Steps to Effective Transboundary Negotiations

Given the evidence presented in the transboundary negotiation cases, this final chapter outlines a number of lessons. This prescriptive advice is intended primarily for public sector, industry, and NGO leaders working to resolve energy, water, and environmental resource management conflicts. The principles and strategies may prove useful, however, in other sectors and contexts as well beyond shaping the diplomacy and international agreements between developed and developing countries. The twelve suggested steps flow in approximate chronological order, from well before a negotiation is initiated to follow up measures after an agreement has been implemented.

Not Merely a Matter of Drawing Arrows: The Empirical Consequences of Measurement Model Specification and Recommendations for Practice

Understanding measurement model specification is especially important for hospitality research due to its cross-disciplinary nature and the prevalence of measures used in the field which are often central to the formative versus reflective debate (e.g., SERVQUAL, socioeconomic status). The current study contributes to this topic by providing empirically based prescriptive advice to drive better measurement model specification. Specifically, the decision-making procedures developed by this study can complement theoretical reasons for a model choice as well as help determine a correct model choice when theories are equivocal or non-existent. This study combines actual and simulated data to show that model fit statistics alone cannot determine which model specification is correct, but also that a correct measurement model will generate more accurate predictions within a model which in turn will offer more accurate managerial recommendations.

Advice-giving and disputant empowerment in divorce mediation sessions

While mediation programs vary greatly in their procedures and philosophies, most programs expect the mediator to act as a neutral facilitator who empowers disputants to resolve the dispute themselves. Advice-giving by mediators is therefore typically not recommended. However, mediators often find ways to give advice, if only indirectly. In this paper I use conversation analytic techniques to examine how mediators give advice to disputants in videotaped mediation sessions between divorcing couples. I found that while mediators display an orientation to a norm of no advice-giving, they do often give advice. Advice is often formulated indirectly, for example as a suggestion rather than as prescriptive advice, or as general information rather than advice targeted to a specific individual. Mediators also often gave procedural rather than substantive advice. These findings are discussed in terms of how advice-giving can support or detract from the ability of mediators to empower mediation clients to resolve their own disputes.

Embodied Metaphors and Creative “Acts”

Creativity is a highly sought-after skill. Prescriptive advice for inspiring creativity abounds in the form of metaphors: People are encouraged to “think outside the box,” to consider a problem “on one hand, then on the other hand,” and to “put two and two together” to achieve creative breakthroughs. These metaphors suggest a connection between concrete bodily experiences and creative cognition. Inspired by recent advances in the understanding of body-mind linkages in the research on embodied cognition, we explored whether enacting metaphors for creativity enhances creative problem solving. Our findings from five studies revealed that both physical and psychological embodiment of metaphors for creativity promoted convergent thinking and divergent thinking (i.e., fluency, flexibility, or originality) in problem solving. Going beyond prior research, which focused primarily on the kind of embodiment that primes preexisting knowledge, we provide the first evidence that embodiment can also activate cognitive processes that facilitate the generation of new ideas and connections.

Enhancing Student Learning: An Examination Of The Student Use Of Textbooks In Financial Accounting

As accounting instructors, we provide our students with guidance that will assist them in more effectively and efficiently learning the required material. Often, this guidance includes prescriptive advice on how to properly use their textbook. However, little evidence exists as to whether students actually follow our advice on how to use their textbook. Therefore, when student (and instructor) frustrations arise with regard to class performance, it is unclear whether students are simply not using the textbook effectively or if there are more fundamental problems with the textbook itself. The purpose of this study is to provide evidence as to how students actually use their financial accounting textbooks. Based on instructor and student surveys, the results indicate that students approach textbooks differently from the traditional notion that many instructors encourage. Evidence suggests that students value textbooks, but that they primarily use textbooks as a source of examples and descriptions to help them complete homework. In short, students do not appear to be reading textbooks, but referencing them. The implications of this behavior suggest that textbook authors and publishers need to reconsider textbook design. In addition, instructors, armed with the knowledge of how their students are using the textbook, can better design their course to encourage student success.

From model-based prescriptive advice to indicator-based interactive advice

Trenkel, V. M., Rochet, M-J., and Mesnil, B. 2007. From model-based prescriptive advice to indicator-based interactive advice. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 768–774. Traditional advice for fisheries management, especially in the ICES world, focuses on short-term stock projections relative to reference points. Primarily, two numbers, spawning-stock biomass and fishing mortality rate, are considered in the advice, although a range of biological processes are included in the stock assessment models. We propose an alternative form of final advice that would not rely on stock predictions and only two numbers, but on a suite of indicators that are combined to provide stock assessment and management advice. For a single stock, the approach consists of monitoring a set of indicators of population state and fishing pressure. Stock reference status at some time in the past is assessed, based on these indicators and/or other available information. Changes in indicator values after this reference time are then estimated, interpreted, and finally combined into a diagnostic that highlights possible causes of the changes observed. After considering management objectives, appropriate management actions can then be proposed. The proposed approach is illustrated for anglerfish stocks in the Celtic Sea and the Bay of Biscay.

Whose Variance Is It Anyway? Interpreting Empirical Models with State-Level Data

Researchers commonly apply inferential statistical procedures to population data from the 50 U.S. states as if they were estimating population parameters from sample statistics. This method is incorrect because with population data there is no need to make inferences about quantities that are already known. Instead, authors should simply provide evidence that their specified model provides a good fit to the data. Summary measures of variance as well as the full engine of Bayesian statistics perform this function. This research note demonstrates why the current practice of making inferences from population data with the null hypothesis significance test is wrong, provides some specific examples of problems in the literature, and gives prescriptive advice about correctly assessing and conveying empirical model results.

“What's in a Name?” Workplace History and “Rank and Filism”

Historical truth, like other kinds of intellectual understanding, proceeds through argument and discussion. Thus, we should be grateful to Jonathan Zeitlin for his rigorous responses to a body of scholarship which he categorizes as “rank-and-filist”. Although much of Zeitlin's argument is unexceptional, its proposal to consign as erroneous and irrelevant the scholarship that fits his “rank-and-filist” paradigm requires some examination. Most troubling are the procedures he uses to make his case; the prescriptive advice he offers though not without merit is also highly problematic. I shall discuss these objections in a moment. But first we must define the problem as Zeitlin sees it.