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To thrive, any individual, organization, or society needs to separate true from false expertise. This chapter provides a selective review of research examining self and social judgments of human capital – that is, expertise, knowledge, and skill. In particular, it focuses on the problem of the “flawed evaluator”: most people judging expertise often have flawed expertise themselves, and thus their assessments of self and others are imperfect in profound and systematic ways.

The review focuses mostly on empirical work specifically building on the “Dunning–Kruger effect” in self-perceptions of expertise (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). This selective review, thus, focuses on patterns of error in such judgments.

Because judges of expertise have flawed expertise themselves, they fail to recognize incompetence in themselves. Because of their flaws, most people also fail to recognize genius in other people and superior ideas.

The review suggests that organizations have trouble recognizing those exhibiting the highest levels of expertise in their midst. People in organizations also fail to identify the best advice and correct flawed ideas. Organizations may also rely on the “wisdom of crowds” strategy in situations in which that strategy actually misleads because too few people identify the best idea available.

This study evaluates cross-national differences in public beliefs about the causes of health and the role of these beliefs in shaping attitudes regarding health policy.

The study uses data from the 2011 International Social Survey Program, which includes questions on health and health care, asked in 29 countries. Respondents were asked about four specific causes of poor health (i.e., genes, behavior, the environment, and poverty). Respondents were also asked about their attitudes regarding three aspects of health policy: their support for government-provided care, the perceived fairness of income disparities in medical treatment, and their support for providing health care to noncitizens.

The study has three findings. First, the study reveals the global reach of a multicausal view. The four beliefs about the causes of poor health are positively correlated in all countries. However, there is considerable cross-national variation in the average support for specific causes. Although in some countries proximate causes, such as genes, are endorsed more frequently than distal causes, such as poverty, this is by no means a uniform pattern. Support for genetic causes is high, but genetic reductionism is rare. Second, the study reveals that health beliefs are fundamentally political beliefs. The single most important determinant of beliefs about the causes of health is the country in which the respondent resides, exceeding in influence religion, education, and even personal experiences with health and health care. Third, the study reveals that the political connotations of health beliefs vary between countries, especially beliefs regarding genes. In general, those who endorse behavioral arguments favor less government involvement in health care and are more accepting of income disparities in the quality of care. Those who endorse the environment and poverty, meanwhile, tend to support a stronger role of government. Yet, the magnitude of these associations varies and, in the case of genetic arguments, even the direction of the association varies. Genetic arguments are frequently associated with support for a stronger role of government, but genetic arguments also are occasionally associated with support for the exclusion of noncitizens from the health care system.

International survey research is valuable for exploring the scope of patterns revealed in a limited set of countries, but it is difficult to pinpoint the source of cross-national differences.

The study demonstrates the importance of national context in shaping health beliefs, as well as the role of beliefs regarding the causes of health in setting the stage for public receptivity to government-provided care. The study also illustrates the value of thinking about beliefs about genes as reflecting larger projects of biocitizenship, at least in some countries.

Surveys, from an American perspective, the existing literature on economic explanations of the behaviour of universities and scholars. The modern literature is put in historical perspective introduced by a brief discussion of the positions of two of the earliest and most distinguished contributors to the literature: Adam Smith and Max Weber. Discusses the human capital and implicit contracts literatures of the behaviour of scholars, the latter elaborated in terms of the issue of tenure. The most common theoretical economic analysis of the university is the view that it is best thought of as a non‐profit organization. Discusses variants of this view, with special attention to the literature on rent‐seeking in academe. Goes on to the empirical literature on the economics of academe in the areas of academic institutions, academic earnings functions, the earnings and status of minority scholars and academic production functions. Briefly considers the relevance of the current literature to the Althoff system, suggesting that Althoff′s able, trusted advisers, and his system of institutes, may have allowed him to avoid several inefficiences that have been identified by economists as present in other academic institutions. Although the centralization of decision making in the hands of one decision maker may be efficient if the decision maker is exceptionally able, more commonly the most efficient system will be a decentralized system that allows for greater diversity and competition. Concludes with a discussion of how hypotheses on the efficiency (and fairness) of various aspects of the Althoff system could, in principle, be tested.

In this chapter, the author explores the ethical challenge of preserving participant anonymity when using visual methods in ethnographic research. Referring to her own ethnographic study in post-conflict Northern Ireland, the author explores how social, cultural, and political contexts may accentuate the need to preserve anonymity. The author discusses her rationale for opting not to use photographs in this context and puts forward the case for using participant-produced drawings as an alternative to photographs. Drawings accomplish similar rich benefits as photographs but may ameliorate the ethical challenges inherent in photographic work of maintaining participant anonymity.

Purpose: Cool, a subjective, socially constructed concept has interested several researchers investigating its nature and successful marketing applications. However, the authors note a lack of studies investigating its perceptions in non-Western cultural contexts. The aims of this study are to investigate the meanings of cool in Tunisia, a North-African, Arab-Muslim emerging country.

Methodology: The authors conducted qualitative research through focus groups with Tunisian consumers. The authors used lexical, thematic, and semiotic analyses to investigate cool meanings.

Findings: Findings show that the term “Cool” in Tunisia is mostly related to lexical synonyms and meanings of lightness and flexibility, fun and amusement, humor, and trendiness rather than originality, divergence, creativity, and uniqueness long argued to be the significations of cool in Western literature, despite their minor presence in our results.

Originality/Value: Results show further evidence that the concept is culturally laden and that the socio-cultural characteristics of Tunisia altered its meanings established in the West, mostly associated to its origins and emergence.

In my introductory article, “Airworthiness — A Systems Approach”, last March, I expressed the hope that eminent engineers from all the disciplines and activities on which “total airworthiness” (my phrase) depends, would be persuaded by Aircraft Engineering to contribute articles on their own specialisations.