Eighth‐Grade School Form and Resilience in the Transition to High School: A Comparison of Middle Schools and K‐8 Schools

We examine a set of academic and social outcomes in 9th grade, comparing middle school attendees with those who attended K‐8 schools. Previous research with these data has shown that there are few differences in 8th‐grade outcomes by school type. Here we extend these findings to determine whether school form influences student outcomes in the first year of high school. The results reveal several domains in which attendance at a middle school results in worse outcomes (e.g., greater rates of course failure); however, we find that a large portion of the difference by type of a student's 8th‐grade school is accounted for by differential rates of attendance at the district's magnet schools. That is, our results indicate that type of school attended during the middle grades is significantly and positively related to magnet school attendance and thereby on the academic outcomes in the 9th‐grade year.     

Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel

Policy-practice is a form of social work intervention that is intended to influence social policy. It is linked to an understanding of the role of social workers which places the struggle for social justice at the forefront of social work activity. However, this form of social work intervention has remained on the sidelines of social work practice and education in most welfare states. This paper seeks to understand the role that policy-practice and social policy play, and have played, in social work and social work education in Israel. The findings indicate that, despite a growth in interest in the political role of social workers in Israel during the 1970s, policy-practice has remained a mode of practice adopted by a minority of members of the profession in Israel. An empirical study of the curriculums of the schools of social work in Israel indicates that this is the case for the study program in most of the schools. The reasons for this can be linked primarily to the overwhelming influence of American social work upon the development of the Israeli profession and to the process of liberalization and privatization of the Israeli welfare state in the last two decades.     

Intra-industry diversification effects under firm-specific contingencies on the demand side

How do firm-specific, demand-related factors influence the relationship between intra-industry diversification (IID) and performance? Recent findings regarding the performance effects of IID depict a complex picture with curvilinear relationships and several contingencies. However, firm-specific contingencies on the demand side have remained unexplored. We analyze how IID relates to firm performance (market share) in the German automotive industry using panel data between 1999 and 2008. We specifically focus on a firm's high-quality brand image as a demand-side contingency. We find support for our hypotheses of complex curvilinear relationships as well as for moderating effects of brand quality. Our results have significant theoretical implications for the IID literature.     

Specification tests in ordered logit and probit models

In this paper, I study the application of various specification tests to ordered logit and probit models with heteroskedastic errors, with the primary focus on the ordered probit model. The tests are Lagrange multiplier tests, information matrix tests, and chi-squared goodness of fit tests. The alternatives are omitted variables in the regression equation, omitted varaibles in the equation describing the heteroskedasticity, and non-logistic/non-normal errors. The alternative error distributions include a generalized logistic distribution in the ordered logit model and the Pearson family in the ordered.     

Culture,perception of reality,and the newly emerging planning paradigm

Three development decades have illustrated the strikingly varied performance of some 150 countries linked with their different cultural backgroud from which values, skills, motivation, social discipline, capability for flexible adaptation, and a sense of responsibility for the community emerge. We observe different perceptions of reality and distinct patterns of interacting with it. Increasing cross-cultural dialogue reconciling rational and intuitive approaches may lead to a more comprehensive world view conceiving socio-economic development as part of a global evolutionary process towards rising differentiation, complexity, and Intelligence at large. A holistic perspective and an awareness of the interrelatedness of all phenomena of life may be instrumental in giving way to a responsible use of scarce resources and an intelligent mode of handling both nature and human affairs in a viable balance.     

Territorial Isolation and Physical Deformity: Israeli parents' reaction to disabled children

This paper presents and analyses three case studies portraying the attitudes and reactions of Israeli parents towards their deformed children. The research method employed was participant observation in homes, combined with in-depth interviews. It was found that parents tended to isolate their handicapped children from family territories in those contexts in which the child was defined as a 'non-person'. This pattern was not affected by the parents' socioeconomic status, or by their ethnic and religious background.     

New Product Development Decision‐Making Effectiveness: Comparing Individuals,Face‐To‐Face Teams,and Virtual Teams*

A total of 411 subjects participated in two decision‐making experiments in order to examine the effectiveness of new product development project continuation decisions. Using escalation of commitment theory, in Study 1, individual versus face‐to‐face team decision‐making effectiveness was compared. Study 2, an extension of Study 1, compared the new product development decision‐making effectiveness of individuals, face‐to‐face teams, and virtual teams. A virtual team is a geographically and temporally dispersed and electronically communicating work group. In Study 2, the virtual teams communicated asynchronously via groupware technology. Our findings suggest that teams make more effective decisions than individuals, and virtual teams make the most effective decisions.     

Asset Building in Rural Communities: The Experience of Individual Development Accounts*

Abstract This study examines the unique experiences of low‐income rural participants in an asset building program‐the Individual Development Account. Using data from the American Dream Demonstration, this study addresses three main questions: (1) What are the individual characteristics associated with saving outcomes among rural IDA participants? (2) What are the program characteristics associated with savings among rural participants? (3) What are the policy implications for supporting asset building in rural areas? To answer these questions we conduct an Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis. The results suggest that low‐income rural participants have the ability and willingness to save toward the accumulation of assets in IDAs. Looking at individual characteristics, home ownership appears to be an important predictor of savings. In addition, this study suggests that program characteristics (financial education, peer group meetings, match rate, direct deposit, and monthly saving target), not merely individual characteristics, are important in explaining saving performance for this group.     

CUMULATIVE ADVERTISING EFFECTS: THE ROLE OF SERIAL CORRELATION*

Since its publication, Palda's [12] initial work which supported the existence of a lagged relationship between advertising expenditures and sales has been frequently discussed and criticized. That criticism has been directed at both methodological and structural issues. This paper is an attempt to answer some of the questions which have been raised regarding the structural issues concerning the role of autocorrelation in Palda's results and to develop the implications of these structural issues for the marketing manager.