Contrasting corporate profiles: Women and minority representation in top management positions

This paper investigates the characteristics of firms which have underrepresented groups in top management positions and those which do not. It is argued that profiles of these characteristics will be different for firms with minorities vs. women and that these profiles will be different depending on whether representation is by board membership or through officerships. A discriminant analysis found both similarities and differences in variables that were associated with these different forms of representation. It was found, for example, that size is associated with representation for both minorities and women, whereas high advertising intensity is associated with firms with women on board, but not as officers. Other findings and the implications of the study are discussed.Jerry Fryxell is an Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Tennessee — Knoxville. His current research interests are in the area of corporate culture, innovation, and strategic management.Linda Lerner is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Management at the University of Tennessee — Knoxville. Her current research interests include strategic management, social issues, and corporate governance. She has over ten years of management and consulting experience.     

Characteristics of non-fatal injuries in Leon, Nicaragua - 2004

This article describes the epidemiology of injuries collected in the Injury Surveillance System in Leon Hospital in Nicaragua. A total of 6659 persons were treated for injuries in 2004. It was discovered that 88% of all injuries were unintentional, 9% involved interpersonal violence, 2% were self-inflicted and 0.2% was undetermined. Men accounted for 64.7% of the cases, with the highest rate among 20 - 24 year olds (5625.8 per 100,000 inhabitants). Among women, the highest rate was in those aged 64 years and older (5324.2 per 100 000 inhabitants). The most common mechanisms were falls (33.9%), blunt force (26.8%), cut/pierce/stab (15.1%) and transportation-related (12.8%). These results indicate the need to identify prevention strategies for those injuries that were most commonly treated in emergency, such as unintentional falls among older women, self-inflicted poisoning among young women and blunt force and transportation-related injuries among young men.     

Pulse Fishing and Stock Uncertainty

Large variation in stock dynamics affects the accuracy of stock estimates, which fisheries managers rely on when determining quotas and other regulations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of uncertainty on pulse fishing. We show that as the variance of the random natural fluctuations increases, the optimal pulse length decreases and converge toward a constant-escapement policy. Hence, in fisheries with large natural variability, a constant-escapement policy is a good approximation of the optimal policy.     

Robust portfolio choice with stochastic interest rates

We determine the optimal investment strategy for an ambiguity-averse investor in a setting with stochastic interest rates. The investor has access to stocks, bonds, and a bank account and he is ambiguous about the expected rate of return of both bonds and stocks. The investor can have different levels of ambiguity aversion about the two types of risky assets. We find that it is more important to take model uncertainty about the stock dynamics than model uncertainty about the bond dynamics into account. Furthermore, the investor’s ambiguity increases his hedging demand. Consequently, the bond/stock ratio increases with his ambiguity and implies less extreme positions in the bank account. Altogether, our model yields portfolio allocations which are more in line with what is implementable in practice. Finally, we demonstrate that neglecting model uncertainty implies significant losses for the investor.     

Towards an understanding of excel functional skills needed for a career in public accounting: Perceptions from public accountants and accounting students

Public accounting firms (e.g., Grant Thornton, 2012) are stressing an interest in recruiting accounting students with a proficiency in Excel. The purpose of this study is to investigate which Excel functions are perceived to be important and useful for new hires to understand prior to starting a job in public accounting. We collect survey data from four large public accounting firms as well as undergraduate and graduate accounting students (i.e., potential new hires) to gauge perceptions of Excel importance, knowledge, and usage in public accounting. We find that employees at the firms believe the most important Excel functions are: basic formula, filter and sort data, vertical (horizontal) lookup, formatting of documents, and If/Then statements. In a comparison of new hires at public accounting firms with accounting students, results suggest that accounting students underestimate the importance and usage of some of these Excel functions. In addition, results suggest that new hires’ perceived knowledge on how to use specific Excel functions in their accounting job is statistically different than students’ perceived knowledge on how to use some of the same Excel functions. Our research contributes to educational accounting literature by documenting which Excel functions employers in public accounting want new hires to know prior to starting a job in public accounting. Also, this research informs accounting educators that students’ perceptions are not the same as public accounting employers’ expectations with respect to analytical skills using Excel technology.     

Rafting the River: A Risk Management Expert System for Dynamic Problem Solving

Commercial project management systems focus on preproject planning and after-the-fact documentation, but not on the dynamic problem solving required in day-to-day project management. Yet the need for risk-oriented management is clear. To understand and control project risks, managers must be able to identify problems as they occur, immediately assess their downstream impacts, and plan a course of action. The Advanced Risk Management System (ARMS) is a prototype system built to address the issues of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, monitoring, and controlling project risk. ARMS uses expert systems, data base management, and hypermedia technologies to capture and classify project schedule problems, to determine their semantic impacts to future activities, and to alert appropriate project personnel in advance of problem occurrence.     

Estimating and comparing learning curves in three Asian economies

This paper consists of two parts. In the first, a method is suggested to isolate the effects of scale economies on learning phenomena by integrating the conventionally specified learning curve with the production function in neoclassical economics. The problem of establishing the variable for measuring experience is dealt with in the estimation procedure. Using this method we estimated the learning curves of 20 industries in the manufacturing sector in Singapore using data taken from 1961 to 1991. More modern industries like electronics, precision instruments and pharmaceutics have steeper learning curves than older industries. Among traditional industries, the food and beverage industry has a greater learning potential than others. In the second part of the paper, the learning curves for 11 common industries in South Korea, Japan and Singapore were estimated and compared. The Japanese industries are found to have steeper learning curves compared to those in Singapore and South Korea.The authors are from the Department of Business Policy, Faculty of Business Administration, National University of Singapore. The authors would like to thank Ms Tan Mui Lee for her assistance in preparing the time series data used for this study.     

Community in a recreational setting

Abstract

The loss of community and of traditional communal ties characteristic of modern industrial society has caused many people to search for alternative sources of social identification and solidarity. Recreational sites may afford some people opportunities for constructing communities on the basis of common interests. As part of an ongoing investigation, data have been gathered over several years to discover whether elements of community can be found in a marina's social system; evidence is being sought through examination of patterns of social interaction, the system of social ranking, and ties of affection that characterize the marina's social network. Data reveal a social organization at the marina comprising subgroups with complex interaction patterns, affective ties, and communal solidarity. It appears, therefore, that at this recreational site the structure and dynamics of an alternative form of community have been constructed by boaters.     

Victimisation and agency: the social construction of union women’s leadership

This article interrogates the notion that women union leaders lead differently. Despite significant variation in the union movements in Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, similar discourses on women’s union leadership emerge in all five countries. Based on a materialist social construction approach which supports a recognition of difference without reference to essentialist ideas about women’s nature, this article seeks to identify what may be common across these countries to explain this phenomenon. The article argues that the fact that women face discrimination in unions, on the one hand, and organise as a constituency and have access to women‐only education, on the other, supports the development of transformational leadership among women unionists, even across diverse contexts and cultures. Unpacking union women’s leadership practices in this way reveals a dialectic of victimisation and agency.     

U.S. Equity Investment in Emerging Stock Markets

This article examines U.S. equity flows to emerging stock marketsfrom 1978 to 1991 and draws three main conclusions. First, despitethe recent increase in U.S. equity investment in emerging stockmarkets, the U.S. portfolio remains strongly biased toward domesticequities. Second, of the fraction of the U.S. portfolio thatis allocated to foreign equity investment, the share investedin emerging stock markets is roughly proportional to the shareof the emerging stock markets in the global market capitalizationvalue. Third, the volatility of U.S. transactions in emerging-marketequities is higher than in other foreign equities. The normalizedvolatility of U.S. transactions appears to be falling over time,however, and we find no relation between the volume of U.S.transactions in foreign equity and local turnover rates or volatilityof stock returns.