Most studies about the effects of producers’ services on manufacturing agglomeration focus on the effects themselves while neglecting the mechanism that such effects spread. By stressing the key role of trade costs in the process of manufacturing agglomeration, this paper identifies a chain of effects from producers’ service improvements to manufacturing agglomeration via changing trade costs a...

This research uses a representative sample of U.S. nascent entrepreneurs to find that there is a positive relationship between their use of systematic search and their success in founding new firms. We control for mediating variables and find that searching systematically leverages firm founding by using an adaptive decision making style and social capital. Systematic search also appears to red...

Recent literature on migration and the environment has identified key mediating variables such as how migrants extract resources from the environment for their livelihoods, the rate and efficiency of extraction, and the social and economic context within which their extraction occurs. This paper tests these theories in a new ecological setting using data from coastal fishing villages in North S...

People report solving division problems by mentally recasting division problems as multiplication (e.g., 72 ÷ 8 à 8 × [?] = 72). Mediation of division by multiplication occurs mainly on larger problems. Eye tracking data was used to determine whether patterns of gaze durations on division problems provided support for mediation. Adults solved division problems in two formats: traditional (e.g.,...

Drawing on the emerging perspective of IT-enabled organizational capability, we suggest that operational agility and strategic flexibility in tandem with IT competency have a significant effect on firm performance in fast-cycle industries. We identify specific IT competencies and present a model that describes operational agility and strategic flexibility as mediating variables in the relations...

Mediation analysis has become a very popular approach in psychology, and it is one that is associated with multiple perspectives that are often at odds, often implicitly. Explicitly discussing these perspectives and their motivations, advantages, and disadvantages can help to provide clarity to conversations and research regarding the use and refinement of mediation models. We discuss five such...

Hypotheses involving mediation are common in the behavioral sciences. Mediation exists when a predictor affects a dependent variable indirectly through at least one intervening variable, or mediator. Methods to assess mediation involving multiple simultaneous mediators have received little attention in the methodological literature despite a clear need. We provide an overview of simple and mult...

While mediation efforts in violent conflicts often fail, the academic literature on mediation has long ignored both this phenomenon and its consequences. This paper aims to fill this significant knowledge gap by examining the conditions under which the failure of media‐ tion leads to an escalation of civil war. Based on the literature on bargaining, we argue that the degree of negotiability of ...

The purpose of Steps 1-3 is to establish that zero-order relationships among the variables exist. If one or more of these relationships are nonsignificant, researchers usually conclude that mediation is not possible or likely (although this is not always true; see MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz, 2007). Assuming there are significant relationships from Steps 1 through 3, one proceeds to Step 4. I...