Authorizing processes changing team autonomy during new product development

One basic feature of recent collaborative team arrangements for organizing new product development is a high degree of autonomy for cross-functional teams. The literature, however, has not provided a very precise analysis of team autonomy in the context of new product development. The theoretical framework advanced here, based on the literature and the authors' case studies, assumes that developing a large and technologically sophisticated new product requires a hierarchy of collaborating teams. In this complex organizational context, managers do not completely predetermine any one team's autonomy. During the course of a new product development program, certain authorizing (deauthorizing) processes produce ad hoc changes in autonomy. This paper identifies specific authorizing processes and hypothesizes about variables that should affect them. The propositions also lead to some managerial implications for preserving team autonomy.     

THE INTEGRATIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY ALLIANCE: FAMILY,COUPLE AND INDIVIDUAL THERAPY SCALES*

The therapeutic alliance concept has been confined primarily to the literature on individual psychotherapy. This paper formally introduces the concept into the family and marital therapy domain and presents various clinical hypotheses about the nature of the alliance and its role in familyand marital therapy. A systemic perspective is brought to bear on the concept within individual psychotherapy. A new, integrative definition of the alliance is presented that conceptualizes individual, couple and family therapy as occurring within the same systemic framework. The implications of this integrative-alliance concept for family, couple and individual therapy research are examined. Three new system-ically oriented scales to measure the alliance in individual, couple and family therapy are presented along with some preliminary data on their methodological characteristics.     

THE IMPACT OF R&D INVESTMENT ON PRODUCTIVITY–NEW EVIDENCE USING LINKED R&D–LRD DATA

This paper uses confidential Census longitudinal microdata to examine the association between R&D and productivity for the period 1972–1985. These data allow for significant improvements in measurement and model specification, yielding more precise estimates of the returns to R&D. Our results confirm the findings of existing studies: 1) positive returns to R&D investment 2) higher returns to company-financed research 3) a productivity "premium" on basic research These results are robust to adjustments for "influential outliers." Also, our evidence suggests that the return to company-financed R&D is an increasing function of firm size.     

Effects of Minimum Wages on Youth Employment: the Importance of Accounting for Spatial Correlation

The relationship between minimum wage increases and youth employment is investigated using county-level data and spatial econometric techniques. Results that account for spatial correlation indicate that a 10% increase in the effective minimum wage is associated with a 3.2% decrease in youth employment, a result that is 28% higher than the corresponding estimate that does not control for spatial correlation. Thus, estimates that do not take into account spatial correlation may significantly underestimate the negative effect of the minimum wage on teenage employment. Improperly controlling for factors that vary systematically over space can lead to incorrect inferences and misinform policy.

Socioeconomic Status and Infant Mortality: Evidence from a Rural Agricultural State

Abstract

This research examines the nature and extent to which the tradtional inverse relationship between infant mortality and socioeconomic status holds true in Kansas for the years around 1950,1960, and 1970. A social-area ranking approach and correlation and regression analysis failed to show the significant inverse relationship reported by other researchers. Contrary to expectations, a blurring and narrowing of this relationship resulted over the three time periods. A significant negative correlation resulted between the percentage of rural farm residents in counties and infant mortality, indicating that the social organization characteristics of a rural state may provide a quality of life that transcends traditional socioeconomic differentials.     

Sexual orientation of human offspring may be altered by severe maternal stress during pregnancy

To test the hypotheses that maternal stress during pregnancy may alter the sexual orientation of offspring, 285 women with offspring 19 years of age and older provided retrospective accounts of stressful experiences they had, beginning 12 months prior to pregnancy up to the point of giving birth, and indicated how severe they recalled each event being. When weighted according to severity, stressful experiences helped to predict sexual orientation of male offspring. While most of the variance in sexual orientation remained unexplained, the data suggest that the most critical time in gestation for influencing human sexual orientation of male offspring is during the second trimester, although the first and possibly the third trimesters may be of secondary importance. For female offspring, no significant relationships between maternal stress and sexual orientation were found, although mothers of lesbians did report slightly higher average levels of stress throughout gestation than mothers of female heterosexuals.     

TELSQA and the Mainstreamed LD Social Studies Student

The content of social studies curricula make studying abroad during the summer months a win-win for social studies teachers. During these experiences, teachers have the opportunity to develop their knowledge of global history and other cultures and to see a bit of the world. That said, the most dangerous assumption one can make is that simply going abroad will automatically lead to the ambitious expectations often associated with such experiences. Using data drawn from the experiences of four social studies teachers who engaged in international professional development and observations of their learning abroad, this article provides strategies for making the most of what may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.     

Public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court: A new look at the impact of Court decisions

Judicial scholars have long debated the notion that Court decisions can influence the public's attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court. We engage this literature by introducing new dimensions to existing theory for predicting the impact of Court decisions on public confidence in the Court and by introducing innovative methods to test our hypotheses. We begin our analysis by examining the relationship between specific Court decisions and public confidence with aggregate time series data. Our analysis then shifts to an examination of individual-level survey data to examine the same hypotheses. Our results indicate that specific decisions can have a significant positive and negative impact on individual-level confidence in the Court. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for the theoretical and methodological debates over the influence of Court decisions on public confidence.