Base rate for employee theft: Convergence of multiple methods.

Abstract

In this study, given the potential sensitivity of inquiries regarding theft behavior, the authors relied on randomized-response techniques and unmatched-count techniques to estimate the base rate of employee theft for those personnel with access to cash, supplies, merchandise, or products easily converted to cash. Depending on the level one ascribes to nontrivial employee theft, these techniques converge on theft rates over 50%.

Effect of response format on endorsement of eating disordered attitudes and behaviors

“…Thus, because there was no direct link between a participant and which items she endorsed, there was no way to determine if any individual participant endorsed any particular critical item. Previous studies have found that the UCT procedure yields significantly different rates of endorsement as compared to conventional questionnaires on a variety of sensitive topics, including employee theft, 17,18 risky sexual behaviors when under the influence of alcohol, 15 antigay hate crime perpetration, 19 and crime victimization. 16 …”

E-research – selected issues concerning the Internet attitudes and opinions research

“…They include a study of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Germany (Krumpal 2012), fabrication in job applications (Donovan, Dwight, and Hurtz 2003), employee theft (Wimbush and Dalton 1997), social security fraud (van der Heijden and van Gils 1996), sexual behavior and orientation (Fidler and Kleinknecht 1977), vote choice regarding a Mississippi abortion referendum (Rosenfeld, Imai, and Shapiro 2015), illegal poaching among South African farmers (St John et al 2012), use of performance enhancing drugs (Stubbe et al 2014), and violation of regulatory laws by commercial firms (Elffers, Van Der Heijden, and Hezemans 2003). Furthermore, De Jong, Pieters, and Fox (2010) expanded this design to allow for ordinal responses (e.g., a Likert scale), which they use to measure the frequency of respondent consumer use of adult entertainment.…”

“…Indeed, our extensive search yields only a handful of published studies that use the randomized response method to answer substantive questions (Madigan et al 1976;Chaloupka 1985;Wimbush and Dalton 1997;Donovan, Dwight, and Hurtz 2003;St John et al 2012). In contrast, a vast majority of existing studies apply the randomized response method to empirically illustrate its methodological properties by including some substantive examples (e.g., Abernathy, Greenberg, and Horvitz 1970;Chi, Chow, and Rider 1972;Goodstadt and Gruson 1975;Reinmuth and Geurts 1975;Locander, Sudman, and Bradburn 1976;Fidler and Kleinknecht 1977;Lamb and Stem 1978;Tezcan and Omran 1981;Tracy and Fox 1981;Edgell, Himmelfarb, and Duchan 1982;Volicer and Volicer 1982;van der Heijden and van Gils 1996;van der Heijden et al 2000;Elffers, Van Der Heijden, and Hezemans 2003;Lensvelt-Mulders, Hox, and Van Der Heijden 2005a;Lara et al 2006;Cruyff et al 2007;Himmelfarb 2008;De Jong, Pieters, and Fox 2010;Gingerich 2010;Krumpal 2012).…”

Using the Predicted Responses from List Experiments as Explanatory Variables in Regression Models

“…List experiments have been used in various disciplines to measure behaviors as varied as employee theft and drug use (e.g., Wimbush and Dalton 1997;Biemer and Brown 2005). In political science, list experiments have been used to measure socially undesirable attitudes such as prejudice concerning race, religion, and gender (e.g., Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens 1997;Kane, Craig, and Wald 2004;Streb et al 2008), and illicit conduct such as voter fraud and vote-buying (e.g., Corstange 2012b; Gonzalez-Ocantos et al 2012;Ahlquist, Mayer, and Jackman 2013).…”