Assessing the Flexibility of Managers: A comparison of methods1

Despite keen interest, questions remain about defining and measuring the behavioral flexibility of managers. This paper reports a conceptual and empirical comparison of three alternative methods of assessing this construct. Results suggest that the way managerial flexibility is typically assessed in practice – as a trait‐like characteristic with coworker ratings that describe a general tendency to vary behavior across situations – is deficient. However, more complex models that represent flexibility as a higher‐order construct reflecting mastery of specific and opposing behaviors in both the social/interpersonal domain and the functional/organizational domain show promise. They demonstrate construct validity evidence, predict as much as 42% of the variance in overall effectiveness, and provide more specific diagnostic information to guide behavior change.     

Early Positive Information Impacts Final Evaluations: No Deliberation‐Without‐Attention Effect and a Test of a Dynamic Judgment Model

Evaluation judgments were affected by information order and not by subsequent unconscious versus conscious deliberation. In three experiments, we examined the influence of early positive information on final evaluations of four objects. Based on a task analysis, we predicted primacy effects in judgments in a sequential data acquisition task. Thinking periods following presentation were used to manipulate conscious or unconscious processing. In all three studies, we found no effects of thinking manipulations but instead found reliable order effects. We developed and tested an online judgment model on the basis of the belief updating model of Hogarth and Einhorn. The model accounted for large proportion of the individual level variability, and model comparison tests supported the presence of a primacy effect. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extraordinary consumer experiences: Why immersion and transformation cause trouble

This paper presents and discusses how consumers are transformed in and out of immersion during extraordinary, long‐lasting wilderness canoeing experiences. Based on a hermeneutic multi‐phase empirical approach, we show how extraordinary experiences can be dynamic, multifaceted, and emergent. The positive connotations of prior research are questioned as we find that consumers face various paradoxes and ambiguities throughout the various consumption phases. While a major part of research today focuses on the co‐creation efforts of consumers when they combine various on‐site resource of experiencescapes, our findings point to the importance of understanding consumer resources. The distinction held between the ordinary and the extraordinary does not hold within the present context, and we discuss how role conflicts may influence transformation and immersion during consumption of experiences.     

Anxiety Predicts Increases in Struggles with Religious/Spiritual Doubt Over Two Weeks,One Month,and One Year

Struggles with religious/spiritual (r/s) doubt occur when uncertainty, questions, and hesitancy about aspects of r/s beliefs and experiences become a source of conflict. Cross-sectional research suggests that doubt-related struggles correlate with anxiety, yet no studies have investigated the temporal patterning of the associations between these constructs. We employed three large samples (Ns = 268, 527, 292) to examine concurrent and prospective associations between struggles with r/s doubt and anxiety over three time frames: 2 weeks, 1 month, and 1 year. Analyses revealed that (a) each construct exhibited high cross-temporal stability; (b) there were moderate, positive concurrent associations between anxiety and doubt-related struggles; (c) anxiety predicted increases in doubt-related struggles over each time frame; and (d) there was mixed evidence regarding whether doubt-related struggles predicted changes in anxiety over time. The discussion focuses on how anxiety may begin to undermine confidence in one’s r/s worldview, thus destabilizing one’s r/s beliefs.     

Changing caring behaviours in rehabilitation after a hip fracture – A tool for empowerment?

Different rehabilitation programs after surgery have been presented to improve the outcome for patients with a hip fracture. Empowerment has been suggested as useful, but requires a change in the caring behaviours of health professionals. The aim with this study was to evaluate if training and supervision of the nursing staff could alter caring behaviours. A case-control study of nursing staff treating hip fracture patients was performed at a hospital with two sites. Training and supervision was given to the nursing staff at the intervention site. The intervention focused on creating positive care interaction by using eight guidelines. The evaluation was performed with recordings of a constructed caring situation before training, and observations of care situations at the ward before and after intervention. The results showed no differences at baseline between the two sites in the caring behaviours. After intervention, significant effects of caring behaviours were seen in seven out of eight guidelines, the effect sizes ranged from medium to large. The findings indicate that the nursing staff can change caring behaviours and facilitate the empowerment of patients with a hip fracture.     

Response-restriction analysis: I. Assessment of activity preferences

We used procedures based on response-restriction (RR) analysis to assess vocational and leisure activity preferences for 3 adults with developmental disabilities. To increase the efficiency of the analysis relative to that reported in previous research, we used criteria that allowed activities to be restricted at the earliest point at which a preference could be determined. Results obtained across two consecutive RR assessments showed some variability in overall preference rankings but a high degree of consistency for highly ranked items. Finally, we compared results of the RR assessment with those of an extended free-operant assessment and found that the RR assessment yielded (a) more differentiated patterns of preference and (b) more complete information about engagement with all of the target activities.     

Memory for spatial location in two-dimensional arrays

Memory for spatial location in a two-dimensional display was studied in two experiments by means of a recognition task. The first experiment investigated the effects of presenting multiple reference points at the same time as sequentially shown to-be-remembered (TBR) locations. In the second experiment, the TBR locations were presented either one by one or four at a time with and without multiple reference points. The reference points tended to decrease the false alarm rate during acquisition, rather than to increase the hit rate, which suggests that they affected the precision rather than the amount of systematic bias in memory for the locations. Similar effects were obtained when the TBR locations were presented four at a time. The reference points were also found to serve as effective retrieval cues in a final recognition test. Reference points may thus facilitate both acquisition and retrieval of information about spatial location.     

The Many Faces of Malingering and Participant Response Strategies: New Methodologies in the Attachment and Clinical Issues Questionnaire (ACIQ)

Four studies created malingering and response bias scales for a new test battery, the Attachment and Clinical Issues Questionnaire (ACIQ). In the first calibration study, a new approach to identifying fake good and fake bad respondents was outlined. In Study 2, this scale was cross validated in a within-subjects design that also found only weak correlations between the scales of the ACIQ and measures of social desirability. The third study developed a method violator scale (one who responds randomly to the content of the scales due to carelessness, low IQ, etc.). It was tested by Monte Carlo and empirical studies. The fourth study combined the two cross validation studies to offer clear cutoffs for the practitioner. These studies successfully led to the creation of malingering and response bias scales for the ACIQ and also introduced new methods that could be adapted to other instruments.