1. INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT: THE POWER OF PREDICTION: Comment.
- Author
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Ashenfelter, Orley and Peirce, William S.
- Subjects
INDUSTRIES ,CONFLICT management ,FORECASTING ,PROPHECY ,BEHAVIOR ,COLLEGE teachers ,SOCIOLOGY - Abstract
Professor Robert Dubin has asserted that his prediction of stability in industrial conflict has been realized and that the success of his prediction attests to the usefulness of two sociological laws alleged to underlie it. The laws to which Dubin refers appear to be the following. First, as time passes during which groups of people practice specified forms of behavior, institutions develop which tend to stabilize that behavior. Second, as such institutionalization occurs, individuals and groups acquire an interest in perpetuating the stabilized systems of behavior. The general prediction for industrial conflict is: measured by the length and intensity of strikes it will show relative stability in the next several decades. Dubin's operational definition of stability in industrial conflict is identical to the statement that a regression of his five measures of conflict on time for that period will produce coefficients on the time variable which are insignificantly different from zero. By Dubin's own criterion, however, such a prediction could be of value only if a naive predictor would not have given the same information. Unfortunately, the naive predictor used by Dubin also suggests stability in industrial conflict.
- Published
- 1966
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