Risk-taking Attitudes Research Articles

Examination of Assumptions in Using Time Tradeoff and Standard Gamble Utilities in Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury

Lin M-R, Yu W-Y, Wang S-C. Examination of assumptions in using time tradeoff and standard gamble utilities in individuals with spinal cord injury. ObjectiveTo examine how the time tradeoff (TTO) and standard gamble (SG) utilities perform at different lengths of life expectancy and across patient characteristics such as risk attitudes and injury severity in individuals with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). DesignSurvey. SettingStructured telephone interviews of patients after discharge from 4 teaching hospitals. ParticipantsSubjects (N=270) who had sustained SCI were block-randomized in groups of 4 to receive 1 of 2 questionnaire versions. One version asked about the TTO and SG at 2 life expectancies of 10 and 20 years, and the other at 20 and 30 years. InterventionsNot applicable. Main Outcome MeasuresThe TTO and SG were used to elicit preferences for patients with an SCI. ResultsPatients with SCI who were younger and had more severe neurologic lesions, had higher intense risk-taking attitudes, and experienced depression had significantly lower TTO and SG scores than their counterparts. A longer life expectancy was also significantly associated with lower TTO scores. As the life expectancy increased, patients who had sustained SCI more recently (≤1y ago) were more willing to trade off life years for full health (ie, lower TTO scores). SG scores did not significantly vary according to different life expectancies. ConclusionsAmong patients with SCI, there was a nonlinear relation between the TTO and life expectancy that violated the fundamental assumption of risk neutrality toward life years. Accordingly, TTO utilities elicited for different life expectancies should not be compared in quality-of-life assessments or used in cost-utility analyses. In contrast, SG utilities remained stable at different lengths of life expectancy in SCI patients. Moreover, certain patient characteristics such as age, time lapse since the injury, neurologic severity, risk attitudes, and depressive status can account for some TTO and SG variations among patients with SCI.

Music Video Viewing as a Marker of Driving After the Consumption of Alcohol

This study has two main objectives. First, it is examined whether the frequent exposure to music video viewing is associated with driving after the consumption of alcohol. Second, it is examined which theoretical framework, a combination of Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior or the Problem Behavior Theory, is suited best to explain this relationship. Participants were 426 Flemish adolescents who took part in a two-wave panel survey (2006–2008) about media use, risk-taking attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. In line with Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, the results showed that adolescents’ music video viewing is a significant marker of later risky driving behavior and that this relationship is mediated through their attitudes and intentions. No support was found for the hypothesis that music video viewing is part of a cluster of problem behaviors (Problem Behavior Theory). Thus, the results of this study seem to indicate that a combination of Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior provides a more useful framework for explaining the relationship between music video viewing and driving after the consumption of alcohol. The implications for prevention and the study's limitations are discussed.

Family Support as a Mediator of Change in Sexual Risk-Taking Attitudes Among Orphaned Adolescents in Rural Uganda

Prior studies demonstrated the effect of family-based economic empowerment intervention Suubi on reducing attitudes approving sexual risk-taking behavior among orphaned adolescents in Uganda. To understand mechanisms of change, the article examines the effect of Suubi intervention on family support variables and their role in mediating the change in adolescents' attitudes toward sexual risk-taking. The Suubi study used a cluster-randomized experimental design with three waves, and included 283 orphaned adolescents from 15 primary schools in Rakai, Uganda. First, using mixed-effects models, the study tested for the effect of intervention on family support variables. Second, using mediation analysis, the study examined whether the change in sexual risk-taking attitudes was mediated by the change in family support. Compared with adolescents from the control group, at wave 2, adolescents in the treatment group reported higher levels of perceived support from caregivers, were more willing to talk to caregivers about their problems, and felt more comfortable talking about sexual risk behaviors with their caregivers. Mediation analysis demonstrated that the improvement in perceived support from caregivers at wave 2 accounted for 16.8% of the reduction in adolescents' attitudes toward sexual risk-taking behavior at wave 3 (z = -2.21, p < .05). A family-based economic empowerment intervention Suubi may have the potential to increase family support to orphaned adolescents. Interventions aimed at strengthening existing social networks and improving connectedness with surviving family members may be critical in preventing sexual risk-taking behavior among orphaned adolescents in Uganda, which is characterized by low resources.

프랜차이즈 본사의 외부환경이 경영성과에 미치는 영향 -앙트러프러너십, 시장지향성, 및 조직구조의 매개변수를 중심으로-

선행연구들은 외식 프랜차이즈 환경에서 프랜차이저의 앙트러프러너 활동에 관한 프랜차이지의 지각을 거의 취급하고 있지 않고 있다. 따라서 본 연구는 프랜차이지의 관점에서 프랜차이저의 외부환경, 앙트러프러너 전략, 기계-유기 조직, 및 경영성과와의 관계를 공변량구조분석을 통하여 분석하였다. 자료는 2009년 10월1일부터 2010년 2월 28일까지 전국의 외식 프랜차이지를 605명을 대상으로 설문조사를 수집하였다. 분석 결과에 의하면 외부환경은 앙트러프러너 전략에 정(+)의 영향을 주고, 앙트러프러너 전략은 다시 시장 지향성과 경영성과에 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이와 동시에 시장지향성은 유기적 조직을 채택하도록 만들었으며, 경영성과를 제고하는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 외부환경은 유기적 조직을 채택하도록 유도하였으며, 경영성과를 악화시킨 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 시사점은 첫째, 프랜차이저가 적극성, 혁신성, 및 위험추구성을 어느 정도 가지고 있느냐에 따라서 프랜차이즈 조직은 만족할 만한 경영성과와 현대 기업들이 필수적으로 갖추어야 될 시장지향성을 보유하게 되며, 둘째, 프랜차이저들은 시장지향성을 구성하고 있는 고객지향성, 경쟁지향성, 부서간 조화, 장기성, 수익성을 염두에 두면서 시장점유율을 유지 및 성장시켜야 하고, 셋째, 외식환경이 최근 상당히 역동적으로 그리고 비우호적으로 변화하는 관계로 이것이 조직 구조를 개편하게 만들고, 또한 경영성과에 나쁜 영향을 미치고 있는 만큼 외부환경에 대한 긴밀한 탐사가 필요하다고 하겠다. Few previous researches have been studied in terms of franchisees' perceptions of franchisors' entrepreneurial activities within the boundary of restaurant franchising industry settings. The sampling frame for this study included 605 restaurant franchisees in the business-format franchising system in Korea and data were collected from 1 October 2009 to 28 February 2010. This study, from franchisees' views, investigated the relationship among franchisors' entrepreneurship, external environment, organizational structure(mechanistic-organic) and managerial performance, with structural equation modeling(SEM). The research findings were, firstly, external environment positively affected entrepreneurship which positively affected market orientation and managerial performance, and secondly, market orientation made franchisors select organic structure and heighten managerial performance. Also, external environment led franchisors to adopt organic structure and aggravated their managerial performance. The implications of these findings were as follows. Firstly, the more franchiors had initiatives, innovatedness and risk-taking attitudes, the higher they had managerial performances and market orientation. Secondly, franchisors should keep and heighten market share with keeping in mind with customer orientation, competition orientation, harmony between departments, long-term orientation and profitability. Thirdly, continuous and cautious environmental scanning was necessary because external restaurant environment made organizational structure being changed and managerial performance being aggravated.

Gender Differences in Risk Aversion: Do Single-Sex Environments Affect Their Development?

Single-sex classes within coeducational environments are likely to modify students' risk-taking attitudes in economically important ways. To test this, we designed a controlled experiment using first year college students who made choices over real-stakes lotteries at two distinct dates. Students were randomly assigned to classes of three types: all female, all male, and coeducational. They were not allowed to change group subsequently. We found that women are less likely to make risky choices than men at both dates. However, after eight weeks in a single-sex environment, women were significantly more likely to choose the lottery than their counterparts in coeducational groups. These results are robust to the inclusion of controls for IQ and for personality type, as well as to a number of sensitivity tests. Our findings suggest that observed gender differences in behaviour under uncertainty found in previous studies might partly reflect social learning rather than inherent gender traits.

The effects of risk-glorifying media exposure on risk-positive cognitions, emotions, and behaviors: A meta-analytic review.

In recent years, there has been a surge in the quantity of media content that glorifies risk-taking behavior, such as risky driving, extreme sports, or binge drinking. The authors conducted a meta-analysis involving more than 80,000 participants and 105 independent effect sizes to examine whether exposure to such media depictions increased their recipients' risk-taking inclinations. A positive connection was found for overall, combined risk taking (g=.41); as well as its underlying dimensions: risk-taking behaviors (g=.41), risk-positive cognitions and attitudes (g=.35), and risk-positive emotions (g=.56). This effect was observed across varying research methods (experimental, correlational, longitudinal); types of media (video games, movies, advertising, TV, music); and differing risk-related outcome measures (e.g., smoking, drinking, risky driving, sexual behavior). Multiple moderator analyses revealed 2 theoretically new boundary conditions for sociocognitive models. First, the effect was stronger for active (i.e., video games) than for passive (e.g., film, music) exposure to risk-glorifying media content. Second, the effect was stronger when there was a high degree of contextual fit between the media content and type of risk-taking measure. The theoretical, practical, and societal implications of the present research synthesis are discussed.

Travel Characteristics and Risk‐Taking Attitudes in Youths Traveling to Nonindustrialized Countries

International travel to developing countries is increasing with rising levels of disposable income; this trend is seen in both adults and children. Risk-taking attitude is fundamental to research on the prevention of risky health behaviors, which can be an indicator of the likelihood of experiencing illness or injury during travel. The aim of this study is to investigate whether risk-taking attitudes of youths are associated with travel characteristics and likelihood of experiencing illness or injury while traveling to nonindustrialized countries. Data were analyzed from the 2008 YouthStyles survey, an annual mail survey gathering demographics and health knowledge, attitudes, and practices of individuals from 9 through 18 years of age. Travelers were defined as respondents who reported traveling in the last 12 months to a destination other than the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, or New Zealand. Risk-taking attitude was measured by using a four-item Brief Sensation-Seeking Scale. All p values ≤ 0.05 were considered significant. Of 1,704 respondents, 131 (7.7%) traveled in the last 12 months. Females and those with higher household income were more likely to travel (odds ratio = 1.6,1.1). Of those who traveled, 16.7% reported seeking pretravel medical care, with most visiting a family doctor for that care (84.0%). However, one-fifth of respondents reported illness and injury during travel; of these, 83.3% traveled with their parents. Males and older youths had higher mean sensation-seeking scores. Further, travelers had a higher mean sensation-seeking score than nontravelers. Those who did not seek pretravel medical care also had higher mean sensation-seeking scores (p = 0.1, not significant). Our results show an association between risk-taking attitudes and youth travel behavior. However, adult supervision during travel and parental directives prior to travel should be taken into consideration. Communication messages should emphasize the importance of pretravel advice, target parents of children who are traveling, and be communicated through family doctors.

DO RISK ATTITUDES DIFFER WITHIN THE GROUP OF ENTREPRENEURS?

The notion of risk and entrepreneurship has been widely discussed in the entrepreneurship literature. Starting a business involves risk and requires a risk-taking attitude. Most studies have com-pared entrepreneurs with non-entrepreneurs such as managers or bankers. So far, little research exists on the risk attitudes of different types of entrepreneurs. This study aims to fill this gap. Our particular focus is on the entrepreneurs’ motivations to start their business. The results show that opportunity entrepreneurs are more willing to take risks than necessity entrepreneurs. In addition, entrepreneurs who are motivated by creativity are more risk-tolerant than other entrepreneurs. The study contributes to the literature about risk attitudes of entrepreneurs and to the literature about necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship.

Infusing creativity into Eastern classrooms: Evaluations from student perspectives

Infusing creativity elements into regular classroom was an important movement in recent Asian educational reforms. A large-scale research study was conducted in Hong Kong to explore the possibilities, outcomes and difficulties of this kind of curriculum change from students’ perspectives. Based mainly on Western creativity literature, this study developed a set of methods for infusing creativity learning elements into regular science lessons. After its implementation, students perceived improvements in their attitudes, conceptions, abilities and behaviors in creative science development. Students characterized this creative learning as a kind of active and playful learning which encouraged them to think boarder and wider, to appreciate creative ideas, and to develop their curiosity, confidence and initiation in learning. Though this classroom reform originally aimed at creativity development, students considered better understanding of science knowledge and positive attitudes towards science learning as their major gains. Students’ high-order creative developments, such as novel and innovative thinking, challenging authority and risk-taking attitudes, metacognitive development and transfer of learning, were found to be weak. In further analysis, these outcomes were found to be related to some typical characteristics of Eastern culture and educational system. This study argued that creativity education, which adopted this kind of infusion approach, was likely to be restrained by the subject curriculum, local educational systems and social cultures. It provided additional support to the domain-specific, contextual-based and cultural-embedded characteristic of creative learning. Some suggestions were made for creativity reforms in Asian societies.

The multi-class schedule-based transit assignment model under network uncertainties

Demand and supply uncertainties at schedule-based transit network levels strongly impact different passengers’ travel behavior. In this paper, a new multi-class user reliability-based dynamic transit assignment model is presented. Passengers differ in their heterogeneous risk-taking attitudes towards the random travel cost. The stochastic characteristics of the main travel cost components (in-vehicle travel time, waiting time, and early or late penalty) are demonstrated by specifying the demand and supply uncertainties and their interactions. Passenger route and departure time choice is determined by each passenger’s respective reliability requirements. Vehicle capacity constraint for random passenger demand is handled by an in-vehicle congestion parameter. The proposed model is formulated as a fixed-point problem, and solved by a heuristic MSA-type algorithm. The numerical result shows that the risk-taking attitude will impact greatly on passengers’ travel mode and departure time choices, as well as their money and time costs. This model is also capable of generating transit service attributes such as the stochastic vehicle dwelling time and the deviated timetable.

CFO Gender and Accruals Quality

SYNOPSIS: The authors examine the association between chief financial officer (hereafter, CFO) gender and the quality of accruals. Based on findings in prior research on gender differences in a variety of decision settings—risk-taking attitudes, financial judgments, and regulatory compliances—they hypothesize that firms with female CFOs will have higher quality of accruals. The empirical findings, based on a sample of 1,559 (1,222) firms in 2005 (2004), support this hypothesis. The study shows that companies with female CFOs have lower performance-matched absolute discretionary accruals and lower absolute accrual estimation errors, after controlling for other factors that prior research has shown to be associated with accruals.

Safety of Public Transportation Occupational Drivers: Risk Perception, Attitudes, and Driving Behavior

Public transportation plays a key role in providing transport services for the public in most cities of China. Safety is a top priority for improving the level of services of public transportation. This study aims to identify crash risk factors associated with demographic characteristics, driving-related experiences, and aberrant driving behaviors of the drivers of public transportation vehicles as well as to establish the influence of risk perception, risk-taking attitudes, and risky driving behaviors. The data used for analyses were obtained from a self-reported questionnaire survey carried out among 248 taxi and bus drivers in Wuhan, China. The results showed that drivers who both reported more tendencies toward aggressive violations and ordinary violations and had previously been involved in crashes were at high risk of crash involvement. Moreover, through the use of a structural equation model, it was found that drivers’ attitudes toward rule violations and speeding significantly affect risky driving behaviors. Two risk perception scales, likelihood of crash and concern, have indirect effects on risky driving behaviors through their influence on drivers’ attitudes toward rule violations and speeding. The significant risk factors and influential paths identified in this study are expected to result in better planning of road safety campaigns aimed at the occupational drivers in public transportation.

Low-income Parents’ Decisions about Medical Treatment

Many low-income households in developing countries cannot afford the high costs of medical treatment. They often resort to cost-saving, but risky options for their treatment. The article uses data published in earlier studies in India to analyse the treatment decisions of low-income households. We compare parents’ decisions about their children’s treatment with those about their own treatment. The analysis shows that parents often adopt a cost-saving (and risk-taking) attitude about their own treatment, relative to that for their children. This difference is found even when the parents and children have the same sickness profiles and also, when the parents have a higher incidence of serious sicknesses. There is a need for policies to increase affordable access to medicines. These include poverty alleviation and competition/regulation to reduce prices of medicines.

A fuzzy group decision-making model with risk-taking attitudes in quality function deployment

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a process for determining customer requirements and translating them into the target design. A rich understanding of the customer requirements is captured from ...

The impact of risk-taking attitudes on a land use pattern: an agent-based model of residential development

One of the biggest challenges in modeling residential development involves identifying a theory-driven representation of human behavior. In this paper, an agent-based modeling experiment that tests different conceptions of risk-explicit decision making is reported upon. The decision rules used in the model are representative of risk-taking and risk-averse attitudes. The goal of this experiment is to assess spatial consequences of employing different attitude utility functions, which reflect people's simplified psychological frames of reference for land use decision making. The experiments are performed on an artificial landscape, which is being developed by competing agents equipped with several land-related objectives and utilizing various configurations of risk-bearing attitudes. The subsequent land patterns are compared using selected spatial metrics. The results suggest that an attitude toward risk may significantly influence landscape patterns. Further investigation of psychological drivers that stand behind land development decisions is suggested. Such knowledge constitutes an important step toward improving our ability to model behaviorally grounded residential location decision making.

The impact of risk-averse operation on the likelihood of extreme events in a simple model of infrastructure

A simple dynamic model of agent operation of an infrastructure system is presented. This system evolves over a long time scale by a daily increase in consumer demand that raises the overall load on the system and an engineering response to failures that involves upgrading of the components. The system is controlled by adjusting the upgrading rate of the components and the replacement time of the components. Two agents operate the system. Their behavior is characterized by their risk-averse and risk-taking attitudes while operating the system, their response to large events, and the effect of learning time on adapting to new conditions. A risk-averse operation causes a reduction in the frequency of failures and in the number of failures per unit time. However, risk aversion brings an increase in the probability of extreme events.

How Do Risk Attitudes Differ Within The Group of Entrepreneurs? The Role of Motivation and Procedural Utility

Starting a business involves risk and, thus, requires a risk-taking attitude. The concept of risk and entrepreneurship has been widely discussed in the entrepreneurship literature; most studies comparing entrepreneurs with non-entrepreneurs such as managers or bankers. So far, little research exists on the risk attitudes of the different types of entrepreneurs — those who pursue a new business because of opportunity and those who do so through necessity. This study aims to fill this gap. Our particular focus is on individuals’ motivations to start their businesses and the nonmonetary returns from entrepreneurship. The results show that opportunity entrepreneurs are more willing to take risks than necessity entrepreneurs. In addition, those who are motivated by creativity are more risk tolerant than other entrepreneurs. The study contributes to the literature about both risk attitudes of entrepreneurs and necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship.

Risk-taking attitudes and their association with process and outcomes of cardiac care: a cohort study

BackgroundPrior research reveals that processes and outcomes of cardiac care differ across sociodemographic strata. One potential contributing factor to such differences is the personality traits of individuals within these strata. We examined the association between risk-taking attitudes and cardiac patients' clinical and demographic characteristics, the likelihood of undergoing invasive cardiac procedures and survival.MethodsWe studied a large inception cohort of patients who underwent cardiac catheterization between July 1998 and December 2001. Detailed clinical and demographic data were collected at time of cardiac catheterization and through a mailed survey one year post-catheterization. The survey included three general risk attitude items from the Jackson Personality Inventory. Patients' (n = 6294) attitudes toward risk were categorized as risk-prone versus non-risk-prone and were assessed for associations with baseline clinical and demographic characteristics, treatment received (i.e., medical therapy, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)), and survival (to December 2005).Results2827 patients (45%) were categorized as risk-prone. Having risk-prone attitudes was associated with younger age (p < .001), male sex (p < .001), current smoking (p < .001) and higher household income (p < .001). Risk-prone patients were more likely to have CABG surgery in unadjusted (Odds Ratio [OR] = 1.21; 95% CI 1.08–1.36) and adjusted (OR = 1.18; 95% CI 1.02–1.36) models, but were no more likely to have PCI or any revascularization. Having risk-prone attitudes was associated with better survival in an unadjusted survival analysis (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 0.78 (95% CI 0.66–0.93), but not in a risk-adjusted analysis (HR = 0.92, 95% CI 0.77–1.10).ConclusionThese exploratory findings suggest that patient attitudes toward risk taking may contribute to some of the documented differences in use of invasive cardiac procedures. An awareness of these associations could help healthcare providers as they counsel patients regarding cardiac care decisions.

R&D Reputation and Corporate Brand Value

Corporate R&D is under pressure. Whereas innovative technology remains one of the most important business growth factors, it is difficult to link the outcomes of corporate R&D activities directly to a firm's market performance. Although new technologies mostly originate from R&D laboratories, their market success depends on multiple production, marketing, and sales-related factors that eclipse the research contribution. Those corporate R&D centers that have survived have increasingly financed their resources through business-unit contracts and third-party funding (1). For instance, in the early 1990s, ABB's corporate research was 80 percent financed by corporate money while today about 70 percent comes from the business units. And Siemens is transforming large parts of its centralized Corporate Technology R&D department to in-house consulting, while IBM has established its industry solution labs to provide external clients with access to its research results, and thus gain research-related income for the corporation. When the allocation of corporate money to R&D is reduced in favor of contract research assignments, the capability to attract the right resources--individuals and institutional partners--from an open-innovation ecosystem becomes a decisive success factor for technology companies. Moreover, a higher R&D intensity supports a stronger corporate brand, as can be seen from the analysis of 22 technology companies depicted in Figure 1. Reputation management is an important factor in attracting partners and external funding. From interviews with CEOs and CTOs of nine large industrial and publicly-funded firms (2), we have a clear indication that a corporate R&D lab's well-managed reputation has a direct impact on the firm's brand value. In other words, corporate research labs should not be measured only by their technological outcome, but also by the impact they have on a firm's brand value, for which the Interbrand ranking serves as a well-known reference for publicly traded companies (3). How the Study Was Conducted The brand valuation method of the market research institution Interbrand is a combined approach based on the forecasting of current and future brand revenues minus business-related costs and a scoring of customers' intentions to purchase a particular brand. R&D expenditures are costs and, therefore, excluded in Interband's valuation method. In our empirical survey, 113 mostly German and Swiss industrial R&D stakeholders were asked to rank 33 European R&D institutions--mainly in the technology sector--with respect to their overall reputations. We then asked the respondents to assess the key criteria that determined their ranking (see Figure 2). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] We found that a corporate R&D center's popular visibility in terms of its coverage in the news, as well as in popular science and business media, significantly and positively affects its sourcing capabilities. Furthermore, there is a significant relationship between a corporate R&D organization's willingness to take risks and an external organization's decision to partner with it. This suggests that the better a prospective external partner perceives the R&D organization's sourcing capabilities to be, the more willing that partner will be to enter into the partnership. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] An R&D organization's risk-taking attitude is associated with its reputation, which is in turn another important partnering selection criterion. An industrial R&D organization's overall reputation is, finally, highly correlated with its popular and scientific visibility in terms of the number of publications in academic journals and conference proceedings. Implications for Managers Based on these findings, we deduce that: * Targeted communication in A-level popular and business-related media is a must--not a nice-to-have--if an R&D organization is to be regarded as highly reputable. …

A fuzzy group decision-making model with risk-taking attitudes in quality function deployment

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a process for determining customer requirements and translating them into the target design. A rich understanding of the customer requirements is captured from a group of customers, while the relationship between customer requirements and technical measures is defined through the project team. Ordinarily, a group decision-making process is filled with fuzziness and lack of preciseness because of diverse and/or even subjective views. Apparently, the importance weight of each customer requirement and the relationship between customer requirements and technical measures are evaluated by a group of people with imprecision and fuzziness. Furthermore, different people tend to reflect diverse risk-taking attitudes, such as optimistic, neutral, and conservative attitudes, in making decisions. Under the conditions, a fuzzy group decision-making model with risk-taking attitudes can be used in QFD to manage and resolve a group decision-making process when the information is ambiguous and vague. Besides, an example is presented as well as the algorithm steps to illustrate this fuzzy group decision-making model with risk-taking attitudes can be effectively applied in QFD including customer requirements at the two-level hierarchy to accurately and convincingly make decisions and determine the importance of each technical measure with various risk-taking attitudes of the decision-makers.