Regression analysis and ratio analysis for domains: A randomization-theory approach

In most surveys, inference for domains poses a difficult problem because of data shortage. This paper presents a probability sampling theory approach to some common types of statistical analysis for domains of a surveyed population. Simple and multiple regression analysis, and analysis of ratios are considered. Two new methods are constructed and explored which can improve substantially over the common method based on sample-weighted sums of squares and products. These new methods use auxiliary variables whose importance depends on the extent to which they succeed in explaining certain patterns in the regression residuals. The theoretical conclusions are supported by empirical results from Monte Carlo experiments.     

Credibly reducing information asymmetry: Signaling on economic or environmental value by environmental alliances

This article focuses on strategic alliances that strive for economic profit while contributing to environmental sustainability. These so-called environmental alliances operate on a spectrum between the goals of economic and environmental value. New environmental alliances signal in announcements to their external stakeholders where they position themselves on this spectrum of alliance goals in order to reduce information asymmetry and enhance their credibility. In this article, we predict the type of external signal that environmental alliances send by studying alliance processes and structures that embed the latent alliance goals. We built an original dataset by combining data on 389 environmental alliances from the SDC Platinum database for the period 2013–2017 and data on signals in 650 alliance announcements. Our findings show that announcements signaling on economic value are mainly used by environmental production and marketing joint ventures, thereby reducing the information asymmetry on their latent goal of economic value. Conversely, announcements signaling on environmental value are mainly used by environmental R&D contracts that focus on the latent goal of environmental value. Our article thus illustrates that alliances aim to enhance their credibility by achieving signal fit between external signals and latent alliance goals. Even though environmental alliances operate on a spectrum of economic and environmental value, we demonstrate that they prefer to avoid sending mixed messages and hence only signal on one of the alliance goals. Our article contributes to the literature on environmental alliances by applying signaling theory to explain these counterintuitive findings and to improve our understanding of how environmental alliances aim for credibility through their communication on their alliance goals.     

The real cost of growth in Oregon

The costs of growth are little known, poorly understood and typically understated. This study is an initial effort to provide a more complete understanding of the current costs of growth in Oregon. While more than two dozen cost areas are identified, the focus is on basic physical infrastructure required for urban development. A proportionate share costing method is used to determine the public infrastructure costs associated with the construction of a typical single-family house. Each increment of growth is allocated costs for only the increment of system capacity required to serve it. Cost figures are from representative projects recently completed or underway in Oregon. The result is a composite of recent cost data selected to be representative of the state as a whole. An analysis of seven public infrastructure cost areas associated with the construction of a typical single-family house—including public facilities for schools, sewer, storm drainage, roads, water service, parks and recreation, and fire protection—shows that the total cost is about $24,500 per house. Oregon's development impact fees are recovering only a fraction of these costs. As a result, most of these public infrastructure costs are distributed across the entire population of a community through property taxes or general obligation bonds, whereas the benefits of these investments accrue primarily to the new development. The methodology used in this study can be easily replicated and may provide a useful tool for communities trying to obtain better information about the economic and fiscal impacts of urban growth. A review of relevant literature and references are provided.     

Motivations for Environmental Alliances: Generating and Internalizing Environmental and Knowledge Value

Environmental alliances are a common response to societal sustainability demands. In environmental alliances, firms collaboratively exploit and explore environmental technologies to address market opportunities while simultaneously generating positive environmental impacts. A striking idiosyncrasy is that in addition to economic value, environmental alliances generate two types of external value: environmental value from positive effects on air, water, land and biodiversity, and knowledge value from innovations in environmental technologies. Research on motivations for environmental alliances is dispersed and underdeveloped compared to the well‐established literature on motivations for strategic alliances that emphasize economic value. This study therefore develops a classification of motivations for environmental alliances by combining the literature on strategic alliances and that on environmental and knowledge value. The resulting classification includes motivations for environmental alliances to generate environmental and knowledge value as well as motivations to create economic value by internalizing environmental and knowledge value. A systematic review of 123 articles on environmental inter‐firm alliances identifies specific motivations to populate the new classification. We show that alliance partners are motivated to share sustainable resources, reduce sustainability risk, respond to stakeholders or invest in specific sustainable assets to generate external value. They collaborate to reduce costs or enhance competitive advantage, reputation or legitimacy to internalize external value. The resource‐based view, resource‐dependence view, institutional theory and transaction cost economics have not previously distinguished between motivations to generate and internalize external value. We extend their area of application from strategic alliances to environmental alliances, and thus beyond the exclusive pursuit of economic value.     

Activation programmes for women with a partner in Germany: Challenge or replication of traditional gender roles

In 2005, Germany implemented major welfare benefit reforms that encourage an adult worker model of the family. In this study, we hypothesised that, despite these reforms, women's assignments to activation programmes would in practice still tend to replicate the degree of labour market attachment to which they had become accustomed relative to their partner in the past. We compared programme entries between women in former male breadwinner, dual earner, no-earner and female breadwinner households and applied event-history analysis to large-scale administrative data. Our findings showed that in western Germany – but not in eastern Germany – women's assignments to activation programmes indeed replicated their prior labour market attachment relative to their partner. Key Practitioner Message: • Among women receiving Unemployment Benefit II in Germany, women with partners participate in activation programmes less often; • This tendency applies especially to western German women with less employment experience and lower former earnings than their partners; • A framework should be devised to inquire about previously non-employed women's interests in ALMP participation and offer them such opportunities.     

Performance Management,Caseloads and the Frontline Provision of Social Services

Caseloads and performance management are important working conditions of workers delivering public social services in street‐level organizations. The literature on these working conditions argues that high caseloads and performance management have considerable consequences for workers' performance in terms of the quality of services they provide and the results they realize. This article empirically investigates and compares these consequences, drawing on the results of a quantitative study of frontline workers in 14 local welfare agencies in the Netherlands. These workers are responsible for the delivery of welfare‐to‐work policies to social assistance recipients. The findings show that high caseloads do, indeed, have a detrimental effect on workers' performance, whereas the impact of performance management is more modest, though confirming some of the findings reported in other studies on performance management. The results also show that by focusing service provision on a proportion of their caseload, workers are able to reduce the negative impact of high caseloads somewhat. Overall, the article finds that the negative impact of high caseloads is more pervasive than that of performance management. The article concludes that the recent focus in the literature on performance management and its consequences for public services should not turn scholars' attention away from the ‘traditional’ public administration problem of high caseload sizes.     

How Perceptions Matter: Organizational Vulnerability and Practices of Resilience in the Field of Migration

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article presents a qualitative analysis of the practices of civil society organizations (CSOs) to integrate migrants...