Variables that facilitate or hinder parent involvement (PI) in education and schools were explored, along with the amounts of time parents spent in various activities. A total of 506 participants from San Diego and Imperial Counties completed the first part of the study (1) designed to assess parents' beliefs about involvement with their child's school and education. Of these same participants, 357 self‐selected parents also chose to complete a second part of the study (2) that assessed the amount of time parents spend in education‐related activities. Factor analysis of the 506 participant responses revealed four school perception factors related to parent attitudes: (a) communication, (b) familiarity, (c) sensitivity, and (d) support. Factor analysis of the 357 participant responses to the time factors also revealed four involvement areas: (a) general school issues, (b) specific school issues, (c) extracurricular school activities, and (d) specific help. Significant relationships were found among three of the attitudinal factors (sensitivity, familiarity, and support) and various time factors, including total involvement time, general issues, specific problems, and extracurricular issues. Further, significant differences among means were found for both the school perception factors and the time factors based on ethnic background, income, and marital status. Recommendations for increasing parent involvement and formulating public policy are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Although there is much interest in the implementation of Japanese management techniques in the United States, it is not clear which aspects can be successfully adopted here. The present study examined the compensation decision-making policies of 41 Japanese and 63 United States managers. The results confi rmed past research regarding the importance that U.S. managers place upon job performance in their pay decisions and the importance that Japanese managers place upon other factors beyond performance (e.g., job worth) in their decisions. In addition, both groups gave the same amount of pay increase on the average; however, U.S. managers were much more willing to give large or small increases, whereas the Japanese managers had little variance in pay increases from employee to employee. Implications for managerial policy and practices of Japanese managers operating in the United States are discussed.

The use of various kinds of group projects is common in many types of marketing courses. A major problem in such courses is the equitable grading of group members based on the accountability of individual performances. This article provides an approach to using peer evaluations to assess individual performances within a group so that grades may be assigned in an equitable manner.

Hard-core unemployed absenteeism was srudied over a 2-yr. period using variables to measure organization-wide, immediate work environment, job content, and personal factors as predictors. Results indicated that initial absenteeism of the hard-core unemployed (6 mo.) was predicted by organizationwide, immediate work environment, and personal factors while longitudinal (24 mo.) absenteeism was predicted by immediate work environment and job content factors.The implication is that the panern of absenteeism of the hard-core unemployed, although initially influenced by total organizational and personal variables, is better predicted by the immediate social setting of the job and the job inelf over time.There are many problems involved in organizational efforts concerning the hard-core unemployed, such as obtaining and maintaining successful job performance and turnover; perhaps none has created as much controversy as absenteeism. Frequently the causes of absenteeism of hard-core unemployed have been attributed to cultural differences which may, in fact, influence absenteeism. However, there have been no reports using what information is available concerning absenteeism nor an exhaustive study of absenteeism of hard-core unemployed over time. METHOD Description of the SampleThe organization studied was the home office of one insurance company in the Midwest. The company's president was the metropolitan area chairman of the National Alliance of Businessmen's JOBS program which gave the organization's effort with hard-core unemployed visible support from the top. The company had over eight hundred clerical positions for which 41 black women who met the criteria were hired through funding from the manpower administration of the Department of Labor. Thirty-one of these women were with the company after 6 mo. and 20 (upon whom there was complete information) remained 2 yr. later. Of the 21 women upon whom complete data were not available on all of the variables used after 2 yr., nine left because of pregnancy, seven for failure to report for work regularly, cwo to take other jobs, and three upon whom complete data were not available.This report summarizes an extensive examination of the relationship of variables for 20 participants employed by a medium-sited insurance company over a 'College of Business and Administration. 'School of Business Administration.

Behavioral Expectation Scales (BES) research has concentrated upon psychometric properties, while evidence for potential operational advantages has been largely anecdotal. This empirical study explored the operational value of BES as a technique for identifying divergent rater‐ratee perceptions of ratee behavior frequency and for facilitating subsequent ratee behavior change. Results indicated that ratees perceived desired behaviors as occurring more often and undesired behaviors occurring less often than did raters. Behavior change was demonstrated both after development and after implementation of BES. Such operational advantages of BES are argued as a crucial factor in the choice of an organization's performance appraisal format.