Alternative Work Arrangements and Job Satisfaction

The pressures of traditional jobs on working families, along with an aging population facing financial need, have contributed to heightened interest in the percentage of workers participating in alternative work arrangements. These include working as an independent contractor or self-employed, and those employed by others on-call, through temp agency, or as contractors. Examining job satisfaction across work arrangements by occupation and gender is one way to investigate a potential increase in the supply of such workers. Higher job satisfaction may indicate that more workers will select into these work arrangements and away from traditional jobs in the future. If this is particularly true for women, it has important implications for firms that would like to retain more women. Moreover, changes in how individuals earn a living may impact the social safety nets of such workers and their families given the nature of how such benefits are provided in the U.S. economy. This study utilizes recent waves of the General Social Survey to explore job satisfaction for workers in disaggregated alternative work arrangements, while controlling for both occupation and gender. The study finds that female workers who are independent contractors and self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than those in regular salaried jobs, even those in nonprofessional occupations. Job satisfaction for those who work in temp agencies, do on-call work or work for contractors is no different than for those in regular jobs, regardless of occupation and gender.

     

A conceptual model of consumer evaluation of recreation service quality

The paper develops a model which is intended to explain the process by which a consumer evaluates recreation service quality. Much of the difficulty in measuring the quality of recreation services can be attributed to their intangibility, heterogeneity, and the inseparability of their production and consumption functions. Dimensions of recreation services are operationalized in the article, and the criteria used by consumers for evaluating recreation service quality are discussed. Recreation service quality is defined as the outcome of a comparison between expectations of a service and what is perceived to be received. Since much of the reported work in the area of service quality has been undertaken in a commercial context, key differences in the public and commercial sectors which may impact consumers' expectations of recreation services are discussed and integrated into the model.     

A revised paradigm of leisure choices

A theory‐based model distinguishing three kinds of leisure from required nonwork activity has been examined through research on adult leisure in three communities. In the research sequence, the defining dimension of relative freedom and constraint is found central to the perceptions of respondents, but the work‐relation dimension does not significantly differentiate types of leisure. The model is revised to replace work‐relation with meaning to the participant that is either intrinsic to doing the activity or primarily social. Further, anticipated satisfactions in building and maintaining relationships are found more salient in leisure choices than in meeting role expectations. The revised typology is employed to classify activities from the New Town phase of the research as (1) unconditional, (2) recuperative, (3) relational, and (4) role‐determined.     

How low spending control harms consumers

Self-control is a critical aspect of consumer behavior that has wide-ranging implications for individual and societal welfare. The present research builds upon previous work regarding consumer spending self-control by examining the financial, decision making, social, and psychological consequences of low consumer spending self-control. Further, the relationship between consumer spending self-control and general self-control is explored, contributing to a greater understanding of how more general traits translate into spending-related outcomes. This research includes investigations of allocations to retirement accounts, responses to credit limits, resource depletion effects from repeated decision making, and the potential for broader negative social and psychological consequences from low consumer spending self-control.     

Labour-management partnership in the non-union retail sector

Analysts and policy advocates have argued that a meaningful labour-management partnership can be established in the absence of trade unions. In this paper we have examined employee outcomes of partnership in a medium-sized non-union retail firm, regarded as one of the ‘best practice’ cases of non-union partnership by the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) of the UK. We have also compared the employee outcomes from our case study firm with those from a representative sample of retail sector workers from unionized and non-union retail firms in the UK. Findings indicate that compared to employees in other retail-sector firms, workers in the ‘best practice’ partnership firm were significantly disadvantaged with respect to their influence over workplace and policy decisions with little evidence of ‘mutual gains’ as claimed by partnership advocates.     

INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE AGREEMENTS UNDER INDUCED TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

We examine the impact of technological change on the stability of climate coalitions and explore how international cooperation on abatement affects the incentives of signatories to invest in R&D to reduce emissions. We compare the case of no technological change with exogenous technological change and induced technological change. In the latter case R&D investments are endogenous. We find that the highest equilibrium pay‐offs are achieved in the case of induced technological change. Furthermore, the formation of a climate coalition boosts R&D investments in carbon abatement technologies in signatory countries.     

Exploring Fijian's sense of place after exposure to tourism development

Tourism, Fiji's largest foreign exchange earner, is growing rapidly. Remote and less developed villages in Fiji's Yasawa archipelago are experiencing some of the greatest tourism growth and impacts on residents' sense of place. This paper uses photo elicitation to address the meanings that residents attach to their “place” (i.e. villages). Photo elicitation provides residents with a “visual voice” and gives researchers insights into the social or cultural characteristics of the village believed to be integral to sustainability. The results indicated that residents value the Fijian village and way of life, the culture and history associated with traditions, and also new technology and its impact on daily life. They also spoke of the importance of protecting the physical environment as central to the continued maintenance of their traditions and lifestyle as well as tourism. These findings would not have been apparent had traditional methods been used to capture the meanings of sense of place. They lend support for the notion that sense of place is multidimensional, and make evident factors that must be considered by planners and marketers in the development of sustainable products and services.     

THE ROOTS OF MODERN ‘SOCIAL COST OF GAMBLING’ ESTIMATES

We discuss some critical issues in social cost of gambling methodologies which suggest that many social cost estimates are arbitrary. Rather than using monetary estimates of costs and benefits, we argue policy‐makers should focus on fundamental issues: consumer sovereignty, property rights and the role of government in free societies.     

UNDERPRICING OF IPOS THAT FOLLOW PRIVATE PLACEMENT

In this study we examine the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) by firms that have private placements of equity before their IPOs (PP IPO firms). We find that PP IPOs are associated with significantly less underpricing than their peers. Furthermore, PP IPOs are associated with lower underwriting spreads, more reputable underwriting syndicates, and greater postissue analyst coverage as compared to IPOs that are issued by their industry peers under similar market conditions. Consistent with the implications of the information asymmetry explanation for IPO underpricing, our findings suggest that companies could benefit by conveying their quality via successful pre‐IPO private placements that help reduce the cost of going public.     

The Ethics of Credit Rating Agencies: What Happened and the Way Forward

During the short span of a few months in 2008, 14 trillion dollars of highly rated bonds fell into junk status, surprising the global financial system and accelerating an economic decline. The result was the worst fracture of the US financial system since the Great Depression. Credit rating agencies (CRAs) in particular have come under intense scrutiny as a result of this latest disaster, both domestically and internationally, including many congressional inquiries and government investigations. Most of the public and scholarly discussions about CRAs focus on reforming the financial system so that the crisis of the magnitude of the 2008 disaster will not happen again. An important overtone of industry criticisms includes a sense of ethical impropriety on the part of CRAs and ethical uncertainty about the institutional mechanisms that are currently in place. Rarely, however, are the ethics of the industry the explicit subject of analysis. In this article, we discuss the lessons from the policy debates and recent legislation to develop an account of the ethics of the CRA industry.