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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether learning communities (LCs), defined as a cohort of students jointly enrolled in two distinct courses, increase “deep learning” in either or both courses. This study focuses on the impact of learning communities in quantitative courses.

The hypothesis is tested using a unique data set including individual student performance and characteristics collected from students enrolled in an LC of Principles of Microeconomics and Elementary Statistics. The sample also includes students enrolled in each course separately which allows for testing between groups. The final exam in each course contained questions designed specifically to test deep learning. The design facilitates the use of multivariate regression analysis to examine the correlation between learning in communities and deep learning, holding constant other possible elements of student success.

Despite perceptions among the sample student population that learning increases in both courses as a result of the LC format, the empirical evidence does not reveal any statistically significant increase in deep learning as a result of learning in community. However, the sample is more introverted than the average college student which may meaningfully impact the results.

There are a number of important motivations for implementing an LC program that are not measured here. These include an increased sense of community among students, breadth (rather than depth) of knowledge, and awareness of the interconnectedness of learning across disciplines. However, to the extent that university instructors are motivated to ensure learning in their own discipline, this resource-intensive strategy may not be the most suitable approach in quantitative courses.

Learning communities continue to be a popular pedagogical technique and curriculum requirement, particularly at teaching-focused universities. This research offers an empirical approach to measuring one aspect of their value which is typically left to conceptual or qualitative study.

This research examines whether a shift to a hybrid classroom, which replaces some face-to-face classroom time with online instruction, adversely affects student learning if the structure and incentives that are characteristic of a flipped classroom are already in place.

This study features a quantitative analysis of individual student data collected over multiple sections of a single course with the same instructor. In all seven sections, over two semesters, principles of microeconomics used a flipped classroom format that features preclass video lectures, daily quizzes and highly interactive class time. In three of the seven sections, the time spent in class was reduced by one-third. For this experiment, student scores on the cumulative final exam evaluate student learning. Students took a survey at the end of the semester to provide feedback on time use during the course and to make observations about the class format.

Results from this study suggest that despite accountability for the work done outside of class, students score 4.4% points lower on the final exam in the class format that features reduced face-to-face time. However, student comments also suggest that this is a worthwhile tradeoff as they balance work, internships and other nonacademic demands on their time. Student evaluations of the course and instructor are statistically unchanged.

Efficiency in educational delivery is an ongoing concern for students and faculty. This research demonstrates that a classroom that is both flipped and hybrid makes better use of student and faculty time, provides a richer learning experience and only modestly reduces student learning. It is notable that students report a preference for the hybrid classroom model, despite modestly lower levels of learning.

While research has been done on flipped and hybrid classrooms separately, this is the first paper to isolate the effect of seat time within the flipped classroom context. This research addresses the flipped classroom design's ability to mitigate the documented reduction in student learning that often results from reduced class time or an increase in online learning.

For over two hundred years, our nation’s legal system has been based on the “American Rule” ‐ with each party bearing its own litigation costs. As the Supreme Court noted in 1975, this distinctly American tradition is “deeply rooted in our history and in congressional policy, and it is not for us to invade the legislature’s province by redistributing litigation costs…” Not surprisingly, the founders of our legal system did not anticipate the extent to which e‐mail would come to dominate our professional and personal lives. Experts estimate that 30 billion e‐mail messages are currently are being sent every day ‐ or an average of five e‐mails per day for every person on the planet.

If the past 30 years of history have taught anything, it is that white‐collar offenders often run afoul of the law by their participation in cover‐ups rather than their part in a substantive criminal offenses. In August 1974, President Richard Nixon was forced to resign as President of the United States ‐ not because of the Watergate break in itself, but his attempts to cover it up. President Clinton was impeached and narrowly avoided indictment ‐ not for his sexual escapades with Monica Lewinsky, but his attempt to redefine the word “is” during his testimony at a deposition. Recently, we have seen the demise of Arthur Andersen, LLP ‐ not as the result of a securities fraud conviction, but a conviction for obstruction of justice. Frank Quattrone was indicted recently for allegedly counseling the destruction of documents, and Martha Stewart was indicted, not for insider trading or the alleged conduct that first brought her under the microscope of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Department of Justice (“DOJ”), but allegedly for misleading federal agents. This article will review the current round of indictments against Wall Street luminaries for obstruction, as well as the new obstruction provisions of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act. It then will make some observations on how these events should impact a corporation’s document retention policy. Finally, it will discuss how compliance programs that aim to enforce the laws of this country and assist governmental inquiries may actually ensnare corporation employees in an obstruction trap.

The purpose of this study is to investigate mentorship practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and to consider how mentorship could be improved to support students of educational leadership (EDLE) during crises.

Participants in this collective self-study were four faculty members (i.e. the authors) within an EDLE program in one public, research-intensive university in the southern USA. Data sources were memos, email correspondence, reflective dialogue, course evaluations and meeting notes. Analysis involved dialogic engagement among the research team to identify emergent themes.

Analysis revealed five themes that reflect our collective experiences as mentors during the pandemic. These themes were challenges created by dismantled systems; meeting students' needs for understanding, flexibility and meaningful learning experiences; evolving personal–professional boundaries; grappling with our own sense-making and well-beingness; and clarifying values and priorities.

The pandemic exemplifies the need for a deeper conceptualization of mentorship that stimulates more intimate, compassionate relationships between mentors and mentees. When mentorship is grounded in compassion, intimacy and mutual vulnerability, it demonstrates a genuine ethic of care and concern for others that is supportive of well-being and serves as a model for mentees entering the profession.

This paper extends disciplinary knowledge by focusing on the mentorship of EDLE students during crises and provides insights on how mentorship could be enacted to mutually support mentor–mentee well-being.

The present study consists of managers and professionals in 26 countries including seven from Central and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether culture dimensions predict country differences in the relationship between gender and organizational commitment. The study integrated theories of social learning, role adjustment and exchange that link commitment to organizational roles to explain such differences in gender effects. Findings indicate that an alternative modernities perspective on theories of gender and commitment is better warranted than is a traditional modernities perspective.

This study examined the relationship between gender and organizational commitment using primary data collected in 26 counties. The cross-level moderating effects of individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and restraint vs indulgence was examined using hierarchical linear modeling.

Organizational commitment is found to be higher among men than women in four countries (Australia, China, Hungary, Jamaica) and higher among women than men in two countries (Bulgaria and Romania). Results shows that large power distance, uncertainty avoidance, femininity (social goal emphasis) and restraint (vs indulgence) predict an association between being female and commitment. These all suggest limitations to the traditional modernity-based understanding of gender and the workplace.

This study is unique based on the three theories it integrates and because it tests the proposed hypothesis using a multi-level nested research design. Moreover, the results suggest a tension between an alternative modernities perspective on top-down governmental effects on commitment through exchange and bottom-up personal effects on commitment through social learning with role adjustment in an intermediate position.

Small businesses play a vital role in job creation and economic growth, and previous studies have noted that higher state tax rates may reduce entrepreneurial activity, growth, and hiring. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this paper, the authors use a 1989-2005 panel of state-level data to explore the effects of state income tax reciprocity agreements on several measures of small business activity. Since a reciprocity agreement exempts non-resident income from a state's personal income tax base, it has the potential to reduce barriers to entrepreneurial activity and lower tax compliance costs.

The results indicate that reciprocity agreements appear to have reduced the tax-rate sensitivity of entrepreneurial activity, which may lead to more small business and entrepreneurial activity in states with more active agreements, other factors constant. This suggests that personal income tax reciprocity agreements may be a credible policy tool to expand small business activity.

In this study, the paper sets out to determine if small business and entrepreneurial activity is greater in states that have reciprocity agreements and if such activity is dependent on the number of active agreements in place. Given recent nationwide efforts to ease compliance costs for business through other initiatives such as the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act and the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement, this study is the first to quantify how decreasing tax compliance and eliminating barriers to labor mobility affects small business activity. The results therefore have the potential to help shape debates in many states today.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Kara) was grown in Open‐Top Chambers (OTCs) in Northern Egypt at ambient (ca 350 ppm) or doubled CO₂ (ca 690 ppm) either in charcoal‐filtered air (15 nl l‐1) or in non‐filtered ambient air (78 nll‐1 O₃) to investigate the changes in physiology and yield under long‐term elevated CO₂ and/or O₃ throughout 100 days. Ambient O₃ level reduced net photosynthetic rates, number and weight of tubers by 18 per cent, 41 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively, whereas elevated CO₂ caused the opposite effect where it increased the same parameters by 44 per cent, 37 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. Significant O₃ x CO₂ interactions were detected. However, O₃ caused an increase in GR and POD by 18 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively, while CO₂ caused an increase in POD only by 46 per cent, and there was no effect of O₃ and/or CO₂ on other enzymes. The results of this study are discussed in relation to predicted atmospheric changes.