Determinants of the Job Satisfaction of Public Officials: Testing the Mediation Effect of Organizational Commitment

Public Organization Review - Extant public management research investigated the determinants of public employees’ job satisfaction. However, most public management studies tested the...     

An efficient curve in stochastic capacity expansion

An optimum expansion of a single capacity is considered when the installation cost is very large and future demand is given by an evolving process of Wiener. Risk of expansion is evaluated and included in the decision criteria which links the capacity expansion problem with financial investment theory, Numerical results show the existence of an optimum expansion capacity and an efficient curve which represent the optimum choices with respect to the possible combinations of expansion cost and risk.     

Association between sexually explicit messages and sleep health among French sexual minority men

It has been demonstrated that sexual minority men (SMM) participate in sexting. While research has shown that engagement in the exchange of sexually explicit media is associated with poor health outcomes, no previous research has investigated its association with sleep health outcomes. This study sought to examine the association between sexually explicit media and sleep health among SMM, a population that suffers from poor sleep health. A popular geosocial networking application was used to recruit SMM individuals (N?=?580) in the Paris, France, metropolitan area. Multivariate analyses, adjusting for sociodemographics, were used to test the association between the frequency of sexually explicit messaging and three dimensions of sleep health: (1) sleep quality, (2) sleep duration, and (3) two aspects of sleep problems. In multivariate analyses, those who reported engaging in sexually explicit messaging more were more likely to report getting less than seven?hours of sleep (aRR = 1.24; 95% CI = 1.08, 1.43) compared with those who reported engaging in sexually explicit messaging less. No significant associations were found between sexting and sleep quality or reporting sleep problems. Sexually explicit messaging was associated with shorter sleep duration. Intervention targeted at individuals who sext could potentially improve sleep health outcomes.     

Family Roles as Moderators of the Relationship Between Schedule Flexibility and Stress

Employer initiatives that address the spillover of work strain onto family life include flexible work schedules. This study explored the mediating role of negative work–family spillover in the relationship between schedule flexibility and employee stress and the moderating roles of gender, family workload, and single‐parent status. Data were drawn from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, a nationally representative sample of working adults (N = 2,769). The results indicated that schedule flexibility was associated with less employee stress and that these associations were mediated by perceptions of negative work–family spillover. This study found the moderating relationships of gender, family workload, and single parenting in the relationships between schedule flexibility and negative work–family spillover and stress. Schedule flexibility had stronger relationships in reducing negative work–family spillover and stress among women, single parents, and employees with heavier family workloads. The findings provide empirical support for intervention efforts involving schedule flexibility to reduce workplace stress among employees with family responsibilities.     

Where angels fear to tread: Richard Schoenherr (1935–1996)

Richard Schoenherr, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin — Madison, passed away unexpectedly on 9 January 1996. He is memorialized in this essay for his scholarly contributions in the areas of teaching, research, and service.     

Censored Kullback-Leibler Information and Goodness-of-Fit Test with Type II Censored Data

The Kulback-Leibler information has been considered for establishing goodness-of-fit test statistics, which have been shown to perform very well (Arizono & Ohta, 1989; Ebrahimi et al., 1992, etc). In this paper, we propose censored Kullback-Leibler information to generalize the discussion of the Kullback-Leibler information to the censored case. Then we establish a goodness-of-fit test statistic based on the censored Kullback-Leibler information with the type 2 censored data, and compare the test statistics with some existing test statistics for the exponential and normal distributions.     

Gender in Academic Career Tracks: The Case of Korean Biochemists

How important is academic performance in obtaining a tenure‐track position in academic science? I use data on Korean biochemists and analyze them from both institutionalist and gender perspectives. In so doing, I illustrate the ways academic performance and gender interact with one another to maintain a gender barrier for Ph.D.s entering an academic career. The main findings are as follows. First, academic productivity did influence the job market outcomes, but the male scientists benefited from publications in both SCI and non‐SCI journals, whereas the female scientists benefited only from those in SCI journals. I also found a positive effect of overseas doctoral training only for the female scientists. Such analysis suggests that women as a minority in academic science are pressured to prove their legitimacy through more rigorous criteria of academic performance. Thus, ostensibly gender‐neutral rules of academic performance can be applied in such a way as to maintain gender inequality.     

NEGOTIATING CONTINUITY: Family and Religious Socialization for Second-Generation Asian Americans

This article examines second-generation Asian Americans' explanations of the significant influences on their own religious identities. Data include interviews (N = 73) with college-aged Asian Americans from different religious traditions and ethnic backgrounds. Respondents viewed families as the most significant influence on current religiosity. Mothers and fathers were mentioned most often, followed by extended kin, siblings, and relatives, who acted as what we call "reinforcers,""substitutes," or "contrasts" to the roles that parents played in religious socialization. These roles occurred along two religious configurations within families: heterogeneous or homogeneous degrees of religious commitment and religious affiliation. Directions for future research and contributions to the religious transmission literature follow.     

Technical Note – Pricing Below Cost Under Exchange‐Rate Risk

Pricing below cost is often classified as “dumping” in international trade and as “predatory pricing” in local markets. It is legally prohibited from practice because of earlier findings that it leads to predatory behavior by either eliminating competition or stealing market share. This study shows that a stochastic exchange rate can create incentives for a profit‐minded monopoly firm to set price below marginal cost. Our result departs from earlier findings because the optimal pricing decision is based on a rational behavior that does not exhibit any malicious intent against the competition to be considered as violating anti‐trust laws. The finding is a robust result, because our analysis demonstrates that this behavior occurs under various settings such as when the firm (i) is risk‐averse, (ii) can postpone prices until after exchange rates are realized, (iii) is capable of manufacturing in multiple countries, and (iv) operates under demand uncertainty in addition to the random exchange rate.     

A Nonparametric Test Procedure Based on Quantiles for the Right Censored Data

In this study, we propose nonparametric tests using the several quantile statistics simultaneously for the right censored data. First of all, we consider statistics of the quadratic form with estimated covariance matrices. Then we derive the limiting distribution using the large sample approximation theory. Also we consider different forms of statistics such as the maximal and summing types with their limiting distributions. Then we illustrate our procedure with examples and compare performance among tests with empirical powers through a simulation study. Also we comment briefly on some interesting features including re-sampling methods as concluding remarks. Finally in Appendices, we provide proofs for the theoretic results needed for the derivation of the limiting distributions of the proposed test statistics.