CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOLS FOR STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL DISABILITIES AND PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR PUBLIC SCHOOL CASE MANAGERS

Placement of students with disabilities in private special-education schools remains costly and controversial. This is particularly concerning, given the lack of research on the characteristics and quality of these restrictive settings. The purpose of this study was to identify the academic and vocational course offerings and behavioral supports provided in private special-education schools the serve high school students with emotional disabilities (ED). Second, the research examined the perceptions of the quality of services in these setting from the perspectives of public school case managers. Using a mixed-method design to collect data, 9 administrative heads of private special-education schools were surveyed, and 7 public school case managers were interviewed. Results indicated that (a) private special-education schools offer the basic academic core courses needed to meet graduation requirements, (b) vocational options for students enrolled in these schools are quite limited, (c) these schools provide a variety of behavioral interventions and supports, and (d) case managers are concerned with the lack of academic rigor and inconsistent programming at these schools but applauded the notion that students with ED are exiting with a high school diploma. Findings from this study may have policy implications for improving and developing programming options for high school students with ED.

Too Busy to Be Fair? The Effect of Managers’ Perceived Workload on Their Core Technical Performance and Justice Rule Adherence

Despite the organizational benefits of treating employees fairly, both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggest that managers do not behave fairly towards their employees in a consistent manner. As treating employees fairly takes up personal resources such as time, effort, and attention, I argue that when managers face high workloads (i.e., high amounts of work and time pressure), they are unable to devote such personal resources to effectively meet both core technical task requirements and treat employees fairly. I propose that in general, managers tend to view their core technical task performance as more important than being fair in their dealings with employees; as a result, when faced with high workloads, they tend to prioritize the former at the expense of the latter. I also propose that managerial fairness will suffer more as a result of heightened workloads than will core technical task performance, unless managers perceive their organization to explicitly reward fair treatment of employees. I find support for my hypotheses across three studies: two experimental studies (with online participants and students respectively) and one field study of managers from a variety of organizations. I discuss the implications of studying fairness in the wider context of managers’ complex role in organizations to the fairness and managerial work demands literatures.

Industry Linkages and Audit Firms' Industry Portfolio Choice: Evidence from Product Language

Audit firms are organized along industry lines and industry specialization is a prominent feature of the audit market. Yet, we know little about how audit firms make their industry portfolio decisions, i.e., how audit firms decide which set of industries to specialize in. In this study, I examine how the linkages between industries in the product space affect audit firms’ industry portfolio choice. Using text-based product space measures to capture these industry linkages, I find that both Big 4 and small audit firms tend to specialize in industry-pairs that 1) are close to each other in the product space (i.e., have more similar product language) and 2) have a greater number of “between-industries” in the product space (i.e., have a greater number of industries with product language that is similar to both industries in the pair). Consistent with the basic tradeoff between specialization and coordination, these results suggest that specializing in industries that have more similar product language and more linkages to other industries in the product space allow audit firms greater flexibility to transfer industry-specific expertise across industries as well as greater mobility in the product space, hence enhancing its competitive advantage. Additional analysis using the collapse of Arthur Andersen as an exogenous supply shock in the audit market finds consistent results. Taken together, the findings suggest that industry linkages in the product space play an important role in shaping the audit market structure.