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Who is ultimately responsible for the harms that befall us? Corporations who make dangerous products, or the consumers who use them? The answer to this question has a profound impact on how personal injury lawyers screen products liability cases. In this chapter, I analyze results from an experimental vignette study in which 83 lawyers were asked to evaluate a hypothetical products liability case. Half of the lawyers practice in states considered to be difficult jurisdictions for the practice of personal injury law due to tort reform and conservative political climates (Texas and Colorado), while the other half work in states that have been relatively unaffected by tort reform and are considered to be more “plaintiff friendly” (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts). While lawyers in reform states and non-reform states were equally likely to accept the hypothetical case with which they were presented, they approached the case in different ways, used different theories, and made different arguments in order to justify their acceptance of the case. Lawyers in states with tort reform were most likely to accept the case when they focused on the issue of corporate social responsibility – that is, what the defendant did wrong, how they violated the rules, and how they could have prevented the injury in question. Lawyers in non-reform states, however, were most likely to accept the case when they believed that jurors would feel sorry for the injured child and not find their client at fault for the injury.

The purpose of this paper is to validate the unobtrusive knowledge test (UKT) in a minority population, and examine its potential for limiting stereotype threat.

Study One: (convergent validity): UKT and Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) scores were correlated for 131 students. Study Two: (stereotype threat) 202 minority students were placed into one of four groups based on whether or not they were given instructions to elicit stereotype threat, and whether they took the Excellence scale of the UKT or the WPT.

Correlations provided evidence of convergent validity between the Excellence subscale of the UKT and the WPT. The stereotype threat study was inconclusive, with no differences being seen in the threat/non‐threat conditions for the WPT, and higher scores in the threat condition than the non‐threat condition for the UKT.

Unreliability of some scales and low correlations of others with the WPT, lessened the overall UKT's convergent validity.

The need to develop measures of intelligence not subject to adverse impact is clear, and the results of the current research provide justification for further research establishing the properties of the UKT as a selection tool.

This paper offers new evidence of the usefulness of the UKT as a measure of cognitive ability for minority populations, and raises questions about the impact of stereotype threat on the UKT test.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce practitioners to the appropriate use of measures of unethical behaviour, evaluate the use of integrity‐related assessments for use in personnel selection, and determine the validity of the moral competency index (MCI) instrument using standard validation procedures.

Content, construct, convergent and discriminant approaches are applied to establish the relative validity of the assessment tool.

The results of the MCI purport to align with one's moral values and behaviours. The paper establishes face validity of the MCI measure, but fails to establish an appropriate simple factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and support for the lack of impact of demographic factors on the purported measure of moral intelligence.

An acceptable but constrained (working students) sample was used in the validation.

Researchers and practitioners should be familiar with psychometric principles to ensure the use of valid tools in a predictive and defensible manner. New measures can be developed, but should be validated before being used for developmental or personnel decision‐making purposes.

This paper establishes the lack of validity associated with the MCI instrument; researchers and practitioners are exposed to considerations in the appropriate use of measures of unethical behaviour, and exposed to several previously validated integrity‐related assessments for use in personnel decision‐making.

Research regarding pay inequities between the sexes is well established; however, internal compensation strategies and perceived labor pools (percentage of gender/minority applicants) have not been explored in depth. This paper aims to address this issue.

A total of 381 business students and 101 compensation specialists/managers participated in two experimental studies to establish the impact of perceived labor pools' ethnicity and gender on compensable factor weighting.

Results supported hypotheses that significant discriminatory weighting of compensable factors would be established by the perceived ethnicity of the labor pool, the perceived gender of the labor pool, and participant gender.

A limitation of study one could be the population (business students) who may reflect a lack of knowledge of and/or a potential lack of interest in strategic compensation. Many of the students are likely to have had work experience but their exposure to compensation concepts was potentially limited. Accordingly, study two was conducted with experienced compensation specialists/managers in a real‐world setting. While study two was methodologically stronger, evaluators were from an area with high proportions of technology occupations where compensation specialists may be more familiar with external compensation surveys due to rapid changes in jobs.

The ramifications of potential discrimination at the compensable factors weighting stage of defining compensation internal alignment are tremendous. The implications for pay structure, perceived fairness, and motivation can have an immense impact on overall organizational productivity and success. Internal equity discrimination can also have ramifications for vast litigation (the author was consulted by the EEOC in the use of the research for the purposes of class action lawsuits).

As business students generally aspire to become members of the managerial cadre, the dangers of potential explicit or implicit bias in the weighting of compensable factors (and their interactions) can reduce the efficiency of the compensation plan, hamper motivation of those hired to work within its structure, and potentially set the stage for class action litigation. Accordingly, those tasked with teaching job evaluation (be they business professors, consultants, or human resources managers) need to address issues of social bias and encourage the committee to challenge the biases of which they may or may not be aware.

After a groundswell of interest in comparable worth and sex‐related errors in job evaluation in the mid‐1980s, research failed to establish perceived incumbent, applicant, and labor pool ethnicity and ethnocentrism on internal compensation structuring. This study builds on past research by establishing the impact of ethnocentrism on internal compensation structuring in point factor job evaluation, extending workplace ethnocentrism theory by applying it to Title VII in implementation, data collection and interpretation of job evaluation and, most importantly, establishing the impact of perceived labor pools' demographics (and subsequent proportions of racial/ethnic group members associated) on differential compensatory factors weighting.

The monograph analyses (a) the potential impact of information technology (IT) on organisational issues that directly concern the personnel function; (b) the nature of personnel’s involvement in the decision making and activities surrounding the choice and implementation of advanced technologies, and (c) their own use of IT in developing and carrying out their own range of specialist activities. The monograph attempts to explain why personnel’s involvement is often late, peripheral and reactive. Finally, an analysis is made of whether personnel specialists – or the Human Resource Management function more generally – will play a more proactive role in relation to such technologies in the future.

Daniel and Titman (1997) contend that the Fama‐French three‐factor model’s ability to explain cross‐sectional variation in expected returns is a result of characteristics that firms have in common rather than any risk‐based explanation. The primary aim of the current paper is to provide out‐of‐sample tests of the characteristics versus risk factor argument. The main focus of our tests is to examine the intercept terms in Fama‐French regressions, wherein test portfolios are formed by a three‐way sorting procedure on book‐to‐market, size and factor loadings. Our main test focuses on ‘characteristic‐balanced’ portfolio returns of high minus low factor loading portfolios, for different size and book‐to‐market groups. The Fama‐French model predicts that these regression intercepts should be zero while the characteristics model predicts that they should be negative. Generally, despite the short sample period employed, our findings support a risk‐factor interpretation as opposed to a characteristics interpretation. This is particularly so for the HML loading‐based test portfolios. More specifically, we find that: the majority of test portfolios tend to reveal higher returns for higher loadings (while controlling for book‐to‐market and size characteristics); the majority of the Fama‐French regression intercepts are statistically insignificant; for the characteristic‐balanced portfolios, very few of the Fama‐French regression intercepts are significant.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Purpose – To present the Assessment to Instructional Planning (ATIP) framework that uses assessment to guide instructional planning.

Design/methodology/approach – The ATIP framework is comprised of three interconnected processes: data collection, data analysis and interpretation, and instructional planning.

Findings – In the ATIP framework, data collection includes reviewing background information and developing and implementing an assessment plan. The data analysis and interpretation process begins with scoring assessments and progresses to contextualizing results and making decisions. Instructional planning moves from setting goals to selecting instructional methods and materials, implementing instructional checkpoints, and monitoring and adjusting instruction.

Research limitations/implications – The ATIP framework provides a step-by-step process that educators can follow to use assessment to plan instruction. ATIP requires that educators already have knowledge of literacy assessment and instruction to apply the Framework appropriately.

Practical implications – The ATIP framework can be applied for students in grades K-8 in clinical settings, school-based intervention programs, and elementary and middle school classrooms.

Originality/value – This chapter provides three profiles to illustrate the ATIP framework in clinical, small-group intervention, and classroom settings with different levels of readers with varying strengths, needs, and backgrounds.