Personal acquaintances and salespeople in financial services: Differences between customers and friends

The existence, benefit and management of customer–salesperson relationships in the marketing of financial services are topics of increasing interest. Much of the sales and marketing literature implies that because of time spent together, salespeople and some of their customers develop close relationships that are akin to friendships. Evidence from social psychology confirms that strong relationships are founded in deep knowledge of others gained over long periods after sharing personal information. This paper reports on the results of a study of salespeople's assessments of their personal acquaintance with customers and friends in a financial services setting. The results indicate that salespeople do not classify customers as friends on all the dimensions of personal acquaintance. Furthermore, the nature of personal acquaintance differs between ‘good’ customers (those salespeople enjoy serving), and ‘bad’ (those they do not), with the exception of the personal acquaintance dimensions of interaction frequency and personal disclosure. We discuss the implications for practice and make recommendations for future research.     

Effect of outsourcing public sector audits on cost‐efficiency

This study compares the cost‐efficiency of ‘in‐house’ and outsourced to private sector audit supplier arrangements to deliver financial audits in the public sector by examining audit cost‐efficiency within the context of the public sector arrangement at one state in Australia (Western Australia). The results for 178 public agencies show that outsourced audits are, in general, more costly than in‐house audits, but this result is conditional on the type and size of public agency. Specifically, outsourced audits are more costly than in‐house audits for small statutory authority audits, whereas for specialist audits (i.e. hospitals) and large and complex statutory authority audits, the in‐house supply is equally efficient as the outsourced service.     

Corruption, Income Distribution, and Growth

This paper uses an encompassing framework developed by Murphy et al. (1991, 1993) to study corruption and how it affects income distribution and growth. We find that (1) corruption affects income distribution in an inverted U-shaped way, (2) corruption alone also explains a large proportion of the Gini differential across developing and industrial countries, and (3) after correcting for measurement errors, corruption seems to retard economic growth. But the effect is far less pronounced than the one found in Mauro (1995). Moreover, corruption alone explains little of the continental growth differentials. In countries where the asset distribution is less equal, corruption is associated with a smaller increase in income inequality and a larger drop in growth rates.     

Carbon Sequestration and Conservation of Tropical Forests Under Uncertainty

Concern for global warming has focused attention on the role of tropical forests in the reduction of ambient CO₂ levels and mitigation of climate change. Deforestation is a major land use change in the tropics, with forest resources undergoing degradation through the influence of logging and conversion to other uses. Land use change is a product of varied local and regional resource use policies. Management of forest resources is one such major temporal factor, influencing resource stability and the carbon pool. Under a given management policy, both the long period of forest growth, and the slow turnover and decay of the carbon pool, enhance the relevance of stand level management policies as cost-effective mechanisms mitigating climate change. Apart from regional level uncertainties like the nature of land use and the estimation of carbon storage in vegetation and soil, the carbon flux of tropical forests is greatly influenced by uncertainty in regenerative capacity of forests and in harvest and management policies. A case study from India is used to develop a transition matrix model of natural forest management, and to explore the economic implications of maintaining and expanding existing carbon sinks. The study further explores the significance of investments in additional carbon sinks in plantation forests, given continued uncertainty in natural forest management.     

中英高等教育之间的联结

高等教育往往是不同国家之间联系、发展的出发点,学校与学生之间长久关系的全球性联结的重要性已被世界各大院校所认知。 我所就职的大学──诺丁汉大学,很早就认识到中国的重要性,并且,多年来一直致力于与中国、澳大利亚、北美及欧洲的一流大学进行交流与合作,并且组建了 Ｕｎｉｖｅｒｓｉｔａｓ ２１──一个具有世界一流研究技术水平的资深大学所组成的国际性网络组织。 组建Ｕｎｉｖｅｒｓｉｔａｓ ２１的目的在于加强各大学之间的联系,鼓励我们的员工相互合作,学生相互交换,我们彼此间学到很多,通过大学之间的合作与共同努力…     

We can be farmers,just for one day

Academics from the University of Cambridge and the London School if Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) have developed a simulation game of the role of agrarian change in a traditional community of small farmers in India. Following extensive data collection and trials of ad hoc games in a variety of institutions over the past ten years, the game has now been marketed in a commercial form as The Green Revolution Game. The primary aim to the game is to give participants an idea of what life is like for a small farmer in a dynamic society in developing country. The designers hope that it will be of value in training and sensitizing professionals and students in agricultural extension, project appraisal, rural and development planning, nutrition and economics.     

White-collar workers,unionisation and political behaviour

Evidence from a variety of sources confirms that the number of non-manual employees in trade unions has been increasing rapidly over the past twenty years. The author surveys the explanations of this growth and examines the relationship between political behaviour and membership of white collar trade unions.