How to ask sensitive questions in conservation: A review of specialized questioning techniques

Tools for social research are critical for developing an understanding of conservation problems and assessing the feasibility of conservation actions. Social surveys are an essential tool frequently applied in conservation to assess both people’s behaviour and to understand its drivers. However, little attention has been given to the weaknesses and strengths of different survey tools. When topics of conservation concern are illegal or otherwise sensitive, data collected using direct questions are likely to be affected by non-response and social desirability biases, reducing their validity. These sources of bias associated with using direct questions on sensitive topics have long been recognised in the social sciences but have been poorly considered in conservation and natural resource management. We reviewed specialized questioning techniques developed in a number of disciplines specifically for investigating sensitive topics. These methods ensure respondent anonymity, increase willingness to answer, and critically, make it impossible to directly link incriminating data to an individual. We describe each method and report their main characteristics, such as data requirements, possible data outputs, availability of evidence that they can be adapted for use in illiterate communities, and summarize their main advantages and disadvantages. Recommendations for their application in conservation are given. We suggest that the conservation toolbox should be expanded by incorporating specialized questioning techniques, developed specifically to increase response accuracy. By considering the limitations of each survey technique, we will ultimately contribute to more effective evaluations of conservation interventions and more robust policy decisions

Honesty Is the Best Policy–When There Is Money in It: Can Firms Promote Honest Reporting Behavior by Managers?

This paper provides experimental evidence on how incentive compensation, peer-group behavior, and audit (team) effectiveness influence managerial reporting behavior. Results show that an increase in incentive compensation intensity induces subjects to report less truthfully. High level of peer honesty promotes truthful reporting; however, the effects are weaker when incentive compensation intensity is high. Audit (team) effectiveness shows no significant influence on reporting behavior. The results provide the first clear evidence that firms need to consider carefully the effect of incentive compensation as well as the influence of peer groups when designing contracts. Furthermore, without a credible penalty for untruthful financial report, increased audit (team) effectiveness will not promote honest reporting.Managerial honesty;Incentive compensation intensity;Peer behavior;Audit effectiveness

Optimal Data Acquisition for Statistical Estimation

We consider a data analyst's problem of purchasing data from strategic agents to compute an unbiased estimate of a statistic of interest. Agents incur private costs to reveal their data and the costs can be arbitrarily correlated with their data. Once revealed, data are verifiable. This paper focuses on linear unbiased estimators. We design an individually rational and incentive compatible mechanism that optimizes the worst-case mean-squared error of the estimation, where the worst-case is over the unknown correlation between costs and data, subject to a budget constraint in expectation. We characterize the form of the optimal mechanism in closed-form. We further extend our results to acquiring data for estimating a parameter in regression analysis, where private costs can correlate with the values of the dependent variable but not with the values of the independent variables

A Random Matrix Approach to VARMA Processes

We apply random matrix theory to derive spectral density of large sample covariance matrices generated by multivariate VMA(q), VAR(q) and VARMA(q1,q2) processes. In particular, we consider a limit where the number of random variables N and the number of consecutive time measurements T are large but the ratio N/T is fixed. In this regime the underlying random matrices are asymptotically equivalent to Free Random Variables (FRV). We apply the FRV calculus to calculate the eigenvalue density of the sample covariance for several VARMA-type processes. We explicitly solve the VARMA(1,1) case and demonstrate a perfect agreement between the analytical result and the spectra obtained by Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed method is purely algebraic and can be easily generalized to q1>1 and q2>1.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to New Journal of Physic

Teaching case: Towards bridging disciplinary divides in IT education

Response distortion attributable to a variety of human motivations has long been a recognized problem for behavioral research relying on self reports by individuals. Researchers studying unethical IS behaviors usually need to solicit self reports because of the secrecy of such behaviors. Unfortunately, the unethical nature of those behaviors often subject self reports to various response distortions such as socially desirable responding. This paper discusses the method of psychometric adjustment for response distortion and empirically examines response distortion due to socially desirable responding in a software piracy research. The boundary conditions of psychometric adjustment are then discussed in depth and the use of randomized response technique, an alternative to mitigate response distortion, in IS ethics research is highlighted

Honesty Is the Best Policy–When There Is Money in It:Can Firms Promote Honest Reporting Behavior by Managers?

This paper provides experimental evidence on how incentive compensation, peer-group behavior, and audit (team) effectiveness influence managerial reporting behavior. Results show that an increase in incentive compensation intensity induces subjects to report less truthfully. High level of peer honesty promotes truthful reporting; however, the effects are weaker when incentive compensation intensity is high. Audit (team) effectiveness shows no significant influence on reporting behavior. The results provide the first clear evidence that firms need to consider carefully the effect of incentive compensation as well as the influence of peer groups when designing contracts. Furthermore, without a credible penalty for untruthful financial report, increased audit (team) effectiveness will not promote honest reporting.