The effects of the service environment on affect and consumer perception of waiting time: An integrative review and research propositions

The management of buyers’ perceptions of waiting time by service businesses may be critical to customer satisfaction. Although reducing actual waiting time is important, what managers view as a short time to wait may feel too long to customers. Relevant literature from architecture, environmental psychology, psychology, physiology, operations management, sociology, and marketing is integrated to build a conceptual model of how the service environment may influence affect and, in turn, waiting time perception. Based on this model, propositions about how specific service environment elements (e.g., lighting, color, temperature) may influence affect and time perception are presented. Finally, a research agenda and implications for service facility design are proposed. She received her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. Her areas of interest include the retail/service environment, internal marketing, and service quality. She has published articles in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, andInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, among others. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington. She formerly was in sales and marketing planning at IBM, where she was involved in bringing numerous products to market.     

Experiencing change and the evolution of adaptive skills: Implications for economic growth

We distinguish learning in a static environment from that in a dynamic environment to show the existence of an important interaction between the development of new technologies and human capital accumulation. Because technological progress creates a more dynamic environment, it complements education in the production of human capital by enhancing adaptive skills. Higher levels of adaptability and human capital in turn determine the profitability of new inventions and the incentive to invest in new R&D. Differences in the history of technological progress produce different levels of adaptability and our results suggest why countries that have comparable levels of education and per capita incomes may differ significantly in their growth performance.     

Employer Penalties for Failure to Provide Individual Employee Notification Under the Family and Medical Leave Act: “Clarifications” Following Ragsdale v. Wolverine Worldwide, Inc.

This article examines the Supreme Court's ruling in Ragsdale v. Wolverine Worldwide, Inc. (2002) and considers its implications for employer and employee rights and responsibilities relative to implementing the FMLA policies. We provide an overview of the pre-decision regulatory environment including the general leave provisions of the FMLA and DOL's regulations requiring employer notification of leave designated as FMLA leave. We also identify those provisions that the decision did not alter and provide a broader consideration of the issues and implication of this decision for employers and employees.     

The Lifetime Distributional Impact of Government Health Outlays

This article examines the lifetime redistributive impact of government health outlays and finds that such outlays redistribute income from the lifetime rich to the lifetime poor and from men to women.     

Minority banks and minority communities: Are minority banks good neighbors?

The lagging development of many minority communities has had an adverse effect on economic growth in the United States. One factor historically associated with creating or exacerbating this minority problem is the unwillingness of banks to service minority communities adequately. The federal government used two initiatives to address banks' reluctance to aid minorities: the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that ended the practice of redlining and required all federally regulated banks to demonstrate that they served the convenience and credit needs of their local communities, particularly minorities, women, and other underserved groups, and the establishment and preservation of minority owned banks that were expected to be more sympathetic to the needs of their communities. This paper evaluates the extent to which minority banks have met the needs of minority communities. The assessment is conducted in the context of the ratings received by minority banks on their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) audits. Through the use of CRA audits, the performance of minority banks is also compared to the performance of the general banking community to determine the validity and success of the government's minority banking initiative. Analysis of CRA audit ratings also compares the performance of minority banks among different ethnicities.     

The Distributional Impact of Selected Commonwealth Outlays and Taxes and Alternative Commonwealth Grant Allocation Mechanisms

This article examines the redistributive impact of Commonwealth outlays and taxes (including outlays directed through and to the States)and two possible alternative systems of distributing Commonwealth funding amongst the States.     

Credible assignments in coordination games

This paper uses the experimental method to examine an arbiter's ability to determine the outcome of two-person coordination games. All of the arbiter's assignments in the experiments were strict equilibrium points, but some assignments violated payoff-dominance or symmetry. An assignment that corresponds to the game's outcome is a credible assignment. The experiments test the hypothesis that an assignment to a strict equilibrium is a credible assignment. Our subjects did not find the individual rationality and mutual consistency of an equilibrium assignment to be sufficient reason for implementing the assignment when doing so conflicts with payoff-dominance or symmetry.     

PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTING IN EMERGING MARKETS

After a proliferation of emerging market funds in the 1990s, growth has slowed drastically due to disappointing preliminary results. Private sector funds initially appeared promising because of the burgeoning demand for capital in emerging markets, the new receptivity of governments to foreign investors, and the prospect of high returns. But in many cases, the regulatory and legal frameworks did not provide adequate investor protection, and dramatic differences in accounting standards, corporate governance, and exit potential created problems. These problems are often accentuated because local owners are adept at navigating the legal and accounting systems, placing investors at a disadvantage.
As global competition intensifies, local policies, regulations, and business practices are becoming increasingly important in attracting investors. Local governments must institute the reforms necessary to improve the investment environment, including the strengthening of shareholder rights and corporate governance standards and improving access to public equity markets. Development finance institutions must provide direction and leadership in these areas. And fund managers must align their business models more closely with emerging market realities by establishing a local presence, adopting a more hands-on approach to monitoring their investments, and developing creative exit strategies.     

Obeying the rules: Accounting for regulatory compliance costs in the United Kingdom

The U.K. Government has embarked on a deregulatory programme aimed at ‘liberating’ business from, inter alia, onerous regulatory compliance costs. In doing so it has developed and utilized an accounting-based technique known as Compliance Cost Assessment (CCA). This paper describes and analyses this technique, and demonstrates that CCA has been used as a perceived rational tool to counter regulatory growth and to privilege certain interests in society.     

领先技术能挽救EDA行业吗?--商业化的半导体设计软件业未雨绸缪

也许从表面上看,EDA(电子设计自动化)领域风平浪静,但其实一些大的改变正在酝酿着.