Explaining Gender Differences in Housework Time in Germany

This study evaluates couples’ time use behaviour with regard to housework in Germany with data from the 2001/2002 and 1991/1992 German Time Use Survey. Despite the fact that women reduced their hours worked within the household context over the past decades, the unequal division of housework between men and women still persists. This study aims both at analysing the determinants of the allocation of time spent on housework, as well as why gender differences in household time use behaviour still exist. With the aid of structural equation modelling, it is shown that the decrease in time spent on housework by women can largely be explained by changes in the effects that wages, household goods consumption and the aspiration for market goods consumption have on time spent on housework. Men’s time allocation behaviour has remained remarkably constant. It is also observed that women’s time allocation behaviour with regard to household work is becoming more similar to that of men.     

Satisfaction with household production: the effect of time spent in household production by husbands and wives

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between the extent of household production and satisfaction with household production. Data were obtained from 400 married couples who responded to a postal questionnaire. The dependent variable was an index of satisfaction incorporating two aspects of household production, quality and quantity. Regression analysis indicated that of the three variables representing the extent of household production in the model — hours spent by each spouse in household production and an activity index to measure the number of household production activities — only husband's hours spent in household production demonstrated a significant, independent effect. Other significant variables included husband's hours of market work, household net worth, age of respondent and gender of respondent. Two significant interactions indicated that (i) the relationship between wife's hours of household production and satisfaction with household production differed according to the gender of the respondent, and (ii) the relationship of husband's hours of market work and satisfaction differed according to the age of the respondent.     

Worktime Demands and Work-Family Interference: Does Worktime Control Buffer the Adverse Effects of High Demands?

This study examined whether worktime control buffered the impact of worktime demands on work–family interference (WFI), using data from 2,377 workers from various sectors of industry in The Netherlands. We distinguished among three types of worktime demands: time spent on work according to one’s contract (contractual hours), the number of hours spent on overtime work (overtime hours), and the number of hours spent on commuting (commuting hours). Regarding worktime control, a distinction was made between having control over days off and vacations (leave control) and having control over starting and finishing times (flextime). These three worktime demands were expected to have separate as well as joint effects on WFI, whereas worktime control should buffer these adverse effects of worktime demands on WFI. Stepwise regression analyses showed that working high numbers of contractual and overtime hours was indeed associated with high WFI. Further, worktime control indeed made a difference in terms of WFI: whereas leave control contributed directly to lower WFI, flextime buffered the adverse effects of long contractual workhours. Our results suggest that very long working days should be prevented, and that worktime control may be a powerful tool to help workers maintaining a good work–family balance.     

Worktime Demands and Work-Family Interference: Does Worktime Control Buffer the Adverse Effects of High Demands?

This study examined whether worktime control buffered the impact of worktime demands on work–family interference (WFI), using data from 2,377 workers from various sectors of industry in The Netherlands. We distinguished among three types of worktime demands: time spent on work according to one’s contract (contractual hours), the number of hours spent on overtime work (overtime hours), and the number of hours spent on commuting (commuting hours). Regarding worktime control, a distinction was made between having control over days off and vacations (leave control) and having control over starting and finishing times (flextime). These three worktime demands were expected to have separate as well as joint effects on WFI, whereas worktime control should buffer these adverse effects of worktime demands on WFI. Stepwise regression analyses showed that working high numbers of contractual and overtime hours was indeed associated with high WFI. Further, worktime control indeed made a difference in terms of WFI: whereas leave control contributed directly to lower WFI, flextime buffered the adverse effects of long contractual workhours. Our results suggest that very long working days should be prevented, and that worktime control may be a powerful tool to help workers maintaining a good work–family balance.     

Rural-urban differentials in children's household production time

This research examined the amount of time rural and urban children spent in household production activities, and several demographic factors related to that time use. Data were obtained from a multi-state family time-use survey, NE-113 ‘Use of Time in Rural and Urban Families’. Home interviews were conducted with 2,100 families in II states. The sample consisted of 1,045 rural children and 1,026 urban children, aged 6–17. The hypothesis, that the differentials in time spent in household production by rural and urban children will be due to assignment of tasks by sex, was confirmed. Boys spent similar amounts of time in housework regardless of place of residence, while rural girls spent more time than urban girls.     

Predicting the Lifetime Durations of Donors to Charities

ABSTRACT

Charitable organisations increasingly attempt to estimate the “lifetime values” of their donors with the intention of segmenting supporters and focusing resources and activities on high lifetime value givers. This paper contributes to the literature on donor lifetime value by presenting the results of an empirical study of the factors that encouraged donors to a certain charity to continue their relationship with the organisation. It emerged that the length of a person's association with the charity was significantly associated with two psychometric traits (involvement with charity giving and “helper's high”), four “exchange” variables (value and frequency of donations, number of charities supported and means of donation), and the strength of a person's inner feelings of enjoyment about being thanked for making a gift. Clear linkages between lifetime duration and the likelihood of an individual naming a charity as a beneficiary of his or her will were identified.     

Developmental antecedents to children’s responses to online advertising

Many critics have raised concerns about online advertising directed to children. This study investigated the role of several antecedent variables that may impact children’s attitudinal and behavioural responses to online advertising. Specifically, online ad scepticism, family communication patterns, time spent on the internet, and perceived internet competency were examined as factors that may impact children’s online advertising attitudes and behaviours. A survey conducted with a dyad sample of 381 parents-preteens in South Korea revealed that children with high scepticism towards online advertising, who spent less time using the internet and who perceived lower levels of confidence about their internet skills were more likely to have a negative attitude towards online advertising and less likely to disclose personal information to online marketers. However, the relationship between family communication and children’s responses to online advertising found in this study was inconsistent with the previous empirical findings. Implications of findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested.     

Barriers to ascension to senior management positions in retailing

Using a case study of retailing, this paper examines the continued under-representation of women in senior management positions. Via a questionnaire survey, it reveals that those factors retail managers (men and women) themselves attribute to the disproportionate number of women in senior positions. The findings revealed that the main factors were associated with women's ‘other’ role: the family. Thus, lack of child care facilities and high family commitments were regarded as especially problematic and the organisation of retailing with its long anti-social hours and lack of flexi-time at managerial levels contributed to these problems. Other factors were also regarded as important including company cultures that uphold patriarchal social systems. The paper demonstrates how women's primary position in the home and domestic domain and men's primary position in the economic domain have shaped the way retail organisations are organised and the roles that men and women are traditionally expected to adopt within them.     

A PRELIMINARY TEST OF A FAMILY MANAGEMENT RESEARCH MODEL

The conceptual frameworks of family management attempt to explain family behaviour with respect to management activities. However, rigorous empirical tests concerning the validity of these frameworks have not yet been conducted due to a number of unresolved research issues such as the measurement of concepts, data collection and research modelling specifications. This paper attempts to perform a preliminary empirical test of a research model based on the conceptual frameworks in family management. Satisfactions with eleven types of family outputs were examined in relation to a family's input conditions and throughput activities. Throughput activities as a group were found to contribute significantly to the family's satisfaction with the cleanliness of the house. Planning activities, decisionmaking styles and time spent in household production were important in explaining satisfaction with many of the outputs studied. The results of this preliminary test of the management research model demonstrate the need to collect better and relevant data and to develop improved measures of the management concepts so that a full and rigorous test of the family management frameworks can be properly performed. Other research issues such as simultaneity and functional form could then be addressed.     

Designing loyalty programs that matter to customers

This study explores a model proposing a customer loyalty program as an identity marketing tool that evokes customer's identity salience (one's perception that a loyalty program membership is important to his/her identity). The results of a Web-based experiment indicate that identity salience is heightened by (1) the uniqueness and exclusiveness of a loyalty program (distinctiveness), and (2) by the fit between the function of the program's rewards and the customer's identity goal (identity congruence). The heightened identity salience, in turn, positively influences the customer's attitude toward the retailer, satisfaction with the loyalty program and the perceived quality of his/her relationship with the retailer.     

Above all,garnish and presentation: An evaluation of Fanny Cradock's contribution to home cooking in Britain

The development of cooking on television, and the associated rise in ‘celebrity chefs’ is often seen as a modern phenomenon involving cooks like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson in Britain. Fanny Cradock (1909–1994) is from time to time credited as a pioneer in television cooking and Britain's ‘first celebrity chef’. However little detail of her career has been documented, despite working as a journalist, radio and television presenter, food demonstrator, writer of fiction, children's books and cookbooks spanning from 1942 until 1986. Cradock was prominent on television between 1955 and 1975, with her final appearance in 1985. Cradock is as often remembered for her colourful character as for the colourful food she presented and her name remains synonymous with elaborate cooking in ball gowns, using copious amounts of food colouring and aspic, and for berating her husband who assisted her on stage, on television, and in print. However, from Cradock's personal archive a far more substantive contribution to home cooking through the development of television cooking and cookbooks, looking at her undocumented ideas and innovations. Additional archive materials and collections of newspaper clippings collected between 1942 and 1982 by Cradock herself shed light on how she was perceived at the time, her role as an entrepreneur and her own ‘brand’ identity. From this documentary evidence, it is argued that Cradock deserves to be much better remembered for her contribution to British food culture.     

Development and Validation of a Simulated Market to Test Children for Selected Consumer Skills

This study investigated use of selected consumer skills by children of two ages. A simulated market was developed and used to determine each participating child's level of consumer competence. It was found that (a) children learn consumer skills by being given opportunities to participate in consumer decision-making and sharing family responsibilities, (b) too little or excessive time spent in market search lessened the chance of obtaining a best buy, and (c) although children can and do learn to be consumers early, some skills depend upon maturation and use of education.     

The bank–firm relationship during economic transition: The impacts on bank performance in emerging economies

We analyze the lending relationships between 1011 banks and 17,284 client borrowers across 11 emerging economies. We first demonstrate that a state-owned bank's risk appetite increases as its number of family business group-owned borrowing partners increases. Second, we show that a non-financial firm-owned bank's risk appetite also increases as its number of family business group-owned borrowing partners increases. Finally, we show that a bank is more likely to reduce its risk appetite and improve its operational cost efficiency as its foreign ownership ratio increases, regardless of the bank's lending partner. These findings suggest that, in the post-privatization period, the ownership structure changes of banks and/or borrowers affect the lending relationship and the bank's risk appetite and cost efficiency.     

Money resources,time demands,and situational factors as predictors of shopping time

Shopping is a major household activity; time spent shopping has opportunity costs. Linder proposed that, as income rose, time would be allocated away from shopping to more productive activities, resulting in purchase deciriom being made with less information. This paper tests money resources, time demands and situational and demographic factors as predictors of shopping time. Data from 420 family time schedules and accompanying questionnaires were analysed using Tobit analysis. Findings indicated that situational factors were the best predictors of shopping time; money resources and time-demand factors had limited predictive power; and time allocated to shopping was quite inelastic. Conclusions and implications are drawn.     

Fathers' participation in infant-care

Ordinary least squares multiple regression was used to model time spent in child-care by 107 fathers of infants, 3–10 months of age. Time in both physical and non-physical care activities was reported by fathers for a weekday. Number of years married, hours employed for pay the previous week, and fathers' stress score in the child domain were negatively related to time spent in infant-care.     

Defining the Relationship among Founding Resources,Strategies, and Performance in Technology-Intensive New Ventures: Evidence from the Semiconductor Silicon Industry*

The degree to which a firm's performance is dependent on its resources and strategies is widely debated in the literature. We examine this issue by analyzing historical data on the entire population of new independent firms started worldwide in the semiconductor silicon industry for the first 50 years of its existence. We measure resources (managerial capabilities and technological competencies) and strategies (emphasis on demand pull or technology push) at the time of founding and test their relationship with each other as well as with multiple measures of performance (lifespan and best year's sales). We find that firms founded on managerial capabilities emphasize demand-pull strategies at founding, whereas firms founded upon technological competencies emphasize technology-push strategies at founding. We also find that firms emphasizing technology-push strategies perform better than firms emphasizing demand-pull strategies. Lastly, we find that though managerial capabilities are related to a firm's best year's sales, this relationship is mediated by the firm's founding strategy.     

The status of gifts in the receiver's life: reasons for the transformation of commercial products into special,common or hated objects

Within the framework of consumer behaviour, products received as gifts are a complex accumulation of values and meanings that continue to change over time, from their origin as primarily commercial products until their disposition. Through a survey of 1088 adults in Ecuador, a Latin American country with a high level of collectivism, this study aimed to determine the predictors of the gift's status in the receiver's life. Results showed that the comparison of the giver's and receiver's resources and ages, the receiver's liking for the product received, being a gift from a first‐time giver, the receiver's satisfaction with the experience and the impact of the gift on the giver–receiver relationship were significant predictors of whether a commercial product received as a gift would become a special, common or hated object for the receiver.     

Getting to No. A Matter of English Ethics or Culture?

When does an English businessman's ‘yes’really mean ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘later’, or perhaps ‘probably not’? And how much of this is unethical stringing along or part of a puzzling English business culture? Why can't they say what they mean? Dr Djursaa is Associate Professor with responsibility for British political and social studies at the Business Language Faculty of Copenhagen Business School, Dalgas Have 15, DK-2000 Copenhagen F, Denmark. She gained her doctorate at the University of Essex and spent a period as visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management. Her major field of research, on which she here reflects, is cultural factors in Anglo-Danish business relations.     

Does international experience help firms to be green? A knowledge-based view of how international experience and organisational learning influence proactive environmental strategies

Early research on environmental strategy in international firms focused predominantly on direct investment as an expansion strategy for multinationals. However, we know relatively little from a strategic management perspective about exporting, which is the most prevalent form of international expansion. For this reason, we examine whether the knowledge that export firms acquire abroad influences their environmental strategies. Using a sample of export firms from the food industry, we show that the number of years spent in developing export activities does not contribute to developing a proactive environmental strategy; however, a more complex experience of environmental international diversification is positively related to a firm's proactive environmental strategy. Finally, organisational learning capability moderates the positive relationship between environmental international diversification and environmental proactivity.     

Ownership structure and internationalization of Indian firms

We examine the longitudinal relationship between ownership structure and firm internationalization, in a sample of Indian firms. Drawing on principal-principal (PP) agency theory and the resource-based-view (RBV) of the firm, we argue that divergent preferences (motivations) of a firm's owners affect the firm's propensity to internationalize, while resource heterogeneity among these owners (owners' capability to access and provide resources) affects the firm's capability to internationalize. We argue that both motivation and capability are required for firms to pursue internationalization and that when either of these is missing in an owner, that owner's shareholding will be negatively associated with internationalization. Additionally, our results uncover an interesting dichotomy. While family owners with lower levels of ownership favor their firms' internationalization, they do not favor it at higher levels of ownership. Our results indicate that foreign owners appeared to adjust their roles to accommodate the preferences of the dominant family owners.