企业失败的原因是领导者不合适

1997～2007年，过去的这十年时间对于许多企业领导来说都是一段异常艰难的时光。家得宝、西门子、波音、壳牌、宝洁、施乐、肯马特、可口可乐、AT＆T、花旗、美林等等，这一长串光辉的名字都在过去的十年里，由于领导者的失误而遭受了前所未有的危机：     

Les Chinois de Paris et de Montréal: analyse comparative de deux communautés en situation d'immigration*

This article is a comparative study of two Chinese communities in two countries that differ in their history and their political direction when it comes to immigration: Canada and France. Although it neither concludes their independence nor the disappearance of the role of national states, the article points out many similarities in the structure, organization and internal economy relying on cross‐border ethnic networks. Le présent article consiste en une étude comparative de deux communautés chinoises en situation d'immigration dans deux pays différant par leur histoire et leur orientation politique: le Canada et la France. Bien qu'il n'en conclue ni à l'indépendance de ces communautés ni à la disparition du rôle des États nationaux, l'article relève maintee ressemblances sur le plan de la structure, de l'organisation et de l'économie interne reposant sur des réseaux ethniques transcendant les frontières.     

Is What’s Good for the Business,Good for the Family: A Financial Assessment

Small business prosperity doesn’t necessarily translate into family prosperity. This study utilizes the first and second waves of the National Family Business Survey to explore the influence of changes in key business financial measures on objective and subjective measures of family success. Increases in the available cash in the business from higher gross sales or net profits brings more cash into the household, while increases in the market value of the business increases the amount of money spent on other household assets. A more subjective assessment suggests that positive changes in the business financial measures create a more positive perception of the business’ success; however, these positive changes have no influence on a more positive perception of the family’s success.     

Educational inequalities and educational mobility under socialism in the Czech Republic

The sociology of education on the Czech Republic has focused almost entirely on relative measures of inequality (based on odds ratio data) than to trends in educational mobility (based on mobility tables). Therefore, there is a significant gap in our knowledge of how the Czech education system has evolved in the long term. Although the periods before and after the onset of socialism appear to have had very specific mobility patterns, we know relatively little about their differences. Therefore, this article attempts 1) to verify the findings to date about the character and extent of educational inequalities in the Czech half of socialist Czechoslovakia, and 2) to update these findings with a new mobility analysis. In this context the article poses two key questions: In what ways are the two mobility systems (pre‐socialist and socialist) different? Was the Czech education system becoming more or less open? Using the mobility perspective and log‐linear modelling, the analysis identifies some specific structural contexts and shows that the level of intergenerational educational reproduction that existed between 1906 and 1938 gradually diminished thereafter, except among women, who experienced a re‐strengthening after 1948. Although after the Prague Spring in 1968 the association between the education of parents and their children began to strengthen, the mother‐daughter association in educational reproduction weakened at the end of socialism.     

On the analysis of long-term experiments

Summary.  Long-term experiments are commonly used tools in agronomy, soil science and other disciplines for comparing the effects of different treatment regimes over an extended length of time. Periodic measurements, typically annual, are taken on experimental units and are often analysed by using customary tools and models for repeated measures. These models contain nothing that accounts for the random environmental variations that typically affect all experimental units simultaneously and can alter treatment effects. This added variability can dominate that from all other sources and can adversely influence the results of a statistical analysis and interfere with its interpretation. The effect that this has on the standard repeated measures analysis is quantified by using an alternative model that allows for random variations over time. This model, however, is not useful for analysis because the random effects are confounded with fixed effects that are already in the repeated measures model. Possible solutions are reviewed and recommendations are made for improving statistical analysis and interpretation in the presence of these extra random variations.     

Business and industrial statistics: the early years

Before his death in July 2002, George Barnard had started writing a sketch of the history of business and industrial statistics in the first 50 years of the twentieth century. The piece was never finished, but it is nonetheless a valuable memoir of the early development of the discipline, from someone who knew those involved.     

Learning-related behaviors, cognitive skills, and ability grouping when schooling begins

We use ECLS-K data from a national sample of students to estimate the determinants and consequences of reading ability group placement in kindergarten and first grade. We find that prior test score performance is the strongest determinant of such placement, followed in magnitude by the teacher’s judgment of the student’s learning-related classroom behavior. These variables explain most of the race, gender, and social class differentials when students are placed into ability groups for the first time. Within kindergarten and first grade classes where grouping is used, placement into a higher group exerts a positive effect on student learning-related behavior and reading achievement. Ability group placement and the teacher’s assessment of student behavior both have significant effects on student’s growth in reading achievement, even net of their prior reading achievement scores. Such grouping takes individual and group-level performance differences that emerge during the preschool period and causes them to widen more than would otherwise be the case during the first 2 years of formal schooling.     

The analysis of putative environmental pollution gradients in spatially correlated epidemiological data

The analysis of putative sources of health hazard has recently received considerable attention. Most analyses, however, assume that the observations - such as counts in census tracts or exact locations of cases - are not spatially correlated. This assumption, if violated, could have serious consequences for inferences made from such data. This paper outlines a number of simple Monte Carlo test procedures for this situation.     

The rise and fall? Of mental stress claims in the USA

Occupation-related mental stress has been associated with significant loss in terms of diminished productivity, higher absenteeism, and increased workers' compensation claims. The Liberty Mutual Group workers' compensation data were analysed for the years 1984-93 for mental stress-related claims. This represented over 7 million claims, over 17000 of which were identified as mental stress-related. The proportion of all stress claims was estimated for each year. The proportion by gender, age and occupation (job classification code and occupation name) was also described. Stress claims increased during the late 1980s, peaking in 1991, accounting for 0.48% of all claims and 1.69% of all claims costs, and has declined since. Even at its peak, mental stress claims were not a major portion of workers' compensation losses. However, they are expensive. The average costs of a stress claim in 1993 was about $13000. The state of California accounts for 60% of the claims reported to Liberty Mutual over this 10-year period. In 1993 women accounted for 51% of the stress claims and about 30% of all claims. The mean age of workers with stress claims was 39.3 years, with most stress claims from 30 to 34 year-olds. High-risk occupations and industries include banks, insurance companies, general labourers, management, salespersons, and drivers. The current decline in stress claims can largely be explained by a combination of changes in unemployment, increasing litigation, and changes in law in California and other states that made more stringent the requirements whereby a mental stress claim can be considered work-related. While the data presented are helpful for comparing stress claims to all claims reported to Liberty Mutual and for identifying high-risk occupations and industries, because of the uniqueness of the stress claim selection algorithm and the uncertainties with cost estimates, the cost figures are not directly comparable to other claims reporting systems.