The transition to mid-life divorce

How long do older divorcees deliberate divorce? The answer identifies factors that either slow or hasten divorce. By comparison, extant studies investigate only marriage durations and fail to account for an individual’s maturity. To control for maturity, I focus on divorcees over 40 years old. Outside interference from stepchildren and/or in-laws significantly hastens the divorce decision, followed by sexual issues and/or a poor match. Intolerance of outside interference is explained by Hamilton’s rule on genetics, with other problems explained by Becker’s insights on the gains from marriage. Studying marital problems among older divorcees yields lessons for all age groups.     

The Effects of Evaluating Video Examples of Staffs' Own Versus Others' Performance on Discrete-Trial Training Skills in a Human Service Setting

Many studies have been conducted evaluating the use of feedback in staff training in organizational settings. Central to this literature has been the use of a variety of forms of feedback, including videotaped feedback. A distinction is outlined between video modeling and a variety of possible video feedback procedures. Previous studies have indicated a possible positive training effect on staff skills from simply being exposed to relevant videotaped performances of those skills or as a result of evaluating video modeled performances. This study evaluated the effectiveness for training teaching skills of having staff evaluate videotaped teaching skills as performed by themselves versus others. The current study results replicate earlier research on the effectiveness of evaluating video models as a training method and do not suggest a difference between observing oneself as opposed to observing someone else. Future research suggestions for the general use of video in training are provided.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTEGRATIVE CURRICULUM IN AN UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS PROGRAM*

This paper describes how the core portion of the undergraduate business program at Indiana University was revised to facilitate integration of basic functionally oriented decision making skills and thus help students gain a deeper understanding of the interdependence of business decisions. It relates, in essence, why and how a single computer-oriented case study which demanded a solution to a large-scale, unified finance-marketing-production problem was used at Indiana University, mentions how we plan to accomplish further integration of functional material, and provides some insight into student reaction to what was, in fact, a massive project from both student and administrative points of view.     

High Culture Orientation and the Attitudes and Values of College Students

Using survey data collected from a sample of college students, the authors explore variability in high culrure orientation. Parent's socioeconomic status, traditionally thought to be predictive of high culture orientation, was not significantly related to it in this sample. Factors found to be associated with high culture orientation include interpersonal experience, occupational orientation, and cultural knowledge and participation.     

Fertility desires and fertility: Hers,his, and theirs

The relationship between desired and achieved fertility may be misspecified by excluding husbands' fertility desires or by confounding effects of shared desires with the resolution of conflicting desires. Using couple data from the classic Princeton Fertility Surveys, we find relatively large husband effects on fertility outcomes as well as unique effects of spousal disagreement. Wives and husbands were equally likely to achieve fertility desires, and disagreeing couples experienced fertility rates midway between couples who wanted the same smaller or larger number of children. These conditions do not hold, however, when we include willingness to delay births for economic mobility as part of the measure of fertility desires. Among couples who both wanted a third child, only husbands' willingness to delay births had significant negative effects on birth rates.     

Trustees as servant-leaders: A report and reference guide

How have the servant-leader writings of Robert Greenleaf impacted upon society during the past twenty years? What influence has Greenleaf had upon trustees and others? And, what are people sayingtoday about servant-leadership? While this paper seeks to provide a partial answer to these questions, its intent is to serve as an informative report on the ever-widening influence of the servant-as-leader idea—and as a resource guide for others who may wish to delve more deeply into the notion of trustees as servant-leaders. In 1974, Robert Greenleaf publishedTrustees as Servants, in which he expressed his own thoughts concerning the special role which trustees can and should play within an institution—but usually don't. His delineation of some of the barriers and solutions to effective trusteeship has since been read by over 400,000 people and has come to represent a core element of what is now generally called “trustee education.” The central definition of servant-leadership, as defined by Greenleaf inThe Servant as Leader, is as follows: It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant—first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or at least, not be further deprived? The past two decades have witnessed the publication of a growing number of books and articles concerning servant-leadership and its applications in a number of key areas. This now includes its uses as: a working philosophy and model in both for-profit and not-for-profit institutions; the bringing together of servant-leadership and experiential education in the related area of “service-learning”; the use of servant-leadership within community leadership programs; its use in both formal management/leadership courses and by independent consultants working directly with institutions; as a core idea for several diverse areas of personal growth and personal transformation; and as the values base for trustee education. The attached bibliographies-in-progress are intended to provide suggested readings for those who are interested in finding out more about the role of trustees as servant-leaders.     

Some non-parametric tests for duration dependence: an application to UK business cycle data

A distinction between Fisher's implied data-generating process for Monte Carlo cycles and the more general Markov process leads to non-parametric tests for duration dependence. Tests are based on the method of moments, Tauchen's generalized method of moments (GMM) procedure, and a statistic whose null distribution probability limit is zero. Using finite-sample critical values obtained by Monte Carlo methods, our test results are remarkably consistent. The null distribution of the GMM test statistic for samples of the size considered is distinctly non-normal, so that asymptotic critical values give erroneous results. The tests are applied to UK business cycle data for 1854-1992. There is evidence for duration dependence in expansions but not in contractions.