and feedback. During baseline, target employees asked a mean of 26% of customers to enroll in the credit card program. Following intervention, target employees asked a mean of 84% of customers to enroll in the credit card program. Furthermore, employees rated the intervention as enjoyable, as effective, and as a system that they would continue to use. The results illustrate the effectiveness of video modeling, prompting, and feedback in increasing credit card promotions and delivering critical information about the card to daily customers.     

Estimating the 'appropriate' age for retirement as a function of perceived occupational characteristics

The 'appropriate' age for retirement as perceived by 120 young, 120 middle-aged, and 120 elderly adults was investigated. No participants displayed any difficulties in expressing an opinion about the minimum and maximum 'appropriate' ages for retirement for various different occupations. Participants' representations of the 'appropriate' retirement age varied primarily as a function of the perceived physical constraints involved in the occupation but also depended on their age (the younger the respondent, the lower the perceived 'appropriate' minimum retirement age). There was no tendency among the young adults to wish to prolong the work life of older individuals. There was no tendency in any of the three age groups to associate age of retirement with perceived cognitive or social and organizational characteristics of work: only the perceived physical demands of work predicted age at retirement.     

Relationships between stressful work environments and bullying: Results of a large representative study

Abstract

This paper contributes to the relatively sparse knowledge about relationships between stressful work environments and bullying. Relationships between job stressors and leadership behaviour were analysed as possible predictors of bullying at work on the basis of the work environment hypothesis, which states that stressful and poorly organized work environments may give rise to conditions resulting in bullying. Analyses of a representative sample (n=2539) of the Norwegian workforce showed role conflict, interpersonal conflicts, and tyrannical and laissez-faire leadership behaviour to be strongly related to bullying, and that the strength of associations to a high degree differed for various measures of bullying. Support was found for an interactive relationship between decision authority and role conflict at different levels of laissez-faire leadership. Not only targets and bully/targets but also bystanders assessed their work environment more negatively than did non-involved employees, while perpetrators of bullying did not differ significantly from non-involved employees as regards their perception of the work environment. Hence, bullying is likely to prevail in stressful working environments characterized by high levels of interpersonal friction and destructive leadership styles. In addition, bullying is particularly prevalent in situations where the immediate supervisor avoids intervening in and managing such stressful situations.     

Beware the angry leader: Trait anger and trait anxiety as predictors of petty tyranny

Drawing on the general aggression model and theories of victimization and temperamental goodness-of-fit, we investigated trait anger and trait anxiety as antecedents of petty tyranny: employing a multilevel design with data from 84 sea captains and 177 crew members. Leader trait anger predicted subordinate-reported petty tyranny. Subordinate trait anxiety was associated with subordinate-reported petty tyranny. The association between leader trait anger and subordinate-reported petty tyranny was strongest among low trait anger subordinates supporting the theory of temperamental goodness-of-fit—or rather misfit—in dyads. Hence, leader anger-generated petty tyranny seems to constitute itself both as an average leadership style and as behavior targeting specific subordinates, in this case low trait anger subordinates. In addition, anxious subordinates report more exposure to such abusive leadership behaviors irrespective of levels of trait anger in the captain. The practical implications are above all the needs for organizational and individual management of leader trait anger.     

Bootstrapping regression models with BLUS residuals

To bootstrap a regression problem, pairs of response and explanatory variables or residuals can be resam‐pled, according to whether we believe that the explanatory variables are random or fixed. In the latter case, different residuals have been proposed in the literature, including the ordinary residuals (Efron 1979), standardized residuals (Bickel & Freedman 1983) and Studentized residuals (Weber 1984). Freedman (1981) has shown that the bootstrap from ordinary residuals is asymptotically valid when the number of cases increases and the number of variables is fixed. Bickel & Freedman (1983) have shown the asymptotic validity for ordinary residuals when the number of variables and the number of cases both increase, provided that the ratio of the two converges to zero at an appropriate rate. In this paper, the authors introduce the use of BLUS (Best Linear Unbiased with Scalar covariance matrix) residuals in bootstrapping regression models. The main advantage of the BLUS residuals, introduced in Theil (1965), is that they are uncorrelated. The main disadvantage is that only n —p residuals can be computed for a regression problem with n cases and p variables. The asymptotic results of Freedman (1981) and Bickel & Freedman (1983) for the ordinary (and standardized) residuals are generalized to the BLUS residuals. A small simulation study shows that even though only n — p residuals are available, in small samples bootstrapping BLUS residuals can be as good as, and sometimes better than, bootstrapping from standardized or Studentized residuals.     

Reshaping state/local communities relations in Tunisia: The socio-cultural and institutional challenges of the decentralization project

International development agencies believe that by adopting institutional reforms based on the best practices that have proved effective elsewhere, so-called « developing countries » could take their places in the globalised economy. Based on a case study carried out on the implementation challenges of a decentralization project in Tunisia, I will argue by using an interpretive approach that this thesis is not sustained. This article shows that institutions cannot be reduced to their technical functions but that they are based on particular collective imaginaries that ground what is legitimate or not and structure the relationship of individuals to power and the meaning given to their actions. It encourages the consideration of cultural framework of meaning; these local cultural references structure the governance modalities of a society, understood in terms of the modalities of exercise of power in a given group (state, company, local authority, etc.). It advocates the necessity to move from a technic-prone approach in the implementation of institutional changes towards a socio-cultural approach that integrates the local expectations of what “good governance” should be and on which depends the legitimacy of institutions and their appropriation by local populations.     

What Drives Citizen Participation in Political Gatherings in Modern South Africa? A Quantitative Analysis of Self-Reported Behaviour

Social Indicators Research - Community and public gatherings are an important component of political participation in sub-Saharan Africa. Formal and informal community meetings and rallies are...     

The Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index

Social Indicators Research - The empowerment of women in the livestock sector is fundamental to achieve gender equality. It also is instrumental for increased household productivity and improved...     

Security level,potential level,expected utility: A three-criteria decision model under risk

Among the violations of expected utility (E.U.) theory which have been observed by experimenters, the violations of its independence axiom is, by far, the most common. It seems that, in many cases, these inconsistencies can be ascribed to the desire for security - called the security factor by L. Lopes (1986) - which makes people attach special importance to the worst outcomes of risky decisions as well as to the sole outcomes of riskless decisions (certainty effect). J.-Y. Jaffray (1988) has proposed a model which generalizes E.U. theory by taking into account this factor and is then able to account for certain violations. However, especially in experiments on choice involving prospective losses, violations of the von Neumann-Morgenstern independence axiom cannot be explained by the security factor alone and have to be partially ascribed to the potential factor (L. Lopes, 1986) which reflects heightened attention to the best outcomes of decisions, especially when the best outcome is the status quo. In this paper, we construct an axiomatic model for subjects taking into account simultaneously or alternatively the security factor and the potential factor. For this, as in Jaffray's model, it has been necessary to weaken not only the standard independence axiom but also the continuity axiom and, in the same time, to reinforce the dominance axiom. In the resulting model, choices are partially determined by the mere comparison of the (security level, potential level) (i.e. the (worst outcome, best outcome)) pairs offered, and completed by the maximization of an affine function of the expected utility, the coefficients of which depend on both the security level and potential level.In this model, a decision maker who (i) has constant marginal utility for money, (ii) is sensitive to the security factor alone in the domain of gains, (iii) is sensitive to the potential factor alone in the domain of losses, behaves as a risk averter for gains and a risk seeker for losses.     

Peach Trees Grow in the Spaces Between People: Counselling Practices in the Territory of Violence

In this paper the authors reflect on how therapeutic practices wove a community of care and concern with a young man in South Africa who was at risk of anger ruling his life. A counselor and outsider witnesses participated in responding to the problems the young man and his family faced. The authors discuss the steps they took in the therapeutic journey and describe how their personal and professional lives were shaped by this collaboration. This work inspires and sustains their enthusiasm in seeking to understand how to best respond when positioned to counsel.