Subordinate Level Research Articles

Developing Managerial Skills Through Coaching: Efficacy of a Cognitive-Behavioral Coaching Program

Managerial coaching is currently seen as an effective leadership practice facilitating learning process of the employees for performing better and being more effective in organizations. This article builds on recent research on the importance of the managerial coaching by empirically investigating the effects of a cognitive-behavioral coaching programme over mid-level managers. Due to the similarities between managerial coaching behaviors and transformational leadership behaviors, we have adopted the transformational leadership model as theoretical framework for evaluating management behaviors. The study used a pre-posttest approach to test the effects of the coaching program especially designed for 23 mid-level managers having as responsibility the supervision of production teams in a multinational organization. The major aims of the program consisted of: developing managerial coaching skills, assertive communication skills, motivation of subordinates. Overall, the analysis of results elicited an increase of scores in the leadership behavior dimensions measured by multifactor leadership questionnaire that are part of the managerial coaching skills. Besides, the effectiveness perceived as an indicator of performance was significantly higher upon completion of the coaching program. Findings suggest that coaching, as a professional development method, has great potential to contribute to the managerial behaviors that facilitate development at subordinate level, as they are captured by some transformational and transactional scales. Such knowledge can be informative for practitioners as well in developing effective managers and leaders and understanding and managing employee attitudes and behaviors in organizations.

Office of Strategic Services versus Special Operations Executive: Competition for the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945

This article explores the relationship between the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the Italian campaign during World War II. Drawing on recently declassified records, the article analyzes three issues that prevented satisfactory coordination between the two agencies and the impact those issues had on the effectiveness of the Allied military support given to the partisan movements: (1) the U.S. government's determination to maintain the independence of its agencies; (2) the inability of the Armed Forces Headquarters to impose its will on the reluctant subordinate levels of command; and (3) the relatively low priority given to the Italian resistance at the beginning of the campaign. The article contributes to recent studies on OSS and SOE liaisons and sheds additional light on an important turning point in the history of their relations.

Neural decoding of architectural styles from scene-specific brain regions

The human visual cortex can elicit neural activity patterns that are distinctive for basic-level scene categories (e.g., highways) as well as for superordinate level scene categories (e.g., man-made). Can the human brain also elicit category-specific neural activity patterns for scenes at a subordinate level? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) we recorded brain activity of participants viewing scene categories at a basic level - mountains, pastures, highways, and playgrounds, and scene categories at a subordinate level - buildings in byzantine, renaissance, modern, and deconstructive architectural styles, and buildings designed by four well-known architects of which categorization is likely to be guided more by participants’ knowledge than coherent perceptual structure in buildings. Using multi-voxel pattern analysis, we could decode viewed buildings of different architectural styles significantly better than chance from the parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial cortex (RSC), occipital place area (OPA), lateral occipital complex (LOC). Decoding of buildings by different architects was also successful in the PPA and OPA. Consistent with previous findings, we could successfully decode viewed scene categories. Comparison of error pattern between a simple V1 model and decoding from fMRI data showed that categorical information about architectural styles in the PPA cannot be explained solely by high low-level visual similarity. On the other hand, our simple V1 model was able to discriminate between buildings by different architects to some extent. Our results suggest that the PPA can maintain categorical representation at multiple levels, including subordinate categories, such as architectural styles of buildings, relying on complex structural characteristics of scenes rather than low-level visual similarity. Top-down influences such as domain knowledge or geographical familiarity may thus capitalize on these fine-grained categorical activation patterns in the PPA. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015

Syria

Syria

Формализм в управлении вузом

Improvement of the management of the University today is of great importance. Although the entire administrative staff in their work should be guided by job
 descriptions that defi ne functional responsibilities of all University employees, some peculiarities of their activities are put to consideration on the basis of
 practical experience.
 Managing a University is quite a diffi cult task. This not only implies top managers’ ability to place personnel well, but also requires selecting capable and creative
 leaders for subordinate levels of management. Special attention is necessary to prevent merely formalistic work of managers at all levels of management.
 Today formalisticmanagement issues lack attention. This happens because it is diffi cult to separate positive and negative aspects of formalism. That is why
 consideration of the issues raised is timely and relevant.

Features of the Concept FAMILIE Represented in the Biographical Discourse of Russian Germans

This paper describes a study conducted within the framework of modern German studies in accordance with the anthropocentric orientation of scientific paradigm. The study investigates the concept FAMILIE in the linguistic image of the world of Russian Germans living in Siberia. The contextual analysis of biographical stories of the representatives of the German ethnic community has helped us discover that the concept FAMILIE enters into complex hierarchical relationships with related concepts. Building a taxonomic model of this concept revealed its base, super- and subordinate levels and their linguistic realization.

Dynamic risk assessment of water inrush in tunnelling and software development

Water inrush and mud outburst always restricts the tunnel constructions in mountain area, which becomes a major geological barrier against the development of underground engineering. In view of the complex disaster-causing mechanism and difficult quantitative predictions of water inrush and mud outburst, several theoretical methods are adopted to realize dynamic assessment of water inrush in the progressive process of tunnel construction. Concerning both the geological condition and construction situation, eleven risk factors are quantitatively described and an assessment system is developed to evaluate the water inrush risk. In the static assessment, the weights of eight risk factors about the geological condition are determined using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Each factor is scored by experts and the synthesis scores are weighted. The risk level is ultimately determined based on the scoring outcome which is derived from the sum of products of weights and comprehensive scores. In the secondary assessment, the eight risk factors in static assessment and three factors about construction situation are quantitatively analyzed using fuzzy evaluation method. Subordinate levels and weight of factors are prepared and then used to calculate the comprehensive subordinate degree and risk level. In the dynamic assessment, the classical field of the eleven risk factors is normalized by using the extension evaluation method. From the input of the matter-element, weights of risk factors are determined and correlation analysis is carried out to determine the risk level. This system has been applied to the dynamic assessment of water inrush during construction of the Yuanliangshan tunnel of Yuhuai Railway. The assessment results are consistent with the actual excavation, which verifies the rationality and feasibility of the software. The developed system is believed capable to be back-up and applied for risk assessment of water inrush in the underground engineering construction.

Basic level category structure emerges gradually across human ventral visual cortex.

Objects can be simultaneously categorized at multiple levels of specificity ranging from very broad ("natural object") to very distinct ("Mr. Woof"), with a mid-level of generality (basic level: "dog") often providing the most cognitively useful distinction between categories. It is unknown, however, how this hierarchical representation is achieved in the brain. Using multivoxel pattern analyses, we examined how well each taxonomic level (superordinate, basic, and subordinate) of real-world object categories is represented across occipitotemporal cortex. We found that, although in early visual cortex objects are best represented at the subordinate level (an effect mostly driven by low-level feature overlap between objects in the same category), this advantage diminishes compared to the basic level as we move up the visual hierarchy, disappearing in object-selective regions of occipitotemporal cortex. This pattern stems from a combined increase in within-category similarity (category cohesion) and between-category dissimilarity (category distinctiveness) of neural activity patterns at the basic level, relative to both subordinate and superordinate levels, suggesting that successive visual areas may be optimizing basic level representations.

GOALS OF SELFIE AND SELECTIVE SELVES

Selfie refers to self-portrait photography, which became widespread practice with handy digital photographing technologies and the proliferation of social media. There are only a few studies on selfie and most of them examine the psychological profiles of selfie takers. However, we conducted a qualitative study to understand diverse goals embedded in the selfie practice and meanings of the practice.Eighty one undergraduate students enrolled in a university in South Korea, who reported to take selfies frequently, were recruited for in-depth interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for thirty minutes to an hour, asking their selfie-taking behaviors including general information (when, where, how, why), skills and techniques, related memories and experiences, and sharing and online posting. Transcripts and observations were analyzed through multiple steps of coding.Data revealed numerous strategies in selfie photography and statements about why those strategies are important, that is, goals of selfie practice. We present findings in the following structure:Operation of selective selves → Subordinate goals → Superordinate goalsWe abstract the essential feature of selfie as augmented control as a result of integrative and selective operation of the three selves as the one who photographs, the one who is photographed, and/or the one who owns and uses the selfie. Participants’ strategies reflect this complexity. For example, tips for camera angles and lighting are related to self as a subject who photographs. Knowledge on facial expressions reflects self as an object that is photographed. Photoshop skills are obtained as self who uses the photographs.Five goals at the subordinate level emerged: Attractive appearance, social activities, testimonial, fact check, and story-telling. These are the immediate goals gained through taking, using, and possessing selfies. Different goals are formed based on relatively different importance of each of the three selves. For example, to post a selfie that tells one’s feeling about new season, the photographer chooses to focus on the self as a subject who writes a story and portrays in photographing rather than the self as an object of the photograph. Superordinate goals are derived from the subordinate goals: Narcissism, self-discovery, self-expression, reminiscence, display, self-monitoring, and belongingness. As in the relations between selves and subordinate goals, some subordinate goals are related to more than one superordinate goal. Some superordinate goals also result from more than one subordinate goal. We conclude that selfie provides augmented control in producing and using pictures and the selective operation of the three selves enables consumers to obtain various individual and social values through the selfie practice.

Is trust in leadership a mediator between transformational leadership and in-role performance among small-scale factory workers?

Globalization and the transformation of the organizational scene are increasing the pressure and threshold for employees to constantly perform maximum output. As such, the measure of success for many organizations is determined by their productivity level. Therefore, we believe that the leadership style adopted by the leader and the level of trust subordinates have in such a leader may be salient in determining the level of in-role performance of the subordinates in question. This study therefore tries to shed light on this issue by testing the hypotheses that transformational leadership and trust in leadership would significantly predict in-role performance, and that trust in leadership would further mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and in-role performance. A sample of 170 factory workers (subordinates) and 6 supervisors participated in the study. The subordinates completed measures of transformational leadership and trust in leadership while that of in-role performance of these subordinates was based on the ratings of their immediate supervisors. The results of the Hierarchical Multiple Regression showed that only transformational leadership positively predicted in-role performance, whereas trust in leadership failed to predict or even mediate this relationship. The study discussed the implications of the findings, limitations, and suggestions for prospective research.

A Computational Approach towards Visual Object Recognition at Taxonomic Levels of Concepts.

It has been argued that concepts can be perceived at three main levels of abstraction. Generally, in a recognition system, object categories can be viewed at three levels of taxonomic hierarchy which are known as superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels. For instance, “horse” is a member of subordinate level which belongs to basic level of “animal” and superordinate level of “natural objects.” Our purpose in this study is to take an investigation into visual features at each taxonomic level. We first present a recognition tree which is more general in terms of inclusiveness with respect to visual representation of objects. Then we focus on visual feature definition, that is, how objects from the same conceptual category can be visually represented at each taxonomic level. For the first level we define global features based on frequency patterns to illustrate visual distinctions among artificial and natural. In contrast, our approach for the second level is based on shape descriptors which are defined by recruiting moment based representation. Finally, we show how conceptual knowledge can be utilized for visual feature definition in order to enhance recognition of subordinate categories.

Servant leadership, employer brand perception, trust in leaders and turnover intentions: a sequential mediation model

The study aimed to examine the impact of the servant leadership style on employee turnover intentions by investigating the sequential mediating effects of employer brand perception and level of trust subordinates have in their leaders. Results of the study were obtained by analysing data collected from 253 employees working in Indian organizations. The results fully support the hypotheses proposed in the study, illustrating that perceived servant leadership style is negatively associated with employee turnover intentions. Further, servant leadership-turnover intentions relationship is sequentially mediated by employer brand perception and the level of trust subordinates have in their leaders. The study also found that only the servant leadership style followed by leaders was not enough to directly influence the level of trust employees placed in their leaders. A positive and strong employer brand perception emerged as an important mechanism that helped servant leaders gain the trust of their followers. The theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed in the light of these findings.

Visual appearance interacts with conceptual knowledge in object recognition.

Objects contain rich visual and conceptual information, but do these two types of information interact? Here, we examine whether visual and conceptual information interact when observers see novel objects for the first time. We then address how this interaction influences the acquisition of perceptual expertise. We used two types of novel objects (Greebles), designed to resemble either animals or tools, and two lists of words, which described non-visual attributes of people or man-made objects. Participants first judged if a word was more suitable for describing people or objects while ignoring a task-irrelevant image, and showed faster responses if the words and the unfamiliar objects were congruent in terms of animacy (e.g., animal-like objects with words that described human). Participants then learned to associate objects and words that were either congruent or not in animacy, before receiving expertise training to rapidly individuate the objects. Congruent pairing of visual and conceptual information facilitated observers' ability to become a perceptual expert, as revealed in a matching task that required visual identification at the basic or subordinate levels. Taken together, these findings show that visual and conceptual information interact at multiple levels in object recognition.

What is Subordination About? Credit Risk and Subordination Levels in Commercial Mortgage-backed Securities (CMBS)

Subordination is designed to provide credit risk protection for senior CMBS tranches by allocating the initial credit losses to the more junior tranches. Subordination level should in theory reflect the underlying credit risk of the CMBS pool. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that subordination is purely about credit risk as intended. We find a very weak relation between subordination levels and both the ex post and ex ante measures of credit risk, rejecting our null-hypothesis. Alternatively, we find that subordination levels were driven by non-credit risk factors, including supply and demand factors, deal complexity, issuer incentive and a general time trend. We conclude that contrary to the traditional view, the subordination level is not just a function of credit risk. Instead it also reflects the market need of a certain deal structure and is influenced by the balance of power among issuers, CRAs and investors.

The Uneasy Case Against Tax Lien Subordination

I.R.C. § 6323, which governs how the federal tax lien ranks against the interests of the taxpayer’s other creditors, subordinates the tax lien to the claims of other creditors in various ways. Tax lien subordination is commonly justified on the grounds that it enhances taxpayer asset value, facilitates commercial transactions, and reduces monitoring costs for private creditors. This short essay argues, however, that these benefits may be illusory. Tax lien subordination may, in fact, be unnecessarily costly and distortive and may lead to unfair distributive results. This essay suggests that the tax lien priority scheme might be made less costly by reducing its multiple levels of subordination. This could be accomplished in two ways: First, by reducing the magnitude or number of the superpriorities and other prioritized interests; and second, by eliminating the priority of the four horsemen over the un-noticed federal tax lien, or, alternatively, by moving away from a system of pure public notice and toward a semi-private inquiry-based system.

Family Relationships and the Self-Esteem of Hidden Youth

The transmission of power requires the presence of an interpersonal network as a medium; however, the nature of the relationship in the effect of power exertion is seldom discussed. In view of this research gap, this study aims to examine whether the degree of the relationship determines the impact of discipline over hidden youth, which subsequently affects young people’s level of subordination. Hidden youth ( N = 363) participated in the quantitative part of this study, whereas 42 participated in the qualitative phase; surveillants included 21 parents, 11 teachers, 16 social workers or counselors, and three police officers. Using hierarchical regression analysis, moderation analysis, and qualitative verbatim accounts, this study shows that the degree of relationships “catalyzed” the effect of power and control. When the degree of relationship was higher, the effect of power exertion would be higher.

Shape information mediating basic- and subordinate-level object recognition revealed by analyses of eye movements.

This study examines the kinds of shape features that mediate basic- and subordinate-level object recognition. Observers were trained to categorize sets of novel objects at either a basic (between-families) or subordinate (within-family) level of classification. We analyzed the spatial distributions of fixations and compared them to model distributions of different curvature polarity (regions of convex or concave bounding contour), as well as internal part boundaries. The results showed a robust preference for fixation at part boundaries and for concave over convex regions of bounding contour, during both basic- and subordinate-level classification. In contrast, mean saccade amplitudes were shorter during basic- than subordinate-level classification. These findings challenge models of recognition that do not posit any special functional status to part boundaries or curvature polarity. We argue that both basic- and subordinate-level classification are mediated by object representations. These representations make explicit internal part boundaries, and distinguish concave and convex regions of bounding contour. The classification task constrains how shape information in these representations is used, consistent with the hypothesis that both parts-based, and image-based, operations support object recognition in human vision.

Economic-mathematical model of two-level minimax program control of economic security of a region

This article discusses a discrete-time dynamical system consisting of a set of a controllable objects (region and forming it municipalities). The dynamics each of these is described by the corresponding vector linear discrete-time recurrent relations, and its control system consist from two levels: basic (control level I) that is dominating and subordinate level (control level II). Both levels have different criterions of functioning and united a priori by determined informational and control connections defined in advance. Considered addresses the problem of optimization of management of economic security of the region in the presence of risks. For the investigated problem is proposed in this work an economic-mathematical model of two-level hierarchical minimax program control of economic security of the region in the presence of risk and the general scheme of the solution.

Word Length Effect during Chinese Language Production

The word length effect in speech production refers to the phenomenon that monosyllable word reaction time is obviously shorter than polysyllable's during the picture naming or word decision process.The previous researchers summed up this kind of effect caused by the difference brought from the phonological coding stage.And they considered the phenomenon as the evidence of the view of incremental phonological encoding and planning.But the theory states that the language production includes three main processes such as the concept activation,the lexical selection and the phonological encoding.Is phonological encoding process the only cause of word length effect? What is the real relationship between the word length effect and three main processes in language production?Prime naming task was adopted in both experiment 1 and 2(former used box prime and oracle prime used for the latter) to investigate whether the lexical selection process influenced the emerging of word length effect.The results showed that the reaction time of word naming between congruent prime and incongruent prime had no significant difference,which meant the lexical process did not impact the word length effect.In experiment 3,picture naming paradigm was used to test the relationship among concept encoding,phonological encoding and the word length effect.Thirty-two Pictures were selected,each of them could be named in 4 different patterns(basic concept level one-character word,basic concept level two-character word1,basic concept level two-characters word2,subordinate concept level two-character word).The reaction time was compared across different concept level and different word length.Result indicated that the main effect of concept level and word length are both significant,response time of subordinate concept level word was significantly longer than basic level word,response time of two-character word was significantly longer than one-character word.Therefore,both concept activation process and phonological encoding process have impact on the word length effect.In conclusion,the experiment results showed that among three different language production stages,both the concept activation and the phonological coding process are the direct causes of word length effect.The findings are consistent with incremental phonological encoding and planning as well as the basic-level category theory.

Association and dissociation between detection and discrimination of objects of expertise: Evidence from visual search

Expertise in face recognition is characterized by high proficiency in distinguishing between individual faces. However, faces also enjoy an advantage at the early stage of basic-level detection, as demonstrated by efficient visual search for faces among nonface objects. In the present study, we asked (1) whether the face advantage in detection is a unique signature of face expertise, or whether it generalizes to other objects of expertise, and (2) whether expertise in face detection is intrinsically linked to expertise in face individuation. We compared how groups with varying degrees of object and face expertise (typical adults, developmental prosopagnosics [DP], and car experts) search for objects within and outside their domains of expertise (faces, cars, airplanes, and butterflies) among a variable set of object distractors. Across all three groups, search efficiency (indexed by reaction time slopes) was higher for faces and airplanes than for cars and butterflies. Notably, the search slope for car targets was considerably shallower in the car experts than in nonexperts. Although the mean face slope was slightly steeper among the DPs than in the other two groups, most of the DPs' search slopes were well within the normative range. This pattern of results suggests that expertise in object detection is indeed associated with expertise at the subordinate level, that it is not specific to faces, and that the two types of expertise are distinct facilities. We discuss the potential role of experience in bridging between low-level discriminative features and high-level naturalistic categories.