Individual-level Performance Research Articles

Effect of diurnal changes on dichotic listening in younger adults with normal hearing

BackgroundDiurnal changes can be defined as the time of the day over an individual's performance level for different activities that involve physical and mental tasks. ObjectiveThe current study aimed to evaluate the effect of diurnal changes in scores obtained for the Dichotic Consonant-Vowel paradigm by young adults with normal hearing sensitivity. MethodBased on the ‘Morningness-Eveningness questionnaire’ given by Horne & Ostberg, the subjects were divided into moderately-morning, intermediate and moderately-evening categories. The Dichotic Consonant-Vowel tests were performed during morning and evening, and the right ear, left ear and double correct scores were compared between morning and evening for each category. ResultsThere was significant diurnal changes noted for moderately morning and evening categories, where morning-type individuals performed better during morning and evening-type individuals performed better during the evening. The scores of intermediate individuals remained unchanged between morning and evening test results. ConclusionDiurnal change is a phenomenon associated with an individual's biological clock mechanism. Hence, attention and inhibitory controls aid them in carrying out tasks that require sufficient physical and mental efforts. The current study suggests that clinicians and researchers consider diurnal changes as an extraneous variable that could affect the reliability of the Dichotic Consonant-Vowel test results.

Impact of Organizational Culture on Individual Work Performance with National Culture of Cross-Strait Enterprises as a Moderator

In this study, we investigated the effect of organizational culture on individual work performance, tested the moderation of national culture on the relationship between organizational culture on individual work performance, and analyzed the differences among organizational culture, national culture, and individual work performance of enterprises without the same attributes. This study employed a questionnaire survey with 966 valid questionnaires using purposive sampling. The findings indicated that, in terms of organizational culture, hierarchy had a significant positive effect on task performance, whereas clan and adhocracy cultures both had the same result on contextual performance. Clan culture had a significant negative effect on counterproductive work behaviors, but adhocracy culture had the opposite effect. The power distance of national culture strengthened the positive effect of clan culture on task performance and enhanced the negative effect of clan culture on counterproductive work behaviors. Moreover, it weakened the positive effect of market culture on contextual performance. Masculinity enhanced the positive effect of clan culture on task performance; however, uncertainty avoidance strengthened the positive effect of adhocracy culture on contextual performance. Regarding enterprises with different attributes, employees in Taiwan exhibited higher individual work performance and organizational culture levels, whereas employees in mainland China scored higher on each dimension of national culture.

STUDY TO EXAMINE THE IMPACTS OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP STYLE ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE BASED ON INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS

Background: We undertook meta-analyses to see the impacts of spiritual leadership (SL) style on organizational performance based on the individual level performance indicators like job satisfaction, organization commitment, personal fulfillment, turnover intention, and employees' well-being. Method: A Random-Effects Model was carried out for all meta-analyses. Q statics and I-Square provide evidence of homogeneity in the effect sizes of the studies. This leads us to give more emphasis on the reporting bias analysis. We covered graphics as well statistical methods for reporting bias analysis. We applied Rosenthal’s failsafe N, for estimating the number of unpublished studies for sampling bias, Begg & Mazumdar rank correlation test for selection process bias, Egger's linear regression approach for funnel plot asymmetry, and association with reporting bias, and Funnel plot with trim-and-fill methods for detecting availability bias. We also conducted an outlier check-in effect size with a Galbraith plot. Results: Our results show that the SL styles have a positive impact on organizational performance based on the individual level performance measurement such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Measuring Dynamic Capability of Online Entrepreneurs in Malaysia

Robust bargaining power of customers and intense rivalry among competitors demand online entrepreneurs to develop dynamic capability in order to stay competitive and sustain in digital business. In other words, when the environment changes - particularly the taste and preference of customers - online entrepreneurs also need to adapt with the change. Explaining dynamic capability as one of the factors for successful performance of online entrepreneurs however, requires proper measurement. The purpose of this paper is to present and propose the questionnaire items that can be used to measure the dynamic capability of online entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The measurement was adapted from past studies and went through two levels of content validity. The first level was by panels from industry and academic, and then by the representatives of online entrepreneurs. Factor analysis and Cronbach- were used for construct validity and reliability tests, respectively. Results from the analysis showed that there are six items with one component extracted. The result is believed to be justified for online entrepreneurs, who mostly operate as both owners and workers. The six-items measure for dynamic capability could also be used in other studies to explain individual-level performance.

Do School-Level Factors Affect the Health Behaviors of High School Students in Korea?

We conducted a multilevel analysis to identify the individual- and school-level factors that affect Korean high school students’ tooth brushing, soda intake, smoking, and high-intensity physical activity. We sampled 27,919 high school students from the 15th Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey. The individual-level variables included demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related factors. The school-level variables included school system and school type. Regarding the individual-level factors, economic level and academic performance had a significant effect on health behavior when the demographic variables were adjusted. In the final model, the school-level factors had a significant effect on health behavior. The odds ratio (OR) of brushing less than twice a day in vocational schools compared to general schools was 1.63 (p < 0.001), and the OR of soda intake more than three times a week in vocational schools was 1.33 (p < 0.001). In addition, the OR of smoking in vocational schools was 2.89 (p < 0.001), and the OR of high-intensity physical activity in vocational schools was 0.80 (p < 0.001). Therefore, both individual- and school-level factors affect Korean students’ health behaviors. A school-based comprehensive health promotion strategy should be developed that considers schools’ characteristics to equip all students with health awareness, regardless of socioeconomic status.

Social status modulates the behavioral and physiological consequences of a chemical pollutant in animal groups.

The social environment (i.e., the suite of social interactions that occur among individuals that can result in variation in social ranks) is a commonly overlooked aspect of biology when scientists evaluate the effects of chemical contaminants. The social environment, however, represents the arena in which individual-level performance shapes group- or population-level outcomes and may therefore mediate many of the ultimate consequences of chemicals for wildlife. Here, we evaluated the role that the social environment plays in determining the consequences of pollutant exposure. We exposed groups of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) to an emerging pharmaceutical pollutant that is commonly detected in freshwaters (the benzodiazepine, oxazepam) and allowed them to form dominance hierarchies. Exposure affected dominant and subordinate fish differently, causing fish to become less aggressive at high doses and subordinate fish to become more competitively successful at low doses. These perturbations had further consequences for growth, fin damage, and survival. Exposure also modulated physiological stress in the hierarchy, and social status itself affected how much oxazepam was absorbed in tissues, potentially creating a dynamic feedback loop that further influences the asymmetric effects of exposure on differing social statuses. Many effects followed a "U-shaped" dose-response curve, highlighting the importance of nonlinear, low-dose effects. Altogether, we show that social structure in animal groups can interact with and modulate the effects of an environmental contaminant. We underscore the need to account for an organism's natural ecological context, including their social environment, in future experiments and environmental risk assessments to predict the effects of chemical contaminants on wildlife.

A State-of-the-Art Review on the Use of Modafinil as A Performance-enhancing Drug in the Context of Military Operationality.

Modafinil is an eugeroic drug that has been examined to maintain or recover wakefulness, alertness, and cognitive performance when sleep deprived. In a nonmilitary context, the use of modafinil as a nootropic or smart drug, i.e., to improve cognitive performance without being sleep deprived, increases. Although cognitive performance is receiving more explicit attention in a military context, research into the impact of modafinil as a smart drug in function of operationality is lacking. Therefore, the current review aimed at presenting a current state-of-the-art and research agenda on modafinil as a smart drug. Beside the question whether modafinil has an effect or not on cognitive performance, we examined four research questions based on the knowledge on modafinil in sleep-deprived subjects: (1) Is there a difference between the effect of modafinil as a smart drug when administered in repeated doses versus one single dose?; (2) Is the effect of modafinil as a smart drug dose-dependent?; (3) Are there individual-related and/or task-related impact factors?; and (4) What are the reported mental and/or somatic side effects of modafinil as a smart drug? We conducted a systematic search of the literature in the databases PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus, using the search terms "Modafinil" and "Cognitive enhance*" in combination with specific terms related to the research questions. The inclusion criteria were studies on healthy human subjects with quantifiable cognitive outcome based on cognitive tasks. We found no literature on the impact of a repeated intake of modafinil as a smart drug, although, in users, intake occurs on a regular basis. Moreover, although modafinil was initially said to comprise no risk for abuse, there are now indications that modafinil works on the same neurobiological mechanisms as other addictive stimulants. There is also no thorough research into a potential risk for overconfidence, whereas this risk was identified in sleep-deprived subjects. Furthermore, eventual enhancing effects were beneficial only in persons with an initial lower performance level and/or performing more difficult tasks and modafinil has an adverse effect when used under time pressure and may negatively impact physical performance. Finally, time-on-task may interact with the dose taken. The use of modafinil as a smart drug should be examined in function of different military profiles considering their individual performance level and the task characteristics in terms of cognitive demands, physical demands, and sleep availability. It is not yet clear to what extent an improvement in one component (e.g., cognitive performance) may negatively affect another component (e.g., physical performance). Moreover, potential risks for abuse and overconfidence in both regular and occasional intake should be thoroughly investigated to depict the trade-off between user benefits and unwanted side effects. We identified that there is a current risk to the field, as this trade-off has been deemed acceptable for sleep-deprived subjects (considering the risk of sleep deprivation to performance) but this reasoning cannot and should not be readily transposed to non-sleep-deprived individuals. We thus conclude against the use of modafinil as a cognitive enhancer in military contexts that do not involve sleep deprivation.

Estimation of anaerobic threshold by cardiac repolarization instability: a prospective validation study

BackgroundAssessing lactate (LT) or anaerobic thresholds (AT) in athletes is an important tool to control training intensities and to estimate individual performance levels. Previously we demonstrated that ECG-based assessment of cardiac repolarization instability during exercise testing allows non-invasive estimation of AT in recreational athletes. Here, we validate this method in professional and amateur team sports athletes.MethodsWe included 65 team sports athletes (32 professionals and 33 amateur athletes; 51 men, 14 women, mean age 22.3 ± 5.2 years) undergoing a standardized incremental cycle exercise test. During exercise testing a high-resolution ECG (1000 Hz) was recorded in Frank-leads configuration and beat-to-beat vector changes of cardiac repolarization (dT°) were assessed by previously established technologies. Repolarization-based AT (ATdT°) was estimated by its typical dT°-signal pattern. Additionally, LT was detected in accordance to methods established by Mader (LTMader) and Dickhuth (LTDickhuth).ResultsAll athletes performed exercise testing until exhaustion with a mean maximum workload of 262.3 ± 60.8 W (241.8 ± 64.4 W for amateur athletes and 283.4 ± 49.5 W for professional athletes). Athletes showed ATdT° at 187.6 ± 44.4 W, LTDickhuth at 181.1 ± 45.6 W and LTMader at 184.3 ± 52.4 W. ATdT° correlated highly significantly with LTDickhuth (r = 0.96, p < 0.001) and LTMader (r = 0.98, p < 0.001) in the entire cohort of athletes as well as in the subgroups of professional and amateur athletes (p < 0.001 for all).ConclusionsATdT°, defined by the maximal discordance between dT° and heart rate, can be assessed reliably and non-invasively via the use of a high-resolution ECG in professional and amateur athletes.

Employee Dilemmas From Competing Organizational Goals: Insights from Emergency Medical Services

The literature on multiple-goal organizations highlights the unique challenge of simultaneously meeting potentially conflicting profit and prosocial objectives. We study individual level performance effects on the delivery of a prosocial service in the presence of strong organization-level financial incentives. We examine these effects within the context of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) crews responding to 9-1-1 calls. Using data from 31 states reported to the US National Emergency Medical Services Information System, we find that even in the absence of direct individual benefits, EMS crews are responsive to the financial sustainability objective of their agencies by providing higher levels of service to patients with higher ability to pay. Specifically, we find that both private insurance and Medicare patients receive more procedures (4.6% and 1.5%) and have longer transport times (5.1% and 3.9%) than Medicaid patients controlling for time, call, patient, and condition characteristics. These differences reduce with call urgency and for agencies with a higher proportion of high ability to pay patients in the recent past but increase on busy days. The robustness of our findings derives from the quasi-random assignment of insurance across EMS units’ runs and the fixed effects specification in our models and is supported by several robustness checks including instrumental variable analyses.

The Role of Organizational Learning in Conflict Management

Conflict is a state of disagreement experienced between two individuals or parties, which can result from many factors. When conflict occurs at organizations, it may lead to many problems such as unaccomplished goals, decreased effectiveness, and low levels of individual and overall performance. However, organizational conflict may positively influence organizations under certain circumstances. The recent literature especially places emphasis on conflict management rather than conflict resolution, as conflicts are likely to enable organizations to enhance their performance and productivity when they are managed in an appropriate way. In this sense, organizations have to develop strategies that are aimed at improving the constructive aspect of conflicts instead of trying to reduce and remove them. As the first step toward this goal, organizations have to provide a learning environment so that they can benefit from conflicts. Since it is considered a key concept for the survival and adaptability of an organization, organizational learning stands out as an effective means of fostering such favorable effects. For this purpose, this article discusses the role of organizational learning in conflict management by examining the factors that facilitate and result from it.

The Effects of Domestic Violence on the Academic Performance of Pupils: A Case Study of Primary Schools in Laroo Division, Gulu Municipality

Study findings on the effects of domestic violence on academic performance have shown that individual academic performance levels are affected by a host of factors outside of the classroom including home environments. A cross-sectional study design was adopted where both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used. Three schools out of 08 and a total of 42 respondents were sampled purposively or randomly to constitute study samples. Questionnaire and interview methods were used to collect primary and secondary data. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS V16 while content analysis was used for the qualitative data. A total of 50% of the respondents who are the majority said less concentration span is the effect of domestic violence on the school attendance. The study reveals that majority of the pupils identified to be affected by domestic violence are isolated, depressed and violent as indicated by 58% which affects their class participation. 71% of the respondents said the school performance of pupils deteriorates. The study reveals that 60% of the respondents said poverty is the major cause of high drop out among pupils. It was concluded that high rate of poverty and drunkardness is the major cause of domestic violence and greatly affects the academic performance. It was recommended that the Government should pass ordnances on alcoholism as to reduce on the rate of domestic violence and improve academic performance of pupils from affected families.&#x0D;

Corporate social responsibility and firms’ financial performance: a multi-level serial analysis underpinning social identity theory

This research aims to investigate how firms’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perception and disclosure derive accounting, market, and perception-based Firms’ Financial Performance (FFP) through the serial mediation of individual-level organizational identification (OID) and employees' innovative job performance (EIJP). Philosophically, this research comes under the beliefs or worldview of postpositivism and employed a quantitative research design. And thus, the approach to theory development is deductive. Multi-method, multi-source and multilevel data with temporal breaks are collected from 60 manufacturing firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE). Primary data are collected by following the survey strategy and by conducting multiple surveys. While the secondary data are collected from the annual and sustainability reports published by selected firms on their official websites. This research found the serial mediation of OID and employees’ innovative job performance on the CSR-FFP relationship. Our results will assist the management of the firms to understand the strategic implications of their CSR initiatives. In particular, this research contributed to understand why CSR is viewed to have strategic importance for the firms and how social identity theory (SIT) might be utilized in such endeavors.

Validation of the Cognitive Telephone Screening Instrument (COGTEL) for detecting mild cognitive impairment and dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD)

AbstractBackgroundCognitive assessment is necessary for diagnosing cognitive impairment. In epidemiologic surveys and genetic family studies cognitive tests that can be administered over the telephone are valuable tools. The Cognitive Telephone Screening Instrument (COGTEL) is a brief instrument for capturing interindividual differences in cognitive functioning, with the advantage of covering more cognitive domains than traditional screening tools such as the Mini‐mental State Examination (MMSE), as well as differentiating between individual performance levels in healthy older adults. Here, we report first evidence of the utility of the COGTEL in detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD).MethodThe COGTEL was translated into Greek. Thereafter a bilingual expert not familiar with the original COGTEL made a back translation into English. The new version was very similar to the original one. The study refers to 30 and 22 patients with MCI and dementia due to AD, respectively. They fulfilled the international NIA‐AA diagnostic criteria. The study included 45 cognitively normal elderly individuals, too. The COGTEL was compared to the conventional modified Mini Mental State Examination (3MS). They were validated against an expert diagnosis based on a comprehensive diagnostic workup which included the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Statistical analysis was performed using the receiver‐operator‐characteristics (ROC) method.ResultThe COGTEL outperformed the 3MS in the distinction between cognitively unimpaired individuals and patients with MCI (Area under the curve, AUC: 0.94 vs. 0.89), whilst both instruments were excellent in identifying patients suffering from dementia due to AD (AUC in both cases 0.99).ConclusionThe COGTEL is a short, practical and reliable telephone test for the identification of both MCI and dementia due to AD. It can serve as a useful instrument in studying normal cognition and cognitive impairment in aging in both clinical diagnostics and research projects. The lack of difference between COGTEL and 3MS in their capacity to detect dementia due to AD is probably attributable to the fact that healthy aging can in most cases be unambiguously distinguished from dementia due AD, while the distinction between MCI and healthy aging is more ambitious.

Developing benchmarks to capture relative performance for sales force incentives decisions: Lessons from B2B insurance industry

Performance-based incentives are widely used in B2B sales; however, sales managers find it challenging to customize such incentives. In response, we propose a new methodology to assess salespeople's capability using performance history data. To evaluate relative performance, we filter out the impact of systematic factors of job characteristics (e.g., channel type, territory, and market size). Therefore, by providing appropriate benchmarks, our approach captures the idiosyncratic component of performance, allowing a direct comparison of a salesperson with other counterparts in the firm. We also account for prospective customer characteristics that let us distinguish between competent salespeople and those fortunate enough to have a customer mix with a high predisposition to buy. Using a data set of automobile insurance sales to small business owners in the U.S., we model salesperson performance as consisting of three stages: generating leads, converting leads to customers and upselling. Our output, a “grade card” for each salesperson, contains metrics that can aid managers in setting individual level performance goals, in deciding who should be rewarded or let go, and in diagnosing salespeople's strengths and weaknesses. Our easy to implement methodology is useful for a wide variety of applications, wherever relative performance needs to be judged.

Changes in performance and bio-mathematical model performance predictions during 45 days of sleep restriction in a simulated space mission

Lunar habitation and exploration of space beyond low-Earth orbit will require small crews to live in isolation and confinement while maintaining a high level of performance with limited support from mission control. Astronauts only achieve approximately 6 h of sleep per night, but few studies have linked sleep deficiency in space to performance impairment. We studied crewmembers over 45 days during a simulated space mission that included 5 h of sleep opportunity on weekdays and 8 h of sleep on weekends to characterize changes in performance on the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) and subjective fatigue ratings. We further evaluated how well bio-mathematical models designed to predict performance changes due to sleep loss compared to objective performance. We studied 20 individuals during five missions and found that objective performance, but not subjective fatigue, declined from the beginning to the end of the mission. We found that bio-mathematical models were able to predict average changes across the mission but were less sensitive at predicting individual-level performance. Our findings suggest that sleep should be prioritized in lunar crews to minimize the potential for performance errors. Bio-mathematical models may be useful for aiding crews in schedule design but not for individual-level fitness-for-duty decisions.

Promoting hot debriefing in an emergency department

IntroductionDebriefing is a process of communication that takes place between a team following a clinical case. Debriefing facilitates discussion of individual and team level performance and identifies points of excellence...

Context, structure, and informativeness judgments: An extensive empirical investigation.

We explored the nature of human informativeness judgments: namely, people's judgments about the quantity of information that object stimuli convey about the category of objects to which they belong. Informativeness judgments play a key role in everyday decision-making situations involving the selection of items from groups that best represent the "group as a whole." They also provide insight into the nature of prototype formation. We investigated informativeness judgments with an experiment involving 41 category structures - the most comprehensive and rigorous examination thus far. We assess the robustness and generalizability of the results from this experiment by examining the relationship between group-level and individual-level performance. In addition, we show that in most cases (and especially in those involving relatively lower dimensionality structures), these judgments are predicted more accurately and explained more satisfactorily by Representational Information Theory (Vigo in Information Sciences 181: 4847-4859, 2011 and in Information 4(1):1-30, 2012) and its simplest core model than by standard models of prototypicality. Finally, we argue that prototypicality models are special cases of the more general "representational information" framework.

Distributional Reinforcement Learning with Ensembles

It is well known that ensemble methods often provide enhanced performance in reinforcement learning. In this paper, we explore this concept further by using group-aided training within the distributional reinforcement learning paradigm. Specifically, we propose an extension to categorical reinforcement learning, where distributional learning targets are implicitly based on the total information gathered by an ensemble. We empirically show that this may lead to much more robust initial learning, a stronger individual performance level, and good efficiency on a per-sample basis.

Gendered pathways to elite coaching reflecting the accumulation of capitals

ABSTRACT While earlier research on coaches’ careers and the development of coaching expertise appears ‘gender blind’, the focus of this article on the underrepresentation of women in elite-level coaching is how various forms of capital interact in recruitment to coaching. Using Bourdieu's analytic concepts, the study explores Norwegian female and male elite-coaches’ pathways to coaching positions with respect to qualifications and recruitment procedures. Qualifications are understood as being both individual athletic performance level (physical and symbolic capital) and coaching education (cultural capital). Qualitative interviews were completed with 24 female and 12 male elite-level coaches. The findings revealed that relatively more women than men had previously been elite-level athletes. The majority of the participants had coaching education from the sports organisations, while a few had coaching education from their university studies. Relative to gender, two men had no coaching education and several women had completed a programme developed by the sport organisations – with the aim of increasing women's participation in elite-level coaching. Recruitment of coaches seemed to happen through informal channels, which indicates the benefits of social capital acquired through acquaintances and social networks. This indicates symbolic capital in terms of individual athletic achievement. The use of Bourdieu’s analytic concept of capital and the ‘labyrinth’ metaphor facilitated identification and understanding of the longer pathways and challenges women must negotiate on their way to elite-level coaching positions when compared to men. The article closes with the implications of the findings, with particular attention to coaching education and the recruitment/employment procedures of coaches.

Effect of mind-power ability among achieving entrepreneurs in South Africa

PurposeThis paper aims to identify how mind-power ability and its underlying elements, acting as drivers, impact managerial, and individual performance levels among achieving entrepreneurs in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a qualitative approach and included 15 male entrepreneurs who were purposively selected based on the study’s requirements. The primary data was collected through semi-structured one-on-one interviews, and interpretative phenomenological analysis served as the primary method of data analysis.FindingsFindings from this study suggest that mind-power ability as an accustomed performance factor does indeed exist – and consists of a unique group of accustomed underlying elements – that significantly affects and contributes to both the managerial and individual performance levels of achieving entrepreneurs in South Africa.Research limitations/implicationsThe strategic implementation of mind-power ability as a performance enhancer serves as a valuable aspect in the arsenal of achieving entrepreneurs. However, this study was limited to the opinion of a small sample of participants in a specific field. Also, the phenomenological nature of this study requires the researcher’s interpretation of results to be viewed as the truth.Practical implicationsThe study provides a new perspective and validates how the strategic implementation of mind-power techniques can boost entrepreneurial performance all-round. The study also proves new insights into the relationship between mind-power ability and cognitive and motivational processes, and further contributes beyond existing theory.Originality/valueThe study is novel and provides new insight into the strategic implementation and powerful effects of mind-power ability in entrepreneurship.