Managements' views on share buy‐backs: an Australian survey

Share buy‐backs are a relatively new concept in the Australian business environment. This study surveys managements' motivations and various other aspects concerning share buy‐back activity. The results reveal that these motivations vary across the five different types of buy‐backs. For on‐market buy‐backs the most relevant motivations are to improve financial performance (i.e., earnings per share) and financial position (i.e., net asset backing per share) followed by signalling of future expectations or underpricing. Interestingly, managements' response regarding the relevant motivations is similar regardless of whether their companies had conducted a buy‐back or not. This provides evidence of widespread support for the relevant motivations. In addition, Australian managers believe that they are familiar with the potential benefits and legislative requirements of buy‐backs, but that their shareholders often do not understand or are not favourably disposed towards buy‐back events. Finally, two major explanations are identified for the initial conservatism towards buy‐backs. Those explanations are (i) legal complexity and cost and (ii) the perceived negative disposition of the sharemarket towards buy‐backs.     

Homeowners Insurance With Bundled Catastrophe Coverage

We estimate the demand for homeowners insurance in Florida and New York with indicated loss costs as our proxy for the quantity of real insurance services demanded. We decompose the demand into the demand for coverage of catastrophe perils and the demand for noncatastrophe coverage and estimate these demand functions separately. Our results are relatively consistent in New York and Florida, including evidence that catastrophe demand is more price elastic than noncatastrophe demand. We also find evidence that consumers value options that expand coverage, buy more insurance when it is subsidized through regulatory price constraints, and consider state guaranty fund provisions when purchasing insurance.     

Composing Urban Orders from Rubbish Electronics: Cityness and the Site Multiple

What do cities look like when rubbish electronics are the vehicle with which they are explored? This article is an experiment designed to offer a response to that question, and in doing so to productively intervene in the conversation about ‘cityness', ‘metrocentricity' and ‘subaltern urbanism'. We intervene by following flows of rubbish electronics and the action that enacts them as waste and value, drawing on fieldwork in Dhaka, Singapore, Accra and Canada's Greater Golden Horseshoe. Our intervention is an experiment in writing an urban geography of rubbish electronics as a site multiple. We show how following the circulation of rubbish electronics offers a manyfolded synopsis of cities: urban enclaves of high finance and the information economy are also industrial waste producers. Peri‐urban industrial zones are also managers of brands, legal liability and corporate public relations. Cities off the map are also urban innovation systems, while waste is rekindled as value and accumulated as poison. Thereby we suggest how a sensitivity to the site multiple may be a helpful way of grappling with shifting ontology and the performativity of our research practices in urban studies.     

Telling tales: online comic and gripe story‐sharing by service workers about difficult customers

The article extends previous research on the storying practices of service workers, workplace humour as resistance, and workers’ autonomous use of social media. Discussion strings from two hairstylist forum storylines, exemplifying comic and tragic story‐sharing about difficult customers, were analysed using Gabriel's notion of story‐work. Processes of coping, entertainment, identity‐construction and learning are clearly evident in the discussion strings and social media is confirmed as a ‘new’ terrain for the enactment of employee agency. Findings emphasize that service workers are engaged in contradictory and ambiguous relations of resistance and accommodation as they learn how to deal with difficult customers. The article's contribution is to show how service workers share their fears and anxieties about difficult customers through storying and humour in generative dialogical poietic processes in social media. Further research is suggested.     

Capturing downside risk in financial markets: the case of the Asian Crisis

Using data on Asian equity markets, we observe that during periods of financial turmoil, deviations from the mean-variance framework become more severe, resulting in periods with additional downside risk to investors. Current risk management techniques failing to take this additional downside risk into account will underestimate the true Value-at-Risk with greater severity during periods of financial turnoil. We provide a conditional approach to the Value-at-Risk methodology, known as conditional VaR-x, which to capture the time variation of non-normalities allows for additional tail fatness in the distribution of expected returns. These conditional VaR-x estimates are then compared to those based on the RiskMetrics™ methodology from J.P. Morgan, where we find that the model provides improved forecasts of the Value-at-Risk. We are therefore able to show that our conditional VaR-x estimates are better able to capture the nature of downside risk, particularly crucial in times of financial crises.     

Influence of women’s workload on their nutritional status in selected communities in Ghana

Abstract: A study was undertaken to assess the impact of women’s work on their health and nutritional status in Ghana. Using a combination of purposive sampling and cluster sampling techniques, 80 women were selected from Madina (suburban) and Boi (rural) communities in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Structured questionnaire and 24-h dietary recall methods were used to collect the information on the nature of the women’s work, the amount of time used for the activities, health problems and food intakes. Nutritional anthropometry (weight, height) was used to assess the nutritional status using body mass index (BMI) as an indicator. The results revealed that the women were involved in multiple activities and worked between 12 and 17.5 h daily. In an attempt to fulfil their multiple roles, the women suffered many physiological problems, with general weakness and tiredness, body pains, dizziness, headaches, arthritis and malaria being the most common ailments. For food intake and nutrition, it was observed that 70% of the women had only two meals in a day. The reasons attributed to this include lack of time, the need to leave home early and too much involvement in work. The diet of the rural residents were low in almost all the nutrients calculated, whereas that of the urban residents was slightly deficient in protein, energy, iron and calcium. Using BMI as a measure of nutritional status, 31% of the women were found to be at nutritional risk.     

Gender disparity in job satisfaction of Western versus Asian managers

This study is to shed more light on gender disparity in job satisfaction in the context of Western versus Asian managers. It addresses the “gender paradox of the female contented worker” and takes a position that the paradox does not apply to female managers in Asia. Data were collected from Thailand as representative of Asian countries and from the U.S. as representative of Western countries. The data show that the gender paradox phenomenon is suspect at best. The results suggest that there is gender disparity in job satisfaction in both countries. There are also significant gender disparities in lower-order quality of work life (QWL) and organizational socialization in Thailand, but not in the U.S. There is no significant gender disparity in higher-order QWL in both countries. These results imply that gender disparity in job satisfaction in Thailand is driven mainly by significant gender disparity in lower-order QWL and organizational socialization.     

Chinese Students’ Perceptions of the Teaching in an Australian Accounting Programme – An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study is designed to elicit and understand the views of Mainland Chinese students concerning their learning experience in an Australian accounting education programme. The article contributes to the literature by investigating the issues and implications associated with international students’ perceptions of teaching, as little research has been undertaken in this context. Data were obtained from focus group interviews at two Australian universities, comprising students who had no prior experience of Western education. Based on an adaptation of Ramsden's 2003 model [Learning to teach in higher education (2nd ed.). London: Routledge], the data show that the students’ educational experience in China has a direct and negative influence on their perceptions of the teaching and learning experience in Australia. The negativity is particularly strong for entry-level students but dissipates to some extent with time. Issues concerning teachers’ enthusiasm, commitment, delivery skills and students’ expectations also emerged as important factors affecting student perceptions.     

Who Will We Recruit? Targeting Deep‐ and Surface‐Level Diversity with Human Resource Policy Advertising

Research on targeted recruitment has focused on targeting applicants with surface‐level attributes such as underrepresented demographic groups. The present study extends targeted recruitment research by examining how advertising human resource policies might be useful for targeting both surface‐ and deep‐level attributes. Specifically, the current study uses an experimental design to examine the impact of work‐family, diversity, and employee development policies on the job‐pursuit intentions of working adults in the United States. We examined surface‐ (demographic characteristics; e.g., race) and deep‐level differences (attitudes or values; e.g., diversity values) as predictors of whether participants intend to pursue jobs with firms advertising these human resource (HR) policies. Deep‐level differences consistently predicted job‐pursuit intentions for all three HR policies, but only marginal support was obtained for surface‐level variables as predictors. Findings suggest that targeted recruitment based on deep‐level attributes may be more successful than targeted recruitment based on surface‐level factors.