Operationalizing risk perception and preparedness behavior research for a multi-hazard context

Increasingly, citizens are being asked to take a more active role in disaster risk reduction (DRR), as decentralization of hazard governance has shifted greater responsibility for hazard preparedness actions onto individuals. Simultaneously, the taxonomy of hazards considered for DRR has expanded to include medical and social crises alongside natural hazards. Risk perception research emerged to support decision-makers with understanding how people characterize and evaluate different hazards to anticipate behavioral response and guide risk communication. Since its inception, the risk perception concept has been incorporated into many behavioral theories, which have been applied to examine preparedness for numerous hazard types. Behavioral theories have had moderate success in predicting or explaining preparedness behaviors; however, they are typically applied to a single hazard type and there is a gap in understanding which theories (if any) are suited for examining multiple hazard types simultaneously. This paper first reviews meta-analyses of behavioral theories to better understand performance. Universal lessons learnt are summarized for survey design. Second, theoretically based preparedness studies for floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and terrorism are reviewed to assess the conceptual requirements for a ‘multi-hazard’ preparedness approach. The development of an online preparedness self-assessment and learning platform is discussed

Antecedents and Performance Outcomes of Value-Based Selling in Sales Teams: A Multilevel, Systems Theory of Motivation Perspective

Firms are increasingly deploying a value-based selling (VBS) approach in their sales organizations to drive growth for new offerings. However, VBS adoption remains challenging, signaling that leaders need guidance to motivate VBS. Drawing from the systems theory of motivation, we examine motivational mechanisms at two levels—salesperson and sales team—to understand how to motivate, and benefit from, VBS. Using multisource data (i.e., salespeople, managers, archival performance) from 70 sales teams in a U.S.-based manufacturing and services provider, our findings illustrate drivers and outcomes of VBS. Specifically, we uncover a framework of salesperson, leader, customer, and team factors that help explain salesperson motivation for VBS. Importantly, we link VBS to customers’ adoption of new products to support VBS’s role for selling new products. Critical for sales team strategy, our model also integrates a team-level motivational mechanism to provide a comprehensive framework for salesperson and sales team motivations and outcomes

A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior

Based on a survey of behavioral finance literature, this paper presents a descriptive model of individual investor behavior in which investment decisions are seen as an iterative process of interactions between the investor and the investment environment. This investment process is influenced by a number of interdependent variables and driven by dual mental systems, the interplay of which contributes to boundedly rational behavior where investors use various heuristics and may exhibit behavioral biases. In the modeling tradition of cognitive science and intelligent systems, the investor is seen as a learning, adapting, and evolving entity that perceives the environment, processes information, acts upon it, and updates his or her internal states. This conceptual model can be used to build stylized representations of (classes of) individual investors, and further studied using the paradigm of agent-based artificial financial markets. By allowing us to implement individual investor behavior, to choose various market mechanisms, and to analyze the obtained asset prices, agent-based models can bridge the gap between the micro level of individual investor behavior and the macro level of aggregate market phenomena. It has been recognized, yet not fully explored, that these models could be used as a tool to generate or test various behavioral hypothesis.behavioral finance;financial decision making;agent-based artificial financial markets;cognitive modeling;investor behavior

The effect of lockup and persuasion on online investment decisions: an experimental study in ICOs

Many firms use social media (SM) to solicit online investments. In this study, we examine the interaction between SM attributes and online-investment attributes to determine how this interaction shapes users’ investment decisions. Specifically, we investigate initial coin offerings (ICOs) as an application domain of distributed ledger technology for peer-to-peer investment. We use signaling theory to develop a context-specific explanation for how the interplay of persuasion signals found in SM and technology-enforced lockups shapes individuals’ ICO investment decisions. To evaluate this interplay, we conducted a 2 × 2 factorial experiment with 473 participants. The results show that when an investment does not require a technology-enforced lockup, persuasion signals encourage investments in ICOs; however, when an investment requires a technology-enforced lockup, persuasion signals do not affect investments in ICOs. Furthermore, our analyses suggest that combining a technology-enforced lockup and persuasion signals reduces the ICO’s plausibility. This is the first study to investigate how the willingness to invest in ICOs is influenced by the relationship between technology-enforced lockups and persuasion signals. The findings have practical implications for individuals attempting to make sound decisions on ICO investments, policymakers regulating online investments, and firms seeking to attract investors

Uncertainty in action: Observing information seeking within the creative processes of scholarly research

Introduction. This paper discusses the role uncertainty plays in judgments of the meaning and significance of ideas and texts encountered by scholars in the context of their ongoing research activities. Method. Two experienced scholars were observed as part of a two-year ethnographic study of their ongoing research practices. Layered transcriptions of document-by-document discussions, conversations and interviews with informants were analysed for evidence of uncertainty in informants' processes of discovery, evaluation, use and generation of information. Analysis. Three themes are discussed illustrating the dynamic interplay between positive and negative forms of uncertainty: partial relevance, boundaries of understanding and uncertainty tolerance. Results. The uncertainty experienced by informants takes many forms deeply embedded in the interwoven layers of information seeking and use. Positive forms of uncertainty were often, but not exclusively, associated with the informants' explorations within the wider research tasks in which they were engaged. Conclusion. The intricacy of the relationship between what we might consider desirable as opposed to undesirable uncertainty is not easily unravelled. From the searcher's perspective, the interplay between positive and negative forms may be one way of explaining their ability to tolerate challenging encounters within their information and research processes

Perceptions of Adolescent Pregnancy Among Teenage Girls in Rakai, Uganda.

The leading causes of death and disability among Ugandan female adolescents aged 15 to 19 years are pregnancy complications, unsafe abortions, and childbirth. Despite these statistics, our understanding of how girls perceive adolescent pregnancy is limited. This qualitative study explored the social and contextual factors shaping the perceptions of adolescent pregnancy and childbirth among a sample of 12 currently pregnant and 14 never pregnant girls living in the rural Rakai District of Uganda. Interviews were conducted to elicit perceived risk factors for pregnancy, associated community attitudes, and personal opinions on adolescent pregnancy. Findings indicate that notions of adolescent pregnancy are primarily influenced by perceptions of control over getting pregnant and readiness for childbearing. Premarital pregnancy was perceived as negative whereas postmarital pregnancy was regarded as positive. Greater understanding of the individual and contextual factors influencing perceptions can aid in development of salient, culturally appropriate policies and programs to mitigate unintended adolescent pregnancies

Perceived Motivational Affordances: Capturing and Measuring Students' Sense-Making Around Visualizations of their Academic Achievement Information.

The efficacy of learning analytics is predicated on the validity of techniques used to uncover patterns about student learning and engagement, and the ways in which these patterns are communicated to various stakeholders. How students understand representations of their learning, and whether or not those representations motivate them in positive ways, is not well understood. This dissertation addresses this gap in the literature through two complementary studies. Study 1 utilizes qualitative interviews (n = 60) to investigate how students at-risk of college failure interpret visual representations of their potential academic achievement. Findings suggest an interplay between the information communicated by visualizations and students’ own inclinations towards the information they wished to see. Visualizations showing only the participants academic information, for example, evoked statements focused on personal growth from students when they interpreted the graphs. Visualizations that cast an individual student’s performance against the class average, however, evoked maladaptive responses. Study 2 designed and validated the Motivated Information-Seeking Questionnaire (MISQ) using a college student sample drawn from across the country (n = 551). The MISQ measures constructs that are parallel to mastery, performance-avoid, and performance approach goal orientations as theorized by Achievement Goal Theory. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to internally validate the MISQ scales, resulting in validation of the performance-approach information-seeking (PAIS) and performance-avoid information-seeking (PVIS) dimensions. Results of external validation indicated that PVIS and PAIS were empirically distinguishable from performance-approach and performance-avoid achievement goal orientations. Multiple regression analysis supported the predictive power of PVIS and PAIS with regard to students’ emotional responses to certain types of visualizations and to what they attributed their success and/or failure, after controlling for relevant demographic characteristics. Taken together, these studies increase our knowledge of the various dimensions students use while interpreting visualizations, and uncovered tensions between what students want to see, versus what it might be more motivationally appropriate for them to see. Both studies suggest three maxims for the design and use of visualizations: 1) Never assume that more information is better; 2) Anticipate and mitigate against potential harm; and 3) Always suggest a way for students to grow.PhDEducation and PsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133441/1/aguilars_1.pd

Explaining export regional involvement through marketing strategy : the case of Spanish companies exporting to Latin America

The equivalence between the absence of arbitrage and the existence of an equivalent martingale measure fails when an infinite number of trading dates is considered. By enlarging the set of states of nature and the probability measure through a projective system of topological spaces and Radon measures, we characterize the absence of arbitrage when the time set is countable

EXPLAINING EXPORT REGIONAL INVOLVEMENT THROUGH MARKETING STRATEGY: THE CASE OF SPANISH COMPANIES EXPORTING TO LATIN AMERICA

The equivalence between the absence of arbitrage and the existence of an equivalent martingale measure fails when an infinite number of trading dates is considered. By enlarging the set of states of nature and the probability measure through a projective system of topological spaces and Radon measures, we characterize the absence of arbitrage when the time set is countable.