The association between cost-standard setting and work performance: The role of information asymmetry and goal complexity

This paper is an empirical testing of the association between Cost Standard-Setting (PSS) on Work Performance (WP), mediated With Information Asymmetry (IA), and Goal Complexity (GC). It is a rule of thumb that PSS setting can lower the level of IA and GC between the managers and the employees and leads to better WP. The present work uses a path model to measure the direct, indirect, and spurious effect between the dependent and independent variables of this study. Data were collected from ten corporate firms in Iraq via a pre-designed questionnaire survey, the questionnaire forms were distributed randomly to the firm’s top management personnel, departmental managers, engineers, accountants, and administrators who are involved in PSS. Around 350 forms were distributed for data collection, however, only 198 forms were considered for this analysis, the rest of the forms were discarded due to incompleteness or missing values. The findings of the study showed a significant direct effect of PSS on WP. Likewise, there was clear evidence of an indirect effect via the mediating variables (IA and GC). The influence of IA and GC confirms the strong association between the independent variable (PSS) on the dependent variable (WP).

Counterexample-Guided Abstraction-Refinement for Hybrid Systems Diagnosability Analysis

Verifying behavioral or safety properties of hybrid systems, either at design stage such as state reachability and diagnosability, or on-line such as fault detection and isolation is a challenging task. We are concerned here with abstractions oriented towards hybrid systems diagnosability checking. The verification can be done on the abstraction by classical methods developed for discrete event systems extended with time constraints, which provide a counterexample in case of non-diagnosability. The absence of such a counterexample proves the diagnosability of the original hybrid system. In the presence of a counterexample, the first step is to check if it is not a spurious effect of the abstraction and actually exists for the hybrid system, witnessing thus non-diagnosability. Otherwise, we show how to refine the abstraction, guided by the elimination of the counterexample, and continue the process of looking for another counterexample until either a final result is obtained or we reach an inconclusive verdict. We make use of qualitative modeling and reasoning to compute discrete abstractions. Abstractions as timed automata are particularly studied as they allow one to handle time constraints that can be captured at a qualitative level from the hybrid system.

The spurious effect of ARCH errors on linearity tests: a theoretical note and an alternative maximum likelihood approach

Linearity tests against smooth transition nonlinearity are typically based on the standard least-squares (LS) covariance matrix estimator. We derive an expression for the bias of the LS estimator in the presence of ARCH errors. We show that the bias is downward, and increases dramatically with the persistence of the variance process. As a consequence, conventional tests spuriously indicate nonlinearity. Next, we examine an alternative maximum likelihood approach. Our findings suggest that this approach has substantially better size properties than tests based on least-squares and heteroskedasticity-consistent matrix estimators, and performs comparably to a bootstrap technique.

Coulomb Impurity Problem of Graphene in Strong Coupling Regime in Magnetic Fields

We investigate the Coulomb impurity problem of graphene in strong coupling limit in the presence of magnetic fields. When the strength of the Coulomb potential is sufficiently strong the electron of the lowest energy boundstate of the n = 0 Landau level may fall to the center of the potential. To prevent this spurious effect the Coulomb potential must be regularized. The scaling function for the inverse probability density of this state at the center of the impurity potential is computed in the strong coupling regime. The dependence of the computed scaling function on the regularization parameter changes significantly as the strong coupling regime is approached.

Ethnic Differences in Social Desirability Bias: Effects on the Analysis of Public Service Motivation

Public service motivation (PSM) research heavily relies on self-report measures that are often susceptible to social desirability bias (SDB). Cultural orientation is also correlated with SDB. This study explores the ethnic differences in socially desirable responding when measuring PSM and job satisfaction in a multicultural but individualistic society like the United States. It tests the magnitude and pattern of SDB in measurements of PSM in this society as a whole, as well as the influence of ethnicity on SDB. The results of our experimental survey research show that SDB is significantly correlated with PSM measures, as well as job satisfaction. We therefore expect a spurious effect to occur in the correlational analysis. This implies that the correlation between job satisfaction and PSM is at least partly spurious due to measurement artifacts. Alternative ways to measure PSM need to be explored to control SDB.

Economic and financial impact of corporate sustainability on sustainable competitive advantage

The balance between environmentally sustainable, socially ethical and economic growth has been investigated in the literature of business strategy. However, studies do not show whether or not a for-profit organization can gain sustainable competitive advantage. Some limitations refer to nonexperimental studies that do not control spurious effect of confounding variables, as well as not using variables that capture the intangible aspects of sustainable practices. To overcome these limitations, this study examined whether adherence to corporate sustainability practices – the company's presence in the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI) - is itself a source of sustainable competitive advantage, controlling spurious effects. By means of experimental design using control group, we used Generalized Estimation Equations with dependent variables Tobin's Q, Return on Assets and Financial Leverage and, as control, firm size, industry, and year of data collection. The results indicate that participation in the CSI does not affect the degree of leverage of firms, but positively influences the return on assets and the market value above the average of other companies in the same industry throughout the years. Thus, sustainable practices bring financial benefits above the average of other companies in the same industry throughout the years, making them a sustainable competitive advantage.

Investigation of water adsorption on metal oxide surfaces under conditions representative of PuO2 storage containers.

ABSTRACTWe have developed a QCM (Quartz Crystal Microbalance) based method for direct gravimetric determination of water adsorption on PuO2 surrogate surfaces, especially CeO2, under conditions representative of those in a typical PuO2 storage can. In this application, the method of transduction of the QCM relies upon the linear relationship between the resonant frequency of piezoelectrically active quartz crystals and the mass adsorbed on the crystal surface. The spurious effect of high temperatures on the resonant frequency of coated QCM crystals has been compensated for by modeling the temperature dependence of the frequency response of the surrogate coated-QCM crystal in the absence of water. Preliminary results indicate that water is readily adsorbed from the vapor phase into porous metal oxide structures by capillary condensation, an observation that may have important ramifications for water uptake within the packed powder beds that may obtain in PuO2 storage cans.

Revisiting the Thermal Conductivity of Nanoporous Materials

Although the thermal conductivity of nanoporous materials has been investigated in the past, previous models have overestimated the small pore limit. Various authors had proposed a cylindrical boundary geometry to mimic the pore’s environment. This permits to solve the phonon Boltzmann equation analytically [1] or numerically [2], but for fixed porosity it leads to a saturation of the thermal conductivity at small pore diameters. We show that such saturation is a spurious effect of the cylindrical boundary approximation. By implementing a Monte Carlo calculation with correct boundary conditions, we obtain considerably different thermal conductivities than predicted by the cylindrical boundary geometry. The approach is illustrated in the case of Si and SiGe nanoporous materials.