Sharing the Journey: Exploring a Social Leisure Program for Persons with Dementia and Their Spouses

In this article, we highlight the marginalization and exclusion persons with dementia and their spouses often face in leisure practices and spaces. We then explore aspects of a peer-led community social program aimed at inclusion. Framed in creative analytic practice, the experiences of members of the social program are shared through a composite narrative. This narrative tells the story of a couple from the point of diagnosis who seek support and education and eventually find deep social connections with others who are on a shared journey. We draw from this narrative to explore meanings of inclusion for spousal couples on the dementia journey and use a social justice lens to consider how to address experiences of exclusion in leisure practices and spaces.     

Investigating the Hosted-Buyer Model From the Buyer Perspective: An Exploratory Study

The nature of this exploratory, qualitative research is to examine the buyer viewpoint on the implementation and effectiveness of the hosted-buyer model. In this new format, the event host or organizer schedules pre-qualified buyers and interested sellers together through coordinated, pre-arranged appointments. Notably, the buyers are “hosted” by the show organizer and/or the exhibitors (or sponsors), and some or all of their travel and accommodation expenses are covered by the host. The study explores the benefits and drawbacks of the hosted-buyer format compared to the traditional tradeshow model from the buyers’ perspective. The purpose of this study is to understand if this format meets the needs and expectations of the meeting buyers. Many event hosts are transitioning to this new hosted-buyer model for a variety of reasons, but namely to boost audience attendance and reduce costs for attendees. The results of this pilot project illustrate there are mixed reviews of this new format from buyers, but the benefits clearly stem around the reduction in travel costs and high-level engagement with preferred suppliers. Furthermore, the conclusions offer recommendations for modifications to the hosted-buyer model to improve the buyer experience.     

Do Not‐For‐Profits Need Their Own Conceptual Framework?

This paper raises the issue of whether not‐for‐profit (NFP) oganisations require a conceptual framework that acknowledges their mission imperative and enables them to discharge their broader accountability. Relying on publicly available documentation and literature, it suggests the current Conceptual Frameworks for the for‐profit and public sectors are inadequate in meeting the accountability needs of NFPs. A NFP‐specific conceptual framework would allow the demonstration of broader NFP‐specific accountability and the formulation of NFP‐appropriate reporting practice, including the provision of financial and non‐financial reporting. The paper thus theoretically challenges existing financial reporting arrangements and invites debate on their future direction.     

Socially Responsible Investing by Universities and Colleges

We analyze the socially responsible investing (SRI) practices of universities and colleges. Although SRI may align with an institution's mission and enhance its “brand,” these activities may also arise from agency problems. We find evidence of both effects. Consistent with branding effects, we find significant differences between independent and church‐affiliated schools, we find that highly selective and elite schools do not seek differentiation through SRI and are unlikely to sacrifice returns for SRI, and we find that Less Selective schools appear to regard costs of SRI as branding investments. Consistent with agency problems, attributes of investment committees bear on policy choices. For independent schools, larger committees and those where professional representation is low are likely to screen, allow sustainability considerations to influence investment choices, and vote proxies along SRI lines. “Social boards,” those with more alumni and less investments expertise, appear more oriented toward generating donations and less focused on investment policy.     

Experimental evidence of bank runs as pure coordination failures

We investigate how coordination requirement, measured by the coordination parameter, affects the occurrence of miscoordination-based bank runs in controlled laboratory environments. We identify an indeterminacy region of the coordination parameter such that games with the parameter within the region have varying coordination outcomes and exhibit persistent path dependence. Experimental economies with the parameter above (below) the region stay close or converge to the run (non-run) equilibrium. Switches between the two equilibria occur even with fixed economic fundamentals. The experimental results are well accounted for by a version of the evolutionary algorithm that uses experimentation rates estimated from the experimental data.     

Employment relations on major construction projects: the London 2012 Olympic construction site

The construction of the London 2012 Olympic Park provided a model of employee relations that crossed organisational boundaries. This model was countercultural, contrasting with the unregulated approaches that are commonplace in construction and contrasting too with collaborative models that have been developed on other major projects.     

When is more better? The impact of business scale and scope on long‐term business survival,while controlling for profitability

Empirical research shows that larger businesses tend to survive longer than smaller companies. Little research, though, shows whether size confers survival advantages in addition to the survival benefits of baseline profitability. Moreover, no prior research attempts to disentangle the benefits of organizational capital that accrue from greater scale from those that arise from greater business scope. Thus, we lack a conceptual understanding of the underlying benefits of business size for long‐term survival. We expect business scale and business scope to reflect organizational capital that offers survival benefits, where we conceptualize scale in terms of annual sales revenue and scope in terms of product line breadth and sub‐sector participation within a related business context. We first argue that greater business scale and business scope each enhance long‐term survival, independent of baseline profitability, owing to greater availability of financial resources, organizational routines, and external ties. We then argue that the benefits of scale are greatest for multi‐product businesses, stemming from positive interactive effects of breadth and depth. We find support for these hypotheses with data from 618 firms that operated in the U.S. medical sector between 1978 and 1995. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Exploratory Study of Company Turnaround in Australia and Singapore Following the Asia Crisis

There has been little research into company turnaround practices in Asia. This paper investigates the role of retrenchment, replacement of chairman or chief executive and ownership change in the turnaround process, using a sample of 60 listed companies in Australia and Singapore. Conclusions are drawn that overall, transparency of the regulatory environment and other governance issues are a stronger influence on turnaround practices than are cultural issues. This may make Singapore, which has transparency and governance risk indicators at similar low levels to Australia, a unique business environment in Asia.     

The Value Relevance of Accounting under Political Uncertainty: Evidence Related to Quebec's Independence Movement

The Canadian province of Quebec is a region of an advanced industrialized nation characterized by a strong independence movement and, therefore, provides an interesting context in which to test the effect of political uncertainty on the relationship between market values and accounting values. In this study we compare market‐to‐book value associations of a sample of firms headquartered in Quebec with those of a sample of Canadian firms headquartered outside Quebec, over the period 1988–2002. Our comparisons suggest that, on average, the value of Quebec‐based firms is significantly less than other Canadian firms when valuation is based on multiples of book value and earnings. In addition, we find that the “Quebec discount” decreased significantly in the period immediately following the 1995 provincial sovereignty referendum wherein Quebeckers voted (narrowly) against Quebec sovereignty. We conclude that the relative undervaluation of Quebec firms is related, at least in part, to political uncertainty associated with the Quebec independence movement.     

货币政策正常化：前景展望--耶伦在加州联储会议上的讲话

随着美国国内经济基本面的持续改善,美联储货币政策正在步入正常化的调整通道。本文首先阐述了当前美国经济基本面的运行情况,经济复苏基础的不断夯实表明联邦基金利率提高的时间窗口正在逐步逼近;其次,讨论了提高联邦基金利率的时间,并认为2015年晚些时候可能成为联邦基金利率上调的绝佳时机;再次,讨论了未来货币政策的可行路径,基于经济形势的前景预测,联邦基金利率存在稳步上升的动力;最后论述了决策者在当前环境下应该考虑的风险和相关因素。结论表明,为了实现最大就业和价格稳定的双重目标,美联储货币政策的具体实施路径将以数据为依托。