Deterrence in the workplace: perceived certainty, perceived severity, and employee theft

The phenomenon of employee theft is examined empirically, utilizing a deterrence paradigm. Employees selected randomly from three different industry sectors and metropolitan areas were asked to self-report their involvement in a number of property theft activities within the employment setting. Using a weighted least-squares logit regression analysis, the study found that the perception of both the certainty and severity of organizational sanctions were related to employee theft. Males reported more theft than did females, but contrary to previous research, no gender/certainty or gender/severity interactions were observed. The best-fit model did, however, contain two significant first-order interactions: age/certainty and age/severity. These interactions strongly suggest that younger employees are not as deterrable as their older peers, especially under conditions of both high certainty and high severity of punishment. While a number of possible explanations might account for differential deterrability according to age, a commitment to or stakes in conformity explanation is proposed.     

The utilization of prevailing evaluation policy in the selection of performance measures

This study considers the problem of inferring a functional evaluation criterion from existing performance measure policies. The objective is to develop a rational basis by which to adaptively evaluate a current best set of performance measures from alternative sets. The analysis is based on a matrix approach for relating system characteristics to performance measures across a set of activities. A procedure for ranking measure combinations which are candidate implementation alternatives is devised using this matrix representation and cost information. An example illustrating the procedure is presented.     

Medical care, living conditions, and children's well-being

We examine the effect of medical care and living conditions on children's physical and psychological well-being. We develop a causal model in which living conditions (including the socioeconomic status of the family and the social-psychological aspects of family functioning) may affect well-being both directly, and indirectly through medical care. We find that families in the higher social classes and families that function well tend to go to large prepaid groups where they receive good medical care. High quality technical care of illness, in turn, improves physical health. The quality of psychotherapeutic care, on the other hand, has no effect on psychological well-being. For this aspect of health, the effect of living conditions is largely direct, rather than indirect by way of medical care. Families characterized by high levels of functioning have children who are psychologically healthy. In addition, physical health affects psychological well-being, but not vice versa.