On a distinction between casual and formative variable models:theoretical issues and practical implications for organizational researchers

Formative measurement has seen increasing acceptance in organizational research since the turn of the 21st Century. However, in more recent times, a number of criticisms of the formative approach have appeared. Such work argues that formatively-measured constructs are empirically ambiguous and thus flawed in a theory-testing context. The aim of the present paper is to examine the underpinnings of formative measurement theory in light of theories of causality and ontology in measurement in general. In doing so, a thesis is advanced which draws a distinction between reflective, formative, and causal theories of latent variables. This distinction is shown to be advantageous in that it clarifies the ontological status of each type of latent variable, and thus provides advice on appropriate conceptualization and application. The distinction also reconciles in part both recent supportive and critical perspectives on formative measurement. In light of this, advice is given on how most appropriately to model formative composites in theory-testing applications, placing the onus on the researcher to make clear their conceptualization and operationalisation.

From Spanish paintings to murder:topic transitions in casual conversations between native and non-native speakers of English

This article explores some of the strategies used by international students of English to manage topic shifts in casual conversations with English-speaking peers. It therefore covers aspects of discourse which have been comparatively under-researched, and where research has also tended to focus on the problems rather than the communicative achievements of non-native speakers. A detailed analysis of the conversations under discussion, which were recorded by the participants themselves, showed that they all flowed smoothly, and this was in large measure due to the ways in which topic shifts were managed. The paper will focus on a very distinct type of topic shift, namely that of topic transitions, which enable a smooth flow from one topic to another, but which do not explicitly signal that a shift is taking place. It will examine how the non-native speakers achieved coherence in the topic transitions which they initiated, which strategies or procedures they employed, and show how their initiations were effective in enabling the proposed topic to be understood, taken up and developed. It therefore adds to our understanding of the interactional achievements of international speakers in informal, social contexts. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Image annotation with Photocopain

Photo annotation is a resource-intensive task, yet is increasingly essential as image archives and personal photo collections grow in size. There is an inherent con?ict in the process of describing and archiving personal experiences, because casual users are generally unwilling to expend large amounts of e?ort on creating the annotations which are required to organise their collections so that they can make best use of them. This paper describes the Photocopain system, a semi-automatic image annotation system which combines information about the context in which a photograph was captured with information from other readily available sources in order to generate outline annotations for that photograph that the user may further extend or amend.

Real choice in food grocery shopping in Britain

In the European Retail Digest, Tenbusch (2002) advised us that, "over the last decade, only discounters have been able to achieve significant revenue growth". The most casual observer of the retail scene in Europe would quickly realise that the author was most certainly not writing about Britain. Indeed he compared the situation in Germany with Britain by noting that grocery prices in the former were on average 20% lower. Interestingly, it was, at least in part, just those types of price comparison data that sparked the current British debate on the state of our market for food shopping. Soon, however, there were other factors brought into consideration. Market power of supermarket/ superstore operators, prices offered to small local farmers, the apparent permanent global summertime for food, food miles and eco-efficiency all became part of the debate. What might be the competing influence of any or all of these factors in the name of better 'choice' for consumers? Are British consumers really being offered better choice compared to what was available in the early 1980s, and might that explain the price differential with Germany and other countries? Or are we simply not comparing like with like? Indeed, as we will shortly argue, can we generalise about Britain at all when we accept, for example, that the Scottish market IS different?

A linguistic study of interview and conversation

The present thesis focuses on the overall structure of the language of two types of Speech Exchange Systems (SES) : Interview (INT) and Conversation (CON). The linguistic structure of INT and CON are quantitatively investigated on three different but interrelated levels of analysis : Lexis, Syntax and Information Structure. The corpus of data 1n vest1gated for the project consists of eight sessions of pairs of conversants in carefully planned interviews followed by unplanned, surreptitiously recorded conversational encounters of the same pairs of speakers. The data comprise a total of approximately 15.200 words of INT talk and of about 19.200 words in CON. Taking account of the debatable assumption that the language of SES might be complex on certain linguistic levels (e.g. syntax) (Halliday 1979) and might be simple on others (e.g. lexis) in comparison to written discourse, the thesis sets out to investigate this complexity using a statistical approach to the computation of the structures recurrent in the language of INT and CON. The findings indicate clearly the presence of linguistic complexity in both types. They also show the language of INT to be slightly more syntactically and lexically complex than that of CON. Lexical density seems to be relatively high in both types of spoken discourse. The language of INT seems to be more complex than that of CON on the level of information structure too. This is manifested in the greater use of Inferable and other linguistically complex entities of discourse. Halliday's suggestion that the language of SES is syntactically complex is confirmed but not the one that the more casual the conversation is the more syntactically complex it becomes. The results of the analysis point to the general conclusion that the linguistic complexity of types of SES is not only in the high recurrence of syntactic structures, but also in the combination of these features with each other and with other linguistic and extralinguistic features. The linguistic analysis of the language of SES can be useful in understanding and pinpointing the intricacies of spoken discourse in general and will help discourse analysts and applied linguists in exploiting it both for theoretical and pedagogical purposes.

Entrepreneurship and welfare

Here, I examine returns to entrepreneurship using a standard measure of welfare, the per-capita consumption expenditure. This analysis, using quantile regressions, reveals the existence of a welfare hierarchy in occupations. The results suggest that, across the welfare distribution, entrepreneurs who employ others have the highest returns in terms of consumption, while those entrepreneurs who work for themselves, that is, self-employed individuals, have slightly lower returns than the salaried employees. However, self-employment entails higher returns than casual labor and a relative escape from poverty.

Appropriate wage rate and related issues for employment intensive public works programmes in Timor Leste

Employment generating public works (EGPW) are an important part of GoTL’s strategy to reduce unemployment, underemployment and poverty and contribute to social stability. The term EGPW is used in this report as a generic term to encompass labour intensive (LI) and labourbased (LB) approaches. The distinction between these approaches is made below. SEFOPE is being supported by a number of international agencies to develop and implement employment generating public works programmes (EGPWPs). Other government ministries and agencies and NGOs offering different wage rates are also engaged in such programmes and projects. In setting wage rates for such programmes, it is necessary to take account of (a) the nature of benefits they offer (e.g. the balance between employment creation and effective use of labour); (b) the beneficiaries to be targeted, and (c) any adverse impacts on other economic activities. The purposes of this assignment are: (a) to make recommendations on appropriate wage rates for unskilled casual employment on public works programmes, and (b) make a broad assessment of the labour supply response to the employment opportunities created by employment intensive programmes. The latter would help in gauging the scale of such activities required.

Auto plant closures, policy responses and labour market outcomes:a comparison of MG Rover in the UK and Mitsubishi in Australia

This paper provides a preliminary comparative longitudinal analysis of the impact on workers made redundant due to the closure of the Mitsubishi plant in Adelaide and the MG Rover plant in Birmingham. Longitudinal surveys of ex-workers from both firms were undertaken over a 12-month period in order to assess the process of labour market adjustment. In the Mitsubishi case, given the skills shortage the state of Adelaide was facing, together with the considerable growth in mining and defence industries, it would have been more appropriate if policy intervention had been redirected to further training or re-skilling opportunities for redundant workers. This opportunity was effectively missed and as a result more workers left the workforce, most notably for retirement, than could have otherwise been the case. The MG Rover case was seen as a more successful example of policy intervention, with greater funding assistance available and targeted support available, and with more emphasis on re-training needs to assist adjustment. However, despite the assistance offered and the rhetoric of successful adjustment in both cases, the majority of workers have nevertheless experienced deterioration in their circumstances particularly in the Australian case where casual and part-time work were often the only work that could be obtained. Even in the UK case, where more funding assistance was offered, a majority of workers reported a decline in earnings and a rise in job insecurity. This suggests that a reliance on the flexible labour market is insufficient to promote adjustment, and that more active policy intervention is needed especially in regard to further up-skilling.

A seismic shift? An evaluation of the impact of new media on perceptions of freedom of expression and privacy

New media platforms have changed the media landscape forever, as they have altered our perceptions of the limits of communication, and reception of information. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp enable individuals to circumvent the traditional mass media, converging audience and producer to create millions of ‘citizen journalists’. This new breed of journalist uses these platforms as a way of, not only receiving news, but of instantaneously, and often spontaneously, expressing opinions and venting and sharing emotions, thoughts and feelings. They are liberated from cultural and physical restraints, such as time, space and location, and they are not constrained by factors that impact upon the traditional media, such as editorial control, owner or political bias or the pressures of generating commercial revenue. A consequence of the way in which these platforms have become ingrained within our social culture is that habits, conventions and social norms, that were once informal and transitory manifestations of social life, are now infused within their use. What were casual and ephemeral actions and/or acts of expression, such as conversing with friends or colleagues or swapping/displaying pictures, or exchanging thoughts that were once kept private, or maybe shared with a select few, have now become formalised and potentially permanent, on view for the world to see. Incidentally, ‘traditional’ journalists and media outlets are also utilising new media, as it allows them to react, and disseminate news, instantaneously, within a hyper-competitive marketplace. However, in a world where we are saturated, not only by citizen journalists, but by traditional media outlets, offering access to news and opinion twenty-four hours a day, via multiple new media platforms, there is increased pressure to ‘break’ news fast and first. This paper will argue that new media, and the culture and environment it has created, for citizen journalists, traditional journalists and the media generally, has altered our perceptions of the limits and boundaries of freedom of expression dramatically, and that the corollary to this seismic shift is the impact on the notion of privacy and private life. Consequently, this paper will examine what a reasonable expectation of privacy may now mean, in a new media world.