The Localized Geography of Foreign Aid: A New Dataset and Application to Violent Armed Conflict

Existing foreign aid databases – the OECD’s CRS data and now AidData – are project-based. And yet nearly all empirical analyses using these data aggregate to the country-year level, thereby losing project-specific information. In this paper, we introduce new data on the geographic location of aid projects that have been committed to many African countries between 1989 and 2008. The data enable an examination of project-level information in a wider variety of systematic research contexts. To demonstrate the utility of the new data, we discuss how geographically disaggregated foreign aid and armed conflict data are needed to capture the theoretical mechanisms in the aid-conflict literature. We then map the disaggregated aid and conflict data in Sierra Leone, Angola, and Mozambique as specific examples of how these data could help disentangle competing causal mechanisms linking aid to conflict onset and dynamics. The research provides an important new perspective on the connections between aid and conflict. More generally, it is a crucial first step in geo-referencing and comparing foreign aid projects to various localized development outcomes.     

Exploring SME cybersecurity practices in developing countries

The continued use of information technology systems by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries has the potential to bring significant benefits but, at the same time, expose them to online cybersecurity threats. Addressing these threats is, therefore, of paramount importance for developing countries, not only because SMEs are seen as the vehicle for employment and job creation, but because research on SMEs and cybersecurity in this context is limited. This study is a contribution toward addressing this gap.

The purpose of this study is, therefore, to explore SME cybersecurity practices and the challenges they face in developing countries. The goal is to sensitize practitioners and government institutions about the challenges and practices faced by SMEs, so that the various parties can work collaboratively in providing context-specific solutions to address these challenges and improve current cybersecurity practices. The study follows a qualitative enquiry approach to solicit information from three South African SMEs that had implemented cybersecurity practices. The findings show that an SME’s perception of cybersecurity is constrained by internal factors of budget, management support, and attitudes. Further findings show that SMEs’ cybersecurity practices are affected by the landscape of cybersecurity, as well as institutional pressures.     

Dynamic cost indexing – Managing airline delay costs

This paper develops a decision-support tool for managing flight delay costs in the pre-departure and airborne phases of a flight. The dynamic cost indexing tool trades accelerated fuel burn against ‘cost of time’ and environmental impact. Many airlines have significant barriers to quantify the various components of ‘cost of time’. There are no industry standards for defining and interfacing the necessary tools. Dynamic estimation of passenger delay costs, delay recovery decision windows and air traffic control cooperation are key constraints. Short-term opportunities for saving fuel and/or reducing environmental impacts are identified.     

A Normalized Citation Analysis of Real Estate Journals

This study presents an analysis of the citation patterns and rankings for journals in real estate and related areas for the period 1990–1995. Journals were ranked based on the number of times they were cited in four base journals with adjustments for journal size and longevity. The results show that Real Estate Economics is the most cited journal among real estate publications, followed closely by the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics and the Journal of Real Estate Research . A temporal analysis reveals a shift in citations, over the time period, away from the traditional economics and practitioner-oriented journals to the academic real estate journals.     

Superior–subordinate communication during organizational change: under which conditions does high-quality communication become important?

Restructuring and organizational change have become ever-present across all industrial countries. Based on conservation of resources theory, this study explored a buffering effect of superior–subordinate communication (SSC) in the relationship between management support for the change and both job satisfaction and work-related irritation. It was also assumed that dispositional resistance to change (RTC) would further impact this buffering effect. We tested these assumptions in a sample of 119 employees from eight organizations in which change had occurred. A buffering effect of SSC was supported for job satisfaction but not for irritation. In case of irritation, an interaction effect of RTC, SSC and management support was found. For irritation, the quality of SSC and the degree of management support are relevant only under the condition of high RTC. In our study, RTC was found offer a valuable approach for a successful implementation of organizational change. Practical approaches should refer to communication processes between superior and subordinates, especially when employees are high in RTC.     

Comments on “Selling in the new millennium: a joint agenda”

This response to “Selling in the New Millennium” extends the ideas presented by Ingram, LaForge, and Leigh, in particular, suggesting a pivotal change from the salesperson to the sales function as the unit of study. Such a change makes many traditional research and review practices obsolete. For example, the author argues a need to accept lower response rates and smaller samples along with more formal and new methods to explore generalizability. Other examples, including a review of an article by Jap [J Pers Selling Sales Manage XXI (2001) 95.] and a discussion on the role of trade and professional associations, suggest additional changes that will be needed to increase the likelihood of achieving the joint agenda.     

Alcohol taxes,tax revenues and the Single European Market

This paper addresses the issue of whether tax revenue from alcohol lost through cross-border shopping could be recouped by cutting excise duties. This in turn depends on the elasticity of demand for alcohol. We use data from the Family Expenditure Survey 1978–96 to estimate own- and cross-price elasticities of demand for beer, wine and spirits before and after completion of the Single Market. We find no evidence of a significant change in elasticities after the Single Market. The tax rates on beer and wine are currently below their revenue-maximising rates, implying that a cut in the duty rate on beer or wine would lead to a decrease in indirect tax revenue from alcohol. We cannot reject that the current tax rate on spirits is at the revenue-maximising rate, implying that further increases in the duty on spirits are likely to cause indirect tax revenue to fall.     

Money and economic activity revisited

Recent literature has concluded that money no longer plays a fundamental role in determining US economic activity, especially when post-1982 data are included in the analysis. We re-examine the issue using annual and quarterly data sets ranging back to the Civil War. Cointegration tests show that an equilibrium relationship holds between money and income in all data samples of 35 years or longer, but frequently fails to hold for many shorter samples. However, when the normal monetary lags are explicitly imposed, a cointegrating relationship is frequently captured, even in quite short samples. Examining the issue in a standard five-variable VAR model, we find that money is the most important variable in explaining real output for the full 1874–1993 as well as 1952–1993 periods, even allowing for interest rate effects. Finally, using monthly data over the troublesome 1983–1994 sample, we show that when appropriate adjustments are made to capture recent structural changes, such as the growing importance of the international economy on US output, money still Granger-causes economic activity.     

Compliance versus preference: Understanding salesperson response to contests

Firms use sales contests to motivate salespeople; however, knowledge of their impact on salespeople is scarce. Acceptance of the contest, according to goal-setting theory, is essential for a contest to motivate salespeople (Hile-Hart et al., 1989). Yet attitude toward (or preference for) the contest is an important factor in motivating effort (Murphy and Dacin, 1998). In an experiment with financial services salespeople, this study examines the compliance effect (Chowdhury, 1993) and propositions that Murphy and Dacin (1998) suggest. Results support goal-setting theory, but also the importance of salesperson's attitude to the contest. While the study partially confirms Chowdhury's (1993) results regarding the influence of contest difficulty, his suggestion that difficulty leads to goal acceptance was not. Valence for winning does not relate to attitude significantly in the study here, contrary to Murphy and Dacin's (1998) propositions. The article develops an integrative model with implications for research and practice.     

Web Site spill over to email campaigns: The role of privacy,trust and shoppers' attitudes

Email campaign effectiveness is a real challenge for the web industry. According to the literature, privacy concerns, trust and attitude toward a company web site influence consumers' intentions to return to a web site (Chelappa and Pavlou, 2002; Belanger et al., 2002; Eastlick et al., 2006). The objective of this paper is to investigate whether those variables spill over to the email campaign response process. The research framework is an opt-in marketing campaign, with email planned as a loyalty-generating tool and based on a quantitative survey on 330 shoppers of a web retailer. The study results indicated a positive effect of intention to return to the web site on attitudes toward the email campaign; however, consumers' attitude toward a web site had no influence on attitude toward the email campaign in this study. Finally, attitude toward the email campaign had a positive influence on the response process.