Washington Research Library Consortium - Digital Collections
Not a member yet
125665 research outputs found
Sort by
Leadership and job satisfaction: addressing endogeneity with panel data from a field experiment
No full textReview of Public Personnel Administration, Volume 40, Issue 4, 1 December 2020, Pages 589-612.The interaction between leaders and employees plays a key role in determining organizational outcomes and performance. Although the human resources management literature posits positive effects of leadership behaviors on employee job satisfaction, the causal path between the two is unclear due to potential endogeneity issues inherent in this relationship. To address the issue, we first provide theoretical explanations about why and how transformational and transactional leadership behaviors would enhance employee job satisfaction. Second, we test the relationship between leadership behaviors and employee job satisfaction using panel data from a year-long randomized field experiment that engaged leaders and employees from hundreds of public and private organizations in Denmark. Primary findings suggest that although leadership training does not have direct effects on changes in employee job satisfaction, leadership-training-induced changes in leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and verbal rewards) are positively related to changes in job satisfaction
The intrafirm complexity of systemically important financial institutions
No full textJournal of Financial Stability, 2020, Article number 100804.In November 2011, the Financial Stability Board, in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund, published a list of 29 “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs, now referred to as “globally systemically important banks” or G-SIBs), institutions whose failure, by virtue of “their size, complexity, and systemic interconnectedness”, could have dramatic negative consequences for the global financial system. While “size” and “interconnectedness” have been the subject of much quantitative analysis, less attention has been paid to measuring “complexity.” Yet without a consistent way to measure complexity, there is little guarantee that the designated SIFIs capture the complexity that the FSB is concerned about, and little hope of mitigating the consequences that the FSB warns of. In this paper we propose the structure of an individual firm’s majority-control hierarchy as a proxy for institutional complexity. We demonstrate as a proof-of-concept how this method might be used by bank supervisors, particularly the Federal Reserve under its authority as consolidated supervisor, using a data set containing information on the majority-control hierarchies of many of the designated SIFIs. Our mathematical intrafirm network representation (and various associated metrics we propose) provides a uniform way to compare firms with often very disparate organizational structures – one that is distinct from a simple size comparison
A Polish approach for German cities?: cement old towns and the search for rootedness in postwar Leipzig and Frankfurt/Main
No full textEuropean History Quarterly, Volume 50, Issue 1, 1 January 2020, Pages 88-127.This essay explores the consequences of a hunger for history amid the architectural desolation that had blighted most German cities by the 1970s. After sweeping demolitions had wrought a so-called ‘second destruction’ that eclipsed the scale of wartime losses, Germans on both sides of the Iron Curtain steadily identified Poland as a model for humane reconstruction. Not just historic preservation but even historic replicas long rejected by preservationists as inauthentic were demanded as a way out of modernist anonymity and ugliness to make ‘home’ in an invented history. It was a trend as thoroughly comprehensible as it was problematic – for which history would one privilege? If modernism had encouraged an escape from the past, preservation or reproduction of choice monuments threatened to instill selective forgetting, a reinvention of the past that could marginalize or twist the lessons of wartime destruction. To grapple with these quandaries, this essay begins with an exposition of the increasingly lauded Polish solution through close analysis of the old town in Wrocław, the very ‘capital’ of so-called ‘Recovered Territories’ acquired from Germany after the Second World War. Having reviewed the genesis, realization, and shortcomings of Poland’s nationalized reinscription of urban space, German disappointment with modernist erasure will be examined in Leipzig and Frankfurt, each leading cities in their respective Cold War successor states that roughly paralleled each other in their increasing interest in Polish methods. After timid attempts at preservation and replicas in each city before the mid-1960s failed to satisfy the public longing for hominess, debates intensified about whether to replicate a sweeping array of monuments lost to war and demolition. Alienated in ‘their own’ cities, residents in Frankfurt and Leipzig incited discourse with contemporary ramifications about how to appropriate one’s surroundings as home
Architecture beyond ideology: the politics of forgotten landmarks in communist East Germany
No full textJournal of Urban History, 1–30.Through research in former East German Leipzig, this article explores how and why architecturally and historically valuable landmarks seldom sustain or even gain ideological resonance. Applying theories about ideology as an “event,” it frames ideological resonance as something contingent and fleeting. Demolition and neglect often have less to do with ideology and more with lack of interest, which translates into lack of investment. Shifting interpretations of “beauty” also regularly determine what should get blasted or reconstructed. Even if individual landmarks lack ideological resonance, however, demolitions or decay can yield a cumulative effect prompting outcry against a perceived trend. Leipzig officials thus turned to save historical architecture, because they feared public displeasure that undercut their own legitimacy. That Leipzig sparked the 1989 Revolution in East Germany proves that the cumulative demolition and decay of buildings lacking ideological ascription could generate a profound ideological outcome
Judgements of learning in context: backgrounds can both reduce and produce metamemory illusions
No full textMemory and Cognition, Volume 48, Issue 4, 1 May 2020, Pages 581-595.Varying item-specific features such as size (Rhodes & Castel, 2008) or blur (Yue, Castel, & Bjork, 2013) often produces metamemory illusions in which one type of item receives higher judgments of learning (JOLs) without being recalled better. In this study, we explored how similar manipulations to context would influence JOLs. When to-be-recalled words varying in size (or blur) were accompanied by backgrounds also varying in size (or blur), the traditional JOL illusions were reduced (Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 5) compared to when there were no backgrounds (Experiments 3a, 3b, and 4). Thus, the item-specific and contextual cues were used interactively. Further, the background manipulations also sometimes themselves led to metamemory illusions regarding JOLs for the to-be-remembered items. In general, there were robust individual differences in how participants used the cues, including how they incorporated the contextual cues into their JOL decisions. In part, this may explain why interactive cue utilization did not always emerge at the group level. In sum, we showed that context may affect JOLs both directly and indirectly by influencing participants’ use of item-specific cues. These findings broaden our understanding of how cues may be utilized (e.g., Koriat, 1997) and integrated (e.g., Undorf, Söllner, and Bröder, 2018) in JOLs
Thresholds for the Deviation from Free Trade: a Game Theoretic Approach
No full textThere is a clear historical preference for the trade policies of import tariffs and export subsidies. Implicit in this preference is a bias towards producers by the governing body implementing the policy instruments over the other two affected parties, namely the consumers and the government itself. The Novel results of this work include new theorems which provide the explicit conditions under which for a deviation from free trade would be the preferred option. This work demonstrates that without producer bias, deviating from free trade through implementing one of the two aforementioned strategies is undesirable according to a defined payoff function. Additionally, the explicit thresholds of producer bias necessary for a deviation from free trade to be preferable, as well as the stable Nash equilibria for given tariff or subsidy rates, are both defined analytically. The effects of confounding factors such as temperature on these thresholds is then considered using regression analysis in a stylized empirical implementation considering the trade of wheat between between two countries.MathematicsEconomicsFree Trade, Game Theory, International trade, Supply and demand, Tariffs, ThresholdsMathematicsDegree Awarded: M.S.--Mathematics. The Catholic University of Americ
Evaluating NATO enlargement: scholarly debates, policy implications, and roads not taken
No full textInternational Politics, Volume 57, Issue 3, 1 June 2020, Pages 291-321.NATO’s enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe after the Cold War is the subject of significant debate in academic and policy circles. With few exceptions, however, this debate focuses on single issues, such as whether enlargement led to the decline of the West’s relations with Russia. In this framing document, we look to expand the debate. We do so by sequentially reviewing the process by which NATO enlarged, outlining the array of issue areas within which to assess the consequences of NATO enlargement, and highlighting the particular importance of counterfactual analysis to any judgment of enlargement’s legacy. Building on a May 2019 workshop at Boston University, we also summarize the results of several articles that collectively evaluate the consequence of expansion for the USA, Russia, non-US NATO members, and the organization itself. Finally, we conclude by outlining elements of a broader research program on the aftereffects of NATO enlargement
The Creative Potential of Interdisciplinary Conversations
No full textWhy is teacher collaboration important? What immediate gains do teachers obtain from sharing their time and ideas?
Ideally, it is to make the most of our collective resources & gifts. We can rely on our colleagues to support us in exploring teaching dilemmas, expanding our repertoire of solutions, and implementing innovative plans. We can consider and solve problems collectively instead of individually. Various research also shows that student learning improves when teachers are communicating and sharing among themselves.
This idea was inspired by how our library is utilized in a very different way this year. Instead of being a space for students, it’s a space for teachers to come together and work in harmony. In the library, we are always looking for ways to foster collaboration and community among the faculty especially this year as distance teaching can be very isolating. The overall goal is to unite teachers in ongoing, face-to-face dialogue that translates into more engaging, multidisciplinary projects.A poster that was presented for the Thirteenth Annual Symposium, "Bridging the Spectrum: A Symposium on Scholarship and Practice in Library and Information Science" at the Catholic University of America in 2021
Lift Every Voice: Public Library Programming on Anti-Racism and Black Culture
No full textA presentation on how branch staff at Prince George’s County Memorial Library System promote and celebrate library programming that addresses anti-racism and Black culture. In the wake of global pandemic, a reckoning of the history of racial injustice and police brutality began. In response, the approach of staff at the Prince George’s Memorial Library System was for the public library to create engaging and interactive virtual programming on topics such as anti-racism and Black culture. The objectives of this programming were to foster open community dialogue and education. The development of this type of programming led to greater staff and community consideration of how the library can continue to strive to demonstrate a commitment to elevating anti-racism and Black culture in future programmatic initiatives long-term. This presentation will touch how others library systems can create racially conscious programming that is current and relevant to any library community.A presentation that was delivered online in the Thirteenth Annual Symposium, "Bridging the Spectrum: A Symposium on Scholarship and Practice in Library and Information Science" at the Catholic University of America in 2021
Migrating into the 21st Century
No full textIn 2019, the H. Furlong Baldwin Library at the Maryland Center for History and Culture began two large-scale migration projects to increase accessibility of collections and improve collection management and digital preservation. One project centered on the implementation of ArchivesSpace and required staff to migrate all existing finding aids, container lists, agents, and subject terms into this system. Simultaneously, staff migrated all previously digitized material and accompanying metadata into a newly implemented digital asset management system (DAMS). While these projects were underway, the organization as a whole was rebranding and preparing to launch a new website, so staff also had the opportunity to design an online Digital Collections portal for the public display of DAMS content. This poster includes the general workflows and procedures for all three projects; example records from each system involved; details about ongoing work required for each project; and next steps and plans for the future