Mit beiden Augen sieht man besser

In this article the author is discussing the characteristics and differences of expert consultation and process consultation. After deducting the necessity of an integrated approach, the author describes the key success factors of a synthesis and the resulting added-value for the client. Selected case studies show the substantial enrichment of expert consultation through process consultation and vice versa.     

Disparities in Access to Health Care Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults with Disabilities

Disability is increasing among middle-aged adults and, reversing earlier trends, increasing among older adults as well. Disability is experienced disproportionately by Black and lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals. We used Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data to examine health care disparities in access to health care for middle-aged (31 to 64 years of age) and older (65+ years of age) adults with disabilities by race and ethnicity, education, and income (n = 13,174). Using logistic regression, we examined three measures of potential (e.g., usual source of care), and three measures of realized (e.g., counseling related to smoking) access. Middle-aged and older minority individuals with disabilities had lower relative risks of having usual sources of care and higher relative risks of having suboptimal usual sources of care (e.g., a place rather than a person) than White adults with disabilities. There were SES effects observed for middle-aged adults with disabilities across most measures that were, for certain measures, more pronounced than SES effects among older adults with disabilities. These findings are important, since health resources (e.g., a usual source of care) may mediate relations among disability, morbidity, and mortality. Policy actions that may mitigate the disparities we observed include financial incentives to support access to an optimal usual source of care and mechanisms to foster behavioral interventions related to smoking and exercise. Ensuring that these actions address the specific concerns of individuals with disabilities, such as physical accessibility and provider cultural competency, is essential.     

Multivariate two‐sample permutation tests for trials with multiple time‐to‐event outcomes

Clinical trials involving multiple time‐to‐event outcomes are increasingly common. In this paper, permutation tests for testing for group differences in multivariate time‐to‐event data are proposed. Unlike other two‐sample tests for multivariate survival data, the proposed tests attain the nominal type I error rate. A simulation study shows that the proposed tests outperform their competitors when the degree of censored observations is sufficiently high. When the degree of censoring is low, it is seen that naive tests such as Hotelling's T² outperform tests tailored to survival data. Computational and practical aspects of the proposed tests are discussed, and their use is illustrated by analyses of three publicly available datasets. Implementations of the proposed tests are available in an accompanying R package.     

Are groups ‘less behavioral’? The case of anchoring

Economic small group research points to groups as more rational decision-makers in numerous economic situations. However, no attempts have been made to investigate whether groups are affected similarly by behavioral biases that are pervasive for individuals. If groups were also able to more effectively avoid these biases, the relevance of biases in actual economic contexts dominated by group decision-making might be questioned. We consider the case of anchoring as a prime example of a well-established, robust bias. Individual and group biasedness in three economically relevant domains are compared: factual knowledge, probability estimates and price valuations. In contrast to previous anchoring studies, we find groups to successfully reduce, albeit not eliminate, anchoring in the factual knowledge domain. For the other two domains, groups and individuals are equally biased by external anchors. Group cooperation thus reduces biases for predominantly intellective tasks only, while no such reduction is achieved when judgmental aspects are involved.     

Delegation and motivation

We investigate the determinants of decision rights transfer and its effects on the motivation of an agent. The study is based on a laboratory experiment conducted on 130 subjects playing an innovative principal–agent game. Interestingly, the results show that agents do not favour a delegation and a decision is considered rather burdensome. Although the experiment could not give support for the behavioural hypothesis of higher effort provided by participants who receive choice subsequently, the survey illuminates the interaction between delegation motives, effort motivators, goals and other perceptions of the agents.     

Shared journeys,linked lives: a relational-biographical approach to mobility practices

This paper innovatively extends existing practice-theoretical mobility research by examining biographical aspects of people’s everyday mobility that capture and reflect their social relations. Drawing on nine qualitative interviews with couples who live in/near Vienna without a private car, the paper demonstrates the promising potential of retrospective forms of social research for uncovering the dynamics of mobility practices across the life course. It conceptualises individuals as inherently social and mutually interconnected mobility practitioners whose complex and dynamic interactions with others make up more or less mobile households and families. The paper thus treats social relations as a major connector between the constitutive social and material elements of (mobility) practices, making an explicitly relational contribution to current practice-theoretical debates in mobility research.     

Subventions à l'embauche et handicap: les enseignements d'une expérience à petite échelle

L'efficacité des subventions à l'embauche destinées à faciliter l'insertion des personnes handicapées reste incertaine, car plusieurs effets – d'aubaine, de substitution et de signal – se superposent. Pour en savoir plus, les auteurs proposent un protocole original, dans lequel les employeurs sont informés de façon aléatoire du droit à subvention. L'analyse des taux de convocation à un entretien montre que la subvention a un effet nul, voire contre‐productif, pour un échantillon de jeunes fraîchement diplômés de l'enseignement professionnel. Cependant, l'effet de signal défavorable ainsi mis en évidence est nettement plus faible pour d'autres sujets suivis par un service d'orientation spécifique, déjà actifs avant l'acquisition du handicap.     

Get more for less? Experimental evidence on repeated decision making under non-monotone incentives

Summary  This paper presents experimental results of a benchmark study to analyze the incentive effects of non-monotone pay schemes. An incentive compatible contract that does not award the highest pay to the highest possible output combination was tested in a neutral, framing, and two framing-with-principal settings, respectively. The results confirm the model in a statistically significant way. Principals select the non-monotone contract over a monotone contract that would give them ex ante a lower expected surplus. Agents predominantly select the income-maximizing strategy, i.e. select the effort level that should be implemented by the contract. Given the widespread view that non-monotone output-contingent incentives are not plausible labor contracts, it seems worthwile to extend the experimental study to include aspects which are common in labor relations, such as an option to quit for the employee and repeated interaction between employer and employee. This would help answer the question whether theoretically optimal non-monotone contracts may be used as labor contracts. The author acknowledges insightful comments by Jeannette Brosig, Alexis Kunz, Thomas Riechmann, Dirk Sliwka, Joachim Weimann and two anonymous referees. Financial support by MaxLab is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are my own.     

Sustainable food supply chains: the impact of automatic replenishment in grocery stores

The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of automatic replenishment on food waste metrics in grocery stores. The work has been designed as a case study focusing on the replenishment process among various stores and a single warehouse. Food waste metrics of products ordered through an automatic replenishment program are compared against products ordered manually. Specifically we contrast food waste, remaining shelf life and availability at the stores for a variety of products with different shelf life. The study suggests that by utilising an automatic replenishment program the stores can reduce their level of food waste by up to 20% and their products have a longer remaining shelf life without compromising on-shelf availability. The study also indicates that the impact of the automatic replenishment program is dependent on the product’s shelf life. Those products with a shelf life of between 51 and 110 days experience the highest impact, while products with a shelf life below 30 days experience a low or even negative impact. The study extends the current understanding of automatic replenishment programs. The key point for practitioners is to apply appropriate replenishment programs according to the product characteristics and especially the shelf life.