Information systems and managerial decision making

The role of an information system is to support managerial decision processes. Some of these processes can be completely specified in advance and, as long as the specification remains acceptable to management, resolution can be done automatically, within the framework of the information system. However, in other cases, managers are involved in all stages of the decision process, which cannot be completely specified in advance. The task of the information system in these cases is to provide information to the managers engaged in making the decisions. This paper considers these problems from the point of view of the information system designer and makes recommendations about design and implementation.     

Stress Hormone Changes and Marital Conflict: Spouses’ Relative Power Makes a Difference

We investigated the impact of relative marital power on 72 newlywed couples’ endocrinological responses to marital conflict. Marital power was determined by comparing spouses’ reports of dependent love for one another. Less powerful spouses displayed elevated adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) responses to a conflict discussion. Shared power appeared to have a beneficial effect on wives’ but not husbands’ ACTH responses. Spouses’ cortisol levels declined over time, except for wives who were less powerful and for husbands who shared power with their wives. Conflict behaviors did not differ as a function of this marital power index. These data suggest that relative levels of general emotional power in relationships may play an important role in spouses’ physiological responses to marital conflict.     

Anger in black and white: race, alienation, and anger

Using data from the 1996 General Social Survey and the 1973 Chicago Crowding Study, we test the hypotheses that African Americans feel and express more anger than whites, that sense of control (versus powerlessness) lessens anger and mistrust increases anger, and that these indicators of alienation affect anger differently for African Americans and whites. We find that when age and gender are controlled, African Americans neither feel nor express more anger than whites, despite having a lower average sense of control and higher mistrust. This is partly because the effects of sense of control and mistrust on anger differ by race. Sense of control reduces feelings of anger and anger expression more for African Americans than whites. Mistrust increases feelings of anger for whites, but not African Americans. The results provide further evidence that, in the stress process, social structural location may moderate the effects of "detriments" and "resources" on emotional upset.     

CAN A HIGH SENSE OF CONTROL AND JOHN HENRYISM BE BAD FOR MENTAL HEALTH?

Social stratification profoundly affects mental health. Specifically, substantial empirical evidence finds that higher status promotes mental health via a higher sense of control and a propensity to cope actively with problems. An unresolved issue, though, is whether the effects of sense of control and active coping on mental health are uniformly beneficial across levels of socioeconomic status. Perceived control and John Henryism, an active coping style, may undermine mental health, especially for lower-status persons, who lack resources. Using data from the National Comorbidity Survey for African Americans, Hispanics, and whites, we find that both sense of control and John Henryism tend to be monotonically related to positive mental health regardless of socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity.     

Some initial specifications for a strategic information system

Much of the discussion and published literature on information systems to date has been about systems concerned with the internal administration and operations of an organization. Considerably less attention has been given to the information requirements of the more strategic managerial activities of planning and policy making, in which the future directions and objectives of the organization are decided. Internal information systems in many organizations have now grown to maturity. At the same time, managers have become aware of the need for an additional component of the overall information system to support their more strategic activities. This paper considers the broad characteristics of a strategic component of an organizational information system and derives some initial specifications from which a more comprehensive design can be developed.     

Satisfaction With Work and Family Life: No Evidence of a Cultural Reversal

Hochschild (1997) argued that in recent decades the rewards of work have increased relative to those of family life and that this cultural reversal has aggravated the time bind that families face by increasing working hours. To the contrary, pooled data from the 1973–1994 General Social Surveys indicate that in working families, women have shifted away from finding work more satisfying than home toward finding home a haven. Moreover, were it not for women's growing labor force participation and the changing distribution of marital status, the shift would have been even larger. Men's relative work–home satisfaction has been stable. Finally, finding work a haven is unrelated to weekly working hours, and it has not contributed to any increases in working hours over time.     

Mate Availability,Family Formation,and Family Structure Among Black Americans in Nonmetropolitan Louisiana 1970–19801

Abstract This paper assesses the effects of the community sex ratio on black family formation and family structure in nonmetropolitan parishes in Louisiana. As predicted, the sex ratio is found to have strong positive effects on marriage prevalence for black women, the prevalence of husband and wife families for black families, and the percentage of black children residing in husband and wife families and strong negative effects on the nonmarital fertility ratio for black women. Thus, we conclude that the sex ratio hypothesis should be given greater prominence in discussions of changes in black family structure and that sex ratio effects should be taken into account when framing policies aimed at ameliorating social problems attendant to high relative incidence of nonmarital births and single-parent, female-headed families with young children (e.g., poverty). We also note that, while the literature overwhelmingly concentrates on black family structure in urban areas, changes in the black family are equally pronounced in nonmetropolitan areas suggesting that explanations emphasizing the dynamics of urban ghettos may be too narrow.     

Parental involvement in reading: the influence of socio-economic status and supportive home visiting

SUMMARY: This paper describes the deployment of the technique for non-professional tutoring of reading known as ‘paired reading’ on a large scale in the Kirklees Local Education Authority. From the very large amount of data generated in multi-site field trials, particular attention is focused on the relationship between supportive home visiting (if any), an index of the socioeconomic disadvantage of the catchment area of each participating school, and outcomes in term of gains on norm-referenced tests of reading. Some surprising conclusions emerge.     

An LP model for assessing congeneration strategies

A linear programming model is described which is designed to assist in the assessment of optimum operational strategies for industrial plants with cogeneration facilities. A concise format is provided for linking together basic elements such as boilers, valves, turbines and processes with steam and electricity demands with steam, fuel and electricity balance equations. The model should prove particularly useful for assessment when electricity tariffs have time-of-use energy or demand charges or when tariffs have conditions which require consideration of strategies over an extended period. The model has been applied to a paper mill which utilises pass-out turbines for cogeneration of electricity and process steam. Results indicate that savings in fuel costs of the order of 400,000 dollars per year could be obtained by implementing optimal strategies for operating the present turbines. Savings of the order of one million dollars per year could be obtained by converting the turbines to give high pressure pass-out steam and then operating optimally.