Feedback information and consumer motivation: The moderating role of positive and negative reference values in self-regulation

Marketers spend considerable resources to motivate people to consume their products and services as a means of goal attainment (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 1999). Why people increase, decrease, or stop consuming some products is based largely on how well they perceive they are doing in pursuit of their goals (Carver and Scheier, 1992). Yet despite the importance for marketers in understanding how current performance influences a consumer’s future efforts, this topic has received little attention in marketing research. Goal researchers generally agree that feedback about how well or how poorly people are doing in achieving their goals affects their motivation (Bandura and Cervone, 1986; Locke and Latham, 1990). Yet there is less agreement about whether positive and negative performance feedback increases or decreases future effort (Locke and Latham, 1990). For instance, while a customer of a gym might cancel his membership after receiving negative feedback about his fitness, the same negative feedback might cause another customer to visit the gym more often to achieve better results. A similar logic can apply to many products and services from the use of cosmetics to investing in mutual funds. The present research offers managers key insights into how to engage customers and keep them motivated. Given that connecting customers with the company is a top research priority for managers (Marketing Science Institute, 2006), this article provides suggestions for performance metrics including four questions that managers can use to apply the findings

Do Students Benefit From Supplemental Instruction? Evidence From a First-Year Statistics Subject in Economics and Business

Peer assisted study sessions (PASS) are a type of supplemental instruction (SI) that provide students with out-of-class study review sessions with a group of peers. A student, who has successfully completed the subject and acts as a mentor, facilitates the voluntary sessions. Results of the PASS program at the University of Wollongong have been quite positive in that students, on average, who attend more PASS, achieve higher marks. However, a simple comparison does not control for self-selection bias. We control for self-selection in two ways. Firstly, we use Heckman’s two-stage correction technique to analyze the 2002 cohort. Secondly, students in the 2003 cohort were randomly allocated into three groups of equal size: 1. A control group that was allocated to normal tutorials with standard class sizes and ineligible to attend PASS; 2. A group that was eligible to attend PASS and had normal tutorials of standard sizes; 3. A group that was ineligible to attend PASS but allocated to normal tutorials with smaller class sizes. The results of both methods are consistent and indicate the PASS program has a positive impact on the academic performance of students after correcting for selection bias.Economics Education; Teaching of Economics; Design of Experiments

Echoes of Scripture and the Jewish Pseudepigrapha in the Pastoral Epistles: Including a Method of Identifying High-interest Parallels

Within Biblical studies, the term ‘echoes of Scripture’ is often used to describe a detailed study of verbal parallels (or potential references) between the New Testament and the Jewish Scriptures (i.e. Christian Old Testament). This present study expands upon this tradition by seeking to identify verbal parallels between the Pastoral Epistles and two different sets of source texts: the Septuagint and the Greek manuscripts of the Jewish Pseudepigrapha. The parallels are detected using a method that is analogous to the syntax analysis phase of a compiler or a natural language processor. As such, the study defines a set of syntax rules for textual references in Ancient Greek literature and then scans these rules to find instances when they are true (or satisfied). Based on the literary theory of allusions, the method relies upon the rarity of the matching words in order to highlight the most likely parallels for further evaluation as potential references. During this search process, the method also generates metadata that can be used to evaluate the relative influence of each set of source texts

Fatigue and fracture testing and analysis on four engineering materials

Fatigue and fracture testing and analyses were performed on four engineering materials: a low-strength aluminum alloy (D16CzATWH), a high-strength aluminum alloy (Al7050-T7351), a low-strength steel (A36 steel), and a high-strength steel (9310 steel). Large-crack testing included compression precracked constant amplitude and compression precracked load reduction over a wide range of stress ratios. Single- and multiple-spike overload tests were conducted on some of the materials. Fatigue and small-crack testing were also performed at constant amplitude loading at a constant load ratio on the newly designed single edge notch bend specimen. Using the FADD2D boundary element code, two-dimensional stress analysis was performed on the new specimen to determine the stress intensity factor as a function of crack size for surface and through cracks at the edge notch. Collected fatigue crack growth rate data was used to develop a material model for the FASTRAN strip-yield crack growth code. FASTRAN was used to simulate the constant amplitude and spike overload tests, as well as the small-crack fatigue tests. The fatigue crack growth simulation results have shown that both low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue can be modeled accurately as fatigue crack growth using FASTRAN and that FASTRAN can be used to accurately predict the acceleration and retardation in fatigue crack growth rates after a spike overload. The testing has shown that the starting fatigue crack growth rate of any load-shedding test has significant influence on load history effects, with lower starting rates yielding lower crack growth thresholds and faster rates. Through inspection of fatigue surfaces, it has been shown that beveling of pin-holes in the crack growth specimens is necessary to ensure symmetric crack fronts and that the presence of debris along the fatigue surfaces can cause considerable crack growth retardation

Harnessing social capital : an exploratory investigation of stakeholder disposition in boundary spanning networks

This thesis confronts existing bilateral models of stakeholder management. It is based upon the premise that existing models place insufficient value upon the mediating power of individuals and small groups imbued with social capital within an organisational stakeholder environment. Initially, this study explores and maps the complex theoretical relations between organisations, stakeholders and social capital to construct an argument for addressing stakeholder management from a more plural and holistic perspective. The thesis suggests that rapid advances in social media and social interconnection now enables the sentiment of individual stakeholders to aggregate and rapidly form issue-specific interest groups that harness social capital to influence or act upon organisations. The thesis then continues to suggest that such social aggregation produces boundary spanners who in turn act as attractors for continued group aggregation, leading action against organisations. This is an important re-conceptualisation because organisations will need to recognise and manage this growing phenomenon. The thesis then explores the James Hardie asbestos compensation issue as a revelatory and purposeful case study of this emerging phenomenon. This case illustrates that dissonance may arise between an organisation and its stakeholders where an expectation gap develops between an organisation\u27s activities and community standards - dissonance that may grow within a community, instigating group action that may have a significant impact upon an organisation. Having conceptualised and illustrated this emerging phenomenon, the thesis then moves on to describe the results of a limited pilot field study that explores the first stages of this conceptual development; the development of individual community sentiment about organisational action. The James Hardie case is used as the basis of this investigation. The investigation is based on a historical quasi-longitudinal stakeholder survey of stakeholder perceptions about, and community disposition towards, the James Hardie case through quantitative and qualitative data. Structurally, the research utilises Carroll\u27s (1979) Corporate Social Performance Model as a framework to explore the development of social capital within the stakeholder environment, examining stakeholder perceptions on four levels of organisational activity: economic, legal, ethical and discretionary. The study examines and provides evidence of the first stage of the development of the stakeholder-organisation expectation gap and the growth of community sentiment, a pre-requisite for the subsequent formation of issue-specific interest groups and boundary-spanner action against an organisation. This thesis makes a contribution to current understanding of stakeholder management by arguing for and proposing an extended plural model of stakeholder management - a model that incorporates the emerging reality of social media enabling the aggregation of individual sentiment into social capital, and subsequent community activity. In addition the thesis shows how the existing theory of Carroll provides a framework to investigate how stakeholder sentiment initially develops. In doing so it paves the way for subsequent research to further explore the proposed extension to theory; how social aggregation around issues of sentiment develops and how boundary spanners aggregate that sentiment and convert it into action. In terms of organisational practice, the study concludes by asserting that organisations should engineer a more strategic approach to managing stakeholder relations in order to harness the embedded social capital of community stakeholder groups. The ongoing saga of the James Hardie case illustrates what may happen if organisations do not take such action

Evaluating Neural Network Decoder Performance for Quantum Error Correction Using Various Data Generation Models

Neural networks have been shown in the past to perform quantum error correction (QEC) decoding with greater accuracy and efficiency than algorithmic decoders. Because the qubits in a quantum computer are volatile and only usable on the order of milliseconds before they decohere, a means of fast quantum error correction is necessary in order to correct data qubit errors within the time budget of a quantum algorithm. Algorithmic decoders are good at resolving errors on logical qubits with only a few data qubits, but are less efficient in systems containing more data qubits. With neural network decoders, practical quantum computation becomes much more realizable since the error corrective operations are calculated much faster than with the MWPM or partial lookup table implementations. This research is aimed at furthering neural network QEC decoder research by generating exhaustive and randomly sampled data sets using high-performance computing algorithms to evaluate the effect of data set generation methods on the effectiveness of these neural networks compared to similar models. The results of this work show that different data sets affect various performance metrics including accuracy, F1 score, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, and QEC cycles

Fatigue and fracture testing and analysis on four engineering materials

Fatigue and fracture testing and analyses were performed on four engineering materials: a low-strength aluminum alloy (D16CzATWH), a high-strength aluminum alloy (Al7050-T7351), a low-strength steel (A36 steel), and a high-strength steel (9310 steel). Large-crack testing included compression precracked constant amplitude and compression precracked load reduction over a wide range of stress ratios. Single- and multiple-spike overload tests were conducted on some of the materials. Fatigue and small-crack testing were also performed at constant amplitude loading at a constant load ratio on the newly designed single edge notch bend specimen. Using the FADD2D boundary element code, two-dimensional stress analysis was performed on the new specimen to determine the stress intensity factor as a function of crack size for surface and through cracks at the edge notch. Collected fatigue crack growth rate data was used to develop a material model for the FASTRAN strip-yield crack growth code. FASTRAN was used to simulate the constant amplitude and spike overload tests, as well as the small-crack fatigue tests. The fatigue crack growth simulation results have shown that both low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue can be modeled accurately as fatigue crack growth using FASTRAN and that FASTRAN can be used to accurately predict the acceleration and retardation in fatigue crack growth rates after a spike overload. The testing has shown that the starting fatigue crack growth rate of any load-shedding test has significant influence on load history effects, with lower starting rates yielding lower crack growth thresholds and faster rates. Through inspection of fatigue surfaces, it has been shown that beveling of pin-holes in the crack growth specimens is necessary to ensure symmetric crack fronts and that the presence of debris along the fatigue surfaces can cause considerable crack growth retardation

A study of probationers in their social environment

The thesis is in 2 parts. Part 1 contains a description of the relationships which a sample of young male probationers had at home, at work, within their peer-group and with their girlfriends or wives. The material conditions in which they lived are summarised, and brief data were collected concerning their mental and physical health. Attention is drawn to the fact that difficulties in one sector tended to be statistically associated with difficulties in another; moreover the presence of environmental stresses indicated a greater likelihood of reconviction within 12 months of the probation order being made. After the order had been in existence for 2 months, it was found that the quality of the probation officer's casework relationship was statistically associated with the client's parental relations, father-son and mother-son relationships, the probationer's contemporary associations, the level of support he enjoyed at work, and his personality characteristics. Furthermore a moderate or bad casework relationship was linked with a higher reconviction-rate. Thus the probation officers were best able to make a good relationship with those who appeared to need least help. An attempt to devise a Stress Score was only moderately successful, and Part 2 describes a method of assessing the environment which was intended to improve on it. It isolates 3 areas of the environment: support at home, work/school and crime contamination - which, it is suggested, together make up a social system likely to partially determine the probationer's criminal behaviour. The instrument was validated on a second sample (including juveniles); and statistical analyses were carried out to relate the environmental assessment to personality factors and to 3 different criteria of success on probation. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the methodological and theoretical issues arising out of the research instrument.<p

Experiences of a Georgia Boy in the Army of Northern Virginia 1861-1865

Confederate soldier Martin W. Brett’s account of his service in the 12th Regiment of Georgia Volunteers in the Army of Northern Virginiahttps://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/bchs-pubs/1013/thumbnail.jp