APPLICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION

Organizations are in constant interaction with their environment. This phenomenon has been termed in the literature as the environment-organizational interface. An organization acquires information concerning changes in its environment via some scanning system. This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of the scanning process. The relationships of scanning to different environmental states is discussed and various propositions advanced. Different environmental states (stable versus dynamic) are moderated by the determinants of hierarchical levels and functional specialties in the firm.     

METHODS FOR QUANTIFYING SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITIES AND MULTI-ATTRIBUTE UTILITIES*†

In many situations where normative decision-aiding techniques could be usefully applied, historical data are inadequate for estimating the required outcome probabilities, and economic methodologies are inadequate for estimating the aggregate utility derived from the several outcome attributes. In such cases it is often useful to obtain the required estimates in the form of expert judgments, i.e. to obtain subjective probabilities and multi-attribute utilities. Similarly, in many situations where behavioral decision processes are to be studied, it is necessary to scale the expectations and perceived values of the decision makers. This article describes the methods for eliciting subjective probabilities and multi-attribute utilities whose usefulness has been empirically studied and reported in the research literature. It also contains summary guidelines concerning the elicitation and use of such judgments.     

Cost/quality tradeoffs for control procedures in information systems

An analytical framework is presented to study the cost/benefit tradeoffs of alternative internal control scenarios designed to ensure quality of outputs from information systems. A mathematical model is used to evaluate the impact that various alternatives have on system performance and cost. The model can be used to compare the benefits gained from enhanced processing with those arising from more effective internal control procedures. Model variables under the control of system designers include placement and effectiveness of internal control procedures, cost and quality of processing activities, both manual and computerized, and cost and quality of correction procedures. The model incorporates a penalty cost incurred by failure to detect and correct errors. The analytical process is illustrated through application to a specific information system.     

Homogamy by education and migration status in Monterrey,Mexico: changes and continuities over time

This paper reviews changes in homogamy by migration status and educational level in Monterrey, Mexico, through the analysis of marriage patterns for two cohorts of men born in 1905–1934 and 1940–1969. Results show a significant increase in educational homogamy, as well as in homogamy by rural origins. The changes suggest that education has played an increasingly important role in the process of mate selection, although certain particularistic characteristics, such as being a rural immigrant, are still important in marriage formation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the relationship between homogamy and social stratification.

Understanding changes in Māori incomes and income inequality 1997–2003

This paper examines recent changes in weekly income levels and dispersion for Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous ethnic group. Changes in the Māori income distribution between 1997 and 2003 reflect rapid increases in economic growth and employment rate. A reduced proportion of people had zero or benefit-level incomes and a higher proportion had high incomes. Income inequality declined for working-aged Māori and was stable for employed Māori. The average income gap between Māori and Europeans declined. The increased Māori employment rate during this period was the single most important driver of changes in the Māori income distribution.

Choice Functions: Rationality re-Examined

On analyzing the problem that arises whenever the set of maximal elements is large, and a selection is then required (see Peris & Subiza 1998), we realize that logical ways of selecting among maximals violate the classical notion and axioms of rationality. We arrive at the same conclusion if we analyze solutions to the problem of choosing from a tournament (where maximal elements do not necessarily exist). So, in our opinion the notion of rationality must be discussed, not only in the traditional sense of external conditions (Sen 1993), but in terms of the internal information provided by the binary relation.     

Women and Poverty in Spain (1981--1991)

Social Indicators Research -     

The perils of father-reported fertility data for household labour supply models

Many panel data-sets contain father-reported fertility data. Yet, since men tend to underreport past fertility--especially daughters or children from previous marriages--using such data can lead to significantly biased results when estimating household labour supply models. For example, when analysing fertility data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which has a significant retrospective component, fathers' labour supply appears more responsive to the births of sons than to daughters (Lundberg and Rose, Review of Economics and Statistics 84(2): 251-268, 2002). However, no evidence for this differential can be found in a much larger sample of Current Population Survey data from the same population. It is important for researchers to consider the provenance of data on fertility variables and to undertake robustness checks with data reported by women whenever possible.