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Survey says

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 24, 2006

A LOOK AT BIZ TOPICS ON AMERICANS' MINDS

Drinkers tap into better salaries

If you're looking to make more money at your job, have a cocktail. A study by the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank, found that drinkers take home more money than those who avoid libations:

- Female drinkers earn 14 percent more than nondrinkers, while male drinkers make 10 percent more than abstainers.

- Social male drinkers - those who visit a bar at least once a month - bring home an additional 7 percent in pay on top of the 10 percent premium.

- Women who go to bars at least once a month showed no difference in earnings than women who didn't.

"Social drinkers are out networking, building relationships and adding contacts to their BlackBerries that result in bigger paychecks," said Edward Stringham, an economist at the foundation.

Press a button and out comes junk

Having trouble sticking to your diet while at work? You're not alone. Most employees must contend with vending machines, says a study by the Marlin Co., a workplace communications firm:

- Nearly three-quarters of workers said cakes, cookies or candies are sometimes, if not always, served for special occasions like birthdays and holidays.

- Sixty-three percent reported that the office vending machines contained mostly junk food.

- More than half of workers reported that their company encourages a healthy lifestyle by offering information or resources on healthy living.

"It's a shame that while companies are finally getting the message out to the work force about maintaining healthy lifestyles, their employees are often being tempted to snack on junk food," said Frank Kenna III, president of the Marlin Co. "Why aren't companies backing up their positive behavior messages with healthy snacks?"

MBA students have mastered cheating

When it comes to cheating in graduate school, a survey of 5,331 students at 32 U.S. graduate schools finds that MBA students are the champs.

- Fifty-six percent of graduate business students admitted they had cheated at least once in the last year, compared with 47 percent of nonbusiness students.

- Business students were more likely than students in different fields to work with others on written assignments when they had been told explicitly to work alone, and to use "cut and paste plagiarism," or snippets of uncited information from the Internet.

"People tend to do what they think other people are doing," said Linda Klebe Trevino, one of the researchers and a professor of organizational behavior at Penn State's Smeal College of Business.

[Last modified September 23, 2006, 21:00:33]