Institutional Pressures and an Evolving Forest Carbon Market

It is estimated that 87 million acres of forestland in the United States (US) is managed by private industrial forestland owners (nearly 14% of the forestland nationwide). Private industrial forestland owners include forest product companies, Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Current regulatory and voluntary carbon markets, as well as proposed national emission reduction legislation, in the US make provisions for substantial carbon offsets from domestic forestry projects. This research employs the theory of planned behavior by means of an online questionnaire in order to survey large industrial forestland owners (>30 000 acres) regarding intentions to manage forestland for carbon sequestration and trading. Quantitative results suggest that very few organizations (18%) were managing forestland for carbon values. Attitudes towards carbon sequestration and trading were significantly influenced by the managers' beliefs that emission reduction legislation would become law and that US forest carbon offsets can be used as a legitimate climate change mitigation tool. Qualitative results revealed that most organizations are taking a passive approach to carbon sequestration and trading until a suitable regulatory framework emerges and carbon prices provide the conditions for a sound investment. The researchers suggest that, given the size and scope of the climate change phenomenon as well as the multifaceted and unified mitigation strategy required to address it, the development of functional carbon markets will be an iterative process and may require a global carbon framework that reflects the globalized nature of the forest economy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Successful programs wanted: Exploring the impact of alignment

Alignment between formulation and implementation of business strategy can be important for achieving successful programs. The authors have explored the development of a program management alignment theory. Statistical testing showed that interaction between the study model variables was found to be multidimensional, complex, and subtle in influence. Thus, the authors conclude that programs have both deliberate and emergent strategies requiring design and management to be organized as complex adaptive systems. Program life‐cycle phases of design and transition were often formed from an unclear and confusing strategic picture at the outset, which can make those phases difficult to control. Learning was established as an underlying challenge. The study model demonstrated continuous alignment as an essential attribute contributing toward successful delivery. This requires program design and structure to adopt an adaptive posture.     

Writing the differences: Poststructural ist pluralism,retextualization, and the construction of reflexive ethnographic narratives in consumption and market research

Representing social realities in a narrative form is central to the interpretive processes by which market‐oriented ethnographies are constructed. In recent years, the process of textualization has shifted from a taken‐for‐granted aspect of the ethnographic enterprise to a central focus of ethnographers’ reflexive considerations. This shift reflects the realization that textualization poses dilemmas of representation that can not be resolved through additional fieldwork or other methodological procedures. This paper addresses these workbench problems by devising an alternative narrative formretextualization‐based on a poststructuralist version of critical pluralistic analysis. We first discuss how non‐realist genres of ethnographic writing have emerged in response to a heightened sensitivity toward ideological positions embedded in research narratives. We then discuss how the use of retextualization can facilitate the development of reflexivity in consumption research by destabilizing the representational authority of the ethnographic text through expressions of divergence, dissensus, and contested interpretations.     

Robust Stability of Monetary Policy Rules under Adaptive Learning

Recent research has explored how minor changes in expectation formation can change the stability properties of a model ( 2007 ; 2009 ). This article builds on this research by examining an economy subject to a variety of monetary policy rules under an endogenous learning algorithm proposed by 2003 . The results indicate that operational versions of optimal discretionary rules are not robustly stable, as in 2009 . In addition, commitment rules are not robust to minor changes in expectational structure and parameter values.     

Differences in the Cost of Mortgage Credit Implications for Discrimination

This paper estimates the mortgage interest rate differences paid by Asian, Hispanic, and African–American borrowers to a national home mortgage lender in the years 1988–1989. Controlling for differences in market rates, rate lock protection, and borrower risk factors, conventional loan interest rates are almost perfectly race-neutral. The single deviation from race-neutrality is that when interest rates fall during the borrower's rate-lock period, only African–American borrowers are unable to capture a share of this decline. Government (FHA and VA) credit models show small premia paid by African–American borrowers of about $1.80 per month on average. In government lending, Hispanic borrowers alone are unable to capture rate declines occurring during the borrower's rate-lock period.     

Boardroom centrality and firm performance

Firms with central boards of directors earn superior risk-adjusted stock returns. A long (short) position in the most (least) central firms earns average annual returns of 4.68%. Firms with central boards also experience higher future return-on-assets growth and more positive analyst forecast errors. Return prediction, return-on-assets growth, and analyst errors are concentrated among high growth opportunity firms or firms confronting adverse circumstances, consistent with boardroom connections mattering most for firms standing to benefit most from information and resources exchanged through boardroom networks. Overall, our results suggest that director networks provide economic benefits that are not immediately reflected in stock prices.     

The relationship of perception of time and attributes of leisure in daily experiences

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between perceived passage of time (slowly versus quickly) and perceived freedom, enjoyment, interest and subjective meaning of leisure in daily experiences of married couples. Eleven college-age married couples participated in this study. Data were collected using experience sampling method that produced a total of 650 self-reports. Couples were signalled at random five times a day for one week. Using logistic regression results suggest that some leisure attributes are more relevant in influencing perception of passage of time in husbands' and wives' daily experiences.     

Trust and corruption revisited: how and why trust and corruption shape each other

Graeff and Svendsen argue that low trust leads to corruption but corruption does not lower trust. I challenge this argument as well as their critique of Uslaner. I present evidence to show that there is a reciprocal relationship between trust and corruption.     

Heterogeneity effects from market interventions

The aim of this paper is to test whether the European Commission activities generate a heterogeneity effect on the merging parties. A sample of 74 firms involved in 45 contested merger and acquisition operations during the years 1990 to 1999 is used. The methodology is based on the GARCH framework. The main result is that, globally, the DGC interventions seem not to reduce significantly the heterogeneity among investors, except for the operations where it takes strong decisions like prohibition. In these last cases, the signal coming from the DGC encompasses valuable information and is well understood by market participants.     

Organizational culture evolution in temporary organizations: The case of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games

We examine organizational culture evolution within a temporary organization, specifically the 2010 Olympic Winter Games organizing committee, by exploring aspects of the work environment. Analysis of organizational artifacts, ethnographic field‐notes, and member‐checking demonstrated that liminal spaces facilitated socialization and cultural crystallization, which in turn assisted members' performance. Organizational structure, socialization, and cultural evolution were parallel processes that impacted each other. The concept of time (i.e., velocity) had a direct influence on subculture crystallization. The paper further integrates stakeholder/client interactions and draws on the role of leadership and cultural infusion mechanisms to demonstrate how culture evolves in temporary organizations. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.