Lessons for Multisite Nonprofits from the United Church of Christ

This article describes the restructuring process currently underway at the United Church of Christ (UCC)—a 1.4 million member Protestant denomination. Three main questions are addressed: What are the central goals of the UCC restructure? What factors might explain the particular strategic direction pursued in UCC restructuring? and How might the UCC case inform recent thinking about the structure and performance of multisite nonprofits?     

Multilevel modelling of survey data: impact of the two-level weights used in the pseudolikelihood

Approaches that use the pseudolikelihood to perform multilevel modelling on survey data have been presented in the literature. To avoid biased estimates due to unequal selection probabilities, conditional weights can be introduced at each level. Less-biased estimators can also be obtained in a two-level linear model if the level-1 weights are scaled. In this paper, we studied several level-2 weights that can be introduced into the pseudolikelihood when the sampling design and the hierarchical structure of the multilevel model do not match. Two-level and three-level models were studied. The present work was motivated by a study that aims to estimate the contributions of lead sources to polluting the interior floor dust of the rooms within dwellings. We performed a simulation study using the real data collected from a French survey to achieve our objective. We conclude that it is preferable to use unweighted analyses or, at the most, to use conditional level-2 weights in a two-level or a three-level model. We state some warnings and make some recommendations.     

FACSGen: A Tool to Synthesize Emotional Facial Expressions Through Systematic Manipulation of Facial Action Units

To investigate the perception of emotional facial expressions, researchers rely on shared sets of photos or videos, most often generated by actor portrayals. The drawback of such standardized material is a lack of flexibility and controllability, as it does not allow the systematic parametric manipulation of specific features of facial expressions on the one hand, and of more general properties of the facial identity (age, ethnicity, gender) on the other. To remedy this problem, we developed FACSGen: a novel tool that allows the creation of realistic synthetic 3D facial stimuli, both static and dynamic, based on the Facial Action Coding System. FACSGen provides researchers with total control over facial action units, and corresponding informational cues in 3D synthetic faces. We present four studies validating both the software and the general methodology of systematically generating controlled facial expression patterns for stimulus presentation.     

Beyond Association: How Employees Want to Participate in Their Firms' Corporate Social Performance

Although many studies have found a positive relationship between corporate social performance and employer attractiveness, few have examined how different forms of responsibility might mediate that attraction, particularly when those social practices afford different degrees of employee participation. The current study undertook this line of inquiry by examining prospective employees’ attraction to three common approaches to corporate social performance (CSP) that offer increasing levels of participation: donation, volunteerism, and operational integration. Unexpectedly, findings from an empirical investigation challenged the study's main hypothesis; that is, prospective employees were least attracted to firms that integrated their social and financial goals. Consequently, important implications and questions remain for both employers and business educators.     

Sequential asymmetric auctions with endogenous participation

In this paper we suggest a model of sequential auctions with endogenous participation where each bidder conjectures about the number of participants at each round. Then, after learning his value, each bidder decides whether or not to participate in the auction. In the calculation of his expected value, each bidder uses his conjectures about the number of participants for each possible subgroup. In equilibrium, the conjectured probability is compatible with the probability of staying in the auction. In our model, players face participation costs, bidders may buy as many objects as they wish and they are allowed to drop out at any round. Bidders can drop out at any time, but they cannot come back to the auction. In particular we can determine the number of participants and expected prices in equilibrium. We show that for any bidding strategy, there exists such a probability of staying in the auction. For the case of stochastically independent objects, we show that in equilibrium every bidder who decides to continue submits a bid that is equal to his value at each round. When objects are stochastically identical, we are able to show that expected prices are decreasing.     

Theory‐Testing, Generalization, and the Problem of External Validity

External validity refers to the generalization of research findings, either from a sample to a larger population or to settings and populations other than those studied. While definitions vary, discussions generally agree that experiments are lower in external validity than other methodological approaches. Further, external validity is widely treated as an issue to be addressed through methodological procedures. When testing theories, all measures are indirect indicators of theoretical constructs, and no methodological procedures taken alone can produce external validity. External validity can be assessed through determining (1) the extent to which empirical measures accurately reflect theoretical constructs, (2) whether the research setting conforms to the scope of the theory under test, (3) our confidence that findings will repeat under identical conditions, (4) whether findings support the theory being tested, and (5) the confirmatory status of the theory under test. In these ways, external validity is foremost a theoretical issue and can only be addressed by an examination of the interplay between theory and methods.