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One crucial but sometimes overlooked fact regarding the difference between observation in the cross-section and observation over time must be stated before proceeding further. Tempting though it is to draw conclusions about the dynamics of a process from cross-sectional observations taken as a snapshot of that process, it is a fallacious practice except under a very precise condition that is highly unlikely to obtain in processes of interest to the social scientist. That condition is known as ergodicity.

The authors propose a framework to estimate the probability of being poor in a dynamic setting based on a large information set that includes individual characteristics and macro-economic variables. The joint inclusion of personal characteristics along with contextual factors allows separation of idiosyncratic shocks from aggregate shocks affecting poverty. The authors combine data from different cross-sectional surveys and fit a dynamic logistic hierarchical model within a Bayesian framework using standard Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. The authors’ approach is exemplified by estimating household poverty status in Kyrgyz Republic as a function of time, regions, country, regional level variables and household level socio-demographic characteristics.

There is a popular psychometric thesis suggesting that people with different levels of cognitive ability end up in different occupations because some occupations require greater intelligence than others for successful performance. To examine several central claims of the psychometric thesis, this study uses two kinds of data for analysis: one is cross-sectional and occupation-level data from various sources dated as early as World War I and the other is longitudinal and individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort (NLSY79) and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) in the United States. Findings of this study suggest that occupational segregation by cognitive ability is much less intensive than that suggested by the psychometric theory, and there is no evidence of a trend of increasing cognitive partitioning by occupation over time.

This article reviews the extensive history of dynamic performance research, with the goal of providing a clear picture of where the field has been, where it is now, and where it needs to go. Past research has established that job performance does indeed change, but the implications of this dynamism and the predictability of performance trends remain unresolved. Theories are available to help explain dynamic performance, and although far from providing an unambiguous understanding of the phenomenon, they offer direction for future theoretical development. Dynamic performance research does suffer from a number of methodological difficulties, but new techniques have emerged that present even more opportunities to advance knowledge in this area. From this review, I propose research questions to bridge the theoretical and methodological gaps of this area. Answering these questions can advance both research involving job performance prediction and our understanding of the effects of human resource interventions.

High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.

However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.

The authors content analyze 76 empirical Strategic Management Journal articles to determine how studies control for threats to internal validity, a common source of flaws in research designs. Results indicate that most studies fail to control for one or more threats to internal validity. In particular, selection effects were the most frequently appearing threat, followed by history effects, ambiguity about the direction of causal inference, changing data sources and subject mortality. In general, the results suggest that strategy researchers need to more carefully account for threats to the internal validity of their research designs. Suggestions for addressing these problems are provided.

This chapter highlights the growing body of international research into the benefits of residence abroad for foreign language students, surveying studies from the past 35 years originating in both the U.S.A. and the U.K. It examines some of the problematic issues confronting researchers in this area and shows how these issues have contributed to a paucity of studies in the area and led to a diversity in research design. It reports on longitudinal study, the first of its kind in the U.K., which examined the linguistic benefits of residence abroad for a cohort of modern language students from a leading university. This 4-year study used repeated measures proficiency testing, involving a C-test, a grammar test and a range of qualitative measures, to chart the progress made by students on 6- and 12-month study placements in Germany. Findings confirm substantial proficiency gains on both of the main measures but fail to confirm gender and length of residence abroad as predictors of progress. Results also reveal strong differential individual performance during residence abroad. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research aimed at exploring this key finding further.