Hard Living,Perceived Entitlement to a Great Marriage,and Marital Dissolution

Using the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), we examine the effects on marital dissolution of couple's gender attitudes, perceived unfairness, marital disagreements, and relationship alternatives, exploring whether these dimensions of marriage influence marital dissolution, net of serious forms of hardship commonly noted in divorce research. With event history methods, we find that husbands’, but not wives’, perceived disagreements and alternatives are associated with higher odds of marital dissolution, though couples' marital happiness strongly mediates the effects of husbands' dissatisfaction. Wives' traditional attitudes are associated with lower odds and husbands' with higher odds of marital dissolution. We find no significant effects of unfairness perceptions on divorce. A nonviolent relationship is associated with lower odds of marital dissolution, but accumulated assets and debt and husbands' drug or alcohol abuse are not associated significantly with marital dissolution. Our analysis contributes to divorce research by demonstrating the importance of gender attitudes and low physical conflict and by showing that instances of perceived dissatisfaction might not matter for couples as much as marital happiness as an influence on divorce.     

How Excessive Stage Time Reduction in NPD Negatively Impacts Market Value

We empirically investigate how time reductions in particular product development stages impact market value. Using longitudinal project data from 107 firms, we compare stage times prior to and following investments in new product development process changes. Our analysis reveals a predominance of focus on time reduction in the late stages of product development. We also find support for the existence of an inverted‐U relationship between market performance and time reductions for some of these stages: beta testing and technical implementation. Therefore, while time reductions can improve time to market, we observe a clear limit to the benefits associated with stage time reductions at particular stages. We also investigate the role of strategic contextual factors such as the extent to which a firm's patented innovations rely upon a variety, as opposed to a limited range, of diverse technology classes. The extent of this technology‐span impacts optimal stage time reductions. We perform an in‐depth post hoc analysis with a small set of firms to uncover how they should invest in stage time reduction given our empirical results. The post hoc analysis highlights that some firms are likely overinvesting in stage time reductions and destroying market value.     

Does Manufacturing Still Matter?

Although employment in the manufacturing sector has declined over the past few decades, it continues to play an important role in many regions of the U.S. Most studies have not examined the spatial effects of manufacturing employment on regional job quality. In this paper, we consider the spatial dependence and spatial variation of this relationship in the Midwest. This analysis suggests that it is important to take into consideration spatial effects when examining the implications of economic restructuring for regions. Labor market areas are not distinct spatial units and can be influenced significantly by nearby local labor markets. Once that spatial dependence is considered, manufacturing has a negative and significant effect on underemployment by low earnings, but its effect is not significant in labor hardship associated with work time and steadiness. At the same time, our analysis demonstrates that the effects of manufacturing employment vary across local labor markets. More specifically, these findings suggest that in those areas in the Midwest that have historically had higher concentrations of manufacturing jobs, the benefits of working in this sector are smaller. In regions that have not had a large manufacturing sector and have experienced some gains in recent years, the benefits of working in the manufacturing sector are larger.     

System Dynamics Understanding in Projects: Information Sharing,Psychological Safety,and Performance Effects

Systems thinking has proven useful in project management planning activities and has been suggested as a critical driver of a range of beneficial organizational behaviors. Yet, empirical evidence on the myriad of ways in which systems thinking can impact internal project dynamics and performance remains limited. This study focuses on one aspect of systems thinking in particular: the ability to recognize and understand the dynamics of systems and their features (e.g., feedback and delay). It makes use of a unique, large‐scale interview data set along with objective and structured survey data drawn from multiple sources associated with supply chain system implementation projects. Analysis suggests that an individual's understanding of system dynamics as well as the similarity of such understanding to that typical of their team is, in fact, a strong predictor of both perceptions of psychological safety and information sharing quality in project work. These outcomes appear to mediate the relationship between system dynamics understanding and performance.     

Prioritizing and Monitoring Concurrent Project Work: Effects on Switching Behavior

Project switching occurs when a multi‐project worker shifts his/her attention from one project to another before completing the first project. In this study, we study the effects of two areas of management policy on project switching behavior, project prioritization, and work monitoring. We conduct a controlled experiment to evaluate direct and combined effects of prioritization, scheduled progress checks, and managerial progress checks on project switching behavior in a distributed, multi‐project work environment. We use computerized tasks constituting multiple projects as a means of efficiently simulating a project work setting. Working professionals served as subjects for the experiment, thereby enabling us to control for experience and other individual differences that may vary across workers in real‐world projects. We find that clarifying priorities has little overall effect on the prevalence of switching in our multi‐project setting, while the presence of managerial progress checks has significant and distinct impacts, driving up switch tendencies. Interestingly, various attributes of the timing of these monitoring events also significantly impact the likelihood that workers will switch in response to these event triggers. We discuss the implications of these findings for managerial practice and for future research.     

A measure of disclosure risk for microdata

Summary. Protection against disclosure is important for statistical agencies releasing microdata files from sample surveys. Simple measures of disclosure risk can provide useful evidence to support decisions about release. We propose a new measure of disclosure risk: the probability that a unique match between a microdata record and a population unit is correct. We argue that this measure has at least two advantages. First, we suggest that it may be a more realistic measure of risk than two measures that are currently used with census data. Second, we show that consistent inference (in a specified sense) may be made about this measure from sample data without strong modelling assumptions. This is a surprising finding, in its contrast with the properties of the two 'similar' established measures. As a result, this measure has potentially useful applications to sample surveys. In addition to obtaining a simple consistent predictor of the measure, we propose a simple variance estimator and show that it is consistent. We also consider the extension of inference to allow for certain complex sampling schemes. We present a numerical study based on 1991 census data for about 450 000 enumerated individuals in one area of Great Britain. We show that the theoretical results on the properties of the point predictor of the measure of risk and its variance estimator hold to a good approximation for these data.     

The Stigma of Privilege: Racial Identity and Stigma Consciousness Among Biracial Individuals

Racial identification is a complex and dynamic process for multiracial individuals, who as members of multiple racial groups have been shown to self-identify or be identified by others differently, depending on the social context. For biracial individuals who have white and minority ancestry, such identity shifting (e.g., from minority to white, or vice versa) may be a way to cope with the threats to their racial identity that can be signaled by the presence or absence of whites and/or minorities in their social environment. We examine whether stigma consciousness (Pinel in J Pers Soc Psychol 76(1):114–128, 1999; i.e., the chronic awareness of the stereotyping and prejudice that minorities face) interacts with the sociocultural context to predict social identity threat, belonging, and racial identification. Using experience sampling methodology, minority/white biracial individuals (27 Asian/white, 22 black/white, and 26 Latino/white) reported the racial composition of their environment, social identity threat for their component racial identities, overall feelings of belonging, and racial identification over a 1-week period. Results suggest that stigma consciousness predicts the extent to which biracial people identify with their white background and experience belonging in different racial contexts. We discuss racial identity shifting in response to context-based threats as a protective strategy for biracial people, and identity where participants’ sociocultural contexts and experiences with racial identity and threat differ as a result of their minority racial group or ascribed race.     

Complementary Drivers of New Product Development Performance: Cross‐Functional Coordination,Information System Capability,and Intelligence Quality

Coordination efforts that access and align relevant cross‐functional expertise are regarded as an essential element of innovation success. In recent years, these efforts have been further augmented through complementary investments in information systems, which provide the technological platforms for information sharing and coordination across functional and organizational boundaries. Somewhat overlooked has been the critical mediating role of the intelligence gained through these efforts and capabilities. This study draws on the theory of complementarity to elaborate on the nature of this mediating concept. Theoretical predictions of the model are tested using instrument variable regression analysis of data collected from a sample of publicly traded US manufacturing firms. The findings suggest that the effects of both internal and external coordination on market intelligence and supply‐chain intelligence are moderated by the firm's information system capability. The effect of both types of intelligence quality on new product development performance was contingent with the effects being enhanced (attenuated) when the market conditions were dynamic (stable). The results are robust to common‐method bias, endogeneity concerns, and alternative estimation methods.     

When Race Becomes Even More Complex: Toward Understanding the Landscape of Multiracial Identity and Experiences

The explosion in the number of people coming from a multiracial heritage has generated an increased need for understanding the experiences and consequences associated with coming from a multiracial background. In addition, the emergence of a multiracial identity challenges current thinking about race, forcing scholars to generate new ideas about intergroup relations, racial stigmatization, social identity, social perception, discrimination, and the intersectionality of race with other social categories such as social class. The present issue brings together research and theory in psychology, sociology, education, culture studies, and public policy surrounding multiracial identity and introduces new advances in thinking about race, intergroup relations, and racial identity. In exploring multiracial identity, the issue will reexamine conceptualization of race and racial identification by examining the social experiences of multiracial individuals.