Employer Branding: A Brand Equity‐based Literature Review and Research Agenda

Over the past two decades, scholarly interest in employer branding has strongly increased. Simultaneously, however, employer branding research has developed into a fragmented field with heterogeneous interpretations of the employer branding concept and its scope, which has impeded further theoretical and empirical advancement. To strengthen the foundation for future work, this paper takes a brand equity perspective to review the extant literature and create an integrative model of employer branding. Using an analytical approach, the authors identify 187 articles, which they integrate along different employer brand dimensions and branding strategies: (i) conceptual; (ii) employer knowledge dimensions; (iii) employer branding activities and strategies. On the basis of this review, the authors develop an employer branding value chain model and derive future research avenues as well as practical implications.     

Organizational Identity and Employer Image: Towards a Unifying Framework*

This study aims to bridge two research streams that have evolved relatively apart from each other, namely the research streams on organizational identity and on employer branding (employer image). In particular, we posit that it is crucial to examine which factors company outsiders (applicants) as well as company insiders (employees) associate with a given employer. To this end, this study uses the instrumental–symbolic framework to study factors relating to both employer image and organizational identity of the Belgian Army. Two samples are used: a sample of 258 Army applicants and a sample of 179 military employees. Results show that both instrumental and symbolic perceived image dimensions predict applicants' attraction to the Army. Conversely, symbolic perceived identity dimensions best predict employees' identification with the Army. Results further show that employees also attach importance to outsiders' assessment of the organization (construed external image). Theoretical and practical implications for managing organizational identity and image are discussed.     

Every life is sacred…kind of: Uncovering the sources of seemingly contradictory public attitudes toward abortion and the death penalty

Many scholars have studied public attitudes about abortion and the death penalty, but few have studied the coincidence of strong anti-abortion and pro-death penalty attitudes. What factors best explain how someone can find willful taking of life abhorrent in one context but justified in another? We find that the desire to see criminals punished, combined with a literalist orientation toward the Bible, best predict membership in the pro-life/pro-death penalty group. Policy implications flow directly from these findings. The pro-life/pro-death penalty group likely constitutes approximately 5% of the U.S. population and their literalist, punitive stance toward crime and punishment has ramifications for all crime control policy, not just capital punishment.     

A Self-Supporting University Statistical Consulting Center

The Biometry Consulting Laboratory at the University of Minnesota is, except for rent and utilities, entirely self-supporting. This fact has led to policies and a style of management not required of a line-item academic statistical service unit. The price structure, problems of bill collecting, guidelines for scheduling and meeting deadlines, and techniques for maintaining morale of graduate student workers are given.     

Multiple Regression Model Averaging and the Focused Information Criterion With an Application to Portfolio Choice

ABSTRACT

We consider multiple regression (MR) model averaging using the focused information criterion (FIC). Our approach is motivated by the problem of implementing a mean-variance portfolio choice rule. The usual approach is to estimate parameters ignoring the intention to use them in portfolio choice. We develop an estimation method that focuses on the trading rule of interest. Asymptotic distributions of submodel estimators in the MR case are derived using a localization framework. The localization is of both regression coefficients and error covariances. Distributions of submodel estimators are used for model selection with the FIC. This allows comparison of submodels using the risk of portfolio rule estimators. FIC model averaging estimators are then characterized. This extension further improves risk properties. We show in simulations that applying these methods in the portfolio choice case results in improved estimates compared with several competitors. An application to futures data shows superior performance as well.     

Social work and parent support in reaction to children's antisocial behaviour: constructions and effects

This article focuses on STOP4-7, an ecological early intervention programme for children with serious behavioural problems in Belgium, which includes social skills training for children, management training for parents and classroom management training for teachers. We argue how this type of social work benefits from empirical research on its effects on children and parents. Yet social work research that addresses these questions needs to extend its focus to overt and covert inclusion and exclusion mechanisms that operate through social work. Finally, we argue that, in the case of STOP4-7, social work is embedded in the process of social and political framing of the problems it is supposed to solve. By extending the focus of social work research to the very construction of social problems, we show how social workers may perform their agency as reflective practitioners, rather than being objects of interventions.     

Transporting attachment and biobehavioral catch-up to Norwegian child welfare services: A feasibility study

Transportation of evidence-based programs (EBPs) to a new cultural setting is often preferred over the comprehensive process of developing a new program. Intervention fidelity has been suggested as a predictor of successful transportation. The present study examined whether fidelity and parent behavior improved when implementing the U.S.-developed Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention in Norwegian child welfare services (CWS). 11 child welfare workers received training and supervision to become ABC parent coaches. Fidelity was assessed through video-recordings of parent coaches' in vivo feedback at each home-visit session. Parent sensitive behavior was assessed using video-recordings of parent–child interactions, recorded before each ABC session. Mixed effects modeling showed that ABC fidelity increased over the course of training and supervision. Furthermore, parent behavior improved over the course of families' exposure to the intervention. These demonstrate that an EBP transported to a novel cultural setting can obtain promising levels of fidelity and intervention outcomes.