"The Covariance Transformation And the Instrumental Variables Estimator of the Fixed Effects Model"

The covariance transformation is a useful and often necessary procedure to estimate the fixed effects model. When some explanatory variables are contemporaneously correlated with the disturbance term, the covariance transformation can be used in conjunction with an instrumental variables procedure to obtain a consistent estimator. This paper describes how to correctly compute the IV estimator as a two stage least squares estimator. In addition, I show that if the IV estimator is incorrectly computed using a two stage least squares approach where the covariance transformation is not applied until the second stage, the resulting estimator is not in general consistent.

"The Effects of Worker Participation, Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing on Economics Performance: A Partial Review"

For alternative sharing arrangements we review theory on the economic effects on employment, productivity, investment, income and wealth distribution, and life cycle and survival. We find that predictions are often ambiguous and that sometimes the nature and size of the specific effect is determined in part by the particular institutional arrangements. Next recent econometric work is studied. We review studies using aggregate and industry level time series data for Japan as well as studies that use enterprise and establishment level data for firms in North America and Western Europe. Worker participation, employee share ownership and profit sharing schemes are often found to affect that studies obtained conflicting results. However, available evidence is strongly suggestive that for employee ownership schemes to have a strong positive impact they need to be accompanied by provision for worker participation in decision making.

Influencing Physician Drug Prescription Habits Towards Cost Containment

In Israel, diffusion of clinical information systems is almost universal in ambulatory medical services. The drug prescription module embedded in a widely-used electronic patient record system has the capacity to intervene and notify physicians about available generic or therapeutic substitute drugs, when their first choice is outside the insurer\u27s preferred drug list. The objective of this paper is to study how such intervention influences drug prescription habits of physicians and helps contain costs. To this end we monitored system use for 40 weeks, recording physicians’ willingness to change their choice to a substitute following system notification. Findings show higher physician compliance with generic substitutes than with therapeutic substitutes, based on a cognitive decision process upon notification, and increase in compliance over time, until stabilization. The resulting direct financial savings on expenditure for drugs, estimated to be 4.7% for chronic drugs, entail long-term savings

Autism, Sexuality, and BDSM

This paper will explore the following areas in which idiosyncratic, sensitive and intense autistic ways of being result in patterns of sexual behavior and reasons autistic people may be particularly drawn to BDSM: 1) autistic sensorimotor intensity promotes non-normative movement, including sadomasochistic, patterns of movement 2) the autistic preference for literal and concrete language matches the BDSM culture’s norms of explicit verbal consent 3) idiosyncratic autistic attention fits will with opportunities within BDSM for developing a long-term career of learning and deep engagement. 4) the double empathy problem results in marginalization of autistic people from mainstream society while BDSM communities can offer norms better suited to autistic people

Investigating Physicians\u27 Compliance with Drug Prescription Notifications

The objective of this study was to investigate physicians\u27 compliance with recommendations for drug substitutes embedded within an electronic medical record, to assess factors affecting compliance, and to evaluate associated cost savings. An exploratory study of all physicians in all clinics operated by a large health maintenance organization (HMO) was conducted using a transparent computerized agent that collected 1.21 million prescriptions prescribed by 647 physicians. Compliance with HMO recommendations for substitute drugs reached a 70 percent rate. Substitute type, whether generic or therapeutic, was found to be the most significant factor affecting compliance, with physician workload and age second and third in effect magnitude, respectively. Compliance was found to be non-automatic and selective, following a thoughtful cognitive process. The HMO realized at least a 4 percent reduction in costs for prescribed drugs as a result of compliance with substitute recommendations. The results can be interpreted via the lens of Organizational Justice Theory, assuming that the broad compliance with generic substitutes was driven by perception of just procedures, whereas there was no such perception in the case of therapeutic substitutes. While more research is warranted for investigating the motivations driving physicians\u27 compliance, we strongly feel that the results can be generalized to other HMOs and healthcare settings

Making Academic IS Research More Relevant to Industry Via Open-Architecture Models for Career Paths in Academia

Until the debate regarding relevance of IS research to practice is resolved, it is instructive to learn from more established disciplines where previous practical experience is accounted for and valued. In teaching hospitals, academia and practice are interrelated and co-exist. Retired high-ranked military officers, are sought for top positions, in business, politics, and academia. Promotion and tenure committees for academic IS departments, wishing to encourage interaction with IS practice, ought not only to recognize practical experience and publications in trade magazines, but also to design open-architecture career paths for smooth transition of IS personnel between industry and academia

Is eCommerce of IT Application Services (ASP) Alive and Well?

Given the great importance of outsourcing to the Information Technology (IT) profession, this paper is devoted to E-Commerce of IT application services between Application Service Providers (ASPs) and customer organizations. Instead of dealing with the more general “Is E-Commerce Dead?” question, we address the question of whether “E-Commerce for IT application services is (and will be) alive and well?” Reviewing the history of the ASP industry, shedding light on the factors inhibiting and driving ASPs, and discussing prospective customer profiles and business models leads to the conclusion that, much like E-Commerce, ASPs are alive but not very well yet

Email as a Facilitator of Power Plays:Analysis of Political Events at a University

Interest in the diffusion process of email has been growing steadily. Whereas, initially, successful email implementations had been attributed to technological aspects (Pliskin, 1989; Pliskin, et al., 1989), more recently nontechnological explanations have received considerable attention (Pliskin and Romm, 1990). Lynne Markus, in a recent paper on email use (1994), contrasts individuallevel explanations with collectivelevel explanations and noting that the former considerations are not enough to explain why senior managers choose email for some of their communication tasks. The main argument behind the latter school of thought is that the diffusion of any technology is a social matter which depends on whether the technology is perceived as socially appropriate by the community of potential users. Thus, the decision of individuals to adopt email will therefore depend on whether this technology is seen as capable of serving their unique social needs within their community(Culnan and Markus, 1987). It will also depend on the type of usages that email lends itself to and the degree to which these usages are tolerated within the community. For example, it has been demonstrated by Romm and Pliskin (1994) that the successful diffusion of email can be greatly affected by users\u27 realising its tremendous potential for political usage. The thrust of much of this early research has been to view e-mail as a dependent variable, i.e., to concentrate on what causes email to be successfully implemented in organisations, and to look for explanations for why it is accepted and how its diffusion is affected by other organisational processes (e.g., Rafaeli and LaRose, 1993). It is only in recent years that email has begun to be researched asan independent variable that causes or affects other organisational processes (Kling, 1995). Sproull and Kiesler, for instance, argue that email has a democratising effect on organisations because it enables people who are at the periphery of organisations to become more visible, and facilitates communication between people at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy and those at the top. Similarly, Finholt and Sproull (1990) demonstrate how email can facilitate group decision making and bring about group unity and cohesion. Rice\u27s series of investigations (Rice, 1987; Rice, 1992; Rice, 1993) deal with the effect of networks on group behaviour in the workplace, with particular emphasis on how membership in networks affects members\u27 attitudes about the newtechnology, and promote group innovation. The purpose of this research is to add to the understanding of the role of email in organizational power and politics. We build on a case study that took place at a university and explore the WAYS in which BOTH management and employees used email to further their unique political goals and conclude with a discussion of the implications from this case to email research and practice. Data for this study were collected by the authors at a University which is referredto as UIM, reflecting its InterMediate size in terms of the number of students (about 15,000), academics (about 500), and administrative staff (about 200). Textual analysis, interviews, and observations were employed in the study. These were comprehensiveand mutually supportive. The actual names of organizations and people have been withheld to protect their anonymity