Asper School of Business Scholarly Works
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- ItemOpen AccessRationality versus reality: the challenges of evidence-based decision making for health policy makers(2010-05-26) McCaughey, Deirdre; Bruning, Nealia SAbstract Background Current healthcare systems have extended the evidence-based medicine (EBM) approach to health policy and delivery decisions, such as access-to-care, healthcare funding and health program continuance, through attempts to integrate valid and reliable evidence into the decision making process. These policy decisions have major impacts on society and have high personal and financial costs associated with those decisions. Decision models such as these function under a shared assumption of rational choice and utility maximization in the decision-making process. Discussion We contend that health policy decision makers are generally unable to attain the basic goals of evidence-based decision making (EBDM) and evidence-based policy making (EBPM) because humans make decisions with their naturally limited, faulty, and biased decision-making processes. A cognitive information processing framework is presented to support this argument, and subtle cognitive processing mechanisms are introduced to support the focal thesis: health policy makers' decisions are influenced by the subjective manner in which they individually process decision-relevant information rather than on the objective merits of the evidence alone. As such, subsequent health policy decisions do not necessarily achieve the goals of evidence-based policy making, such as maximizing health outcomes for society based on valid and reliable research evidence. Summary In this era of increasing adoption of evidence-based healthcare models, the rational choice, utility maximizing assumptions in EBDM and EBPM, must be critically evaluated to ensure effective and high-quality health policy decisions. The cognitive information processing framework presented here will aid health policy decision makers by identifying how their decisions might be subtly influenced by non-rational factors. In this paper, we identify some of the biases and potential intervention points and provide some initial suggestions about how the EBDM/EBPM process can be improved.
- ItemOpen AccessCorrelates of physician burnout across regions and specialties: a meta-analysis(2013-09-28) Lee, Raymond T; Seo, Bosu; Hladkyj, Steven; Lovell, Brenda L; Schwartzmann, LauraAbstract Background Health care organizations globally realize the need to address physician burnout due to its close linkages with quality of care, retention and migration. The many functions of health human resources include identifying and managing burnout risk factors for health professionals, while also promoting effective coping. Our study of physician burnout aims to show: (1) which correlates are most strongly associated with emotional exhaustion (EE) and depersonalization (DP), and (2) whether the associations vary across regions and specialties. Methods Meta-analysis allowed us to examine a diverse range of correlates. Our search yielded 65 samples of physicians from various regions and specialties. Results EE was negatively associated with autonomy, positive work attitudes, and quality and safety culture. It was positively associated with workload, constraining organizational structure, incivility/conflicts/violence, low quality and safety standards, negative work attitudes, work-life conflict, and contributors to poor mental health. We found a similar but weaker pattern of associations for DP.Physicians in the Americas experienced lower EE levels than physicians in Europe when quality and safety culture and career development opportunities were both strong, and when they used problem-focused coping. The former experienced higher EE levels when work-life conflict was strong and they used ineffective coping. Physicians in Europe experienced lower EE levels than physicians in the Americas with positive work attitudes. We found a similar but weaker pattern of associations for DP.Outpatient specialties experienced higher EE levels than inpatient specialties when organization structures were constraining and contributors to poor mental health were present. The former experienced lower EE levels when autonomy was present. Inpatient specialties experienced lower EE levels than outpatient specialties with positive work attitudes. As above, we found a similar but weaker pattern of associations for DP. Conclusions Although we could not infer causality, our findings suggest: (1) that EE represents the core burnout dimension; (2) that certain individual and organizational-level correlates are associated with reduced physician burnout; (3) the benefits of directing resources where they are most needed to physicians of different regions and specialties; and (4) a call for research to link physician burnout with performance.
- ItemOpen AccessThe primary importance of corporate social responsibility and ethicality in corporation reputation: an empirical study(Business and Society Review, 2014-03-03) Walker, Kent; Dyck, BrunoWe examine three assumptions commonly held in the corporate reputation literature: i) reputation ratings of owners and investors are generally representative of all stakeholders; ii) stakeholders will generally provide a higher reputation rating to firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility versus firms that do not; and iii) profitability is the primary criterion of importance to all stakeholders when rating a firm’s reputation. Using an exploratory in-class exercise our findings suggest that: i) there are significant differences among stakeholder groups in their reputation ratings; ii) firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility are not rated more highly across all stakeholder groups, and iii) for all stakeholder groups, the ethicality criterion explained more of the variance in firms’ reputation ratings than the profitability criterion.
- ItemOpen AccessMellin’s Transform and Application to Some Time Series Models(2014-2-18) Appadoo, S. S.; Thavaneswaran, A.; Mandal, S.This paper uses the Mellin transform to establish the means, variances, skewness, and kurtosis of fuzzy numbers and applied them to the random coefficient autoregressive (RCA) time series models. We also give a close form expression to the moment generating function related to fuzzy numbers. It is shown that the results of the proposed time series models are consistent with those of the conventional time series models and that the developed concepts are straightforward and easily implemented.
- ItemOpen AccessMehar Methods for Fuzzy Optimal Solution and Sensitivity Analysis of Fuzzy Linear Programming with Symmetric Trapezoidal Fuzzy Numbers(2014-4-22) Sidhu, Sukhpreet Kaur; Kumar, Amit; Appadoo, S. S.The drawbacks of the existing methods to obtain the fuzzy optimal solution of such linear programming problems, in which coefficients of the constraints are represented by real numbers and all the other parameters as well as variables are represented by symmetric trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, are pointed out, and to resolve these drawbacks, a new method (named as Mehar method) is proposed for the same linear programming problems. Also, with the help of proposed Mehar method, a new method, much easy as compared to the existing methods, is proposed to deal with the sensitivity analysis of the same type of linear programming problems.
- ItemOpen AccessPossibilistic Fuzzy Net Present Value Model and Application(2014-8-4) Appadoo, S. S.The cash flow values and the interest rate in the net present value (NPV) model are usually specified by either crisp numbers or random variables. In this paper, we first discuss some of the recent developments in possibility theory and find closed form expressions for fuzzy possibilistic net present value (FNPV). Then, following Carlsson and Fullér (2001), we discuss some of the possibilistic moments related to FNPV model along with an illustrative numerical example. We also give a unified approach to find higher order moments of FNPV by using the moment generating function introduced by Paseka et al. (2011).
- ItemOpen AccessGenius or folly? It depends on whether performance ratings survive the “psychological immune system”(2016) Neville, Lukas; Roulin, NicolasAt the heart of the debate between Colquitt’s and Adler’s (Adler et al., 2016) camps is a disagreement about the degree to which employees can be expected to respond favorably to challenging, negative, or critical feedback. Colquitt and colleagues argue that we often try and avoid blame, select jobs that don’t rate us against others, and respond unhappily to accurate appraisals. Adler and his collaborators, by contrast, are more optimistic. They point to how feedback drives us to seek new strategies, change our behavior, and improve our skills. This same question can be found in the literature in social psychology: How do we reconcile the fact that people strive for both enhancement and accuracy in others’ appraisals? We want others to see us correctly—warts and all—but we also want others’ admiration and respect. We seem to have the competing impulses to improve ourselves and to defend our self-worth against threats (Sedikides & Strube, 1995). In our comment, we describe how these competing motives can be understood as part of a “psychological immune system” that protects our self worth against threats. We consider how this immune system often undermines the efficacy of well-intended performance rating systems. Finally, we conclude by highlighting the potential of strengths-based appraisal systems as a way of reinventing performance appraisal.
- ItemOpen AccessETHNIC MINORITY CONSUMERS REACTIONS TO ADVERTISEMENTS FEATURING MEMBERS OF OTHER MINORITY GROUPS(International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2017-07-06) EL HAZZOURI, MOHAMMED; MAIN, KELLEY J.; CARVALHO, SERGIO W.This research investigates how members of ethnic minority groups react to advertisements featuring members of other ethnic minority groups. The results of five experiments show that ethnic minority consumers feel more ostracized by advertisements featuring other ethnic minority groups, which consequently leads to a less favorable attitude toward these advertisements. These effects are moderated by the consumer’s level of ethnic identification and social dominance orientation (SDO). Inducing compassion improves the attitude of non-featured minorities towards the advertisement.
- ItemOpen AccessWitnessing wrongdoing: The effects of observer power on incivility intervention in the workplace(Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2017-09) Hershcovis, M. Sandy; Neville, Lukas; Reich, Tara; Christie, Amy; Cortina, Lilia; Shan, J. ValerieResearch often paints a dark portrait of power. Previous work underscores the links between power and self-interested, antisocial behavior. In this paper, we identify a potential bright side to power—namely, that the powerful are more likely to intervene when they witness workplace incivility. In experimental (Studies 1 and 3) and field (Study 2) settings, we find evidence suggesting that power can shape how, why, and when the powerful respond to observed incivility against others. We begin by drawing on research linking power and action orientation. In Study 1, we demonstrate that the powerful respond with agency to witnessed incivility. They are more likely to directly confront perpetrators, and less likely to avoid the perpetrator and offer social support to targets. We explain the motivation that leads the powerful to act by integrating theory on responsibility construals of power and hierarchy maintenance. Study 2 shows that felt responsibility mediates the effect of power on increased confrontation and decreased avoidance. Study 3 demonstrates that incivility leads the powerful to perceive a status challenge, which then triggers feelings of responsibility. In Studies 2 and 3, we also reveal an interesting nuance to the effect of power on supporting the target. While the powerful support targets less as a direct effect, we reveal countervailing indirect effects: To the extent that incivility is seen as a status challenge and triggers felt responsibility, power indirectly increases support toward the target. Together, these results enrich the literature on third-party intervention and incivility, showing how power may free bystanders to intervene in response to observed incivility.
- ItemOpen AccessValue investing or investing in illiquidity? The profitability of contrarian investment strategies, revisited(2017-12-09) Gottesman, Aron A; Jacoby, Gady; Li, HuijingAbstract Background We investigate whether the success of contrarian investment strategies can be attributed to differences in the relative illiquidity of stocks categorized as value investments versus those categorized as glamour portfolios. Methods Following Lakonishok et al. (J Financ 49:1541–1578, 1994), we assess the illiquidity characteristics of portfolios that underlie contrarian investment strategies that are based on the level of stock’s book to market. Results We find strong evidence that those portfolios characterized as value investments are associated with dramatically greater levels of illiquidity than glamour portfolios. We further demonstrate that strategies based on the illiquidity in the year prior to portfolio formation result in return characteristic of ostensibly contrarian strategies. Conclusions These results suggest that the higher returns associated with contrarian investment strategies are the result of the higher illiquidity associated with value portfolios and represent compensation that the investor receives for accepting illiquidity. They also suggest that researchers should be cautious before attributing apparent anomalies to behavior-driven expectational errors rather than to other attributes unrelated to behavior, such as illiquidity.
- ItemOpen AccessShort sea shipping: a statistical analysis of influencing factors on SSS in European countries(2018-05-14) van den Bos, Gertjan; Wiegmans, BartAbstract Short sea shipping (SSS) is the maritime transport of goods over relatively short distances, as opposed to the intercontinental cross-ocean deep sea shipping. The goal of the current paper is to identify SSS growth potential and the univariate regression analysis indicates that the following variables influence total SSS volume in European countries: land area, coastline, total number of SSS ports, number of small SSS ports, number of large SSS ports, number of inhabitants, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GDP per head, road length and rail length. An additional multivariate regression analysis indicates that more than 78% of the variance in the total SSS volume per country can be explained by variations in the number of large SSS ports and the GDP per head. Finally, future prospects for SSS indicate that most countries show (theoretical) potential to further increase their SSS volume calling for tailor-made policies to utilize this potential.
- ItemRestrictedThe Effect of Control Priming on Irresponsible Financial Behavior(Springer Link, 2018-06) EL HAZZOURI, MOHAMMED; MAIN, KELLEYDebt has reached staggering levels among North Americans. Unfortunately, there is deficiency of research that investigates effective means of helping consumers control their debt. We examine how control priming changes consumers' irresponsible financial behavior. We show that control priming reduces credit card spending and intentions to take credit card risk. We also show that consumers who score high on self-esteem are more likely to benefit from control priming while those who score low on self-esteem show a backlash effect.
- ItemOpen AccessSensitivity to Ulterior Motives in Retail Settings: The Moderating Role of Dual-Identity versus Sole-Identity Consumers(Journal of Retailing, 2019) Main, Kelley J.; Guo, Wenxia; White, KatherineThe current research compares sole-identity versus dual-identity consumers in their responses to different retail persuasion attempts that occur in situations with low versus high ulterior motives. We examine different consumer responses (e.g., interaction time, perceived friendliness, future interaction intentions, and actual purchase behavior). We find that dual-identity consumers (those individuals with sales experience who have both a consumer and agent identity available) tend to automatically activate their agent identity which makes them more likely to take the perspective of the sales agent as compared to sole-identity consumers (individuals without sales experience who only have a consumer identity available). Dual-identity consumers show greater sensitivity to ulterior motives as exhibited by more accurate responses when persuasion cues suggest that ulterior motives are low, but not high. In contrast, sole-identity consumers are insensitive to differing levels of ulterior motives. The current research further demonstrates that perspective-taking can mitigate sole-identity consumers' defensive reactions which can increase their responses to sales agents' persuasion attempts with low ulterior motives.
- ItemOpen AccessConsumer Microflow Experiences(Psychology and Marketing, 2019-11) Lavoie, Raymond; Main, Kelley J.This research explores relatively short, low intensity flow states, called microflow, and demonstrates that they differ from their longer, more complex deepflow variants with regards to antecedents. As an advancement to flow theory, we demonstrate that the ideal condition to elicit microflow is when skills are slightly higher than the difficulty of the task. Importantly, despite being relatively shorter, microflow experiences still have a strong positive influence on consumer attitudes. Our research also advances theory by demonstrating that the two dimensions of microflow have different relationships with the level of difficulty and consumer attitudes. We discuss both theoretical and practical implications.
- ItemOpen AccessThe tyranny of the head office? Revisiting corporate headquarters’ (CHQs) role in MNE subsidiary initiatives(2020-01-28) Verbeke, Alain; Yuan, WenlongAbstract What roles should corporate headquarters (CHQs) of multinational enterprises (MNEs) play in foreign subsidiary initiatives? Rather than viewing the MNE’s CHQ as a single, internally homogenous unit, we call for examining the diversity of individual decision-makers who can be driven by a variety of motivations and have different abilities. Motivations and abilities together determine whether or not corporate executives will choose to intervene in subsidiary initiatives and the effectiveness of such intervention. If dysfunctional, the “tyranny of the head office” materializes. We apply the Coleman-boat concept to show how contextual analyses at the MNE level and the proposed analyses of individual decision-makers need to be combined when exploring the underlying micro-foundational mechanisms of decisions.
- ItemOpen AccessNexus between foreign direct investment and economic growth in Bangladesh: an augmented autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach(2020-02-06) Sarker, Bibhuti; Khan, FaridAbstract The relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and economic growth in host countries is a heavily debated issue. Although some studies have found evidence of the positive impact of FDI on economic growth, others have revealed the opposite result. Studies that examined the causality between FDI and gross domestic product (GDP) also have found evidence of unidirectional causality and, in some cases, a bidirectional causality. This study investigated the causal nexus between FDI and GDP in Bangladesh by employing standard time-series econometric tools, namely, augmented Dickey-Fuller, augmented Dickey-Fuller generalized least square, Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin, and Lee-Strazicich unit root tests to check stationarity, augmented autoregressive distributed lag (augmented ARDL) bounds testing approach to check cointegration, and Granger causality to explore the direction of causality. The augmented ARDL model found a long-run relationship between FDI and GDP. In addition, the error correction model and Granger causality results indicated the presence of a unidirectional causality running from GDP to FDI.
- ItemOpen AccessPreferences of physicians for public and private sector work(2020-08-10) Scott, Anthony; Holte, Jon H; Witt, JuliaAbstract Background The public-private mix of healthcare remains controversial. This paper examines physicians’ preferences for public sector work in the context of dual practice, whilst accounting for other differences in the characteristics of jobs. Methods A discrete choice experiment is conducted with data from 3422 non-GP specialists from the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) panel survey of physicians. Results Physicians prefer to work in the public sector, though the value of working in the public sector is very small at 0.14% of their annual earnings to work an additional hour per week. These preferences are heterogeneous. Contrary to other studies that show risk averse individuals prefer public sector work, for physicians, we find that those averse to taking career or clinical risks prefer to work in the private sector. Those with relatively low earnings prefer public sector work and those with high earnings prefer private sector work, though these effects are small. Conclusions Other job characteristics are more important than the sector of work, suggesting that these should be the focus of policy to influence specialist’s allocation of time between sectors.