The management of volunteers

V olunteers can and should be an important part of every nonprofit organization. This is not only to save money though it can do that but because it is a right of people to have an active share in those institutions which are supported by their tax or philanthropic dollars. The volunteer portion of our society is undergoing some dramatic changes today which offer new challenges and many new opportunities to all organizations which are alert to what is happening. I don't know a great deal about the detailed operations of libraries (although I worked in one at one time) , but the basic principles of volunteer participation and management, I am sure, apply to libraries as they do to hospitals, school systems, and social welfare agencies. To understand these changes, we must look at what is happening to people today which has an effect on volunteering.published or submitted for publicatio

Assessing the effects of abstract attributes and brand familiarity in conjoint choice experiments

The paper considers a (static) portfolio system that satisfies adding-up contraints and the gross substitution theorem. The paper shows the relationship of the two conditions to the weak dominant diagonal property of the matrix of interest rate elasticities. This enables to investigate the impact of simultaneous changes in interest rates on the asset demands.

Clans, Cliques, and Captured States: Rethinking 'Transition' in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union

Informal social networks, Corruption, Social capital, Economies in transition

Mixed Tree and Spatial Representation of Dissimilarity Judgments

Whereas previous research has shown that either tree or spatial representations of dissimilarity judgments may be appropriate, focussing on the comparative fit at the aggregate level, we investigate whether there is heterogeneity among subjects in the extent to which their dissimilarity judgments are better represented by ultrametric tree or spatial multidimensional scaling models. We develop a mixture model for the analysis of dissimilarity data, that is formulated in a stochastic context, and entails a representation and a measurement model component. The latter involves distributional assumptions on the measurement error, and enables estimation by maximum likelihood. The representation component allows dissimilarity judgments to be represented either by a tree structure or by a spatial configuration, or a mixture of both. In order to investigate the appropriateness of tree versus spatial representations, the model is applied to twenty empirical data sets. We compare the fit of our model with that of aggregate tree and spatial models, as well as with mixtures of pure trees and mixtures of pure spaces, respectively. We formulate some empirical generalizations on the relative importance of tree versus spatial structures in representing dissimilarity judgments at the individual level.Multidimensional scaling;tree models;mixture models;dissimilarity judgments

Differentiated Bayesian Conjoint Choice Designs

Previous conjoint choice design construction procedures have produced a single design that is administered to all subjects. This paper proposes to construct a limited set of different designs. The designs are constructed in a Bayesian fashion, taking into account prior uncertainty about the parameter values. A computational procedure is developed that enables fast and easy implementation in practice. Even though the number of such different designs in the optimal set is small, it is demonstrated through a Monte Carlo study that substantial gains in efficiency are achieved over aggregate designs.experiments;consumer preferences;multinomial logit;discrete choice;estimator efficiency

The influence of advertisement familiarity and originality on visual attention and brand memory.

Based on Mandler's theory of schema organization and previous visual attention research, we formulate and test hypotheses about the impact of ad familiarity and ad originality on attention and memory for print advertisements. To that end, one hundred and nineteen consumers browsed through two consumer magazines containing 68 print advertisements. Attention to the ads and their brand, picture and text components was assessed through infrared eye tracking. Trained judges rated the ads independently for familiarity and originality. In support of the hypotheses we find a sharp attention decline with ad familiarity, which is largely due to a reduction in attention to text. Originality of ad execution serves as a buffer against the negative influence of ad familiarity on attention, but only for the brand and picture components. The reduction of attention to the text is even larger for original than for unoriginal ads. Moreover, over and above their indirect influence through visual attention patterns, ad familiarity, ad originality and their interaction had a direct influence on brand memory.Advertising;

Undirected visual attention to advertising : a segment-level analysis

The paper considers a (static) portfolio system that satisfies adding-up contraints and the gross substitution theorem. The paper shows the relationship of the two conditions to the weak dominant diagonal property of the matrix of interest rate elasticities. This enables to investigate the impact of simultaneous changes in interest rates on the asset demands.