Georgetown University

About: Georgetown University is a education organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Cancer. The organization has 23377 authors who have published 43718 publications receiving 1748598 citations. The organization is also known as: GU & Georgetown.

Information privacy: measuring individuals' concerns about organizational practices

Abstract: Information privacy has been called one of the most important ethical issues of the informa1 Alien Lee was the accepting senior for this paper. tion age. Public opinion polls show rising levels of concer about privacy among Americans. Against this backdrop, research into issues associated with information privacy is increasing. Based on a number of preliminary studies, it has become apparent that organizational practices, individuals' perceptions of these practices, and societal responses are inextricably linked in many ways. Theories regarding these relationships are slowly emerging. Unfortunately, researchers attempting to examine such relationships through confirmatory empirical approaches may be impeded by the lack of validated instruments for measuring individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. To enable future studies in the information privacy research stream, we developed and validated an instrument that identifies and measures the primary dimensions of individuals' concers about organizational information privacy practices. The development process included examinations of privacy literature; experience surveys and focus groups; and the use of expert judges. The result was a parsimonious 15-item instrument with four subscales tapping into dimensions of individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. The instrument was rigorously tested and validated across several heterogenous populations, providing a high degree of confidence in the scales' validity, reliability, and generalizability.

Race, gender, and partnership in the patient-physician relationship.

Abstract: ContextMany studies have documented race and gender differences in health care received by patients. However, few studies have related differences in the quality of interpersonal care to patient and physician race and gender.ObjectiveTo describe how the race/ethnicity and gender of patients and physicians are associated with physicians' participatory decision-making (PDM) styles.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsTelephone survey conducted between November 1996 and June 1998 of 1816 adults aged 18 to 65 years (mean age, 41 years) who had recently attended 1 of 32 primary care practices associated with a large mixed-model managed care organization in an urban setting. Sixty-six percent of patients surveyed were female, 43% were white, and 45% were African American. The physician sample (n=64) was 63% male, with 56% white, and 25% African American.Main Outcome MeasurePatients' ratings of their physicians' PDM style on a 100-point scale.ResultsAfrican American patients rated their visits as significantly less participatory than whites in models adjusting for patient age, gender, education, marital status, health status, and length of the patient-physician relationship (mean [SE] PDM score, 58.0 [1.2] vs 60.6 [3.3]; P=.03). Ratings of minority and white physicians did not differ with respect to PDM style (adjusted mean [SE] PDM score for African Americans, 59.2 [1.7] vs whites, 61.7 [3.1]; P=.13). Patients in race-concordant relationships with their physicians rated their visits as significantly more participatory than patients in race-discordant relationships (difference [SE], 2.6 [1.1]; P=.02). Patients of female physicians had more participatory visits (adjusted mean [SE] PDM score for female, 62.4 [1.3] vs male, 59.5 [3.1]; P=.03), but gender concordance between physicians and patients was not significantly related to PDM score (unadjusted mean [SE] PDM score, 76.0 [1.0] for concordant vs 74.5 [0.9] for discordant; P=.12). Patient satisfaction was highly associated with PDM score within all race/ethnicity groups.ConclusionsOur data suggest that African American patients rate their visits with physicians as less participatory than whites. However, patients seeing physicians of their own race rate their physicians' decision-making styles as more participatory. Improving cross-cultural communication between primary care physicians and patients and providing patients with access to a diverse group of physicians may lead to more patient involvement in care, higher levels of patient satisfaction, and better health outcomes.

Is "learning-by-exporting" important? Micro-dynamic evidence from Colombia, Mexico and Morocco

Abstract: Is there any empirical evidence that firms become more efficient after becoming exporters? Do firms that become exporters generate positive spillovers for domestically-oriented producers? In this paper we analyze the causal links between exporting and productivity using firm-level panel data from three semi-industrialized countries Representing export market" participation and production costs as jointly dependent autoregressive processes, we look for evidence that firms' stochastic cost processes shift when they break into foreign markets We find that relatively efficient firms become exporters, but firms' unit costs are not affected by previous export market participation So the well-known efficiency gap between exporters and non-exporters is due to self-selection of the more efficient firms into the export market, rather than learning by exporting Further, we find some evidence that exporters reduce the costs of breaking into foreign markets for domestically oriented producers, but they do not appear to help these producers become more efficient

Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse

Abstract: Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Overview of chapters Discourse analysis 2. Involvement in discourse Involvement Sound and sense in discourse Involvement strategies Scenes and music in creating involvement 3. Repetition in conversation: toward a poetics of talk Theoretical implications of repetition Repetition in discourse Functions of repetition in conversation Repetition and variation in conversation Examples of functions of repetition The range of repetition in a segment of conversation Individual and cultural differences Other genres The automaticity of repetition The drive to imitate Conclusion 4. 'Oh talking voice that is so sweet': constructing dialogue in conversation Reported speech and dialogue Dialogue in storytelling Reported criticism in conversation Reported speech is constructed dialogue Constructed dialogue in a conversational narrative Modern Greek stories Brazilian narrative Dialogue in writers' conversation Conclusion 5. Imagining worlds: imagery and detail in conversation and other genres The role of details and images in creating involvement Details in conversation Images and details in narrative Nonnarrative or quasinarrative conversational discourse Rapport through telling details The intimacy of details Spoken literary discourse Written discourse High-involvement writing When details don't work or work for ill Conclusion 6. Involvement strategies in consort: literary non-fiction and political oratory Thinking with feeling Literary non-fiction Speaking and writing with involvement Involvement in political oratory Conclusion 7. Afterword: toward a humanistic linguistics Appendix I. Sources of examples Appendix II. Transcription conventions Notes List of references Author index Subject index.