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This paper aims to integrate insights from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective to explain how the historical and social attainment discrepancies motivate firms to change. Specifically, this paper proposes that a negative historical attainment discrepancy encourages the firm to engage in strategic change to solve its performance problems. In contrast, this paper advanced that a positive social attainment discrepancy motivates strategic change as a mechanism to bolster the firm’s position within the industry. Further, this paper integrated the moderating effects of industry dynamism and industry munificence.

This paper tests hypotheses using panel data on 2,435 US public firms over the years from 1996 to 2018. This paper uses a fixed-effects regression model to empirically test these hypotheses.

This paper finds empirical support for the effects of both the negative historical attainment discrepancy and the positive social attainment discrepancy on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. As for the hypothesized moderating effects, this paper finds that industry munificence accentuated the effects of both attainment discrepancies on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. However, the results do not support the hypothesized moderating effect of industry dynamism on either of these attainment discrepancies.

This paper contributes to the research on the separate effects of historical and social comparisons within the context of strategic change. Further, the paper bolsters our understanding of how performance feedback increases the firm’s tendency to change. Finally, the paper integrates theoretical views from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective on how socially high-performing firms may build and sustain their competitive advantage through organizational change.

Job Corps is the United State’s largest and most comprehensive training program for disadvantaged youth aged 16–24 years old. A randomized social experiment concluded that, on average, individuals benefited from the program in the form of higher weekly earnings and employment prospects. At the same time, “young adults” (ages 20–24) realized much higher impacts relative to “adolescents” (ages 16–19). Employing recent nonparametric bounds for causal mediation, we investigate whether these two groups’ disparate effects correspond to them benefiting differentially from distinct aspects of Job Corps, with a particular focus on the attainment of a degree (GED, high school, or vocational). We find that, for young adults, the part of the total effect of Job Corps on earnings (employment) that is due to attaining a degree within the program is at most 41% (32%) of the total effect, whereas for adolescents that part can account for up to 87% (100%) of the total effect. We also find evidence that the magnitude of the part of the effect of Job Corps on the outcomes that works through components of Job Corps other than degree attainment (e.g., social skills, job placement, residential services) is likely higher for young adults than for adolescents. That those other components likely play a more important role for young adults has policy implications for more effectively servicing participants. More generally, our results illustrate how researchers can learn about particular mechanisms of an intervention.

Purpose – The connections between religious factors and stratification outcomes were long ignored in the sociological literature, yet a growing number of studies show that religion remains important for determining the life chances of individuals. I add to this literature by examining how religious affiliation is associated with the structure of occupational attainment in the United States.

Methodology – I analyze data from the 1972–2008 General Social Surveys to show how religious affiliation is related to occupational attainment and occupational mobility by gender and race.

Findings – I find that sectarian Protestants occupy the lower rungs of the occupational structure, even relative to their low rates of educational attainment. In contrast, Jews and nonidentifying respondents show considerable occupational advantage. Catholics also have specific patterns of occupational attainment that hint at their growing wealth parity with mainline Protestants. I also show that religious influences hold across racial and gender groupings, and across cohorts.

Social implications – Religion continues to significantly influence the occupational structure in the United States, and sectarian religion serves as an important anchor hindering occupational attainment.

This chapter examines the relationship between community educational attainment and Fourth Amendment legal principles being implemented in public schools. Using education attainment data obtained from the U.S. Census, this study examined the influence of educational attainment on how searches of students were conducted and the relative legal and judicial outcomes. The results of this study offer insight on issues related to forms of discipline in public schools and contribute to knowledge bases in the fields of economics, law, social theory, and educational leadership and administration.

Prior studies regarding the Fourth Amendment in schools focused largely on administrative decisions, judgments, and practices, but the aspect of educational attainment has been minimally investigated. Findings suggest community educational attainment has little to no predictive influence on aspects related to student searches examined in the study, which include the intrusiveness level of the search and the number of searches occurring during a single search event. Implications for future research and leadership are discussed.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the robustness of the findings on educational advantage among sexual minority men.

Using nationally representative data (AddHealth) and controlling for other predictors of academic attainment, we examine the educational attainment of sexual minority males by using hierarchical regression and logistical regression for two measures of sexual identity.

We find robust differences in educational attainment across analyses and sexual orientation constructs. Our results show sexual minority identity predicts up to a year more of education for male respondents and consistently reporting male homosexuals have an even greater advantage, more than one and a half years, compared to inconsistent responders.

Our results extend previous research on educational outcomes for nonheterosexual adolescents, suggesting there are sustained differences in long-term educational outcomes for nonheterosexual adults and supporting earlier analyses of the AddHealth survey data. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining educational attainment as measured by continuous years and cut-points, using two measures of sexual orientation, providing estimates for all Wave 4 sexual minority identities (i.e., not collapsing any sexual minority category), and controlling for adolescent school geography and type. Moreover, we find early identification of sexual orientation and stability of sexual orientation may be an important source of variation in identifying LGBTQ adolescents who are at greater academic risk or who may benefit from increased social support.

A country’s performance in health attainment refers to both its achievement (level) and its improvement (evolution) in the health domain. Studies on performance generally measure health attainment using the average health level of the population and quantify health improvement employing the change in attainment over time. However, this approach is flawed because the change in attainment does not satisfy good properties, on the one hand, and because health attainment should not only account for the average health level but also for disparities in health in the population, on the other hand. We propose a solution to the first limitation by following the lead of Kakwani (1993), who uses achievement and improvement measures which are based on attainment measures and which satisfy important properties. For the second limitation, we extend the work of Kakwani and propose new definitions of attainment that account for the average health level but also for health inequalities in the population. Specifically, we focus on overall and social health inequalities and on the health of the poor. By including these new attainment variables into Kakwani’s indices, we generate new classes of achievement and improvement indices. Using data on 11 low- and middle-income Asian countries in the twenty-first century, we highlight that child and maternal health have generally improved in recent decades, due to both an increase in the average health level and a decrease in inequalities.

Many newly established Internet loss-making enterprises (NEILEs) are always willing to expand overseas within a very short time from their establishment. This phenomenon is becoming a hot research area. This paper aims to explore why these enterprises are always willing to expand overseas rapidly even if they are facing severe and persistent losses, and to study the different rapid internationalization modes and the international market entry ways for NEILEs.

This paper constructs a theoretical framework with the dual situation of negative attainment discrepancy and advantageous slack resources to explain the rapid internationalization of NEILEs. Furthermore, cross-case comparative analysis method, based on interviews, questionnaires and secondary data collection, is adopted to reveal the rapid internationalization modes and the international market entry ways of such enterprises.

Whether blocking competitors or seeking opportunities or both, NEILEs' goal of rapid internationalization depends on the severity and persistence of negative attainment discrepancy. When the severity and persistence of negative attainment discrepancy are very significant, moderate and mild, NEILEs choose sniper-type, opportunity-type and dual-type internationalization target mode in turn; it is very important for NEILEs to match advantageous slack resources and international market entry ways to achieve specific internationalization goals.

This paper enriches the understanding of NEILEs' transnational entrepreneurial behavior in the era of digital economy. The theoretical contribution of this paper is that the authors build a theoretical framework based on the logical starting point, the logical fulcrum and the logic ending point for understanding the rapid internationalization of NEILEs.

This study demonstrates that NEILEs can also expand into foreign markets according to their own characteristics. Undoubtedly, they need to choose appropriate internationalization target mode and international market entry way in line with the extent and duration of their losses, and their advantageous slack resources.

In this paper, the authors construct the rapid internationalization theory of NEILEs based on the dual situation of negative attainment discrepancy and advantageous slack resources in digital economy era. Moreover, the authors discover the behavioral characteristics and patterns of NEILEs' transnational entrepreneurship.

This study sought to analyze university graduate job attainment in Lebanon through an individualist, societal and structuralist perspectives. Differences appeared between females and males on factors that predicted occupational attainment. In concert with neo‐patriarchal discourse increased occupational attainment among males was significantly predicted by fathers’ occupational status. The data reported that male and female university degree type produced higher occupational attainment between male and female graduates. Further analysis would seek to understand graduate attitudes towards their occupational attainment along individualist, societal and structural dimensions.

The number of people engaging in higher education (HE) has increased considerably over the past decade. However, there is a need to achieve a balance between increasing access and bearing down on rates of non‐completion. It has been argued that poor attainment and failure within the first year are significant contributors to the overall statistics for non‐progression and that, although research has concentrated on factors causative of student withdrawal, less attention has focused on students who fail academically. This study investigated the effects of a number of factors on the academic attainment of first‐year undergraduates within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Glamorgan. Results showed that gender and age had only minor impacts upon educational achievement, while place of residence, prior educational attainment and attendance emerged as significant predictors of attainment. Further analysis showed these three factors to be interrelated, with attendance correlating strongly with both entry points and place of residence. In turn, prior attainment was strongly linked to place of residence. Findings may be used to identify and proactively target students at risk of poor academic performance and dropout in order to improve rates of performance and progression.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between learning engagement (time spent in playing the game) and knowledge attainment (points earned answering questions) and sales performance on the job. Knowledge attainment was also examined as a mediator of the engagement-performance relation.

In this nonexperimental study, travel agent engagement, knowledge, and sales performance data were collected from 309 cruise industry participants. A combination of MANOVA, correlation and regression analyses were used to examine these relations.

Moderate to strong positive and statistically significant relations were found between learning engagement and knowledge attainment, and learning engagement and sales performance. Additional analysis revealed that knowledge attainment mediated the link between learning engagement and sales performance.

Because the study was not designed to examine causal relations among the research variables, its generalizability was limited. Still, moderate to strong relations were found between learning engagement and knowledge attainment, and knowledge attainment and sales performance. Further, while engagement had a direct effect on sales performance, it also had an indirect effect through the knowledge attainment variable. The findings provide preliminary support for further research into how serious computer games motivate learner and engagement and learning best and how each is linked to important organizational outcomes like performance.

Serious computer games are becoming an increasingly useful means for promoting employee learning, development, and performance. This research offers new evidence that computer serious games can enhance learning and performance.