One of the most persistent issues in contemporary organizations has been how to evaluate individual performance. Basically, the problem is who should evaluate whom and against what productivity criterion. Educational institutions have been the organizations most concerned with this dilemma in recent years. As recently as September, 1973, teachers went on strike over accountability procedures. This study was conducted to identify which mode of teacher evaluation was most efficient, based on fairly objective performance criterion, and to establish a basis for viewing teaching style as leadership style. In existing research, superior ratings were the most used evaluation measure, student ratings were a rapidly growing mode of evaluation, self-ratings were considered biased, and peer ratings were used very little. Hence, who should do the evaluating was an unsolved problem. All four evaluation modes were employed in the present study for comparison.

Research thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Management in Finance and Investment Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Wits Business School University of Witwatersrand June 2017 / Sovereign credit ratings provide a summary of the economic conditions of a particular country, and are a representation of the ability and willingness of a country to make its debt payments as they fall due. These ratings provide an indication of the cost of borrowing in that country, so a country would like to obtain the highest possible credit rating. These ratings are provided by independent agencies who use their own systems to provide a rating and an outlook. Credit ratings are important as they provide information to investors on the potential investability and access to financial markets of that particular country. The problem found by some literature is the reliability of ratings in emerging markets as investors perceive these markets to be riskier in nature. In this paper, the aim was to identify what the different factors that the two big agencies, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s use when rating a country. This is done through using a multiple regression model on 5 emerging economies from different continents from 1994 to 2015, based on annual data. The first step was to find out what are the macro-economic variables that have strong correlations with the agencies, and the results show that external balances as a % of GDP and the GDP growth have low correlations with the ratings. The regression analysis also shows that Moody’s takes the inflation rate into consideration when rating a country but Standard and Poor’s does not. The paper also wanted to identify the effects of ratings on markets, and this was done through the effect of ratings on the interest rate spreads. The results show that the rating differential, which was the ratings from Moody’s subtracted from the ratings of Standard and Poor’s, affect the interest rate spreads negatively, therefore a better rating should reduce the spread and have a positive effect on the financial markets. / MT2017

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-177).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Carolina, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-67).

Effective leadership can and does influence organizational performance. The Executive Success Profile, a multi-rater feedback instrument, was used to gather perception data on 51 executives and 310 senior managers of a large Fortune 500 electronics manufacturing company in regards to three critical leadership dimensions: visionary thinking, empowering others, and global perspective. Paired t-tests were run to compare the means of the two samples. Significant differences were found between executives and senior managers on the perceived importance of and ability to perform on the empowering others dimension. Additionally, correlational measures indicate a statistically significant relationship between importance and competence ratings on the empowering others and global perspective dimensions for executives, and on the empowering others dimension for senior managers.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between a measurement of empathy and performance of psychiatric student nurses.

The present study investigated the extent to which importance ratings (i.e., a measure of perceived importance for driving-related concepts) are a viable alternative to traditional mental model assessment methods in predicting driving performance. Although mental models may predict driving–related outcomes—crash involvement and moving violations—common mental model assessment techniques are associated with administrative limitations and challenges, which can affect how valid mental models are as assessments of knowledge structure. Importance ratings, as a measure of driving-related knowledge that may be associated with fewer administrative limitations, were hypothesized to provide equal predictive validity for driving–related performance outcomes in a sample of undergraduate students. To investigate the extent to which the measurement of mental models and importance ratings contribute to the prediction of driving crashes and moving violations, students completed Pathfinder, a common computer-based mental model assessment method, and paper-and-pencil importance ratings. In addition, students completed a test of driving knowledge and reported driving behaviors and outcomes including at-fault crashes and moving violations that occurred over the past five years (i.e., from 2005 to 2009). A group of expert drivers completed mental model and importance ratings assessments as well. Data across expert raters were combined and analyzed for appropriateness to serve as referent scores for each assessment. Students' mental model accuracy as well as importance rating accuracy was based on the extent to which student mental models and ratings agreed with those provided by the group of expert drivers. The results suggest that importance rating and mental model accuracy predicted crash involvement and moving violations. Whereas mental model accuracy was a stronger predictor of the number of moving violations, importance rating accuracy predicted the number of at-fault crashes slightly better than mental models. Although inconclusive, these results suggest that importance ratings may be a viable alternative to traditional mental model assessment in predicting some driving outcomes. Future research is warranted on importance ratings and other alternative mental model assessments.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Economics, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 262-277). Also available in print.