Is Leadership in the Eye of the Beholder? A Study of Intended and Perceived Leadership Practices and Organizational Performance

Leadership is a matter of both intentions and perceptions, which do not necessarily always match. Because employees’ motivation and commitment are only affected by leadership if they notice it, employee‐perceived leadership is expected to have a stronger correlation with organizational performance than leader‐intended leadership. This expectation is tested for transformational and transactional leadership, as both types of practices are expected to increase performance. Using a sample of 1,621 teachers and 79 Danish high school principals, the authors find that leader‐intended and employee‐perceived transformational and transactional leadership are only weakly correlated and that only employee‐perceived leadership practices (both transformational and transactional) are significantly related to objectively measured school performance. The results show that it is important to distinguish between intended and perceived leadership and that leaders should be aware of how their practices are perceived.     

Activating the Forces of Public Service Motivation: Evidence from a Low‐Intensity Randomized Survey Experiment

Employees with higher public service motivation (PSM) are likely to perform better in public service jobs. However, research on how practitioners may capitalize on this knowledge is sparse. This article expands the understanding of how to activate employee PSM, which is understood as a human resource that is present in the work environment. Using a randomized survey experiment with 528 law students, this article shows how low‐intensity treatments may activate PSM and how the effect of PSM activation efforts compares with efforts to activate another, less self‐determined type of motivation (relating to the need for feelings of self‐importance). The findings are robust and suggest that low‐intensity efforts to activate PSM have a positive effect on an individual's behavioral inclinations. However, efforts toward the activation of motivation relating to feelings of self‐importance appear to engender an effect of similar size.     

Party planners – how political strategies are chosen

When and why do party strategists select one marketing strategy over another relevant one? In this research, we answer this question by outlining a new institutional strategy framework on the basis of social psychological assumptions. This framework links the cognition of party operatives to their task of selecting a marketing strategy. On this ground, we empirically test a number of hypotheses derived from this framework. The results suggest that party strategists are influenced by their cognitive framing of the environment, but this influence is mediated by context‐specific variables embedded in the political realm such as historical tensions, coalition partners, or the ideology, goal, and organizational structure of the party. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fourteen years' survival with an untreated traumatic rupture of the thoracal aorta

Untreated traumatic rupture of the aorta generally results in sudden death. A case with 14 years' survival after an unrecognized traumatic rupture of the aorta is presented. Chronic traumatic aneurysm of the aorta should be kept in mind in a patient who develops sudden symptoms of arteriosclerotic heart disease months to years after a relevant thoracic trauma.     

Injuries due to deliberate violence in areas of Denmark. III. Lesions. The Copenhagen Study Group

As part of a transcultural investigation of violent behavior in Denmark and South America, the lesions from accidents involving deliberate violence registered in three Danish emergency wards during a 1-year period were studied. A quantity of 2211 lesions were diagnosed in 1316 patients (953 male and 363 female patients). Sixty-five percent of the lesions were in the head/neck region, 13% in truncus, 18% in the upper extremities and 5% in the lower extremities. The most frequent diagnosis was an open wound in the head/neck region. Adding contusions and fractures in the same region this amounted to more than half of the total number of lesions. In the upper extremities 62% of the lesions were contusions or open wounds. Serious lesions of internal arteries were few, however always caused by sharp instruments (knives). Serious lesions due to firearms were not recorded/reported. Strangulation had been used against 1.1% of the victims, the male/female ratio being 1:6. The main part of the lesions were of minor severity when assessed on the basis of the scores in the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). The lesions were, however, more serious compared to other recent studies, and it appeared that the female victims had fewer but more serious lesions than the male victims. The need for treatment and hospitalization was in the range of other recent studies.     

Injuries due to deliberate violence in areas of Denmark. V. Violence against women and children. Copenhagen Study Group

As part of an European-South American study of deliberate violence cases of violence against women greater than or equal to 15 years of age and violence against and among children under the age of 15 years were registered at 3 Danish emergency wards and at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen. 352 cases of violence against women and 46 cases of violence against children were registered in the three emergency wards corresponding to rates of about 1.6/1000 per year for women, 0.6/1000 per year for boys and 0.7/1000 per year for girls in a provincial/rural district, the catchment region of Holbaek County Hospital, 3.4/1000 per year for women, 2.8/1000 per year for boys and 0.6/1000 per year for girls in a mainly middle income area of the metropolis Copenhagen, the catchment region of Frederiksberg Hospital, and 4.0/1000 per year for women, 4.0/1000 per year for boys and 0.9/1000 per year for girls in a mainly low income area of Copenhagen, the catchment region of the Rigshospital. Nineteen live adult female victims and 17 dead adult female victims of violence were registered in the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen, where also one was registered as a victim of homicide. Nearly half of the adult live female victims of violence had been injured at home while this was the case for approximately three fourth of the dead victims. In 35% of the live cases the husband was the aggressor and in 12% a former cohabitant. In 71% of the homicide cases the husband was the aggressor. The live women appeared to have fewer but more serious lesions than men. The pattern of deliberate violence against women appears to be associated with socio-economic and cultural factors. In cases with a preceding quarrel there is statistically a link to alcohol intoxication. In half of the cases of violence against children the aggressor was known to the victim, in 15% the aggressor was one of the parents, while 42% of the cases were violence among children. The pattern of violence according to sex, and the distribution and severity of lesions for 10-14 years old children showed resemblance to the situation for adults. The lesions were more serious in young infant victims, especially boys, than in adult victims.     

Statistical analysis of the measurement errors in the determination of fragment length in DNA-RFLP analysis.

DNA from human whole blood samples was digested with the restriction enzyme HinfI and RFLP analysis performed using the single locus probes MS1, MS31, MS43a and YNH24. The intergel variation of 3291 duplicate measurements of fragment lengths in terms of basepairs was investigated. The difference between two measurements of the same fragment on different gels increased approximately exponentially with increasing fragment length. After transformation of the fragment length into a normalized migration distance it was found that the difference between two transformed measurements was normally distributed with a S.D. (0.70 mm) which was independent of the fragment length. The errors of band 1 and band 2 on the same lane were correlated (r2 = 0.8). It is useful in the calculation of frequencies and in retrieval procedures and also in the calculation of likelihood ratios to be able to use a S.D. which is independent of the fragment length.