Teaching financial literacy: a survey of community‐based educators

A nationwide online survey of financial educators in adult community‐based financial education programmes in the US was conducted to examine teaching beliefs, related curriculum and teaching strategies used to reach underserved populations. A transformative learning theoretical framework was used to discover how financial education engages learners in relation to their own lives. Survey findings indicate in community‐based settings financial educators are largely White, female, college educated and with multiple years of experience; believe their role is to provide expert information to help learners make informed financial choices; and often adapt published materials to reflect the life circumstances of learners. Learners are more racially diverse than educators, most having attended high school, who identify their own financial need to attend the programmes. Programmes do not often target specific groups, are frequently free and can take place in a variety of face‐to‐face settings. Implications indicate best practices for financial educators require inclusive, culturally responsive pedagogies.     

The effectiveness and efficiency of corporate insolvency law—part two

Little empirical research has been done in the Netherlands (or internationally) into the effect of corporate insolvency proceedings. The Dutch legislature has made several attempts in the past decades to revise the current Dutch Bankruptcy Act (Faillissementswet) of 1893, while almost nothing is known about the effectiveness and efficiency of the Dutch corporate insolvency law. I have studied the effectiveness of the current Dutch insolvency law and of European Directive 2001/23/EC which is incorporated in this law, on the basis of theoretical and large‐scale empirical research. The study concerned all 4167 of the corporate insolvencies that ended in 2004. In the first part of this Article (International Insolvency Review, Volume 17, 3, Winter 2008, pp. 189–209), the research results showed that the Dutch Bankruptcy Act achieved the goals set on it only to a limited degree and that the informal restructuring procedure is of great social importance. In this second part, I concentrate on the conditions imposed by European Directive 2001/23/EC on the European national legislatures to protect employees' rights: automatic transfer of employment contracts in the event of transfers as part of insolvency proceedings, together with measures to prevent misuse of insolvency proceedings in such a way as to deprive employees of the rights provided for in this European Directive. The study shows that, in the Netherlands, not applying automatic transfer of employment contracts when an undertaking or business is transferred as part of an insolvency proceeding does not result in large‐scale misuse of insolvency law. It appears that automatic transfer of employment contracts outside insolvency proceedings can actually impede the informal restructuring of financially unsound companies. These surprising results are interesting for corporate insolvency proceedings worldwide. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Marketers’ use of alternative front-of-package nutrition symbols: An examination of effects on product evaluations

How front-of-package (FOP) nutrition icon systems affect product evaluations for more and less healthful objective nutrition profiles is a critical question facing food marketers, consumers, and the public health community. We propose a conceptually-based hierarchical continuum to guide predictions regarding the effectiveness of several FOP systems currently used in the marketplace. In Studies 1a and 1b, we compare the effects of a broad set of FOP icons on nutrition evaluations linked to health, accuracy of evaluations, and purchase intentions for a single product. Based on these findings, Studies 2 and 3 test the effects of two conceptually-different FOP icon systems in a retail laboratory in which consumers make comparative evaluations of multiple products at the retail shelf. While there are favorable effects of each system beyond control conditions with no FOP icons, results show that icons with an evaluative component that aid consumers’ interpretations generally provide greater benefits (particularly in product comparison contexts). We offer implications for consumer packaged goods marketers, retailers, and the public policy and consumer health communities.     

The relationship between trainers’ media‐didactical competence and media‐didactical self‐efficacy,attitudes and use of digital media in training

The ongoing digitalization in the training sector produces new demands on the media‐didactical competence of trainers. We conducted an online survey of 279 trainers in Germany to investigate the relationships among media‐didactical competence, media‐didactical self‐efficacy, attitudes toward the use of digital media and the actual use of digital media in training. Furthermore, we compared trainers who attended a course on digital media with trainers who did not attend such a course. The analysis of the theoretically expected correlations between the variables resulted in not all hypotheses being accepted. The analysis of the group differences showed that the trainers who attended a course on digital media had higher media‐didactical competence and media‐didactical self‐efficacy scores and used digital media more often in training. There was no significant difference in negative attitudes. The implications for the promotion of the media‐didactical competence of trainers are discussed.     

Domestic spaces and beyond: Consumer food waste in the context of shopping and storing routines

To significantly reduce the volumes of food currently wasted in industrialized countries, tackling food waste on the household level is paramount. While awareness campaigns and economic incentives are important measures, it is crucial to look beyond individual decision making and scrutinize how contextual factors frame consumer lifestyles in ways that intensify the issue of food going to waste. This paper addresses the role of material contexts—in particular, infrastructures and technologies—in the shaping of food shopping and storing practices and thus consumer food waste. It presents an in‐depth, qualitative study with 24 Austrian households, conducted from November 2016 to February 2017. Data were collected through food waste diaries, semi‐structured interviews and a total of 16 focus group discussions. In line with other studies, we find that food waste is a largely unintended outcome of entangled daily routines revolving around food, such as meal planning, grocery shopping and food storing. The characteristics of food retail infrastructures—in terms of accessibility, density and type—shape these routines and thus potentially influence excess food purchases. Food storing practices as well depend on the characteristics of domestic infrastructures and co‐evolve with technologies used for storing food. Unraveling the interconnectivity between material contexts and household food practices can inform policy, product design and food retail development and thus has implications for reducing consumer food waste.     

An agglomeration payment for cost-effective biodiversity conservation in spatially structured landscapes

Connected habitats are ecologically more valuable than isolated habitats for many species. A key challenge when designing payments for biodiversity in fragmented landscapes is to increase the spatial connectivity of habitats. Based on the idea of an agglomeration bonus we consider a scheme in which land-owners only receive payments if habitats are arranged in an ecologically favourable configuration. We compare the cost-effectiveness of agglomeration payments to spatially homogeneous payments on a conceptual level. Our results suggest that positive efficiency gains exist for agglomeration payments. We use Large Blue butterfly habitat in Germany as a specific case study, and find the agglomeration payments may lead to cost-savings of nearly 70% relative to homogenous payments.     

The Politics of Socio-technical Intervention: An Interactionist View

In this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism - a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology - to investigate the social and political processes involved in a sociotechnical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements of intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping of work and technology. Such an understanding is necessary if the fields of user participation and sociotechnical design are to move beyond the production of normative discourses and methods into effective interventions in the complex social environments in which technical decisions are made.     

Information Asymmetry Determinants of Sarbanes-Oxley Wealth Effects

We investigate the roles of information asymmetry and governance in the wealth effects associated with passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) for a sample of 1,158 firms. For events suggesting adoption of stringent reform legislation, we find more (less) favorable abnormal returns (ARs) for firms with high (low) information asymmetry and for firms with weak (strong) governance. More favorable effects could result from expected improvements for firms with high information asymmetry or weak governance. Firms with positive ARs experience information asymmetry reductions post-SOX, indicating the market was able to discern the firms that would most benefit from the legislation's passage.