An Empirical Evaluation of Training Using Multi-attribute Utility Analysis

Purpose

This paper aims to develop and apply a multi-attribute utility analysis model (MAU) to assess the benefits of HRM interventions as an alternative to the traditional utility analysis method.

Design/Methodology/Approach

MAU adopts a cost-benefit multi-variant approach to assess HRM efficiency using a non-monetary metric. The study employs a quasi-experimental design to examine the training effects on job performance, comparing pre- and post-intervention measures mostly from sub-groups of random sample of 367 trainees.

Findings

We showed that is feasible to adopt a multi-attribute evaluation approach in HRM area by adapting the MAUT technique. Our formal MAU model also demonstrated that it is possible to adopt a broader and more global evaluation approach than other more ??myopic?? models such as traditional UA models. Results after applying our MAU model in a real organization indicated considerable utility from training employees.

Implications

The commitment and involvement of the organization in the evaluation project seem to suggest an interest in comprehensive evaluative models for HRM such as MAU. Because the amount of information that MAU model entails, it may be also used as a strategic instrument for continuous improving of HR interventions and as a mechanism to analyze the evaluation policy of different stakeholders groups.

Originality/Value

We provide a theoretical development of a MAU model and offer its first empirical application in a firm to calculate the utility of training. This contributes to utility analysis research and provides a guide for practitioners evaluating HRM benefits.     

The Utility of Item-Level Analyses in Model Evaluation: A Reply to Seidenberg and Plaut

Seidenberg and Plaut (this issue) argue that the implications of our analyses (Spieler & Balota, 1997) for the two extant connectionist models of word naming are limited by two factors. First, variables outside the scope of these models influence naming performance, so it is not surprising that the models do not account for much of the variance at the item level. Second, there is error variance associated with large item-level data sets that obviously should not be captured by these models. We point out that there are a number of variables that have been incorporated within the targeted connectionist models that should provide these models an advantage over the simple predictor variables that we selected as a baseline to evaluate the efficacy of the models (e.g., log frequency, length in letters, and number of orthographic neighbors). We also point out that there is considerable consistency across four large-scale studies of item means. Finally, we provide evidence that even under conditions of a standard word-naming study (with a small set of items), simple word frequency, orthographic neighborhoods, and length accounted for more variance than the extant connectionist models. We conclude that item-level analyses provide an important source of evidence in the evaluation of current models and the development of future models of visual word recognition.     

The Utility of Utility Analysis

Recent research on utility analysis that focuses on estimating the dollar value of performance gains was critically reviewed and a case was made that other metrics for expressing utility may be desirable. The need to validate the accu- racy of utility predictions was emphasized, and factors that could adversely affect their accuracy were described in a framework of criteria types and job types. A set of research propositions was offered and implications for future work on utility were discussed. In addition to its traditional role as an aid to decision making, utility analysis as a means to understanding the perform- ance construct was emphasized.     

Clinical Utility of the MMPI in the Evaluation of Adolescent Suicide Attempters

MMPI profiles of female adolescents hospitalized on a general pediatrics floor following a suicide attempt were compared to a control group of medically hospitalized, female adolescents referred for psychiatric evaluation. The suicide attempters had only a lower score on the K scale when compared to the control group. Results do not suggest that a single MMPI profile differentiates suicide attempters from a comparison group of adolescents with emotional difficulties. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Ethical Standards: A Study of Application and Utility

Green, S.L., & Hansen, J.C. (1986). Ethical dilemmas in family therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 12, 225–230.     

国际卫生保健筹资模式的特点与评价

目前 ,卫生保健筹资已成为世界各国共同关注的问题。卫生保健筹资是指卫生保健费用的筹集、分配与利用 ,它从一个侧面反映了一个国家的文化、经济和政治特征 ,体现了每一个国家及其政府是如何解决将稀有的卫生资源配置到全体居民中去这样的难题的。从目前各国卫生保健筹资的模式来看 ,都在通过不同的方式和渠道来筹集卫生资源 ,以解决居民个人和社会所承担的医疗服务费用的风险。就卫生保健服务的性质来看 ,可以从政府、雇主、或个人等三方面来筹集资金 ,形成社会健康保险基金。其筹资渠道 ,可以通过国家税收、薪金税、或者商业保险等形式来…     

A Systems Dilemma

The current shift of interest, reflected in public policy, from the production of goods to the provision of services, has caused a major re-examination of the nature of the services the individual can expect from his society. This re-examination is producing a number of insights, some of them shocking. In particular, we are learning that many of the systems we have created to deliver services are, in the name of “progress” and “civilization,” contributing to the conditions of human distress they were designed to alleviate. Much has been written lately about how service systems of one kind or another subvert their announced goals—how a welfare system perpetuates poverty, or how the medical profession creates iatrogenic illness. There has not been very much written, however, about how several systems inadvertently combine in their day to day operations in such a way as to frustrate each others' activities, and how, in so doing, they destroy in varying degrees the lives of people, or render it difficult for them to improve their lives. We have all been much too tightly locked in our own niches by training, experience, and various types of private interest to see this kind of interlock. It comes into sharp perspective only when one studies the problems of a single person in terms of his total life space, his “ecology.” This paper represents an effort to describe one such situation in a family as viewed from a community health services program designed to approach human crises as ecological phenomena, and to explore and respond to them within this framework. We have found that the best way to organize our view of the environmental field people move in is according to the diverse systems which make it up, so we have labeled our theoretical base “ecological systems theory.” ( 1 ) What is of particular interest to the behavioral scientist in the situation described is that neither individual nor family diagnosis, nor the contributions of the larger systems (in this case a housing system and a system of medical care) will, if viewed separately, explain the state of the man in question. Only when the contributions of all of these systems are made clear, and their interrelationships explored, do the origins of the phenomena described begin to emerge.     

Utility of Philosophy

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - Philosophy is an incredible intellectual enterprise that promotes comprehensive exposure to creative and critical thinking. The paper is...     

Reactions to Different Types of Forced Distribution Performance Evaluation Systems

Purpose  We isolate and describe four key elements that distinguish different forms of forced distribution systems (FDS). These key elements are the consequences for low performers, differentiation of rewards for top performers, frequency of feedback, and comparison group size. We examine how these elements influence respondents’ attraction to FDS. Design/methodology/approach  Undergraduate students (n = 163) completed a policy capturing study designed to determine how these four FDS elements influence their attraction to FDS. We examine the relative importance of these elements that most influence attraction to different FDS, as well as individual attributes (i.e., cognitive ability, gender, and major) that may affect those preferences. Findings  Respondents were most attracted to systems with less stringent treatment of low performers, high differentiation of rewards, frequent feedback and large comparison groups. Consequences for low performers were nearly twice as influential as any other element. Respondents with higher cognitive ability favored high reward differentiation and males were less affected by stringent consequences for low performers. Implications  Before practitioners implement FDS, it would be prudent to consider all four elements examined in this study—with the treatment of low performers being the most salient issue. Future accounts of FDS should clarify the nature of these elements when reporting on FDS. Such precision will be useful in generating a knowledge base on FDS. Originality/value   We add precision to the discussion of FDS by identifying four key elements. This is one of the first studies to examine perceptions of FDS from a ratee perspective.

Nonconcurrent Multiple Baseline Designs and the Evaluation of Educational Systems

Important findings are often a balance between the rigor of the experimental design and innovativeness of the experimental question. One broad topic area that has received a great deal of discussion, but little empirical study, is the evaluation of educational systems. Experimental designs that permit the analysis of practices used by state education agencies, local education agencies, and schools have the potential for yielding socially significant findings that could improve education. In this article we discuss the use of nonconcurrent multiple baseline designs as an option for studying the activities and effects of educational programs. Nonconcurrent multiple baseline designs stagger the timing of baseline-to-intervention changes across various entities, but the baselines and intervention phases are not contemporaneous across each of the tiers. Although considered less rigorous than concurrent multiple baseline designs, nonconcurrent designs have a degree of flexibility that may allow for their use in studying complex social contexts, such as educational settings, that might otherwise go unanalyzed.     

基于广义谢弗竖的分析性模态公理系统

沿着安德森等人开创的方向,我们将分析性公理系统从经典逻辑推向模态逻辑,所定义的广义谢弗竖混合了模态词和广义析舍。在这篇论文中,我们给出常见的正规模态逻辑的分析性公理系统及其强完全性定理和插值定理,并讨论演绎关系的性质：单调性和切割性。     

Utility and framing

Standard principles of rational decision assume that an option’s utility is both comprehensive and accessible. These features constrain interpretations of an option’s utility. This essay presents a way of understanding utility and laws of utility. It explains the relation between an option’s utility and its outcome’s utility and argues that an option’s utility is relative to a specification of the option. Utility’s relativity explains how a decision problem’s framing affects an option’s utility and its rationality even for an agent who is cognitively perfect and lacks only empirical information. The essay rewrites standard laws of utility to accommodate relativization to propositions’ specifications. The new laws are generalizations of the standard laws and yield them as special cases.     

An Utility Based Framework for Evaluating the Financial Impact of Sales Force Training Programs

Limited attention has been devoted to the financial evaluation of sales training programs. In response to this shortcoming, this research proposes a sales training evaluation framework that integrates economic utility theory with Kirkpatrick's (1959a, 1959b, 1960a, 1960b) four-level training evaluation model. The proposed utility theory framework is tested using data derived from a sales training program conducted in Egypt. After performing the economic evaluation, sensitivity analysis is employed to demonstrate the financial trends of varying key training program variables. The paper concludes with discussions of theoretical and managerial implications, research limitations, and recommendations for future research.     

A Simple Axiomatization of Binary Rank-Dependent Utility of Gains (Losses)

For binary gambles composed only of gains (losses) relative to a status quo, the rank-dependent utility model with a representation that is dense in intervals is shown to be equivalent to ten elementary properties plus event commutativity and a gamble partition assumption. The proof reduces to a (difficult) functional equation that has been solved by Aczél, Maksa, and Páles (in press).     

A Systems Theory Conceptualization of Incest

In this paper, father-daughter incest is examined from the perspective of general systems theory. Three characteristics of an open system--information exchange with the environment, negentropy, and dynamic homeostasis--are described and examined with respect to the functioning of incestuous families. Two case studies of families with father-daughter incest illustrate the tendency of these families to be more characteristic of the "closed" end of the continuum. The role of the environment in the origin and maintenance of the incestuous symptom is also examined. Implications for treatment are presented within the context of this theoretical perspective.