Graphic Geopolitics: An Interview with Comics Artist Joe Sacco

Joe Sacco is best known for works that blend journalism with the format and structure of comic books. Sacco’s prior work has considered themes of political conflict, legacies of violence, and marginalization across a range of geographic contexts, including Bosnia, the Middle East, and the United States. This interview, conducted by the authors with Joe Sacco on 16 November 2015, explores these and other themes in an attempt to situate the positionality and choices of the creator of geopolitical narratives in the broader literature on critical geopolitics. We consider the themes of subject, representation, audience response, and stylistic influences, among others, in our conversation.     

Waves and Determinants in Mergers and Acquisitions: The Case of Latin America

This article contributes to the current literature on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by identifying the existence of waves and the determinants of M&A activity in the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. From a sample of 2,391 M&A announcements reported by Thomson One on these countries, applying the methodology proposed by Harford (2005), evidence of M&A waves is found for the periods 1995–2002 and 2003–2010, as reported for other regions in various international studies. After controlling for economic and business environment variables, as well as for profitability and book-to-market variables at the industry level, we find evidence that supports neoclassical theory as a main explanation for M&A activity but not for the misvaluation effect.     

The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self‐efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.     

NOUVEL ESSOR DES FONDATIONS AU QUÉBEC ET AU CANADA: POUR UNE ANALYSE SOCIOPOLITIQUE FONDÉE SUR LE CONCEPT D'ÉCONOMIE PLURIELLE

Philanthropic foundations are the object of little research in Canada and Quebec. Our article recognizes the role of these organizations, as well as the presence of powerful new foundations, rich in assets and donations. This article consists of three parts. The first part presents a theoretical review of the American literature published from 2000 on. The second part examines data that we extracted from three main repertoires. Though informative, these repertoires tend to classify Canadian and Quebec foundations in categories that are mostly fiscal and legal and tend to break them down as public or private foundations. We therefore question the limits of studies based on such categories. In the third part of the article we propose a theoretical framework based on a sociopolitical point of view in an attempt to transcend the binary approach. Our approach borrows from the concepts of social and solidarity economy (SSE) and plural economy in order to better understand the new institutional arrangements in which foundations operate. This theoretical framework allows us to analyse foundations as actors of the SSE even though they might not reproduce automatically the principles and the values of the SSE in their behaviours. On the contrary, from the standpoint of a plural economy we may be in a better position to develop a sound sociopolitical analysis of diverse configurations and hybrid forms resulting from emulations or transactions between the principles of the social and solidarity economy (reciprocity), the private economy (competition) and the public economy (redistribution).     

The role of calculative attachment in the relationship between diversity climate and retention

This study enhances our understanding of the complex relationship between diversity and employee retention. The study found that positive perceptions of an organization's “diversity climate” were related to decreased turnover intentions and found support for the proposition that calculative attachment mediated this relationship. In addition, the study considered potential interactions with diversity climate perceptions in predicting calculative attachment and found support for satisfaction with pay as a moderator, but not supervisor effectiveness. Finally, the study determined that the benefits of a positive diversity climate may extend to all employees, including White men. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Students' persistent preconceptions and learning economic principles

Economic views held by the general public tend to differ significantly from those of economic experts. Would these differences fade away if people were exposed to some economic instruction? In this article, the authors identify college students' preconceptions about economic issues at the beginning of the semester, verify their persistence throughout the semester, and test whether their beliefs are correlated to course performance. The authors conduct a survey at the beginning and end of the semester on a sample of first-year students taking an economic principles course. They find evidence of preconception persistence and reasoning inconsistencies, pointing to some cognitive biases as a plausible cause. Most students do not integrate the newly learned tools into their thinking process, even if they perform well in tests.     

Stock exchange mergers and market efficiency

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of stock exchange mergers on the degree of informational efficiency. For this purpose, we apply the generalized spectral shape test for the martingale difference hypothesis to the stock returns before and after the 31 domestic and cross-border mergers completed from 1997 to 2011. The test is conducted with moving subsample windows, allowing us to detect the periods of (in)efficiency, and thus to conduct a comparative analysis for pre-merger and post-merger periods. We find that higher levels of efficiency are less frequent than lower levels of efficiency after a stock exchange merger. We also find that the impact on the level of efficiency depends on a range of merger characteristics such as the level of development, size, geographical diversification and industrial diversification of stock exchange.     

The Geography of Innovation in China and India

The BRICS countries in general, and China and India in particular, are now widely regarded as the areas of the world likely to challenge the economic leadership of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). A large part of this challenge will come from rapid technological catch‐up by China and India. Yet, despite a recent rise in interest, there is limited knowledge about how and where innovation takes place in these two leading emerging countries and to what extent the Chinese and Indian territorial systems of innovation differ from those in the EU or the US. In this article we explore the geography of innovation in China and India, concentrating on understanding key territorial‐level innovation trends by country, region and technology field, using the US and the EU as benchmarks. We find significant contrasts between the geography of innovation in China and India and that of the US and the EU. First, the degree of concentration of innovative activities in both countries is extremely high. Levels of agglomeration of innovation in the coastal provinces of China, as well as in Delhi and the South of India, significantly exceed the levels of agglomeration found in the USA and the EU. Secondly, China has witnessed a more rapid increase in the degree of concentration of innovation than India. We posit that the differences in the geography of innovation between, on the one hand, China and India and, on the other hand, between these countries and the developed world are rooted in different institutional settings, different systems of innovation and different national innovation strategies.     

An Alternative Approach to the Measurement of Emotional Attachment

Emotional attachment (EA)—the emotional bond connecting an individual with a specific target—has been identified as an important construct within the marketing domain. Despite all the research, there is no consensus on how the construct should be measured. A major factor contributing to this confusion is that current definitions and, consequently, scales of EA focus on describing reactions toward specific referents of attachment rather than on capturing the extent of emotion an individual feels; hence, hindering construct validity. In this article, the authors scrutinized the concept validity of EA. After defining the construct, scale development procedures were followed to propose an alternative one‐dimensional scale that reflects the abstract nature of EA. Three studies support the scale's reliability as well as the discriminant, convergent, criterion, and nomological validity of the measure. The studies tested the scale under different marketing contexts. Moreover, by employing the new measure, the findings showed that EA and self‐concept maintenance (SCM) are related, yet different constructs. Specifically, the results showed that these constructs interact to predict willingness to pay (WTP) for a brand such that when SCM is low, WTP is predicted by EA. However, when self‐concept is high, the effect of EA on WTP is not that strong. This new scale will help researchers extend research on EA to a broader set of contexts, explore the relationship between EA and related constructs, develop nomological networks, and prevent the confounding of terms.