AN EXTENSION OF WOLFE'S STUDY OF SIMULATION GAME COMPLEXITY*

This study is an extension of recently reported research concerning the relationships between business simulation game complexity and student perceptions of “learning,”“monotony,” and “appropriateness of challenge.” A game of intermediate-level complexity was used at two education levels. Findings from the current study are compared with findings from an earlier study's intermediate-level complexity game. A number of questions with respect to the earlier findings are raised.     

Nuclear family and social capital of refugees in Austria

This article provides insights into the role of the nuclear family for refugees' social capital in Austria, with a focus on gender-specific differences. We use a multimethod approach, based on quantitative data from a survey with 548 refugees from Syria and Afghanistan and semi-structured group discussions (N = 17 informants). In our analysis, we study frequency of contacts in first language and in German, as proxies for the bonding and bridging social capital. Marital status, childlessness and family work were identified as important factors: Frequency of contact substantially varied by gender and family context. Of all surveyed groups, married childless women and married men with children had the least contacts in both languages. Although an unequal distribution of childcare may limit women's time resources, we observed a positive association between motherhood and frequency of contact in German.     

Global decisions versus local realities: Sustainability standards,priorities and upgrading dynamics in agricultural global production networks

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) in global production networks (GPNs) have grown significantly in prominence. Existing research largely assumed that VSSs create linear upgrading outcomes for all GPN actors and has studied VSSs from the point of adoption in the GPNs, rather than a broader range of stages in their lifecycle. To address these limitations, and building on literature around power and agency in GPNs, we develop the constellation of priorities (CoP) model to unpack the diverse and often diverging boardroom (Northern lead firm) and local (Southern supplier) priorities involved in such standards. Through in-depth fieldwork on horticulture in Kenya and cocoa in Nicaragua across the VSS lifecycle, we find significant divergences in priorities between farmer groups in both countries and lead firms in the UK and Germany. We demonstrate analytically and empirically that diverging priorities coupled with power asymmetries produced contestations, leading to simultaneous economic and environmental downgrading, and social upgrading.     

An Interactive Framework for Multi-Person,Multiobjective Decisions

Group decision making in the presence of multiple conflicting objectives is complex and difficult. This paper describes and evaluates an iterative technique to facilitate multiple objective decision making by multiple decision makers. The proposed method augments an interactive multiobjective optimization procedure with a preference ranking tool and a consensus ranking heuristic. Two multiple objective linear programming (MOLP) solution approaches, the SIMOLP method of Reeves and Franz [39] and the interactive weighted Tchebycheff procedure of Steuer and Choo [49], are recommended optimization strategies to be used independently or in concert. Computational experience suggests that the proposed framework is an effective decision-making tool. The procedure quickly located excellent compromise solutions in a series of test problems with hypothetical decision makers. In addition, human decision makers gave positive evaluations of the procedure and the production plans the procedure provided for a resource allocation case problem.     

Early social referencing predicts object mastery motivation in infancy: Social antecedents of object mastery motivation

The researchers sought to understand the typical development of social referencing and object mastery motivation in infancy and to determine the relationship between social referencing and object mastery behaviors in infants from 7 to 22 months of age. The study included 36 infants who were followed as part of a longitudinal study of at-risk infants but were not determined to need care in the neonatal intesive care unit at birth. Both mastery behaviors of persistence and success showed a statistically significant effect of age, while social behaviors remained stable from 7 to 22 months. Social behaviors at 7 and 10 months were correlated with persistence at 22 months and success at 16 to 22 months demonstrating that early social referencing predicts object mastery behaviors in later infancy. Further research should determine if this trend extends to early childhood.     

A cross-national study on adolescent substance use: Intentions,peer substance use,and parent-adolescent communication

This longitudinal two-wave cross-national study investigated whether intentions, friends' substance use, and parent-adolescent substance-use specific communication predict adolescent alcohol and cannabis use 1 year later, while estimating reversed links. The temporal order between these two substances was also examined. We used multi-group cross-lagged panel modeling on data from 2 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples: Sint Maarten (N = 350; M_age = 14.19) and the Netherlands (N = 602; M_age = 13.50). Results showed that in the Netherlands, cannabis use predicts more subsequent problems (alcohol use, intention to use cannabis, and affiliation with cannabis-using friends). But for Sint Maarten, alcohol use predicts more subsequent problems (cannabis use, intention to use alcohol, and affiliation with alcohol-using friends). These opposing results demonstrate that caution is warranted when generalizing results across countries.