Psychological contracts in the workplace—a lawyer's view

This article contrasts the formation and enforcement of legal contracts with the formation and enforcement of psychological contracts. The author has held a variety of legal and managerial positions with a major industrial corporation.     

FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE PUT-CALL PARITY IMPLIED RISK-FREE INTEREST RATE

In this paper the put-call parity implied riskless rate of borrowing and lending is re-examined. Using a rigorous model, it is shown that, given the level of an observable proxy of the risk-free rate of lending (T-bill rates, for example), the put-call parity provides an opportunity to borrow at rates substantially below the market rate of lending. This is especially true when high interest rates prevail. The major conclusion is either that American option prices may invalidate the parity, or that option markets are not as frictionless as one might wish.     

Bricks and Behavior: The Repair and Maintenance Costs of Housing for Persons with Mental Illness

Comprehensive data on 153 properties offering independent living for persons with mental illness are used to examine the effects on repair and maintenance (RM) costs of building quality, neighborhood quality, building size, proportion of tenants with mental illness, and management experience with mentally ill tenants. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the proportion of mentally ill tenants in a building and its RM costs, which suggests favorable behavioral effects on mentally ill tenants of living in the same building with others who are mentally ill. We also find amenity features are associated with higher RM costs in properties where more tenants are mentally ill.     

Optimal abatement of sulphur emissions in Europe

This study presents a mathematical model for determining cost-effective emissions' control strategies in Europe, by minimizing sulphur abatement costs subject to different pollution control targets. The purpose is to compare the efficiency of a uniform percentage emissions reduction with a scenario that takes variation in environmental conditions into account. Underlying the proposed model is the belief that a full cost-benefit analysis of acid rain abatement is infeasible. The model focuses on the costs of abatement and provides an estimation of the gains (or losses) that countries could achieve if they co-operate in their policies rather than act independently.     

An empirical test of the job satisfaction-turnover relationship: Assessing the role of job performance for retail managers

The role of job performance in the turnover process has been a problematic issue for researchers and managers alike. The present study provides a preliminary test of two key predictions derived from a conceptual model refining the role of job performance as a direct impact on turnover, and a moderator of the job satisfaction-turnover relationship. The results support differing roles for intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction components in their relationship with turnover for retail store managers performing at low, average and high levels.     

POVERTY AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN LATIN AMERICA DURING THE 1980s

On average, poverty and income inequality increased in Latin America during the 1980s. Forty-six percent of the increase in poverty took place in the cities of Brazil alone, though part of this reflects the migration of poor rural inhabitants to urban areas. There is strong evidence that both income inequality and poverty mirrored the economic cycle, rising during recession and falling during recovery. Economies that grew (e.g. Colombia, Costa Rica) performed better with respect to poverty and income inequality than those that stagnated. In particular, countries that failed to stabilize effectively (e.g. Brazil, Peru) experienced substantial increases in poverty. Educational attainment has the greatest correlation with both income inequality and the probability of being poor. From a policy standpoint, there is a clear association between the provision of education, lessening of income inequality, and poverty reduction.     

Public and Private Management: What’s the Difference?

Critics of New Public Management argue that differences between public and private organizations are so great that business practices should not be transferred to the public sector. In this paper the theoretical arguments on the differences between private firms and public agencies are reviewed, and 13 hypotheses are identified on the impact of publicness on organizational environments, goals, structures and managerial values. Evidence from 34 empirical studies of differences between public agencies and private firms is critically evaluated. Only three of the publicness hypotheses are supported by a majority of the empirical studies: public organizations are more bureaucratic, and public managers are less materialistic and have weaker organizational commitment than their private sector counterparts. However, most of the statistical evidence is derived from studies that use narrow measures of publicness and fail to control for other relevant explanatory variables. Whether the existing evidence understates or overstates the distinctiveness of public agencies is therefore unclear. A research agenda and methods are identified for better comparisons of management in public and private organizations.