Heart ed 101

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. Risk factors and health behaviors combine over time to contribute to the disease process. College communities provide a unique environment for health promotion, risk reduction, and primary intervention. Heart health should be an integral part of college health.     

How does POSSLQ measure up? Historical estimates of cohabitation

We use March Current Population Survey (CPS) data from 1977 to 1997 to produce a new historical series of indirect cohabitation prevalence estimates. We compare our new estimates with those produced by the traditional method and evaluate the new estimates. We then compare the indirect estimates with the new direct estimates to investigate whether biases exist in the indirect estimates. Our findings indicate that the traditional indirect method of estimating cohabitation prevalence underestimates cohabitors in different subpopulations, especially among those with children. We also find that the new indirect measure produces relatively unbiased estimates of cohabitors' characteristics.     

Self-care: Why do parents leave their children unsupervised?

We used a preferences-and-constraints model to develop four hypotheses to explain why parents may choose self-care (an unsupervised arrangement) as the primary child care arrangement for their children over supervised alternatives and tested them in a multivariate framework using 1995 data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We found that the choice of self-care over supervised care alternatives is linked to the availability of parents' time to care for children, the child's level of responsibility and maturity, and the neighborhood context. However, we found no evidence that parents' ability to pay for child care is related to the choice of self-care. The results also suggest that parents use different decision-making processes, depending on their children's ages.     

Stakeholder value disclosures: anchoring on primacy and importance of financial and nonfinancial performance measures

In the growing debate about stakeholder values, there has been little discussion about information overload or whether the requested disclosures can be effectively used. Stakeholder advocates call for complicated and massive environmental and related social disclosures while not considering how information overload might affect the discourse about corporate performance. Stakeholders, including shareholders, plead for more transparency in financial statements, management discussion and analysis (MDA), and other corporate disclosures. As we know, shareholders and boards of directors are most concerned with the ‘Holy Trinity’ of earnings per share, dividends and market value changes. We believe that managers and stakeholders involved in performance evaluations have multiple interests that extend beyond traditional shareholder value measures. We note that the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was developed as one tool to reflect and communicate these multiple measures. We test how managers use (or ignore) multiple performance measures and we posit that stakeholders will face many of the same constraints when using and processing multiple disclosures including Corporate Social Reports (CSR), environmental, or similar disclosures. While we do not directly test a wide variety of stakeholder disclosures, we examine eight (four for a single subject) shareholder values (financial measures) and four stakeholder values (nonfinancial measures). The eight measures included in our research instruments serve as proxies for the multiple concerns that might be of interest to many stakeholders. Note that stakeholders are likely to be extremely interested in nonfinancial performance measures, while many shareholders will likely concentrate on financial performance measures. Field research has reported managers tend to favor financial measures while discounting or ignoring nonfinancial measures when evaluating subordinates, making it difficult to align performance evaluations and incentives with corporate strategies (Ittner et al. Account Rev 78:725–758, 2003). In this study, we find the relative weights managers place on financial and nonfinancial performance measures are influenced by both (1) presentation order and (2) the relative importance of specific measures. When financial measures are presented first, the manager who performs better on financial measures is rated higher than the manager who performs better on nonfinancial measures. However, when nonfinancial measures are presented first, managers who excel on nonfinancial measures are rated higher. Reports that include financial measures that are relatively more (less) important also produce higher (lower) ratings for the manager who excels on financial measures. Thus, the relative weights that superiors place on financial and nonfinancial measures in evaluating corporate managers’ performance are substantially anchored both by the order in which measures are presented as well as by the importance of the specific performance measures employed. Other stakeholder disclosures are likely to be similarly anchored, perhaps biased, by primacy and a priori importance rankings.     

Social networking and HRD

Social networking websites (SNSs) are becoming an increasingly predominant part of people’s daily lives, including working lives. Yet, very little academic research has been conducted on this influential social phenomenon from en employment perspective. This exploratory study examines the impact of SNSs on human resourcing (HR) through interviews with eight employees and three HR professionals to gain their views and experiences of SNS in the workplace. Key findings include how potential applicants are suspicious of the legitimacy of job advertisements seen on SNSs; managing the use of SNSs is increasingly difficult for organisations due to SNSs being widely available on mobile phones; disciplinary action is being brought against employees who are using SNSs inappropriately; and training sessions for employees regarding the use of SNSs significantly reduce inappropriate use of SNSs. Implications for further research and practice are considered.     

Payday lenders and economically distressed communities: A spatial analysis of financial predation

The payday lending industry has grown considerably in recent years, reflecting both widespread economic insecurity and market neglect by the traditional banking sector. Outlets are now commonplace in many communities across America. Accused by many of predatory practices, payday lenders can be viewed as financial hazards in already economically distressed communities. Using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and associated statistical analyses, this paper examines the social ecology of payday lending along the Front Range communities of Colorado. Comparison of means and logistic regression results reveal how communities’ composition by class, occupation, race/ethnicity, nativity, age, and military affiliation affect their likelihood of hosting payday lending.     

Markov Chains and De-initializing Processes

We define a notion of de-initializing Markov chains. We prove that to analyse convergence of Markov chains to stationarity, it suffices to analyse convergence of a de-initializing chain. Applications are given to Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms and to convergence diagnostics.     

The parameters of prejudice: knowledge of ethics and age bias

This study examined two matters pertinent to social work practice: professional ethics and age bias among practicing social workers. Because social work ethics demand competent practice within one's area of proficiency, and because bias toward any segment of social work clientele impedes competent practice, prejudicial attitudes toward older people are problematic. This study found that age bias exists among practicing social workers (N = 367), with no discernible association between knowledge of professional ethical standards and age bias. The findings suggest a subtle and pervasive bias associated with work with older people. Positive bias was more prevalent than negative bias.