Matching using semiparametric propensity scores

This paper considers the application of semiparametric methods to estimate propensity scores or probabilities of program participation, which are central to certain program evaluation methods. To evaluate the practical benefits, we first conduct a Monte Carlo study. Second, we use data from the NSW experiment, CPS, and PSID. We compare treatment effect and evaluation bias estimates using propensity scores estimated from parametric logit, semiparametric single index, and semiparametric binary quantile regression models. Our results suggest that it is important to account for very general forms of heterogeneity in (semiparametric) estimation of the propensity score, particularly when the treatment effects vary in an unsystematic manner with the true propensity score.     

The auditor’s strategy selection for negotiation with management: Flexibility of initial accounting position and nature of the relationship

The audit partner is usually the first mover in a negotiation with client management and has an intended strategy set going into such a negotiation. Negotiation strategies that make up the set may be integrative (both parties can gain or at least not lose) and distributive (there is a winner and a loser). We focus on five strategies: two integrative (expanding the agenda or problem solving) and three distributive (contending, conceding or compromising) and measure the audit partner’s intent to use these strategies’ associated tactics. We report the results of an audit negotiation experiment in which 140 highly experienced audit partners planned a negotiation in response to a case scenario that incorporated two key theoretical variables: the flexibility of the client initial accounting position and the nature of the prior relationship between the auditor and client management. In addition to intended tactics, we also examine these two variables’ effects on commitment to the goal of reducing net income. Our results indicate that in contrast to findings in the generic negotiation literature that show negotiators have a preference for distributive tactics and have difficulty employing integrative ones, our audit partners generally favored the use of integrative tactics over distributive ones when entering negotiations, irrespective of circumstance. However, the two theorized variables led to particular strategic choices when distributive tactics were intended; for example, when the audit partner perceived he or she was facing a client management that was inflexible in its initial accounting position, the partner was more likely to use contending tactics and less likely to use conceding and compromising tactics. Finally, we discuss implications of these results for practice and research.     

那捉摸不定的感觉

当你将手机调成振动状态或者用一个振动手柄玩赛车视频游戏，你正在享用触觉科技。人的身体可以感知多种不同的感觉并发生错觉，如果把感觉集于一隅，它会变得很有趣。     

An integrative model of e-learning use: Leveraging theory to understand and increase usage

Employees are increasingly using technology to access content for learning, and theory development has been outpaced by practice. Drawing on a well validated theory of behavior change (the Transtheoretical Model of Change), as well as theories on technology acceptance and employee development, this paper offers an integrative model of factors that influence employee use of e-learning as well as practical recommendations for how use might be increased. Recommendations for future research on e-learning are also offered.     

Housing tenure choice and the dual income household

Housing tenure choice has been the subject of a very large literature. Many treatments have sought to estimate the effect of household income on the likelihood of home ownership. To date, no study has ever disaggregated the household income of married couples into the separate labor income components to see if one partner’s income has a different effect than the other. Using a derived likelihood function to control for censoring in the wife’s income, this paper estimates the effect of separate incomes on housing tenure choice, accounting for possible endogeneity of the wife’s income. To compare the results of this estimation method, the paper also estimates the standard IV models, 2SLS and IV probit. While the results show that there is no endogeneity of the wife’s income, ignoring the censoring of the endogenous variable (when a large fraction of observations are censored) can possibly lead to biased coefficient estimates. Also, this paper confirms the importance of total household income, which has a larger effect than the total disaggregated components.     

Role of the Internet Site in the Promotion Management of Sports Teams and Franchise Brands

This study examines the role that a website plays in the development of fan allegiance and as a promotion management tool for a sports team and brand. Research indicates that the combination of sports, media (television in particular), and sponsorships when employed in an integrated manner, can develop consumer connection to brands. This study suggests that the Internet is also an important part of an integration strategy of sports, media, and promotion. By working with a new team in the AIFA indoor football league, the researchers were able to determine what helped make fans allegiant to the team before the franchise's inaugural game. The results show that even before the team played its inaugural home contest, fans had become allegiant to the franchise brand and team by using the team internet site. These results indicate that an internet site can serve as a strong promotional tool in an integrated marketing plan of sports, media, and promotion to move fans toward brand loyalty and toward primary goals of the firm, including increased sales.     

Going to the movies: cinema development in Singapore

Using readings of Foucault's heterotropia and Friedberg's imaginary mobility, this paper analyses movie-going as leisure practice. In highlighting the paucity of research in this area, the paper argues that such practice should be understood as a symbolic interaction between people's behaviour and the spaces that they occupy. This theorization is applied to Singapore, where per capita movie-going is amongst the highest in the world. The paper illustrates how, in Singapore, the development of cinemas has been used to underpin land use policies associated with the relocation of residential areas and social policies related to the growth in consumerism. While effectively alienating older audiences, the paper argues that the spatial and cultural metonymy of the cinema with other primary consumption sites – the mall and the fast food outlet – offers young people reassurance about the growing centrality of consumerism to contemporary social life in Singapore. We argue that the cinema offers a temporary escape from the regulation of social life – access to ‘deviant’ space. However, this same consumerism that facilitates such access simultaneously denotes conformity with the dominant ideology: acceptance of the heterotropic possibilities – and limitations – of cinema and movie-going as leisure practice.