BOSS COMPETENCE AND WORKER WELL-BEING ARTZ, BENJAMIN M.; GOODALL, AMANDA H.; OSWALD, ANDREW J.
Industrial & labor relations review,
03/2017, Volume:
70, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Nearly all workers have a supervisor or “boss.” Yet little is known about how bosses influence the quality of employees’ lives. This study offers new evidence. First, the authors find that a boss’s ...technical competence is the single strongest predictor of a worker’s job satisfaction. Second, they demonstrate using longitudinal data, after controlling for fixed-effects, that even if a worker stays in the same job and workplace, a rise in the competence of a supervisor is associated with an improvement in the worker’s well-being. Third, the authors report a variety of robustness checks, including tentative instrumental variable results. These findings, which draw on U.S. and British data, contribute to an emerging literature on the role of “expert leaders” in organizations.
Does rural entrepreneurship pay? Yu, Li; Artz, Georgeanne M.
Small business economics,
10/2019, Volume:
53, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This paper investigates entrepreneurship and location choices among college-educated individuals in the USA and the role of location-specific human capital in these choices. We model the location and ...entrepreneurship decisions jointly, demonstrating that individuals who choose a rural residence are more likely to become entrepreneurs when compared to their urban peers. We then explore whether, all else equal, the entrepreneurship choice of rural alumni lowers earnings, consistent with the story of business location choice being motivated by the entrepreneurs’ preference for a rural lifestyle, whether there is evidence that the location choice is productive, or whether rural residents are pushed to start a business due to thin labor markets. After controlling for selection, rural entrepreneurs earn significantly more than rural workers but still less than urban entrepreneurs, lending support to the notion that rural entrepreneurs’ location choices are productive and rural entrepreneurs have stronger location preference. An Oaxaca decomposition of the earnings gap across subsamples reveals the returns to entrepreneurial skills are much lower in rural areas; however, the earnings gap between rural and urban entrepreneurs is at least partially offset by positive self-selection into a rural area. This finding lends support to “grow your own” business development strategies for rural regions.
The entry of discount mass merchandisers into the grocery business is part of a rapid consolidation occurring in the grocery industry in recent years. Supermarket News estimates that the top five ...retail grocery chains now account for nearly 40% of US sales. At the top of this list is Wal-Mart. Operating 1,980 Supercenters of as Jan 31, 2006, Wal-Mart's 2005 share of the nation's retail grocery market was estimated to range from 15% to 20%.
Long‐term use of cyclosporine after renal transplantation results in nephrotoxicity and an increased cardiovascular risk profile. Tacrolimus may be more favorable in this respect. In this randomized ...controlled study in 124 renal transplant patients, the effects of conversion from cyclosporine to tacrolimus on renal function, cardiovascular risk factors, and perceived side‐effects were investigated after a follow‐up of 2 years. After conversion from cyclosporine to tacrolimus renal function remained stable, whereas continuation of cyclosporine was accompanied by a rise in serum creatinine from 142 ± 48 μmol/L to 157 ± 62 μmol/L (p < 0.05 comparing both groups). Conversion to tacrolimus resulted in a sustained reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and a sustained improvement in the serum lipid profile, leading to a reduction in the Framingham risk score from 5.7 ± 4.3 to 4.8 ± 5.3 (p < 0.05). Finally, conversion to tacrolimus resulted in decreased scores for occurrence of and distress due to side‐effects. In conclusion, conversion from cyclosporine to tacrolimus in stable renal transplant patients is beneficial with respect to renal function, cardiovascular risk profile, and side‐effects. Therefore, for most renal transplant patients tacrolimus will be the drug of choice when long‐term treatment with a calcineurin inhibitor is indicated.
ABSTRACT
We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets. Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we ...find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and rural areas. Firms are more likely to locate in markets with an existing cluster of firms in the same industry, with greater concentrations of upstream suppliers or downstream customers, and with a larger proportion of college‐educated workers in the local labor supply. Firms are less likely to enter markets with no incumbent firms in the sector or where production is concentrated in relatively few sectors. The same factors encourage both stand‐alone start‐ups and establishments built by multiplant firms. Commuting decisions exhibit the same pattern as new firm entry with workers commuting from low to high agglomeration markets. Because agglomeration economies are important for rural firm entry also, policies encouraging new firm entry should focus on relatively few job centers rather than encouraging new firm entry in every small town.
Partner type and condom use Macaluso, M; Demand, M J; Artz, L M ...
AIDS (London),
03/2000, Volume:
14, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
To examine the association between type of sexual partnership and condom use consistency.
A prospective follow-up study of women attending two urban clinics for sexually transmitted diseases (STD).
...Sexual diaries recording barrier method, partner initials and partner type for each act of intercourse were kept by 869 women. Condom use by partner type was evaluated in three ways in the entire group: among women who encountered multiple partners, during months in which women encountered multiple partners, and within sexual partnerships that changed status during the study.
Consistency of condom use was higher with new and casual partners than with regular partners in the entire group and among women who encountered multiple partners. In months in which partners of different types were encountered, condom-use consistency was higher with new and casual partners than with regular partners. Consistent condom use decreased in partnerships that changed status from new to regular. The female condom was used more often with regular partners than with new or casual partners in the entire study group, among women who encountered multiple partners, and during months in which a woman achieved consistent use with her regular partner.
This study provides strong evidence that condom use behavior is modified by partner type. Observations about condom use and partner type made in cross-sectional or retrospective surveys also hold in the present longitudinal analyses of individual women and of partnerships that change status. The female condom may be an important option for achieving consistent protection within stable partnerships.
Advances in microsurgery together with improvements in reconstructive surgical techniques over recent decades have enlarged the scope of available techniques for mutilated hand reconstruction, ...shifting the reconstructive paradigm from restoring hand function to providing the best functional and aesthetic results with minimal donor-site morbidity. Successful reconstruction of a mutilated hand should no longer be measured only by the degree of improvement of hand function but also by a more aesthetic hand appearance as well as by improved psychological well-being. In this article, the authors present their concept of aesthetic functional reconstruction of the mutilated hand with a focus on the indications and selection of reconstructive techniques. They emphasize that in order to select the most appropriate technique, providing the best functional and aesthetic outcomes with minimal donor-site morbidity for each individual patient, it is imperative for the reconstructive hand surgeon to possess perfect mastery of all available surgical techniques, thorough understanding of functional and aesthetic requirements and accurate appreciation of multidimensional reconstruction of a given defect of the hand. They have concluded that in precisely indicated cases, successful replantation of an amputated hand or digits remains the best reconstructive procedure designed to obtain a more functional and more normal-appearing hand, whereas, toe-to-hand transplantation, in cases of failed or impossible digit replantation, provides better results than any other digit reconstruction techniques aimed at achieving functioning digits with good appearance. Although skin graft and various distant pedicled flaps and free flaps may be valid options for coverage of some soft tissue defects of the hand, reverse flow forearm flaps, especially those based on the secondary arteries of the forearm, are often the best-suited reconstructive options for like-with-like hand reconstruction. They can provide the best matching of color, texture, soft-tissue volume, donor-recipient tissue interface and fulfill all the aesthetic and functional reconstruction requirements of moderate-sized or even large soft tissue defects of the hand, with acceptable donor site morbidity.
Using data on a sample of small Iowa towns consistently collected over two decades, we investigate how agglomeration economies, social capital, human capital, local fiscal policy, and natural ...amenities affect new firm entry. We find that human capital and agglomeration are more conducive to new firm entry than are natural amenities, local fiscal policy, or social capital. The impact of local fiscal policy is too small to overcome the locational disadvantages from insufficient endowment of human capital and agglomeration. A rural development approach that encourages firm entry in rural towns with the largest endowments of human capital and market agglomeration would be more successful than trying to raise firm entry in every town.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to formulate a predictive rule for vestibular schwannoma growth during the initial observation period after diagnosis.
Methods:
Logistic regression models were ...fitted, with tumor growth in the first year as the dependent variable and patient characteristics as the independent variables. Backward selection was used to eliminate superfluous predictors. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was taken as a measure of the model's discriminative power.
Results:
Eventually, the model or rule consisted of 4 significant growth predictors: Localization (if extrameatal, +1; if intrameatal, 0), sudden sensorineural hearing loss (if present, −1; if absent, 0), balance symptoms (if present, +1; if absent, 0), and complaints of hearing loss for less than 2 years (if present, +1; if absent, or present for more than 2 years, 0). A higher score indicates a higher likelihood of tumor growth during the period of observation after diagnosis. If the total score is 0 or less, the likelihood of tumor growth during the first year after diagnosis is less than 10%. If the score is 3, the likelihood of growth during the first year after diagnosis is more than 70%.
Conclusions:
We were able to create a useful rule to predict vestibular schwannoma growth during the first year after diagnosis.
PDF
