Competition as a track for preventing illegal immigration

Rich countries often face sizeable illegal migration. This paper suggests that these countries would use the financial aid which they give to the source countries as an instrument to prevent illegal immigration. The core of this policy is to allow the source countries to compete for the pre-determined aid, which would be distributed according to the cross-proportion of the apprehended illegal aliens. Moreover, we show that it may be beneficial for the rich country to split the source countries into competing pairs rather than allowing all of them to compete jointly. The rich country has basically two policy means: funds allocated to strengthening its border control; and the foreign aid given to the source countries. The multi-country general equilibrium model presented shows how the rich country, by choosing an appropriate mix of these two policy means, can minimize the number of illegal immigrants subject to its budget constrain.Received: 15 August 2002, Accepted: 21 January 2004, JEL Classification: F22Nava Kahana, Tikva Lecker: The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.     

Power as a determinant of executive compensation

Most empirical investigations on the disassociation between executive compensation and firm performance have been done using agency theory. Agency theory alludes to a power imbalance favorable to the executives, allowing them to pursue their self-interests in the form of large pay packages. However, because of its roots in the economic discipline, agency theory has led researchers to test financial rather than behavioral hypotheses. Over 70 years of research has been conducted on the pay-form-performance relationship, but only a few significant relationships have been found. This paper attempts to incorporate behavioral conjectures of power into the agency theory framework to provide a comprehensive approach to testing executive pay. Agency theory is combined with the resource dependency theory and with specific measures of power developed by Finkelstein (1992) for a more complete executive pay model.     

Public attitudes toward nanotechnology applications in Taiwan

In view of the complex interaction between new emerging technology and society, the importance of the public attitudes toward nanotechnology applications should not be ignored. This study aims to examine the determinants that have influences upon benefits and risks perceptions of nanotechnology applications, which in turn influences the public attitudes toward nanotechnology applications in Taiwan. Of a total of 1500 self-reported questionnaire survey that was carried out in 2010 in Taiwan, 888 were found useful for this empirical analysis. In line with previous studies, the results of this empirical study conducted in Taiwan reveal that the public attitudes toward nanotechnology applications is found to be determined by their perceived benefits and risks of applying nanotechnology. The public's perceived benefits and risks of applying nanotechnology are, as expected, further determined by its attitudes toward technology, nanotechnology knowledge, and social trust in the related institutions. Based on the empirical results from this study, attempts will be made to provide suggestions to the government and the related parties.     

Public infrastructure as a determinant of productive performance in China

Public infrastructure investment is an essential part of China’s regional development policy. This raises the question to what degree public infrastructure capital matters for labor productivity in China, at the regional level as well as over time. This paper estimates cost function models of production in industrial enterprises, using province-level data from 1993 to 2003. The estimated rate of return in industrial production is 23–25%, and on average public infrastructure contributes 2–3% points to the growth in labor productivity among these enterprises.     

Product diversification and attitudes toward risk in agricultural production

In this article we analyze the relationship between risk-avoidance behavior and economic jointness in a multi-output agricultural technology. We focus on farmer specific heterogeneity in attitudes towards risk-taking, while treating production uncertainty as unobserved stochastic error that is common to all region specific farms. We furthermore utilize a new flexible functional form, the Constant Elasticity of Transformation, Constant Elasticity of Substitution, Generalized Leontief (Behrman, Lovell, Pollak, and Sickles, [1992]) which has the appealing property of relative flexibility while ensuring proper curvature properties of the estimated multi-output technology over a larger sample region of the price/quantity space than a flexible form such as the Generalized Leontief [Diewert, 1971].Our empirical study deals with small-scale agriculture in the Indian Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT), partly because of the importance of yield-related risk in this region, but also because we have measures of farmer specific risk attitudes in the SAT data. Our modeling approach allows for the calculation of the shadow cost of farmer specific risk attitudes in terms of foregone profits, while at the same time controlliing for the technical factors that give rise to multi-output production in the absence of risk. We are thus able to estimate these opportunity costs while modeling a multiple output technology in which cost complementarities can lead to diversified production and in which joint production is not always undertaken.     

Employees' attitudes toward organizational change: A literature review

Organizations are increasingly required to improve their ability to enhance employees' support or acceptance for change initiatives. In studies that have examined the conditions in which employees support organizational change, researchers have focused on various attitudinal constructs that represent employees' attitudes toward organizational change. The constructs, which frequently serve as key variables in these studies, include readiness for change, commitment to change, openness to change, and cynicism about organizational change. These constructs have distinct meanings and emphases and therefore they can provide us with different information regarding employees' evaluation of and concerns about particular change initiatives. In this literature review, the author discusses how the constructs are defined in the organizational change literature and synthesizes the antecedents of each construct. Based on the discussion, it is proposed that the constructs are susceptible to situational variables, and may change over time as individuals' experiences change; therefore, they are better conceptualized as states than as personality traits. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The role of credibility in shaping attitudes toward nonprofit websites

• The study examines the factors that impact the perceptions of consumers when visiting a nonprofit website. Measures of online communications effectiveness in the for‐profit environment are applied to the nonprofit world.
• Consumer reactions to two major nonprofit websites provide insight into the relationship between website credibility and attitude toward the site.
• The study points to the importance of several credibility measures (particularly those related to site design) that are significantly related to attitude toward the site.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influences on students attitudes toward entrepreneurship: A multi-country study

Entrepreneurship has been emphasized in many countries as a way of boosting economic growth and job creation. As entrepreneurship is becoming popular around the world, its education should be customized according to each country’s unique cultural context. The purpose of this paper is to identify differences among the selected nations in terms of factors that are important to enhance the pedagogical effect of entrepreneurship education. This is an empirical study based on the data collected from university students in the US, Korea, China and Fiji representing nations with significantly different cultural contexts. The results imply that customized approaches based on unique cultural context are needed for effective entrepreneurship education in each country.     

Modeling attitudes toward uncertainty through the use of the Sugeno integral

The aim of this paper is to present under uncertainty, and in an ordinal framework, an axiomatic treatment of the Sugeno integral in terms of preferences which parallels some earlier derivations devoted to the Choquet integral. Some emphasis is given to the characterization of uncertainty aversion.     

Understanding factors influencing consumer attitudes toward cause‐related marketing

• Cause‐related marketing (CRM) has proliferated as a marketing strategy and is being employed by numerous brands across product categories. Despite its widespread popularity, not much is known about the factors that influence consumer attitudes toward CRM. In this study, we investigate the antecedents of consumer attitudes toward CRM, specifically sociodemographic characteristics, consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence, and mediating role of consumer values. We test causal relationships employing a partial least squares‐based structural equation model. The data are collected via a structured questionnaire resulting in 456 valid responses. Our study demonstrates that attitudes toward CRM are influenced by sociodemographic characteristics with personal values acting as mediator. In addition, our findings show that consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence affects the importance given to values, which in turn influences attitudes toward CRM. Our study makes theoretical contributions in the domain of CRM, specifically regarding the role of personal values, interpersonal influences, and sociodemographic factors in influencing attitudes toward CRM. In addition, the findings have relevance for managers responsible for their CRM campaigns.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can the interests of shareholders explain industry attitudes toward banking-insurance mergers?

The banking industry generally supports and the insurance industry generally opposes the removal of regulatory boundaries between the two industries. In an effort to explain these industry attitudes, this article examines the effect, in the absence of synergies, of hypothetical mergers of banks and insurance companies on shareholders' risk and return. The results suggest that, if cash flows are not impacted by the mergers, the attitudes of industry management toward inter-industry mergers cannot be motivated by concerns for shareholder risk and return since, during the data period considered, insurer shareholders would have gained more by acquiring banks than bank shareholders would have gained from acquiring insurers.     

城市旅游地居民对传统节事的感知及态度——以泰安市东岳庙会为例

通过问卷调查和个别访谈的方法就泰安市居民对东岳庙会的感知和态度进行了研究。结果表明,居民对庙会在社会文化、经济方面的正面影响感知强烈,但满意度并不高,节事在城市旅游和社会发展方面的作用还没有充分体现出来。传统节事应该在挖掘传统文化与地方特色的基础上,在举办方式、居民参与形式、营销宣传等方面进行改革和创新,以提高节事的举办质量和居民的满意度。     

Employee attitudes toward drug testing: Effects of individual characteristics and employment setting

Testing for the presence of drug continues to gain popularity as a method for controlling drug use in the workplace. It is important that employers understand how potential applicants and current employees will react to the various types and purposes of drug testing. Employees (n = 529) were interviewed to investigate the role of attitudes toward drugs and work setting characteristics in explaining acceptance or rejection of drug testing. Individuals believing users should be held responsible for becoming dependent on cocaine, who felt the primary cause of cocaine addiction was weak moral character, and those who felt cocaine users should be treated as criminals were more supportive of drug screening and the testing of current employees.     

Relative information asymmetry as a determinant of the market reaction to corporate financing announcements

Information-asymmetry-based models predict that the market should react negatively to unanticipated external financing. Previous empirical studies lend limited support to these conjectures. This study examines the anticipation issue using financial analysts' earnings-forecast errors as a proxy for information available prior to the external-financing announcement. The conjecture is that external financing would be less anticipated for firms which financial analysts cannot accurately predict their earnings. Event study results indicate that high-prediction-error firms exhibit significantly lower announcement period returns than lowprediction-error firms for non-convertible debt, convertible debt, and common stock offerings.     

Inter- and intra-industry linkages as a determinant of FDI in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper uses an unpublished dataset on disaggregated foreign direct investment (FDI) in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), and is rooted in new economic geography literature. A 10% increase in access to suppliers based in the FDI recipient country or access to the EU15 market for intermediate goods increases FDI by about 2% in Central European countries and by 1% in Eastern European countries. We argue that Central (core) European countries specialise in upstream industries and re-export goods toward FDI-origin countries, while Eastern (periphery) European countries are also involved in this production chain, but to a lesser extent.     

Users'' attitudes as a guide to the evaluation of hospital nursing units

Information about the attitudes of patients, doctors, nurses, etc. toward the physical environment of hospital nursing units may contribute to assessments of the need for modernization or new units, and to the evaluation of alternative strategies for satisfying these needs. Existing techniques for the measurement of attitudes can be adapted to record reliable and valid judgements from the people who use nursing units rather than relying upon expert opinions at second-hand. Of the many factors which influence users' attitudes a person's role is especially important since it determines the nature of his experiences, and what he does in the nursing unit. An illustrative analysis has identified, in a sample of 34 units, physically distinct types which can be discriminated in terms of their functional areas. Users' attitudes vary according to the type of unit which they occupy. The general pattern of attitudes varies according to role; as does the relative importance attached to different aspects of the unit. The development of standardized questionnaires for recording users' attitudes would provide a useful tool for the planning and design of hospital nursing units.     

Convergence of a branching type recursion with non-stationary immigration

The asymptotic distribution of a branching type recursion with non-stationary immigration is investigated. The recursion is given by , where (X _l ) is a random sequence, (L _n ⁻¹⁽¹⁾ ) are iid copies ofL _n−1,K is a random number andK, (L _n ⁻¹⁽¹⁾ ), {(X _l ),Y _n } are independent. This recursion has been studied intensively in the literature in the case thatX _l ≥0,K is nonrandom andY _n =0 ∀n. Cramer, Rüschendorf (1996b) treat the above recursion without immigration with starting conditionL ₀=1, and easy to handle cases of the recursion with stationary immigration (i.e. the distribution ofY _n does not depend on the timen). In this paper a general limit theorem will be deduced under natural conditions including square-integrability of the involved random variables. The treatment of the recursion is based on a contraction method. The conditions of the limit theorem are built upon the knowledge of the first two moments ofL _n . In case of stationary immigration a detailed analysis of the first two moments ofL _n leads one to consider 15 different cases. These cases are illustrated graphically and provide a straight forward means to check the conditions and to determine the operator whose unique fixed point is the limit distribution of the normalizedL _n .     

Managerial attitudes toward environmental management within Australia,the People's Republic of China and Indonesia

This study presents a survey of the attitudes of corporate managers and managerial students across Australia, the People's Republic of China and Indonesia toward 18 key contemporary environmental management issues. The study sought to explore whether respondents from these countries, characterized by differing levels of development, also differ in their attitude toward environmental management. Results indicated that, despite age being a moderating factor, significant differences did exist between the 676 country respondents on 15 of the 18 questions. Contrary to expectations, Australian respondents were more cautious of supporting a forthright view on environmental issues, whilst Chinese respondents favoured a more centralized approach to decision making regarding the environment. The results lend marginal support to the new environmental paradigm (NEP), but also to the radicalization of environmental issues and age as a possible influence on respondent beliefs. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Extrinsic motivation as a determinant of knowledge exchange in sales teams: A social network approach

This paper investigates extrinsic motivation as a determinant of knowledge exchange among employees in sales teams. Applying a social network approach, we study different forms of knowledge-exchange behaviors from the perspective of a focal employee and from the perspective of the dyad. From the focal employees' perspective, we disentangle knowledge seeking from knowledge providing, and argue that these two behaviors are affected differently by employees' extrinsic motivation. From the dyad perspective, we take similarity in motivation of tied-to employees and reciprocity of exchange ties into account. To test our hypotheses, we apply exponential random graph models to data gathered from 138 employees in five different sales teams distributed across three companies in Central Europe. The results of our analysis from the focal employees' perspective show that extrinsically motivated employees generally engage in less knowledge exchange. The dyad perspective further highlights that sales employees proceed purposefully when they exchange knowledge with coworkers. For instance, two employees' relative levels of extrinsic motivation determine their willingness to engage in reciprocal knowledge exchange. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on the microfoundations of organizational knowledge management and draw conclusions concerning HRM practices used to foster extrinsic motivation, thereby affecting knowledge exchange.     

Organizational culture as determinant of enterprise information systems use in police investigations

Police investigation units represent a knowledge-intensive and time-critical environment. The amount of information that detectives come into contact within the course of their work is astounding, and enterprise information systems are applied to support knowledge work. Organizational culture is found to have a significant influence on the extent of systems use. Four dimensions of occupational culture were applied in this research: team culture, planning culture, theoretical culture, and traditional culture. Only the extent of team culture was found to have a significant influence on the extent of systems use.