Empirical Explanation Research Articles

Do you get tired of socializing? An empirical explanation of discontinuous usage behaviour in social network services

Based upon the stressor-strain-outcome framework, this study proposes that perceived system feature overload, information overload, and social overload are stressors which induce strain, in terms of social network fatigue and dissatisfaction. Both of social network fatigue and dissatisfaction further influence discontinuous use intention. The empirical results indicate that three types of perceived overload exert greater effects on social network fatigue than dissatisfaction, both of which further increase users’ intention of discontinuance. The study also finds that demographic characteristics, such as gender and age, also have moderating effects on these relationships.

Multi-Level Mediation in Strategic Human Resource Management: A Conceptual Framework

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and firm performance relationship, by conceptualizing an integrated framework to explain the mediating linkage through sequential analysis of individual, job, and unit level outcomes whilst exploring contextual factors influencing this relationship. This aim is achieved by critically reviewing different strands of literature. There is an on-going debate that empirical explanations of how HRM practices influence firm performance are inconclusive, abstract, and lacking theoretical justification. In response, literature highlights a dire need of developing comprehensive integrated frameworks to explain this relationship. Thus, a theoretically and empirically driven framework is proposed by employing employee work effort, job performance, and unit performance in sequence as the intervening/mediating linkage of the proposed HRM-firm performance relationship. Future researchers may find the proposed integrated framework as a template to articulate a holistic view of this relationship.

Interpersonal-psychological theory and parental bonding predict suicidal ideation among soldiers in Taiwan.

Suicide is an important issue among military personnel, who have higher suicide rates compared with the general population. The interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide (IPTS) might provide an empirical explanation of this phenomenon, and parental bonding influences social adjustment and suicide. To investigate the relevance of IPTS and parental bonding for suicide among Taiwanese soldiers, a case-control study was conducted. Using a suicide-reporting system in a teaching general hospital in Southern Taiwan, 226 at-risk maladjusted soldiers and 229 well-adjusted controls were enrolled. We collected basic information, and participants answered four IPTS-based questions. Suicide risk was assessed using the Brief Symptom Rating Scale item 6. A four-factor model of the Parental Bonding Instrument assessed parental bonding. All participants were interviewed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview for primary screening and to recheck the accuracy of the Brief Symptom Rating Scale item 6 score. A parsimonious model obtained by regression analysis of risk factors indicated that poor academic performance, conduct-related issues in childhood, and exposure to life-threatening situations are risk factors for suicide intention. Maladjusted suicidal soldiers showed a sense of thwarted belongingness (β = 0.145; P < 0.001), higher perceived burdensomeness (β = 0.311; P < 0.001), less fear of death (β = 0.124; P < 0.05), lower paternal autonomy (β = -0.122; P < 0.05), and higher maternal indifference (β = 0.162; P < 0.0001). Interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide, accompanied by an assessment of parental bonding, could be used for assessing suicide risk and preventing suicide attempts.

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience and Mindfulness-Based Approaches: Common Denominator Issues for Children with Emotional, Mental, or Behavioral Problems.

US children with emotional, mental, or behavioral conditions (EMB) have disproportionate exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). There are theoretic and empirical explanations for early and lifelong physical, mental, emotional, educational, and social impacts of the resultant trauma and chronic stress. Using mindfulness-based, mind-body approaches (MBMB) may strengthen families and promote child resilience and success. This paper examines associations between EMB, ACEs, and protective factors, such as child resilience, parental coping/stress, and parent-child engagement. Findings encourage family-centered and mindfulness-based approaches to address social and emotional trauma and potentially interrupt cycles of ACEs and prevalence of EMB.

Management of Leaf Rust Disease by Household Coffee Farmers in India: Evidence and Implications for Price and Income Effects on Chemical Control

Coffee leaf rust (CLR) is a major disease that affects the production of Arabica coffee. Its management for coffee plant protection is economically costly because it depends on purchase of market-priced inputs and output from coffee cultivation. This paper focuses on estimation of price and income determinants of management of CLR, as they are related to the application of chemical control or fungicides (Bordeaux mixture and systemic fungicides), by using a newly collected sample household survey data on 575 (comprising 90 % of small) Arabica coffee farmers in traditional coffee-growing regions of India and by applying binary logit models. Estimates show that the own-price elasticity of probability is negative and stronger than positive income effects by chemical control. Cross-price effect shows that the systemic fungicides are a substitute for Bordeaux mixture and probability of applying Bordeaux mixture is higher as compared to the systemic fungicides. Surprisingly, a decline in relative price of Bordeaux mixture shows complementarity between the fungicides. These results offer empirical explanation for economic relationships between fungicides in terms of complementarity and substitutability under different price situations and imply a need for public policy for promotion of recommended chemical control through selective subsidization for chemical inputs for small coffee farmers. These interdisciplinary results and implications are relevant for other Arabica coffee-growing Asian and African countries.

Why do companies pay dividends?: A comment

This study reviews one of the unresolved research puzzles in corporate finance; why do companies pay dividends? In this context, a qualitative study dealing with content analysis is carried out based on the theoretical and empirical research. After critically reviewing 407 research articles in dividend policy, 50 empirical studies were taken as the sample based on the relevancy to the research puzzle. The content analysis has provided some significant insights and stylized facts with regard to the corporate dividend policy. However the previous research studies were fundamentally flawed in their design based on quantitative approaches in order to elucidate a behavioural explanation. As a result, most of the study findings cannot be relied upon to see consistency with the theories in question. Despite years of theoretical and empirical evidences, the findings show that the dividend puzzle is still remaining as unresolved research phenomenon in corporate finance due to lack of unanimity among the researchers over the explanations. This study provides the reader an all-embracing understanding on the theories and empirical explanations over the dividend puzzle. It is imperative for the researchers to focus on all empirical and theoretical explanations in a single study and test them simultaneously in a triangular approach in order to have a single consensus over this puzzle. Thus, developing a new paradigm or models to deal with the dividend puzzle is suggested, until then the deduction of various theories in different studies are inconclusive and inconsistent

Suffrage, Labour Markets and Coalitions in Colonial Virginia

We study Virginia's suffrage from the early 17th century until the American Revolution using an analytical narrative and econometric analysis of unique data on franchise restrictions. First, we hold that suffrage changes reflected labour market dynamics. Indeed, Virginia’s liberal institutions initially served to attract indentured servants from England needed in the labour-intensive tobacco farming but deteriorated once worker demand subsided and planters replaced white workers with slaves. Second, we argue that Virginia's suffrage was also the result of political bargaining influenced by shifting societal coalitions. We show that new politically influential coalitions of freemen and then of small and large slave-holding farmers emerged in the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries, respectively. These coalitions were instrumental in reversing the earlier democratic institutions. Our main contribution stems from integrating the labour markets and bargaining/coalitions arguments, thus proving a novel theoretical and empirical explanation for institutional change.

Why Do Companies Pay Dividends?: A Comment

This study reviews one of the unresolved research puzzles in corporate finance; why do companies pay dividends? In this context, a qualitative study dealing with content analysis is carried out based on theoretical and empirical researches. After critically reviewing 407 research articles in dividend policy, 50 empirical studies were taken as the sample based on relevance to the research puzzle. The content analysis provides some significant insights and stylized facts with regard to the corporate dividend policy. However, the research conducted is fundamentally flawed in its design which is based on quantitative approaches in order to elucidate a behavioural explanation. As a result, most of the study findings cannot be relied upon to see consistency with the theories in question.Despite years of theoretical and empirical evidences, the findings show that the dividend puzzle still remains as an unresolved research phenomenon in corporate finance due to lack of unanimity among the researchers over the explanations. This study provides the reader with an all-embracing understanding of the theories and empirical explanations of the dividend puzzle. It is imperative for the researchers to focus on all empirical and theoretical explanations in a single study and test them simultaneously using a triangular approach in order to have a single consensus over this puzzle. Thus, developing a new paradigm or models to deal with the dividend puzzle is suggested and until then, the deduction of various theories in different studies is inconclusive and inconsistent.

Normative Characterization in Empirical Explanation

Normative characterization is a commonplace feature of biological and cognitive explanation. Such language seems to commit the biological and cognitive sciences to the existence of natural norms, but it is also difficult to understand how such normativity fits into a natural world of physical causes and forces. Existing models for how such language can have a legitimate causal-explanatory role in the sciences are, I think, unsatisfactory. I suggest an alternative model in which normativity is mapped onto systems stabilized by counteractive constraints. Such a mapping, I propose, explains normativity’s causal-explanatory role in biological and cognitive inquiry.

Ultimate Paradigm or Sand Castle?

Social Evolution of International Politics: From 8000 BC to the Future. By Shiping Tang. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 304 pp., $99.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-199-65833-6). In Social Evolution of International Politics , Shiping Tang elaborates a social evolution paradigm (SEP) that attempts to cast new light on some fundamental issues in the study of international relations (IR). Tang begins his book with a puzzle: Why do different IR theories investigate “the same human history” but reach different, or even contradictory, conclusions? In his view, the main problem is that all existing IR grand theories are non-evolutionary theories, while the international system is always under a process of evolution, and therefore can only be explained by an evolutionary theory. Chapter 1 lays out the main points of Tang's SEP. He suggests that, like biological evolution, the core explanatory mechanisms of social change are also variation, selection, and inheritance. The SEP, he claims, is “the ultimate paradigm in social sciences” (p. 40). Tang then applies the SEP to the empirical explanation of international system transformation. Chapter 2 discusses the formation of the offensive realist world. According to Tang, relative population pressure is the critical trigger of war. Once the first war breaks out, due to selective pressure, only offensive realist states can survive. However, as states pursue conquest in the offensive realist system, the number of states decreases while the average size of states increases, …

Child Under-weight and Agricultural Productivity in India

A recent global hunger index indicated a 12 percent decline in child underweight rates. This study attempts an empirical explanation of the factors that influence child underweight rates at the district level. Agricultural land productivity, share of women educated above the secondary level and participating in work, maternal, and child health seem to contribute to the reduction in child underweight. However government health and water supply facilities turn out to be ineffective.

Gender Inequality And Its Impact On Economy – A Case Study Muslim Countries

There is an immense need for muslim countries to recognize the importance of women especially in education and their well-being in order to establish a prosperous society from economic perspective. A cross-section data of 1forty-nine muslim countries was analyzed along with theoretical and empirical explanation of few outlier muslim countries who were economically robust but paradoxically showed low gender-equality profile. The results in few cases showed very different results than expected however those cases in general belonged to oil-rich countries, where their strong economy stands only on the export of oil and its derivatives. The extreme case of Qatar, which has a big per-capita income however its gender inequality profile was comparable to Pakistan, whose per-capita income was only three percent as that of Qatar. Moreover, Saudi Arab’s per capita income is ten times more as that of Pakistan but its gender equality profile much less than Pakistan’s. Apart from these few cases, the variable explaining the robustness of an economy, roughly regressed negatively with the gender inequality profile, showing that observing gender equality will have positive effects on the economy of muslim countries.

The Effect of Trochlear Dysplasia on Patellofemoral Biomechanics

Background: Trochlear dysplasia appears in different geometrical variations. The Dejour classification is widely used to grade the severity of trochlear dysplasia and to decide on treatment. Purpose: To investigate the effect of trochlear dysplasia on patellofemoral biomechanics and to determine if different types of trochlear dysplasia have different effects on patellofemoral biomechanics. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: Trochlear dysplasia was simulated in 4 cadaveric knees by replacing the native cadaveric trochlea with different types of custom-made trochlear implants, manufactured with 3-dimensional printing. For each knee, 5 trochlear implants were designed: 1 implant simulated the native trochlea (control condition), and 4 implants simulated 4 types of trochlear dysplasia. The knees were subjected to 3 biomechanical tests: a squat simulation, an open chain extension simulation, and a patellar stability test. The patellofemoral kinematics, contact area, contact pressure, and stability were compared between the control condition (replica implants) and the trochlear dysplastic condition and among the subgroups of trochlear dysplasia. Results: The patellofemoral joint in the trochlear dysplastic group showed increased internal rotation, lateral tilt, and lateral translation; increased contact pressures; decreased contact areas; and decreased stability when compared with the control group. Within the trochlear dysplastic group, the implants graded as Dejour type D showed the largest deviations for the kinematical parameters, and the implants graded as Dejour types B and D showed the largest deviations for the patellofemoral contact areas and pressures. Conclusion: Patellofemoral kinematics, contact area, contact pressure, and stability are significantly affected by trochlear dysplasia. Of all types of trochlear dysplasia, the models characterized with a pronounced trochlear bump showed the largest deviations in patellofemoral biomechanics. Clinical Relevance: Investigating the relationship between the shape of the trochlea and patellofemoral biomechanics can provide insight into the short-term effects (maltracking, increased pressures, and instability) and long-term effects (osteoarthritis) of different types of trochlear dysplasia. Furthermore, this investigation provides an empirical explanation for better treatment outcomes of trochleoplasty for Dejour types B and D dysplasia.

Consumption metrics of chardonnay wine consumers in Australia

There is a dearth of information in the knowledge base about who the chardonnay consumer is, what their wine-consumption metrics are, what sensory characteristics they associate chardonnay with, and who influenced their perceptions. This study examines the consumer engagement with chardonnay, and contributes evidence-based research to inform future wine-business strategy. A population sample was recruited to be representative of Australian consumers. An online survey of 2,024 Australian wine consumers was conducted, 1,533 (76%) of whom actually consumed chardonnay. This paper focuses only on those who consumed chardonnay. Males purchased and consumed larger quantities of chardonnay, although marginally more females consumed it. Chardonnay is considered to be characterized by full, lingering, and fruity flavors, as well as yellow color. Chardonnay is associated with dinner parties and at-home consumption. The vast majority of participants liked and had a positive perception of chardonnay. The target market for chardonnay is not only females; in fact, males appear to be the main consumers of this varietal by volume. Marketing and promotion campaigns should leverage the findings to retain current and win back other consumers. This is the first research to provide empirical explanations of consumer engagement with chardonnay, and to contribute evidence-based research in this regard.

The Portfolio Theory of Exchange Rates—Then and Now

AbstractIn the early 1970s, the portfolio theory of exchange rates with rational expectations was introduced to explain the behavior of floating exchange rates. While attractive in principle, the approach failed along with other theories to provide empirically convincing results. Over the years, the theory has been extended to a general equilibrium setting and modified to include central bank intervention and non‐rational expectations. More recently, it has become a platform for the micro‐structural approach emphasizing order flows, which shows increasing promise as an empirical explanation of exchange rate behavior.

The relationship between self-determination and academic achievement for adolescents with intellectual disabilities.

Previous research has demonstrated that for students with intellectual disabilities, improved self-determination skills are positively correlated with productivity and organization during school and quality of life outcomes in adulthood. Despite extensive investigation in these areas, the predictive relationship between self-determination and academic achievement for students with intellectual disabilities has not been fully established. This study utilized the sample from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 of 480 adolescents with intellectual disabilities in the United States in an attempt to provide a possible empirical explanation of the relationship between academic achievement and self-determination, taking into account the covariates of gender, family income and urbanicity. The structural equation model was found to closely fit the data: all path coefficients were statistically significant. The results of this study identify a strong correlation between self-determination and academic achievement for adolescents with intellectual disabilities, indicating a linear relationship of these skills and supporting an increased focus on the teaching of self-determination skills.

Foreign Capital Inflow and Real Exchange Rate Appreciation in Developing Economies: Theory and Empirical Evidence

Foreign direct investment specially targeted to export sector is relatively new phenomenon in the global economy. Such inflow of foreign capital changes the sectoral composition of the economy, and it has some influence on the exchange rate of the destination country. In this study, we attempt to provide underlying theoretical and empirical explanations for exchange rate appreciation due to foreign capital inflow. We first use an extended three-sector specific factor model to explain analytically why and how an inflow of foreign capital boosts the price of a nontradable good that helps tilting the exchange rate in favor of the host country and then conduct an empirical analysis based on a panel dataset of 12 prominent developing countries over the time period 1980–2011 to substantiate our theoretical findings. We also strive to look at the possible consequences on factor prices and on sectoral de-composition of a representative economy.

Coalition loyalty-programme adoption and urban commercial-network effectiveness evaluation

Purpose – To counter the proliferation of out-of-town shopping centres, a spontaneous or planned coalition loyalty programme (CLP), one involving most retailers in an urban network, may positively affect a town centre's capacity to entice customers and may enhance its competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of CLP implementation in town-centre management (TCM) as a tool for enhancing urban commercial-system attractiveness. Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical framework used in this study is supported by the evaluation methodologies of an empirical case study: the Savigliano Card project. CLP performance analysis uses a dynamic network-competitiveness index, an approach based on Laspeyres-type decomposition. The effects on each retailer's profitability are then tested by matching network and regression analyses. Findings – The results suggest that CLPs implementation in a TCM scheme can produce benefits and positive externalities for customers, retailers and urban areas. CLPs can influence a town centre's revitalisation process, improve the attractiveness of the urban commercial network and increase the profitability of private retailers by enhancing cross-selling dynamics. Practical implications – The paper provides a CLP performance-evaluation methodology and presents the benefits concerning CLP implementation in TCM strategies. Originality/value – This type of CLP is weakly exploited in marketing theory and practice; therefore, the paper provides theoretical and empirical explanations for the measurement of CLP effectiveness in TCM. In addition, it has significant implications for both practitioners and academics.

The construction of workers’ rights consciousness through legal intermediations

Through their different encounters with union, court and government equality agency lawyers, workers report diverse understandings of their personal experience of injustice in the workplace. This article examines workers’ experiences of discrimination and the role legal professionals play in litigating these issues in Belgium. Bringing together legal and rights consciousness studies and the sociology of intermediation and tracking different stages in the construction of discrimination cases, from the moment when a future litigant describes an event as an injustice to the moment when the judge recognizes a discriminatory behaviour (or conversely, dismisses a case), we suggest several possible empirical explanations of the way in which interactions with legal intermediaries affect workers’ rights consciousness. Because we refer to sociolegal studies from common law countries, this article also calls into question how best to import these studies to assist in analysing legal mobilisations and legal consciousness in continental Europe.

Some basic results in the mathematical analysis of dislocation storage and annihilation in stage II and stage III strain hardening

Eighty years since G.I. Taylor presented the first empirical explanation for the yield stress and strain hardening of metals, generally accepted formalisms to explain strain hardening have been established. The most important of these empirical laws have eluded full mathematical analysis until now. The Taylor equation provides a relationship between yield stress and strain. The semi-empirical Kocks–Mecking model provides a description of the physical phenomena of dislocation storage and annihilation, but lacks information on the formation of substructure and its effects. Here, a recently developed mathematical analysis of the corresponding phenomena is presented, which reproduces the essential equations in strain hardening. The first important result is the proof that the Taylor equation is the unique solution of a fundamental evolution equation for dislocation density. The second one demonstrates that dislocation storage and annihilation are exactly additive. The latter conclusion is independent of substructure, explaining the success of the Kocks–Mecking model during stages II and III.