Partial Disclosure Research Articles

Influencing the Influencers

Social media influencers are category enthusiasts who often post product recommendations. Firms sometimes pay influencers to skew their product reviews in favor of the firm. We ask the following research questions. First, what is the optimal level of affiliation (if any) from the firm's perspective? Affiliation introduces positive bias to the influencer's review but also decreases the persuasiveness of the review. Secondly, since affiliated reviews are often biased in favor of the firm, what is the impact of affiliation on consumer welfare? We find that the affiliation decision depends on the cost of information acquisition, the consumer's prior and awareness, and the disclosure regime. When the consumer's prior belief is low, the firm needs to affiliate less closely or not at all in order to preserve the influencer's persuasiveness, the change in the consumer's belief following the influencer's review. In contrast, when the consumer's prior belief is high, the firm fully affiliates with the influencer to both maximize awareness and prevent a negative review. We also show that the firm's involvement can be Pareto-improving if the information acquisition cost is relatively high, and a partial disclosure rule may increase consumer welfare.

Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector worldwide, mostly driven by a steadily increasing protein demand. In response to growing ecological concerns, life cycle assessment (LCA) emerged as a key environmental tool to measure the impacts of various production systems, including aquaculture. In this review, we focused on farmed salmonids to perform an in-depth analysis, investigating methodologies and comparing results of LCA studies of this finfish family in relation to species and production technologies. Identifying the environmental strengths and weaknesses of salmonid production technologies is central to ensure that industrial actors and policymakers make informed choices to take the production of this important marine livestock to a more sustainable path. Three critical aspects of salmonid LCAs were studied based on 24 articles and reports: (1) Methodological application, (2) construction of inventories, and (3) comparison of production technologies across studies. Our first assessment provides an overview and compares important methodological choices. The second analysis maps the main foreground and background data sources, as well as the state of process inclusion and exclusion. In the third section, a first attempt to compare life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) data across production technologies was conducted using a single factor statistical protocol. Overall, findings suggested a lack of methodological completeness and reporting in the literature and demonstrated that inventories suffered from incomplete description and partial disclosure. Our attempt to compare LCA results across studies was challenging due to confounding factors and poor data availability, but useful as a first step in highlighting the importance of production technology for salmonids. In groups where the data was robust enough for statistical comparison, both differences and mean equalities were identified, allowing ranking of technology clusters based on their average scores. We statistically demonstrated that sea-based systems outperform land-based technology in terms of energy demand and that sea-based systems have a generally higher FCR than land-based ones. Cross-study analytics also strongly suggest that open systems generate on average more eutrophying emissions than closed designs. We further discuss how to overcome bottlenecks currently hampering such LCA meta-analysis. Arguments are made in favor of further developing cross-study LCA analysis, particularly by increasing the number of salmonid LCA available (to improve sample sizes) and by reforming in-depth LCA practices to enable full reproducibility and greater access to inventory data.

Transparency and Unmasking Issues in Ethnographic Crime Research: Methodological Considerations

A transparency movement has begun urging researchers to publicize their data in order to ease replication and accountability. Some ethnographers have also begun arguing that researchers should unmask, or fully disclose, field sites and participant identities in order to replicate studies, verify accounts, and monitor social phenomena over time. However, for ethnographers studying violence and crime, full transparency or unmasking can get an ethnographer harmed. Thus, I broaden the unmasking/masking discussion by arguing for partial disclosures in dangerous research. To do so, I provide examples from my previous drug market ethnography and my ongoing gang research. I then propose safer ways to disclose field sites and participants, mainly through the following: semibiographical disclosure, where the ethnographer strategically omits some data in otherwise rich biographical portraits; through partial spatial disclosures, where the ethnographer reveals the field site's general area; and through invitational disclosure, where the ethnographer invites outsiders to meet participants in the field.

Recent Empirical Analysis on Public Service Companies Transparency: Case of Italy

In recent years the role of public services has acquired increasing relevance on account of the growing awareness of the importance of such services in the social and economic development of a country. This is determined primarily by the demand for quality and good value (for money) by an ever more sensitive public (which has brought under analysis the methods of traditional service providers, no longer seen as able to respond efficiently to the changing and diversified needs of society), the need to conform to EU directives and the effects of liberalization and from an internal perspective of the industrial and institutional reorganization of the public sector. After a description of the theoretical background, the present study is aimed to analyse the transparency of the public service companies listed on the Italian Stock Exhange. Given the fundamental role played by these companies, this sudy investigates the levels of total and partial disclosure and identifies the successful elements as well as those areas where improvements could be made. In particular, for the research conducted, an attempt was made to adopt an index capable of showing a measure of the quality of transparency undertaken by the case-study companies in the FTSE Italy Public Services Sector. In order to meet this aim, the work is based on an index of “corporate e-governance” used by Gandia. Based on the variables considered in the analysis of the websites, no company provides total disclosure with maximum values; the company which offers total disclosure with the highest value is Enel (9.52) while Ergycapital has the lowest value (3.14). Research thus shows that, it is necessary to improve the quality of disclosure of the public utilities companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange.

Disclosing Mental Illness During Dating: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Partners’ Experience

The relatively little research on disclosure of mental illness has mainly presented the perspective of the individual who copes with a mental illness. The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of the phenomenon of serious mental illness disclosure during dating from the perspective of the person to whom the information was disclosed. In-depth semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with five participants, and the transcripts were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings indicated that the participants who experienced late and partial disclosure had more negative reactions than those who experienced early and full disclosure. Disclosure of a mental illness within the context of dating relationship seems to have implications on the intimate partner and the relationship. The findings highlight the need to support dating couples where one of the partners copes with a mental illness. This support should be provided at an early stage of the relationship.

Mothering at a distance and disclosure of maternal HIV to children in Kingston, Jamaica

AbstractExisting guidelines (WHO, 2011) advise caretakers and professionals to disclose children’s and their caretakers’ HIV status to children, despite a lack of evidence concerning the potential implications in resource-constrained settings. Our research uses feminist Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the experiences of HIV positive mothers in Kingston, Jamaica, focusing on their lived experiences of talking to their children about maternal HIV. This paper will focus on the concept of mothering at a distance and how this presents additional challenges for HIV positive mothers who are trying to establish emotional closeness in relation to talking to their children about their HIV. Using Hochschild’s concept of emotion work and examples from the interviews, we highlight the difficult contexts informing women’s decisions when negotiating discussions about their HIV. Women may choose full, partial or differential disclosure or children may be told their mother’s HIV status by others. Disclosure policy, we argue, reflects Anglo-Northern constructions of the family and parenting which may not adequately reflect the experiences of poor urban mothers in low and middle income countries. We argue that policy needs to recognise culturally-specific family formations, which, in Jamaica includes absent fathers, mothering at a distance and mothering non-biological children. This article reflects on the experiences of an under-researched group, poor urban Jamaican women practising mothering at a distance, using a novel methodological approach (IPA) to bring into relief unique insights into their lived experiences and will contribute to the global policy and research literature on HIV disclosure.

Communication with evidence in the lab

We study a class of sender–receiver disclosure games in the lab. Our experiment relies on a graphical representation of sender's incentives in these games, and permits partial disclosure. We use local and global properties of the incentive graph to explain behavior and performance of players across different games. Sender types whose interests are aligned with those of the receiver fully disclose, while other types use vague messages. Receivers take the evidence disclosed by senders into account, and perform better in games with an acyclic graph. Senders perform better in games with a cyclic graph. The data is largely consistent with a non-equilibrium model of strategic thinking based on the iterated elimination of obviously dominated strategies.

Optimal information policy in discrete-time queues with strategic customers

This paper studies optimal information revelation policies in discrete-time \begin{document}$Geo/Geo/1$\end{document} queue. Revealing the queue length information to arriving customers plays an important role in their decision making, that is, whether to join the system or balk. We consider policies where a service provider discloses information to some customers and conceals it from others, depending upon the number of waiting customers. This partial information disclosure policy helps the service provider minimize the idle period of the system and maximize the revenue.

Specialist Physicians' Attitudes and Practice Patterns Regarding Disclosure of Pre-referral Medical Errors.

Our objective was to determine specialist physicians' attitudes and practices regarding disclosure of pre-referral errors. Physicians are encouraged to disclose their own errors to patients. However, no clear professional norms exist regarding disclosure when physicians discover errors in diagnosis or treatment that occurred at other institutions before referral. We conducted semistructured interviews of cancer specialists from 2 National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Centers. We purposively sampled specialists by discipline, sex, and experience-level who self-described a >50% reliance on external referrals (n = 30). Thematic analysis of verbatim interview transcripts was performed to determine physician attitudes regarding disclosure of pre-referral medical errors; whether and how physicians disclose these errors; and barriers to providing full disclosure. Participants described their experiences identifying different types of pre-referral errors including errors of diagnosis, staging and treatment resulting in adverse events ranging from decreased quality of life to premature death. The majority of specialists expressed the belief that disclosure provided no benefit to patients, and might unnecessarily add to their anxiety about their diagnoses or prognoses. Specialists had varying practices of disclosure including none, non-verbal, partial, event-dependent, and full disclosure. They identified a number of barriers to disclosure, including medicolegal implications and damage to referral relationships, the profession's reputation, and to patient-physician relationships. Specialist physicians identify pre-referral errors but struggle with whether and how to provide disclosure, even when clinical circumstances force disclosure. Education- or communication-based interventions that overcome barriers to disclosing pre-referral errors warrant development.

Outcry Consistency and Prosecutorial Decisions in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

ABSTRACTThis study examines the correlation between the consistency in a child’s sexual abuse outcry and the prosecutorial decision to accept or reject cases of child sexual abuse. Case-specific information was obtained from one Texas Children’s Advocacy Center on all cases from 2010 to 2013. After the needed deletion, the total number of cases included in the analysis was 309. An outcry was defined as a sexual abuse disclosure. Consistency was measured at both the forensic interview and the sexual assault exam. Logistic regression was used to evaluate whether a correlation existed between disclosure and prosecutorial decisions. Disclosure was statistically significant. Partial disclosure (disclosure at one point in time and denial at another) versus full disclosure (disclosure at two points in time) had a statistically significant odds ratio of 4.801. Implications are discussed, specifically, how the different disciplines involved in child protection should take advantage of the expertise of both forensic interviewers and forensic nurses to inform their decisions.

Information design and capital formation

Could a firm benefit from not disclosing all of its private information before its stock is traded in public financial markets? So long as the investors' marginal utility function is convex and the investors differ only in their risk-sharing needs, three substantive results hold: (1) a full disclosure policy minimizes the value of the firm; (2) lifting a mandate of full disclosure does not imply that firms will necessarily choose to withhold information maximally; and (3) with many firms that strategically choose disclosure policies, all Nash equilibria display only partial disclosure. Our insight is based on the role that the firm's equity can play as a risk-sharing device: if the firm chooses to keep some information private, its stock can be used by investors to hedge against risk.The problem that we study is of theoretical interest, but it is also topical: the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which was signed into law in April 2012, substantially eases securities regulations for small companies going public. The declared intent of this change in regulation was to promote capital formation in new and small companies. Our results indicate that the provisions of this new legislation are in line with its intentions. Less stringent requirements on information disclosure for smaller firms may also benefit investors.

Partial disclosure of information in the presence of presumable nocebo effects: an ethical analysis

When prescribing a treatment, the physician should give truthful information about the likely benefits and the potential adverse effects, allowing the patient to make an autonomous decision about whether to take the treatment. However, the mere expectation of adverse effects may precipitate the corresponding symptoms. This is called "nocebo effect", which in contrast to the placebo effect, can lead to harm to the patient due to psychological factors. Nocebo effects are common and clinically significant, although often unnoticed. This situation generates conflicts in medical ethics guiding principles, namely the moral obligation to disclose all possible effects of the prescribed drug as opposed to the duty of avoiding the harm of side effects that are likely to occur in a case. In other words, the physician faces a dilemma between the due respect for autonomy and the duty of non-maleficence. This article reflects about this conflict, by exploring the limits of the principle of autonomy and how to balance it with the principle of non-maleficence. We suggest an interpretation of the principle of autonomy from a patient-centered perspective, suggesting that it is ethically sound to give a prudential, partial disclosure of information to the patient, for the sake of avoiding potential nocebo effects. The article concludes with some cautionary considerations to be considered about this decision.

Advertising as a search deterrent

AbstractThis article examines a monopoly firm's incentive to disclose information through advertising when consumers can choose between buying immediately and searching for additional information. Because sales drop when search reveals low match values to consumers, the firm has an incentive to deter search. We show that partial information disclosure emerges as a useful tool for search deterrence when search costs are low. Informative advertising and consumer search can be viewed as complements in producing information. Although transparency policies reduce search expenditures and improve purchase decisions, whether they are socially desirable depends on the magnitude of search costs.

Competing Information Sources

ABSTRACTThis study analyzes corporate voluntary disclosures to the capital market in the presence of competing information sources, from which traders can subsequently obtain additional public and private information. The analysis demonstrates that the anticipated access of traders to additional information sources may significantly alter the voluntary disclosure strategy of firms. It may explain a deviation from the conventional full disclosure equilibrium to equilibrium with partial and selective disclosure. It may also lead to an untypical equilibrium shape, where any information content can be disclosed and can be withheld with a positive probability, and where the stock price reflects a pricing discount upon disclosure rather than in its absence.JEL Classifications: D82; G10; M41.

Disclosure of HIV Status to Infected Children in South India: Perspectives of Caregivers

This study was designed to examine the rates of HIV serostatus disclosure in a sample of HIV-infected children in the state of Karnataka in South India, their reactions to learning their HIV-positive status and the reasons for and barriers to disclosure from the point of view of their caregivers. We enrolled 233 HIV-infected children, aged 5-18 years and their caregivers between July 2011 and February 2013 at HIV clinics in three tertiary care centers. Caregiver interviews included information about demographic characteristics, medical history, type of disclosure to the child and other related factors, including disclosure barriers. Three quarters (n = 185) of the caregivers reported that there had been no disclosure to the child, 15.4% (n = 38) reported partial disclosure (e.g. telling the child he or she had a 'chronic illness') and only 9.7% (n = 24) reported full disclosure, at a mean age of 10.9 (SD: 2.5) years. Caregivers, who planned to disclose in the future, stated on average that 16 years would be the right age. Those who favored a later disclosure reported that they feared strong negative emotional reactions from the child (p = 0.03) and social isolation (p < 0.001) following disclosure. These results show that that the level of full disclosure is low among South Indian youth living with HIV, and that when disclosure occurs, it is most likely to be partial. The majority of children who learned their status had been informed by a health-care provider, possibly reflecting the difficulty for a caregiver of having this conversation. The caregivers reported multiple disadvantages of disclosure, mostly because of fears of stigma and discrimination. Despite some evidence from the literature that disclosure can have positive effects on a child's health, it is thus clear that we need to develop, implement and evaluate community-based stigma reduction programs to reduce the social barriers to disclosure.

Disclosure and Pricing of Attributes

A monopolist sells an object characterized by multiple attributes. A buyer can be one of many types, differing in their willingness to pay for each attribute. The seller can provide arbitrary attribute information in the form of a statistical experiment. To screen different types, the seller offers a menu of options that specify information prices, experiments, and object prices. I characterize revenue-maximizing menus. All experiments belong to a class of linear disclosure policies. An optimal menu may be nondiscriminatory and qualitatively depends on the structure of buyer heterogeneity. The analysis informs on the benefits of partial disclosure in pricing settings.

Misreporting and Regulatory Incentives

I study how regulators' self-interest affects the transparency of their enforcement regimes and, as a result, misreporting by overseen firms. I use the revolving door from government to the private sector as a natural, commonly-occurring setting that captures self-interest. In this setting I construct a model in which the regulator's desire to revolve or not, as well as the intensity of regulatory enforcement, is private information that the regulator can voluntarily disclose. Uncertainty about the regulator's incentives and regulatory intensity yields a nontrivial partial disclosure equilibrium in which, despite the presence of the revolving door, selective disclosure can lead to lower levels of misreporting. The model provides a lens through which to understand recent empirical work on how regulators with private-sector ambitions behave, and suggests avenues for future empirical research.

The Role of Relationship Dynamics and Gender Inequalities As Barriers to HIV-Serostatus Disclosure: Qualitative Study among Women and Men Living with HIV in Durban, South Africa.

This qualitative study investigated gender power inequalities as they contribute to relationship dynamics and HIV-serostatus disclosure among men and women living with HIV in Durban, South Africa. HIV serodiscordance among men and women within stable partnerships contributes to high HIV incidence in southern Africa, yet disclosure rates remain low. Given the emphasis on prevention for HIV-serodiscordant couples, this research supports the urgent need to explore how best to support couples to recognize that they are part of this priority population and to access appropriate prevention and treatment. Thirty-five in-depth individual interviews were conducted with 15 HIV-positive men and 20 HIV-positive women (not couples) receiving care at public-sector clinics near Durban. A structured coding scheme was developed to investigate men's and women's attitudes toward HIV-serostatus disclosure and behaviors of sharing (or not sharing) HIV serostatus with a partner. Narratives were analyzed for barriers and facilitators of disclosure through the lens of sociocultural gender inequality, focusing on reasons for non-disclosure. Among 35 participants: median age was 33 years (men) and 30 years (women); average years since HIV diagnosis was 1 (men) and 1.5 (women). Four themes related to gender inequality and HIV-serostatus disclosure emerged: (1) Men and women fear disclosing to partners due to concerns about stigma and relationship dissolution, (2) suspicions and mistrust between partners underlies decisions for non-disclosure, (3) unequal, gendered power in relationships causes differential likelihood and safety of disclosure among men and women, and (4) incomplete or implicit disclosure are strategies to navigate disclosure challenges. Findings illustrate HIV-serostatus disclosure as a complex process evolving over time, rather than a one-time event. Partner communication about HIV serostatus is infrequent and complicated, with gender inequalities contributing to fear, mistrust, and partial or implicit disclosure. Relationship dynamics and gender roles shape the environment within which men and women can engage successfully in the HIV-serostatus disclosure process. Integrated interventions to reduce barriers to trustful and effective communication are needed for HIV-affected men and women in partnerships in which seeking couples-based HIV counseling and testing (CHCT) is challenging or unlikely. These data offer insights to support HIV-serostatus disclosure strategies within relationships over time.

Prevalence and factors associated with human immunodeficiency virus disclosure status in children at Sanglah Hospital Denpasar

A comprehensive management of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is necessary. Another important challenge is determining the HIV status understanding or disclosing HIV status which can further enhance the adherence to treatment and preventing secondary transmission.The aims of the study were to know the prevalence of HIV status disclosure and factors associated with HIV status disclosure in children.This was a cross-sectional study comprised of 44 caregivers of children with HIV infection at pediatrics outpatient Sanglah Hospital was conducted from February until May 2015. The study participants were caregivers of HIV-infected children age 5 to 12 years. Data analysis was using SPSS 22, statistics using Chi-square test and P-values ≤ 0.05 and 95% CI were considered significant. The prevalence was found 19 children (43.2%) who had partially disclosed their HIV status, with mean age was 7.7 (SD 2.33) years. In univariat analysis, the orphans were more likely to have their status disclosed compare to those who are not orphans (OR 0.28; 95% CI 0.077 to 1.02; P =0.049). There were no significant relations found between HIV clinical stage, nutritional status of the children, the caregiversage, educational status of the caregivers with HIV status disclosure. After multivariate analysis, only non-parent caregivers were associated with HIV disclosure status (OR: 15.6; 95% CI 1.48 to 164.3; P=0.022). Based on this study we conclude the prevalence of HIV disclosure status was 43.2% with partial disclosure status, non-parent caregivers was a factor associated to HIV disclosure status.

Unroofed Coronary Sinus Syndrome: An Easily Corrected Congenital Anomaly But More Diagnostic Suspicion Is Needed

Unroofed coronary sinus syndrome (URCSS) is a spectrum of cardiac anomalies in which part (partial type) or the entire common wall (complete type) between the coronary sinus (CS) and left atrium is absent. It is commonly associated with a persistent left superior vena cava (PLSVC). The PLSVC can even anomalously connect to the left atrium in complete type anomaly. URCSS has been reported to be associated with delayed diagnosis and life-threatening cerebral injury. The purpose of the present study was to review our experience with surgical correction of this often-concealed malformation and discuss methods for reducing diagnostic omission. Thirty-six patients with URCSS who underwent surgical treatment from 1998 to 2015 in our institution were enrolled in this retrospective analysis. The mean age of the patients was 21.8±20.9 years. Type I anomalies were found in 15 (41.7%) patients, type II in 4 (11.1%), type III in 6 (16.7%), and type IV in 11 (30.6%). A patient presenting with URCSS without other defects was identified in six (16.7%). One patient (2.8%) had a history of paradoxical embolisation. Twenty-five patients (69.4%) were diagnosed before surgery. Ten patients (27.8%) were diagnosed with URCSS intraoperatively. One patient (2.8%) was diagnosed with URCSS by follow-up echocardiography after device occlusion for atrial septal defect. Coronary sinus ostium dilation was the most important clue leading to partial type lesion disclosure intraoperatively. The anomalous PLSVC of 15 patients was repaired using roof tunnel technique in four (26.7%) cases, baffle redirection in eight (53.3%) cases, posterior left atrial wall plicating in two (13.3%) cases, and extracardiac bypass in one (6.7%) case. Postoperative complete atrioventricular block occurred in one patient (2.8%). One patient died postoperatively (2.8%). All patients are doing well after discharge from hospital. Diagnostic suspicion can contribute to lesion disclosure. Surgical correction has good long-term outcomes and low risks.