Relative Importance Of Different Dimensions Research Articles

Changing focus: How status affects reputation-based comparisons in the evaluation of organizations

Status and reputation both play important roles in the evaluation and choice of organizations. Status is used as a heuristic in the first stage of a two-stage process when decision-makers select a subset of status-proximate organizations, and cognitively costlier reputation-based comparisons take place in the second stage within this subset. Existing status research assumes that the relative importance of different dimensions of reputation in the second stage is not contingent on the status of the organization that is being evaluated. We argue that this assumption is not warranted. Evidence suggests that high status is associated with a focus on gains and opportunities while low status is associated with a focus on downside risks. Similarly, some dimensions of reputation are associated more with upside opportunities while other dimensions of reputation are associated more with downside risks. Consequently, we argue that the emphasis on reputation dimensions associated with upside opportunities relative to dimensions of reputation associated with downside risks is contingent on status, which provides the evaluation frame. We test our hypothesis and provide empirical evidence consistent with our predictions using a sample of 411,530 US applicants to Master of Business Administration programs.

Street-level quasi-bureaucracy and professional discretion: how transformational leadership and public service motivation influence village health volunteers' professional discretion

PurposeVillage health volunteers are community health volunteers in Thailand that have helped the government deliver public health services for many years, particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Though labeled as “volunteers,” the village health volunteers are recruited, trained and supervised in a manner similar to how a government agency recruits, trains and supervises its street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). This study examines the two factors that affect how these street-level quasi-bureaucrats use their professional discretion: transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM). Transformational leadership means a leadership style that develops, shares and sustains a vision to elevate SLBs to higher levels of performance, while PSM is defined as an SLB’s predisposition to make a difference by working in the public sector with a sense of calling. This study attempts to analyze the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership, PSM and professional discretion.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a three-wave survey-based quantitative method to avoid common method biases. This method provides evidence gathered from 105 subdistrict health promotion hospitals and 798 village health volunteers (VHVs) in five provinces in Thailand.FindingsPSM and transformational leadership influence the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion indirectly through the psychological empowerment mechanisms that make them feel positive toward their village health volunteer role and responsibility. The authors' findings suggest that the hospital directors' transformational leadership induces the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion by making them feel competent to do their work and feel fulfilled and valuable about their work. Similarly, the village health volunteers' PSM leads them to use professional discretion by making them feel fulfilled and valuable and by convincing them of the social and community impact of their work.Research limitations/implicationsWhile existing research focuses on VHVs' role in alleviating capacity constraints on the health care system, this study revealed an equally important role played by hospital directors. These directors' transformational leadership was instrumental in enhancing VHVs' psychological empowerment – particularly their perceptions of the meaning of their work and their competence – that ultimately enabled them to use professional discretion in their work. This study also highlighted the importance of VHVs' PSM, which leads to their use of professional discretion via the meaning and impact dimensions of psychological empowerment. Based on this study, PSM should also be incorporated into the community health volunteers' recruitment criteria. Also, public health agencies should consider including transformational leadership in the hospital directors' training programs and their promotion criteria.Practical implicationsAs VHVs' high-PSM level was found to enhance their professional discretion, the process of recruiting ordinary citizens to serve as community health volunteers should incorporate assessment of the candidates' PSM. Also, the Ministry of Public Health should design and assign tasks that citizen volunteers, particularly VHVs, consider meaningful and at which they feel competent.Social implicationsAside from technical training, directors of the subdistrict health promotion hospitals should regularly receive soft skill training (i.e. leadership training) and transformational leadership characteristics should be included in the government criteria for promotion.Originality/valueWhile past research has examined the impact of other leadership styles on psychological empowerment, this study took a further step by examining the mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and professional discretion among VHVs. The authors analyzed the mechanism linking PSM to the VHVs' professional discretion. In addition, by examining the relative importance of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the psychological processes by which transformational leadership and PSM shape the SLBs' use of professional discretion in their work.

Entrepreneurship and new product development: Exploring the “advantage of youth” and “business acumen” views

AbstractWe explore the relevance of two different views on new product development (NPD) drivers, defined as “advantage of youth” and “business acumen.” The two arguments, that establish a negative relationship between an individual's age and NPD and a positive impact of professional experience on NPD, are theoretically contextualized and empirically tested in the entrepreneurship domain. Considering a sample of more than 4000 Italian entrepreneurs of innovative start‐ups, a series of econometric analyses confirm that both effects apply and reveal interesting nuances as to the relevance of the age effect and the relative importance of different dimensions of entrepreneurs' business acumen on NPD. Further additional analyses highlight how both the “advantage of youth” and “business acumen” do not necessarily lead to successful entrepreneurial NPD, but at the same time, they both are found to importantly characterize top performers among entrepreneurs engaging in NPD. Overall, this in‐depth analysis on entrepreneurial NPD and its drivers underlies the importance of a micro‐founded and individual‐based approach in the study of new product dynamics, and in doing so, it contributes to enrich the upper echelons perspective and related frameworks on innovation outcomes through entrepreneurship. By theorizing and documenting those personal demographic and human capital traits which are mostly associated with entrepreneurial NPD, a series of interesting implications quite naturally descend for several stakeholders: (prospective) entrepreneurs, managers who aim at nurturing an intrapreneurship culture within their companies and policy makers interested in increasing dynamic efficiency in the economic system through the launch of new products and services.

Critical dimensions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviour among mushroom growers: Investigation through Principal Component Analysis

Mushroom cultivation is often promoted as profitable and income generating agri-business activity, while there is a very high rate of attrition in mushroom entrepreneurship. Performance of mushroom enterprise as a physical attribute and the entrepreneurial behaviour of mushroom growing farmers as a psychological attribute plays an important role in the success of the mushroom entrepreneurship. Both these variables are in turn influenced by several dimensions rendering it difficult to comprehend the nature of variability observed in them. Therefore, the principal component analysis (PCA) of these two variables was done for variable reduction and to understand their influence on mushroom entrepreneurship. The results of PCA ascertain the relative importance of different dimensions on the variables through Eigen weightages. Based on the findings, suitable strategies and necessary policy interventions are identified to make the mushroom entrepreneurship as a potential agri-business to augment farmers’ income.

Consumer perceived value preferences for mobile marketing in China: A mixed method approach

This study aimed to identify a new framework for consumer perceived value (CPV) and evaluate the dynamics of relative importance of different dimensions of CPV in the context of mobile marketing. Laddering interviews were conducted to capture the essence of CPVs, and then text-mining techniques were applied to extract key consumer values from the interviews. Six dimensions of CPV, namely, design, emotional, functional, monetary, guarantee, and social, were identified. The construct validity of these six dimensions was demonstrated through a rigorous sorting process. A best–worst scaling (BWS) survey was then implemented based on these six value dimensions to investigate consumers’ preference for each dimension in three critical decision-making phases of mobile marketing campaigns. Statistical analysis of the BWS data showed that significant dynamic differences exist among these six value dimensions in each phase. Gender difference and consumer heterogeneity were also presented. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed.

Commentary: Dimensions of emotional intelligence related to physical and mental health and to health behaviors.

Emotional intelligence (EI) measured through mixed and ability self-report has been related to a broad range of health-related outcomes, including mental and physical health (e.g., Martins et al., 2010; Zeidner et al., 2012). Most of these studies have looked at whether overall self-report EI correlates with health, leaving open the question of whether specific dimensions of self-report EI correlate with specific health dimensions. The recent article by Fernandez-Abascal and Martin-Diaz (2015) begins to address this gap by examining possible relationships between various dimensions of self-report EI and several physical and mental health dimensions and behaviors. Using a cross-sectional sample of Spanish adults (N = 855) aged 18–64 years (M = 34.27, SD = 9.61), the authors applied the two most frequently used instruments (Martins et al., 2010) to evaluate various dimensions of self-report EI. The Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS; Salovey et al., 1995) examines Attention to Feelings, Clarity of Feelings, and Mood Repair; while the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue; Petrides and Furnham, 2003) examines Well-being, Self-control, Emotionality, and Sociability. The authors examine whether these dimensions are linked to any of several health components, including Physical and Mental Health on the Health Survey SF-36 Questionnaire (SF-36), as well as Preventive Health Behavior and Risk-Taking Behavior on the Health Behavior Checklist (HBC). Their results suggest that the dimensions of self-report EI in their study are better predictors of Mental Health (48.4%) than of Physical Health (15.6%). Even after controlling for gender and age, Physical and Mental Health correlated positively with Well-Being, Self-Control and Sociability, while Mental Health correlated negatively with Attention to Feelings. Preventive Health Behavior correlated positively with Mood Repair, while Risk-Taking Behavior correlated negatively with Self-control. Effect sizes were smaller for HBC dimensions (ranges from 8.3 to 9.3%) than for SF-36 ones (ranges from 48.4 to 15.6%). These findings help clarify the relative importance of different dimensions of self-report EI in the prediction of health outcomes. Overall, the authors' results confirm previous research associating the ability to regulate one's emotions (Repair and Self-Control factors in this study) with health outcomes (e.g., Fernandez-Berrocal and Extremera, 2008; Freudenthaler et al., 2008; Martins et al., 2010). On the other hand, the results with Physical Health contrast with previous work identifying the ability to understand one's emotions as the self-report EI dimension that most strongly predicts physical health (Mikolajczak et al., 2015). This discrepancy may be due in part to the fact that Fernandez-Abascal and Martin-Diaz (2015) measured physical health using self-report instruments, whereas Mikolajczak et al. (2015) measured objective health indicators. While the results of Fernandez-Abascal and Martin-Diaz are interesting in themselves, they are even more interesting because of the questions they raise. The observed association between specific dimensions of self-report EI and health is likely to be the product of multiple biopsychosocial factors. Future studies should examine, for example, how self-report EI interacts with other factors to influence health-related variables such as anxiety, depression, perceived stress, risky behavior and substance abuse. These “other factors” may include socio-demographic variables, such as gender, age, and educational background (Cabello et al., 2014); as well as psychological dimensions, such as implicit theories, social relationships and personality (Cabello and Fernandez-Berrocal, 2015a,b). Since self-report measures of EI and performance-based ability measures of EI are complementary, future studies may also wish to examine whether the two types of measures interact to influence health outcomes. Clearly, detailed understanding of how EI affects health outcomes is just beginning to emerge, and the work of Fernandez-Abascal and Martin-Diaz has moved us closer to this goal. If prospective studies can confirm the hypothesis that increasing EI can improve health, it would have significant practical and social implications for training programs aimed at increasing social and emotional competencies in patient groups as well as the general population.

Which dimensions of access are most important when rural residents decide to visit a general practitioner for non-emergency care?

Access to primary healthcare (PHC) services is key to improving health outcomes in rural areas. Unfortunately, little is known about which aspect of access is most important. The objective of this study was to determine the relative importance of different dimensions of access in the decisions of rural Australians to utilise PHC provided by general practitioners (GP). Data were collected from residents of five communities located in 'closely' settled and 'sparsely' settled rural regions. A paired-comparison methodology was used to quantify the relative importance of availability, distance, affordability (cost) and acceptability (preference) in relation to respondents' decisions to utilise a GP service for non-emergency care. Consumers reported that preference for a GP and GP availability are far more important than distance to and cost of the service when deciding to visit a GP for non-emergency care. Important differences in rankings emerged by geographic context, gender and age. Understanding how different dimensions of access influence the utilisation of PHC services is critical in planning the provision of PHC services. This study reports how consumers 'trade-off' the different dimensions of access when accessing GP care in rural Australia. The results show that ensuring 'good' access requires that policymakers and planners should consider other dimensions of access to services besides geography.

The importance of organizational level decision latitude for well-being and organizational commitment

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on participation in the workplace and examines the relative importance of different dimensions of job control in relation to subjective well-being and organizational commitment. These dimensions are job autonomy (within a given job), functional support (from supervisor and colleagues) and organizational level decision latitude (shop-floor consultancy on process improvements, division of labor, workmates, targets, etc.). Interaction with work intensity is looked at as well. Design/methodology/approach – Measurements and data were taken from the European Working Conditions Survey, 2010. The paper focusses on salaried employees only. The sample was further limited to employees in workplaces consisting of at least 50 workers. There are 2,048 employees in the final sample, from Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the UK. In this paper, the focus is not on differences between countries, and adding more countries would have introduced too many country characteristics as intermediate variables. Findings – In the regression analyses, functional support and organizational level decision latitude showed stronger relations with the outcome variables than job autonomy. There was no relation between work intensity and the outcome variables. Two-way interactions were found for job autonomy and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being and for functional support and organizational level decision latitude on organizational commitment. A three-way interaction, of all job control variables combined, was found on organizational commitment, with the presence of all types of job control showing the highest organizational commitment level. No such three-way interaction was found for subjective well-being. There was an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and functional support, as well as an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being: high work intensity and low functional support or low organizational level decision latitude seemed to associate with low well-being. No interaction was found for any dimension of job control being high and high work intensity. Research limitations/implications – Although this study has all the limitations of a cross-sectional survey, the results are more or less in accordance with existing theories. This indicates that organizational level decision latitude matters. Differentiation of job control dimensions in research models is recommended, and so is workplace innovation for healthy and productive jobs. Originality/value – Most theoretical models for empirical research are limited to control at task level (e.g. the Job Demand-Control-Support model of Karasek and Theorell. The paper aims at nuancing and extending current job control models by distinguishing three dimensions/levels of job control, referring to sociotechnical systems design theory (De Sitter) and action regulation theory (Hacker) and reciprocity (Akerlof). The policy relevance regards the consequences for work and organization design.

Priority of Prosthodontic Need Assessment: Functional vs Other Quality of Life Needs – A Quality of Life Assessment Using APS-ARG QOL(DS) – A Pilot Project

ABSTRACTObjectiveRestoration of functional ability is the topmost priority on the mind of a prosthodontist, however, functional restoration alone does not fulfil the treatment needs of a patient.Material & MethodA 20-item scale for understanding quality of life related to prosthodontic treatment needs was tested for internal consistency and usefulness in understanding the priorities of treatment needs of patients. The scale was administered to 30 patients, mostly in the elderly age group (Mean age 59.43±10.28 years) seeking prosthodontic rehabilitation at Chandra Dental College and Hospital, Barabanki (U.P.), India. On testing the internal consistency of the scale, it was found to be reliable (Cronbach alpha 0.711).ResultThough functional needs emerged as the topmost priority for patients yet emotional needs were found to be as much important while social needs and financial needs occupied the lower tiers on the hierarchy of treatment needs. The differences in relative importance of different dimensions were well explained and were found to be logical.ConclusionThe scale was found to be a useful utility in quantification of prosthodontic need and in order to understand the prosthodontic need beyond considerations of fulfilment of functional disability alone.

Community Vulnerability to Floods and Landslides in Nepal

We addressed the issue of differential vulnerability to natural disasters at the level of village communities in Nepal. The focus lay on the relative importance of different dimensions of socioeconomic status and in particular, we tried to differentiate between the effects of education and income/wealth, the latter being measured through the existence of permanent housing structures. We studied damage due to floods and landslides in terms of human lives lost, animals lost, and other registered damage to households. The statistical analysis was carried out through several alternative models applied separately to the Terai and the Hill and Mountain Regions, as well as all of Nepal. At all levels and under all models, the results showed consistently significant effects of more education on lowering the number of human and animal deaths as well as the number of households otherwise affected. With respect to the wealth indicator, the picture was less clear and particularly with respect to losses in human lives, the estimated coefficients tended to have the wrong signs. We concluded that the effects of education on reducing disaster vulnerability tended to be more pervasive than those of income/wealth in the case of floods and landslides in Nepal.

Time to Tweak the TTO: But How?

This paper examines the effect different specifications of the Time Tradeoff (TTO) task have on health state values. The new lead time TTO is compared to an equally viable method called lag time TTO, both in two time frames. We test whether the two methods yield comparable health state values and whether the relative importance of dimensions of health is similarly stable between TTO specifications. The tasks were applied online and compared to results from a study with identical TTO specifications but with a different mode of administration. Lag time TTO produced lower values than lead time TTO and the difference was larger in the longer time frame. The relative importance of different dimensions of health was affected by the duration of the health state. Generally, the lead time TTO performed in group sessions gave more favorable results than the online exercise based on feasibility and data quality.

Prediction of subjective age, desired age, and age satisfaction in older adults: Do some health dimensions contribute more than others?

Of all the variables that have been shown to contribute to subjective age, health variables typically explain the greatest proportion of variance, with poorer health related to feeling older than one's chronological age. Despite the significant contribution of health to subjective age, little research has explored the relative importance of different dimensions of health to subjective age. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relative importance of various physical, mental, social, and emotional dimensions of health, as well as satisfaction with health, to measures of subjective age, desired age, and satisfaction with age in a sample of 875 older men and women. The results indicated that: (1) certain combinations of health dimensions and satisfaction with health accounted for relatively large proportions (20—36%) of the variance in subjective age and satisfaction with age but not desired age; (2) subjective age and satisfaction with age were explained by different combinations of health dimensions; and (3) the health predictors of subjective age and satisfaction with age differed somewhat for men and women and for young-old and old-old groups.

Profiles of Emotion-antecedent Appraisal: Testing Theoretical Predictions across Cultures

Placed in a context of appraisal theories of emotion-elicitation and differentiation the present study pursues three aims: (1) testing theoretical predictions based on the author's Stimulus Evaluation Check (SEC) model; (2) examining the number and types of appraisal dimensions necessary for emotion differentiation and the relative importance of different dimensions; and (3) determining the similarity of emotion-specific appraisal profiles across cultures. The data reported were gathered in a large-scale intercultural study in which 2921 respondents in 37 countries were asked to recall recent experiences of joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, shame, and guilt; and toanswerquestions concerning theirappraisal of the emotion-eliciting event. The results support many but not all of the SEC model's predictions. Multiple discriminant analyses suggest that a relatively small number of appraisal dimensions may be sufficient to classify the major emotion categories with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Cross-cultural comparison shows that emotion-specific appraisal profiles correlate highly across geopolitical culture regions although there are consistent differences for some regions.