Have community banks reduced home foreclosure rates?

Compared with mortgage brokers and universal banks, community banks have stronger incentives to originate high-quality residential home loans. Using the RealtyTrac database on residential foreclosures between 2005 and 2008, we show that county-level foreclosure rates are lower in counties with greater community bank presence. This finding is robust to a host of county-level economic and demographic control variables and after controlling for possible endogeneity of community bank presence.     

How ‘exact’ are exact measures of welfare loss?

This paper examines the sensitivity of exact measures of welfare loss to changes in the assumed form of the underlying utility function.     

Irish women accountants and career progression: a research note

This article presents the findings of research into the career progression of Irish Chartered Accountants which compares the career progress of men and women and examines the obstacles to progression encountered by women. The research indicates that women face obstacles that are not encountered by their male counterparts and that career progression is frequently made at substantial cost to their personal lives.     

Taking action to close the nursing-finance gap: learning from success

Nurse leaders control the largest part of a hospital labor budget, in some cases the largest part of the overall budget. The effectiveness of overseeing this responsibility can mean the difference between an organization's financial stability and financial turmoil. The nursing department at Northwestern Memorial Hospital took ownership of its financial performance. Over the past 2 years, their financial performance saved $4.9 million in productivity while reducing nurses turnover costs by $7.6 million. Valuable lessons from their experience are offered for improving health care's financial and operational outlook.     

Mid-level Managers,Organizational Context,and (Un)ethical Encounters

This article details day-to-day ethics issues facing MBAs who occupy entry-level and mid-level management positions and offers defined examples of the stressors these managers face. The study includes lower-level managers, essentially excluded from extant literature, and focuses on workplace behaviors both undertaken and observed. Results indicate that pressures from internal organization sources, and ambiguity in letter versus spirit of rules, account for over a third of the most frequent unethical situations encountered, and that most managers did not expect to face those issues. Various contextual factors accounted for 32% of the organizational factors that affected decisions. We discuss implications for the workplace, especially the unique ethics challenges for newer managers.     

The challenge of 1992 Europe

Conclusion When the single market of Europe 1992 is in place, the EC will rank next to the U. S. in purchasing power and will represent one of the two largest markets in the world. With the realization of the proposed monetary union, the parallel will become even more striking.Economies of scale and scope will result from: decreased border controls; unified technical standards; reduced distribution and marketing costs; and standardized rules and regulations in the manufacturing and financial sectors. Firms will face many challenges and opportunities in this new market structure. Companies must realize that changes are not limited to just the economic environment but are also taking place in the political, legal, and social environments.The European business environment is experiencing an exciting time of change. Businesses must take advantage of the opportunities presented by a diverse and complex single European market, not only in the economic sense but also in a more complex socio-political one. It is indeed an exciting time of change.     

Mobile Applications: Situating Leadership Education

Florida State University has recently introduced the LEAD (Lead, Engage, Apply, Develop) Mobile Application for undergraduate students. The innovative platform has situated potential building of leadership capacity directly into the hands of students. Individual modules are available in the mobile application and designed to introduce leadership concepts, activities for users to practice applying these theories to their own reality, and reflection for students to make meaning from the theories learned and their application. The current article explores the application's innovative features, lessons learned from the development, and implications for leadership educators and learners.