A Two-Dimensional Person-Environment Fit Analysis of the Performance, Effort and Satisfaction of Research Scientists

SUMMARY This study questions traditional assumptions in the person-environment fit models. Previous research has regarded any kind of fit as positive and any kind of misfit as negative. In the present study, this thinking is refined. It is proposed that consideration of the nature of the fit or misfit matters and that different dependent variables, including performance, may be affected differently. The proposal is tested with a sample of 212 research scientists. The findings demonstrate modest support for the differing effects of type of fit on the dependent variables.     

Automatic selection of the proper family for simultaneous confidence intervals

Statisticians often employ simultaneous confidence intervals to reduce the likelihood of their drawing false conclusions when they must make a number of comparisons. To do this properly, it is necessary to consider the family of comparisons over which simultaneous confidence must be assured. Sometimes it is not clear what family of comparisons is appropriate. We describe how computer software can monitor the types of contrasts a user examines, and select the smallest family of contrasts that is likely to be of interest. We also describe how to calculate simultaneous confidence intervals for these families using a hybrid of the Bonferroni and Scheffé methods. Our method is especially suitable for problems with discrete and continuous predictors.     

Chain reaction: an exploratory study of nursing home bankruptcy in California

This paper reports on an exploratory study of nursing home bankruptcy. From state and industry data regarding nearly 1,000 California facilities, it was possible to identify 155 homes in five chains (multi-facility organizations) that were operating in bankruptcy in 2000. When compared with facilities in non-bankrupt chains, while the bankrupt chain facilities had significantly worse financial liquidity, higher administrative costs, and higher payables to related parties, they also had more Medicare residents, fewer Medicaid residents, better solvency, and were located in less competitive county markets and in areas with higher Medicaid reimbursement rates. These findings indicate that, rather than facility characteristics and local market factors, strategic decisions taken at the corporate (chain) level are the major determinants of nursing facility bankruptcy status.     

The ties that bind: The effect of clustering on dyadic relationships

This study explores the extent to which one can explain the dynamics of a given relationship or set of relationships by mapping the social network in which they exist. Specifically, it focuses on the effect of cluster membership on the evolution and intensity of dyadic relationships. The results suggest that relationships are as much a product of the social networks of the two individuals involved as of their personal needs, histories or desires.     

A Nonstochastic Interpretation of Reported Significance Levels

Tests of significance are often made in situations where the standard assumptions underlying the probability calculations do not hold. As a result, the reported significance levels become difficult to interpret. This article sketches an alternative interpretation of a reported significance level, valid in considerable generality. This level locates the given data set within the spectrum of other data sets derived from the given one by an appropriate class of transformations. If the null hypothesis being tested holds, the derived data sets should be equivalent to the original one. Thus, a small reported significance level indicates an unusual data set. This development parallels that of randomization tests, but there is a crucial technical difference: our approach involves permuting observed residuals; the classical randomization approach involves permuting unobservable, or perhaps nonexistent, stochastic disturbance terms.     

Statistical approaches for conducting network meta-analysis in drug development

We introduce health technology assessment and evidence synthesis briefly, and then concentrate on the statistical approaches used for conducting network meta-analysis (NMA) in the development and approval of new health technologies. NMA is an extension of standard meta-analysis where indirect as well as direct information is combined and can be seen as similar to the analysis of incomplete-block designs. We illustrate it with an example involving three treatments, using fixed-effects and random-effects models, and using frequentist and Bayesian approaches. As most statisticians in the pharmaceutical industry are familiar with SAS? software for analyzing clinical trials, we provide example code for each of the methods we illustrate. One issue that has been overlooked in the literature is the choice of constraints applied to random effects, and we show how this affects the estimates and standard errors and propose a symmetric set of constraints that is equivalent to most current practice. Finally, we discuss the role of statisticians in planning and carrying out NMAs and the strategy for dealing with important issues such as heterogeneity.     

Measures of emergency preparedness contributing to nursing home resilience

ABSTRACT

Resilience approaches have been successfully applied in crisis management, disaster response, and high reliability organizations and have the potential to enhance existing systems of nursing home disaster preparedness. This study’s purpose was to determine how the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) “Emergency Preparedness Checklist Recommended Tool for Effective Health Care Facility Planning” contributes to organizational resilience by identifying the benchmark resilience items addressed by the CMS Emergency Preparedness Checklist and items not addressed by the CMS Emergency Preparedness Checklist, and to recommend tools and processes to improve resilience for nursing homes. The CMS Emergency Preparedness Checklist items were compared to the Resilience Benchmark Tool items; similar items were considered matches. Resilience Benchmark Tool items with no CMS Emergency Preparedness Checklist item matches were considered breaches in nursing home resilience. The findings suggest that the CMS Emergency Preparedness Checklist can be used to measure some aspects of resilience, however, there were many resilience factors not addressed. For nursing homes to prepare and respond to crisis situations, organizations need to embrace a culture that promotes individual resilience-related competencies that when aggregated enable the organization to improve its resiliency. Social workers have the skills and experience to facilitate this change.