Identifying Unknown Response Styles: A Latent-Class Bilinear Multinomial Logit Model

Respondents can vary significantly in the way they use rating scales. Specifically, respondents can exhibit varying degrees of response style, which threatens the validity of the responses. The purpose of this article is to investigate to what extent rating scale responses show response style and substantive content of the item. The authors develop a novel model that accounts for possibly unknown kinds of response styles, content of the items, and background characteristics of respondents. By imposing a bilinear structure on the parameters of a multinomial logit model, the authors can visually distinguish the effects on the response behavior of both the characteristics of a respondent and the content of the item. This approach is combined with finite mixture modeling, so that two separate segmentations of the respondents are obtained: one for response style and one for item content. This latent-class bilinear multinomial logit (LC-BML) model is applied to a cross-national data set. The results show that item content is highly influential in explaining response behavior and reveal the presence of several response styles, including the prominent response styles acquiescence and extreme response style

Competing for the same value segments? Insight into the volatile Dutch political landscape

Values are central to public debates today. Human values convey broad goals that serve as guiding principles in a person's life and value priorities differ across people in society. Groups in society holding opposing values (e.g., universalism versus security) will make different choices when voting in an election. Whereas over time, values are relatively stable, the number and type of political parties as well as the political values they communicate and disseminate have been changing. Groups of people holding the same human values may therefore vote for another (new) party in a later election. We focus on analyzing the relationship between human values and voting in elections, introducing a new methodology to analyze how value profiles relate to political support over time. We investigate the Dutch multi-party political system over five waves of the European Social Survey, spanning 2002 until 2010. Whilst previous research has focused on individual values separately and focused on voters only, we (1) distinguish groups holding a similar set of opposing and compatible values (value profile) instead of focusing on single values in the the entire population; (2) incorporate a correction for differences in scale use in our model; (3) compare voting over time; (4) include non-voters, a growing group in Dutch society. We find evidence that specific value profiles are related to voting for a specific set of political parties. We also find that specific value profiles distinguish non-voters from voters and that voters for populist parties resemble non-voters

The Nature of Societal Conflict in Europe; an Archetypal Analysis of the Postmodern Cosmopolitan, Rural Traditionalist and Urban Precariat

We analyse the nature of contemporary societal conflict in Europe, conceptualizing conflict in terms of oppositional identities, represented by the archetypal extreme corner positions between which contestation takes place. By analysing key characteristics of 28,565 Europeans from seven countries in four distinct time periods, we find three archetypal corner positions. Each archetype represents an ideal-typical configuration of values, attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics which people identify more or less with. The first archetype (which we label Postmodern Cosmopolitan) represents an urban, higher-educated person with cosmopolitan values and attitudes. The other two archetypes (Rural traditionalist and Urban Precariat) present images of Europe that are more nationalistic and differ in their political-economic ideological position. Western and Eastern European countries differ markedly in the distribution of these archetypes over time. The novelty of this paper is our conceptualization and operationalization of the changing nature of societal conflict as changes in oppositional identities

Strategic orientations and digital marketing tactics in cross-border e-commerce: Comparing developed and emerging markets

In this article, the impact of strategic orientations on the use of digital marketing tactics and, subsequently, on the international business performance of small electronic retailers (e-retailers) in cross-border electronic commerce (e-commerce) is analysed. Furthermore, these relationships are compared between e-retailers originating in both developed and emerging e-commerce markets. Using a sample of 446 small business-to-consumer e-retailers from 20 European countries, we find that the deployment of digital marketing tactics has a positive effect on international business performance. Of the strategic orientations examined, foreign market orientation is most associated with the use of digital marketing tactics. Remarkably, growth orientation only has a positive effect on e-retailers from developed e-commerce markets, while customer orientation negatively affects e-retailers from emerging e-commerce markets. The differences between e-retailers from developed and emerging e-commerce markets are prominent and show that markets should not be considered as either uniform or generalisable

Occurrence of Comorbidities before and after Soft Tissue Sarcoma Diagnosis

Background. Data is limited on the burden of common comorbidities, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory disease and diabetes, or comorbidities related to cancer and its treatment, such as anemia and depression, in patients with soft tissue sarcoma (STS). Patients and Methods. From the Dutch Pathology Registry linked to the PHARMO database (including data on drug use and hospitalizations), 533 patients with STS were selected during 2000–2007 and matched 1 : 10 to cancer-free controls. The occurrences of comorbidities were assessed in the 12 months before and after STS diagnosis. Results. STS patients were 2–4 times more likely to have comorbidities at diagnosis compared with cancer-free controls. The incidence of CVD, anemia, and depression after STS diagnosis differed significantly from cancer-free controls and decreased during followup from 40–124 per 1,000 person-years (py) during the first six months to 11–38 per 1,000 py more than 12 months after diagnosis. The incidence of respiratory disease and diabetes among STS patients remained stable during followup (5–21 per 1,000 py) and did not differ significantly from cancer-free controls. Conclusions. STS patients were more likely to have comorbidities before cancer diagnosis and to develop CVD, anemia, and depression after diagnosis compared to cancer-free controls

Interpreting value changes across countries using archetypes as anchor points : individual and country level perspectives

Schwartz\u27s seminal psychological theory on human values (Schwartz, 1992, 2012) explains differences among individuals and countries. His instruments are robust, showing similar value structures across nations despite varying priorities. Our study examines value changes over time from both individual-level and country-level perspectives. For the individual level perspective, we use archetype analysis. This method identifies extreme observations representing specific value combinations, which are stable over time and useful for monitoring group changes. Country scores are averages of individual scores. Using European Social Survey data across 29 countries over a 20-year period, we identify three archetypes: Growth-focus, Self-focus, and Social-focus, all fitting Schwartz\u27s theory. Changes in value priorities over time are observed between countries, with Growth-focus prevalence influenced by political and economic conditions. Wealthier and more democratic countries have a larger number of growth-focused individuals. For the country level perspective, we start with country-level value scores as input in the archetype analysis. We explain various results, emphasizing that values are individual level constructs based on survey responses. We argue that valid comparisons over time require equivalence of constructs across countries. The discussion focusses on the need for integrating the two perspectives with a plea for a strong theoretical basis of population-level constructs

Economic Factors and Culture

Assessing the extent to which country variance can be explained by Value Dimensions and Cultural factors (GDP per capita

Economic Factors and Culture

Assessing the extent to which country variance can be explained by Value Dimensions and Cultural factors (GDP per capita