The Multilevel Effects of Changes in Disadvantage on Changes in Crime

While social disorganization theory suggests the importance of change, most prior research examining macro-level criminological associations uses cross-sectional data. The current study examines the multilevel relationship between changes in disadvantage and changes in crime over time using four data sources: the National Neighborhood Crime Study, the 2000 U.S. Census, crime-incidents occurring between 2005 and 2009, and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey. Analyzing 6,068 census tracts within 53 large U.S. cities using multilevel models with time nested within tracts nested within cities, I parse out the contribution of changes in tract-level disadvantage from city-level disadvantage to changes in robbery and burglary rates. Results indicate the importance of both static and dynamic associations between disadvantage and crime, at both the neighborhood and city level.

Multilevel Analysis of Protest: Application for Small N Designs

Protest is the result of complex multilevel processes. It is triggered by contextual factors such as political opportunities or events, it depends on organizations’ mobilizing capacity as well as on the type of people who protest, and it is shaped by the characteristics of the populations they come from. To effectively study the antecedents that operate at various levels, social movement research needs to integrate data from multiple analytical levels and systematically examine the relationships across the various levels. While large N statistical techniques of multilevel modelling are well understood, less is known about applying multilevel analysis research examining small number of cases. The article develops conceptual and methodological tools for multilevel analysis of protests in studies with a small number of cases. First, it demonstrates the empirical requirements associated with analyzing three types of multilevel effects: contextual effects, composition effects, and cross-level interactions. Next, specific multilevel small N designs that can be used to examine the three multilevel effects are presented. The last section uses the multilevel approach to examine the demobilization of anti-Iraq War protests in the United States.

The Joint and Multilevel Effects of Training and Incentives from Upstream Manufacturers on Downstream Salespeople’s Efforts

Manufacturers frequently face the challenge of motivating distributor salespeople to focus efforts on their products rather than competitors’ products. The present research explores two mechanisms that manufacturers use to address this challenge: training and incentives (spiffs). The authors find that the impact of these mechanisms on distributor salespeople’s efforts (toward a manufacturer’s products) largely depends on the extent to which manufacturers also provide training and incentives to distributor sales managers. More specifically, providing greater incentives to distributor sales managers undermines the relationship between their salespeople’s training and effort but enhances the relationship between their salespeople’s incentives and effort. Furthermore, greater sales manager training enhances the impact of salespeople’s incentives on effort; however, greater salesperson training undermines the relationship between salesperson incentives and effort. Thus, this research shows that the combination of mechanisms (training and incentives) and the levels at which manufacturers provide them (distributor salespeople and sales managers) can have different implications for distributor salespeople’s efforts.