The Performance of Pre‐Founding Entrepreneurial Teams: The Importance of Learning and Leadership

Entrepreneurial teams often struggle with simultaneous task and team challenges at an early stage of new venture creation. The way in which teams shape their teamwork is key in leveraging performance in the pre‐founding phase. Learning should help the team in establishing good teamwork and in expanding its members’ entrepreneurial capabilities. Leadership is needed to facilitate and guide this learning. Accordingly, we investigated learning and leadership as facilitators of performance in the pre‐founding phase. Specifically, we examined team reflexivity as a collective internal learning process and boundary spanning behaviour as an externally directed individual activity, operating at different levels in fostering team and individual performance. Charismatic team leadership was examined as a catalyst of learning, shaping team and individual performance ultimately. The multilevel mediation model was tested based on data from 196 members of 58 teams of a venture creation programme. Team reflexivity predicted team and individual performance. Boundary spanning behaviour was not related to performance. As hypothesised, charismatic team leadership predicted team and individual performance, both mediated by team reflexivity. This research highlights the relevance of team learning in pre‐founding teams and emphasises leadership in shaping learning and moving new ventures forward.     

A study of college women: Androgyny and perceptions of a feminist therapist

The present study examined the dimensions of instrumentality and expressiveness with respect to sex role orientation and perceptions of a feminist therapist. Also investigated was the willingness of the subjects to see a feminist and a traditional therapist for personal and career counseling. The 167 undergraduate female students from various programs completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Adjective Check List to describe their perceptions of a feminist therapist, and four willingness scales. Results indicated that the subjects, regardless of sex role orientation, perceived the feminist therapist as predominantly instrumental rather than expressive or androgynous. In addition, the subjects, regardless of sex role orientation, were more willing to see a traditional therapist for personal counseling but more willing to see feminist therapist for career counseling.     

Understanding Clients' Perceptions of Stress

The association of individual behavioral and personality characteristics with the stress response provides a natural role for stress management and the development of coping responses within the counseling process. The incorporation of stress management within the counseling process requires a theoretical framework for examining clients' perceptions of their coping capabilities as they experience difficulty with stressful life events. In this article the author presents a framework based on learned helplessness, called systematic rationalization. Empirical support and applications of the framework for working with clients experiencing difficulties coping with stressful life events are discussed.     

Computer-Based Precision Learning: A Course Builder application

An interactive tutoring and evaluation system, the Computer-Based Precision Learning System has been evolving at Jacksonville State University since its inception in 1978. Based on the Precision Teaching goal of developing fluency in learners, the Computer-Based Precision Learning System reinforces high frequencies of correct student responding. The system relies on the flexibility of Course Builder, a symbolic, icon-based programming language for Macintosh microcomputers. Course Builder is described from both the designer’s perspective and the student’s perspective. Its strengths and weaknesses are also discussed. Data from three semesters of a personality theories course indicated that students quickly reached mastery on the system, performing at over 22 correct responses per minute. Their fluency generalized to essay performance as well. Implications for using the Computer-Based Precision Learning System to develop measurably effective instructional strategies are discussed.     

A multiple-risk interaction model: Effects of temperament and divorce on psychiatric disorders in children

Effects of family status on the trajectory of problematic temperament-adjustment at 1 to 10 years of age and associated psychiatric disturbance 8 years later were examined in an epidemiological sample of 648 children. After adjusting for predivorce temperament-adjustment and background factors, logistic regression yielded independent effects of single custodial mother (SCM) family status for increased risk of disruptive and anxiety disorders, and of stepfamily status for increased risk of disruptive disorders. Increased risk of psychiatric disorders was more pervasive for SCM family boys versus intact family boys than for SCM family girls versus intact family girls, however only significantly more so for depression. No significant sex interaction was observed for stepfamily status. When girls and boys were treated independently, patterns of family status and outcomes of internalizing disorders varied. In stepfamilies, an elevated risk of depression and anxiety disorders was observed in girls but not boys, whereas in SCM families an elevated risk of depression was observed in boys but not girls. Within each family status group there was support for an altered risk of later psychiatric disorders given specific problematic predivorce temperament-adjustment characteristics. Implications for future research and treatment are discussed.The research described was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and by the W. T. Grant Foundation.     

The Relationship Between Experience and Attitudes Concerning Epilepsy1

Research indicates that epilepsy is a misunderstood and stigmatizing disorder. The present study examined whether various levels and types of experience with epilepsy are related to attitudes about the disorder. It was hypothesized that certain types of direct experience with epilepsy (e.g., knowing people with epilepsy) are related to positive attitudes about the disorder, whereas other types of direct experience (e.g., witnessing seizures) are related to negative beliefs. As predicted, data from telephone interviews with 271 subjects indicate that individuals knowing someone with epilepsy held significantly more accepting attitudes than respondents who had never known an epileptic. The findings also suggest that witnessing epileptic seizures is an emotionally charged event, and, in the absence of other types of experience, this emotional impact might have a negative effect on attitudes toward people with epilepsy. The findings from this study have implications for the development of educational programs aimed at the general public, medical personnel, and people with epilepsy.     

Effects of association,frequency, and stimulus quality on naming words in the presence or absence of pseudowords

According to classical dual-route theory, effects of associative priming and frequency on the naming of printed words arise from lexical access and should be weak or absent when word names are assembled prelexically. Assembled naming would be more likely in a shallow orthography, especially in the presence of nonwords. This hypothesis was examined with the shallow Serbo-Croatian orthography. Interactions between association, frequency, and stimulus quality were also examined in both Serbo-Croatian and English. Contrary to classical dual-route theory, both lexical effects were found for naming words in Serbo-Croatian, with or without nonwords. Neither interaction was significant in Serbo-Croatian and only association X quality was significant in English. Discussion focused on (a) the claim that lexical effects on naming in a shallow orthography constitute prima facie evidence against either prelexical phonology or the orthographic depth hypothesis, and (b) the possible factorization of frequency and active associative knowledge in naming words.     

Mental patients as computer operators

Tactics of design are described for programs to be used by chronic psychiatric patients on an accounting task in the maintenance of records of token economies at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center. To address the patients’ cognitive, motoric, and motivational deficiencies, special attention was paid to display features, branching formats, error detection, feedback, and keyboard utilization.