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One of the fundamental tenets of social studies education is preparing students to become knowledgeable and informed citizens. Especially in this era of increased communication and technology, one skill necessary for informed citizenship is the ability to critically understand polling data. Social studies educators, however, rarely provide their students with the mathematical framework required to move beyond face-value analysis of public opinion polls. This article outlines the basic statistical processes behind public opinion polls and provides social studies teachers with activities that encourage students to critically question political data presented in the media.

This paper aims to compare residential fixed-line telephone surveys with cell phone surveys for assessing the extent of the potential undercoverage issue evaluating the necessity and feasibility of conducting cell phone surveys or dual-frame telephone surveys in Hong Kong.

The research team simultaneously carried out a conventional fixed-line telephone survey and a cell phone survey in 2015 with similar features on survey design, sampling and data collection procedures. Two samples with sample size of 801 and 1,203 were achieved separately. Data collected were analysed to see to what extent survey findings will be biased if the sampling frame of telephone surveys is solely based on residential fixed-line numbers in Hong Kong, and if such a bias does exist, whether a survey conducted through cell phones or by adding a cell phone-only (CO) group would be an ideal solution for it.

The findings show that the cooperation rates for the cell phone survey were much lower than those of the fixed-line telephone survey. The respondents from two surveys were fairly different. However, estimates of most commonly used socio-demographic characteristics from the latter group had the least bias compared with population statistics. Supplanting the traditional fixed-line survey with a cell phone survey or supplementing it with a CO group will not make the resulting sample a better representative of the population but it will amplify the sample bias on the major social socio-demographic characteristics.

This paper empirically compares the two types of telephone surveys in a well-designed scientific study.

Academic research has endeavoured to understand women's behaviours in entrepreneurial activity, identifying the differences when compared to men. The main topics analysed show similar findings in relation to characteristics and motivations, leadership style, strategic choice, obstacles and results. This paper delves further into these differences by examining the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, the motivation to enter the activity and the performance of their enterprises. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors study Spanish entrepreneurial activity using a survey carried out in 2009 of 608 randomly selected entrepreneurs. The main methods used are descriptive analyses and logistic estimations.

There were two groups of entrepreneurial women with different profiles and results: the first group comprises a variety of sectors reflecting the economy's average; and the second mainly operates in those sectors traditionally considered as female. Male and female reasons for success and survival are found to be substantially the same, but personal characteristics and motivations were found to be different. Among the differences found, it is worth highlighting the amount of time devoted by entrepreneurial women to household chores, the higher proportion of women in the staff they employ, and their commitment to product and service innovation.

The findings point to some ideas in terms of policies regarding entrepreneurial activity and gender. The women's greater commitment to innovation in goods and services suggests new approaches in policies aimed at promoting the entry of women in entrepreneurial activity.

The main findings of the paper are consistent with relevant existing literatures, but the results offer new insights that contribute to improving the knowledge of the dynamics of entrepreneurial women.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of employee innovative behavior conceptualizing it as distinct from innovation outputs and as a multi-faceted behavior rather than a simple count of “innovative acts” by employees. It understands individual employee innovative behaviors as a micro-foundation of firm intrapreneurship that is embedded in and influenced by contextual factors such as managerial, organizational and cultural support for innovation. Building from a review of existing employee innovative behavior scales and theoretical considerations the authors develop and validate the Innovative Behavior Inventory (IBI) and the Innovation Support Inventory (ISI).

Two pilot studies, a third validation study in the Czech Republic and a fourth cross-cultural validation study using population representative samples from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic (n=2,812 employees and 450 entrepreneurs) were conducted.

Both inventories were reliable and showed factorial, criterion, convergent and discriminant validity as well as cross-cultural equivalence. Employee innovative behavior was supported as comprising of idea generation, idea search, idea communication, implementation starting activities, involving others and overcoming obstacles. Managerial support was the most proximal contextual influence on innovative behavior and mediated the effect of organizational support and national culture.

The paper advances the understanding of employee innovative behavior as a multi-faceted phenomenon and the contextual factors influencing it. Where past research typically focuses on convenience samples within a particular country, the authors offer first robust evidence that the model of employee innovative behavior generalizes across cultures and types of samples. The model and the IBI and ISI inventories enable researchers to build a deeper understanding of the important micro-foundation underpinning intrapreneurial behavior in organizations and allow practitioners to identify their organizations’ strengths and weaknesses related to intrapreneurship.

As more state and local governments and agencies embrace strategic planning as a means of cost control, accountability, and goal achievement, the process of benchmarking has become increasingly important. This article examines the role survey research can play in the benchmarking process. The authors focus on some of the considerations and controversies involved in this process, including questionnaire design (What types of questions should be included?), population definition (Who should be included and how can these individuals be identified?), sampling procedures (What methods of sampling should be employed to ensure that the data are representative of the population of interest?), data collection methods (Should surveys be conducted via mail, face-to-face, or telephone?), and data analysis (How can the survey data help state and local officials evaluate their service delivery?)

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that determine demand for crop insurance in Poland.

To examine the determinants of decisions regarding crop insurance, the authors used logistic regression. The base source of data for the analysis was the 2013 FADN sample. The scale of yield losses, the indemnities received and the Arrow-Pratt risk aversion coefficient were examined in a representative sample of farms in consecutive years in the period 2004-2013.

Losses are the major determinants of crop insurance uptake. Additionally, it was observed that the economic determinants are in line with the expected utility theory, while contrary to expectations, farmer’s characteristics such as education level, age or even risk aversion did not prove to have any influence on crop insurance uptake.

The FADN sample is representative as regards the type of farming, economic size of farm and location of the farm. Every farm in the sample represents a specific number of similar farms in the population. However, it must be emphasised that the representativeness of the sample with respect to other determinants, e.g., yield losses in previous years, using crop insurance or the farmers’ age and education has not been verified due to lack of data characterizing the general population with regard to these factors.

It could be argued that the system of crop insurance subsidies should be targeted to encourage the farmers who previously had not used insurance to join the system.

The paper presents the analysis of crop insurance uptake in a country with a strongly polarised agriculture. The Polish farm sector consists of 1.4 million farms with sizes ranging from 1 ha to over a few thousands hectares. The research is based on a data set of 5,202 farms which contains data from ten years (2004-2013). The novelty of the methodological approach is that it includes information on the number of farms represented by every farm in the FADN sample in the Horvitz-Thompson estimator in order to achieve results which are valid for the general population of Polish farms.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the link between worker loyalty and expected rewards, with special attention to reward desirability.

Using employee-employer matched data collected from over 10,880 employees in nearly 670 workplaces in six culturally and economically diverse former socialist countries, the authors investigate the link between worker loyalty and expected rewards, taking into account reward desirability. Worker loyalty is measured using a composite of four variables related to participant’s commitment to staying at his/her organization. The authors employ both OLS and fractional logit regression analysis, clustering at the firm level, and restricting the pooled sample to include only those participants who responded to all questions used in this analysis. In the basic model, the authors include expected rewards, with an extensive set of worker and workplace controls; in the extended model, the authors add reward desirability and the corresponding interaction variables.

Using pooled data, the authors find that loyalty is positively correlated with expected rewards, and most strongly linked to the intrinsic reward chance to accomplish something worthwhile. When reward desirability is taken into account, consequences of unmet expectations emerge, and the relative importance of respectful and friendly co-workers diminishes. Neither generational nor life-cycle differences in loyalty are evident.

Due to financial constraints, country samples included in the pooled data are not nationally representative; nor are workplace samples representative. Personal contacts of local project coordinators and the snowballing technique used to expand the number of participating workplaces, as well as the requirement that participants be able to read the survey instrument, may contribute to selection bias. As such, the findings should be viewed as taking a preliminary or exploratory step toward developing a more global perspective of factors influencing worker loyalty and performance until longitudinal and nationally representative data become available.

The findings indicate a positive link between loyalty and expected rewards, and when reward desirability is included, the loyalty consequences associated with unmet expectations. While rewards identified as highly desired (bonus, job security, friendly co-workers) are positively linked to loyalty, the strongest link is associated with chance to accomplish something worthwhile. Promoting worker loyalty is linked to offering programs to develop more skills and more job autonomy among those employees who desire it, as well as meeting expectations related to promotion.

Unlike existing studies, the authors pool data from multiple countries and control for a wide variety of worker and workplace characteristics in the analysis of the loyalty-reward structure link.

There are three purposes to this article: first, to offer a training approach to employee learning and performance improvement that makes use of a step‐by‐step process of skill/knowledge creation. The process offers follow‐up opportunities for skill maintenance and improvement; second, to explain the conceptual bases of the approach; and third, to demonstrate the efficacy of the approach as it is applied in the field.

The methodology consists of two major features: the explication of how the template approach is applied, in general; and then the performance of two groups of employees is compared following training. One group was trained in the template approach while the other group was trained using more traditional methods. Conventional performance measures were used to assess group differences.

Following training the two employee groups were compared. The hypotheses stated that there would be no differences in performance on these measures: gross sales attained; manager rating of employee performance; and customer satisfaction with regard to sales representative's; product knowledge; helpfulness in the business context; and overall performance. Significant differences were noted for manager rating, product knowledge, and overall performance.

This study was exploratory in nature with a limited range of performance measures. The sample sizes were not large. The use of different pairs of trainers for the sub‐samples helps to dampen trainer bias but helps create differences in training conditions that could influence employee learning and performance.

Study results demonstrate that the training approach has merit and warrants further study. The study depicts how a partnership among trainers, managers, and employees can lead to successful training outcomes.

The training approach has substantial implications for management development regarding learning and change. The template approach adds to the repertoire of training methods. It also helps to reinforce the growing body of research that bases learning and performance improvement on script‐based methods.