Path-related empirical research on M&A-outcome: review and research agenda

This article attempts to reflect the current state and progress of contemporary research on financial and non-financial M&A outcome. Based on a review of 183 empirical M&A studies an integrative framework is developed, in which impact factors are classified into four major dimensions to explore the impact on M&A outcome: antecedents, transaction content characteristics, transaction process characteristics, and the transaction itself. The review reveals that M&A research is dominated by studies focusing on state variables at the expense of path-related variables. The review also shows that, to date, neither state-related research nor path-related research on financial and non-financial M&A outcome categories have reached maturity. Although there is still room for clarifying the impact of various state-related variables, the most valuable new insights are expected to emerge from researching path-related variables. Building on these insights, an extensive future research agenda is presented, which focuses on path-related research questions and methodological issues.     

Outcomes Assessment of Role-Play Scenarios for Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research

We describe the summative assessment of role-play scenarios that we previously developed to teach central topics in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) to graduate students in science and engineering. Interviews with role-play participants, with participants in a case discussion training session, and with untrained students suggested that role-playing might promote a deeper appreciation of RCR by shifting the focus away from wanting to simply “know the rules.” We also present the results of a think-aloud case analysis study and describe the development of a behaviorally-anchored rating scale (BARS) to assess participants' case analysis performance.     

Learning Clinical Practice by Simulation in Law and Social Work

This paper discusses the development and evaluation of a package that was designed to simulate the Family Court of Australia. The origins of the simulation derive from the problems associated with access to the Family Court as it is a closed court, and the need to examine the relationship between two professions that work in the Family Court. The point of the simulation was to examine the unexpected effects which may not be obvious from simple discussion of the subject. The simulation provided a situation where the less rational aspects of court work could manifest themselves. Law students found many new interpersonal problems when they were confronted with the idiosyncrasies of clients, and trainee counsellors found the intricacies of the law daunting.     

Personality preferences in laboratory economics experiments

Student volunteers at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) participated in one of the following one-shot games: a dictator game, an ultimatum game, a trust game, or a prisoner's dilemma game. We find limited support for the importance of personality type for explaining subjects’ decisions. With controls for personality preferences, we find little evidence of behavioral differences between males and females. Furthermore, we conclude that seniority breeds feelings of entitlement—seniors at USNA generally exhibited the least cooperative or other-regarding behavior.     

Practice and Research in Career Counseling and Development—2002

The authors present a review of the 2002 career development literature. The literature review is divided into the following areas: career theory, career assessment, career counseling interventions and practice, career counseling training and professional issues, and international issues in career counseling. The authors discuss the implications of the findings in this literature for career counseling practice.     

Strikes,Frames, And Touchdowns: The Institutional Struggle For Meaning In The 1987 National Football League Season

The introduction of “replacement” teams for the first time in the NFL provided an opportunity to investigate how controversial social definitions and the meaning of such frames emerge within a modern social world. Seven processes were identified: disrupting social worlds, experiencing social ambiguity, interpreting disruption institutionally, socially constructing laminations, disattending problematics of laminations, culturally adapting to anomaly, and negating collective protest. Conclusions are based on an emergent content analysis of extensive newspaper, sport and newsmagazine, and live television and radio accounts. The value of Goffman's framing ideas for symbolic interactionism is discussed.     

Using sibling data to understand the impact of family group decision-making on child welfare outcomes

Few studies have examined the impact of family group decision-making (FGDM) on child welfare outcomes. Studies in this area have often suffered from small sample sizes and lack of adequate comparison groups. Since FGDM is administered at the family level, sibling data provides an ideal way to compensate for small sample sizes and low enrollment rates in research evaluating FGDM. This study utilized sibling data from California's Title IV-E Waiver Demonstration Project Evaluation in Fresno and Riverside Counties to compare child welfare outcomes for children of families randomly assigned to receive FGDM (Fresno County, n = 110; Riverside County, n = 87) to children of families assigned to receive traditional child welfare services (Fresno County, n = 74; Riverside County, n = 52). After controlling for clustering effects using general estimating equations (GEE), group differences in child maltreatment, placement stability, and permanence were modeled using linear and logistic regression. Outcomes from both counties suggested no group differences. Though neutral outcomes on child welfare indicators may bring into question FGDM's efficacy for changing child welfare outcomes, this study confirms previous findings with smaller sample sizes on the impact of FGDM and demonstrates a methodological improvement over individual or family-case analyses.     

Brief Family Therapy: A Critique of Kinston and Bentovim

There has been a growing interest in the use of brief family therapy with children. Despite this increased interest, research into the effectiveness of this approach appears to have lagged behind clinical practice. The present paper critically reviews a study by Kinston and Bentovim (1978) which could be viewed as typical in the area of brief family therapy. Analysis of Kinston and Bentovim's investigation revealed serious methodological deficiencies and raised some important clinical issues in brief family therapy studies. These include the importance of training in family therapy, the use of a consistent theoretical framework, and flexibility in the application of techniques. On the basis of this review, recommendations are made that future investigations of brief family therapy follow the guidelines necessary for valid psychotherapy research.