Ghettos and enclaves in the cross-place realm: mapping socially bounded spaces across cities

Since the early Chicago School, urban researchers have used residential proximity to assess contacts within and between racial and ethnic groups. This approach is increasingly limited. Diverse groups use email, social networking sites, instant messaging and mobile phones to communicate across urban zones and distant cities. These practices enable mutual support among far-flung family members and co-ethnics as they engage with an array of institutions throughout their day. Through interviews and observations that include women and men of diverse occupations, races and national origins, the author explores how and why cross-place enclosures of sociality and resources develop. Rather than framing the residential area as the locus of racial/ethnic concentration, the author focuses on cross-place concentrations in the technologically mediated workspace. This study enhances theorization of the structural negotiations, interpersonal pressures and group preferences that produce separate lifeworlds in globalizing cities.     

Towards a General Theory of Harm for Consumer Law

Journal of Consumer Policy -     

Trends,prospects, and strategies for black economic progress

As we approach the closing years of the 1980s, it is clear that, for better or worse, the focus of the struggle for black equality is shifting from traditional civil rights issues to economic development. And although people often debate how best to remedy some of the black community’s most persistent economic problems (for example, high unemployment and the narrowing, but still wide, income gap between blacks and whites), few people have attempted a dispassionate analysis of the broad scope of public and private economic options facing blacks. Too often, the debate is polarized by arguments either for increasing governmental assistance or for almost totally eliminating it. In this article, noted economist Andrew Brimmer strikes a much-needed balance. First, he scrutinizes the trends for blacks (and whites) regarding income and participation in the labor market. Then, instead of painting a picture in pure black and white, he suggests a blending of strategies, some calling for less reliance on the federal government, others requiring a strengthening of the nation’s wavering commitment to affirmative action.     

The measurement of left-right and libertarian-authoritarian values: A comparison of balanced and unbalanced scales

In this paper we compare the performance of balanced and unbalanced Likert scales of two core dimensions of political attitudes: left-right and libertarian-authoritarian values. The balanced scales control for the effects of acquiescence response sets, whereas the unbalanced scales do not. Using data from two panel surveys, balanced and unbalanced scales are compared for reliability, stability and validity both with each other, and with other measures of political ideology and values (left-right self-placement and postmaterialism). Both balanced and unbalanced versions of the left-right and libertarian-authoritarian Likert scales are found to be more stable and strongly associated with social characteristics than are the other measures. The unbalanced scales have slightly higher reliability than the balanced scales; they are also orthogonal, whereas balanced left-right and libertarian-authoritarian scales are moderately correlated. Unbalanced scales also display a slightly stronger relationship with social characteristics, but they do not differ in their pattern of association with political preferences. Differences between balanced and unbalanced scales are attributed to the effects of acquiescence bias. This needs to be considered when using the scales for substantive analyses, but its effects are not problematic.     

Circuit Breakers with Uncertainty about the Presence of Informed Agents: I Know What You Know … I Think

This study conducts experimental asset markets to examine the effects of circuit breaker rules on market behavior when agents are uncertain about the presence of private information. Our results unequivocally indicate that circuit breakers fail to temper unwarranted price movements in periods without private information. Agents appear to mistakenly infer that others possess private information, causing price to move away from fundamental value. Allocative efficiencies in our markets are high across all regimes. Circuit breakers perform no useful function in our experimental asset markets.     

Macroenvironmental forces,marketing strategy and business performance: A futures research approach

A method of futures research is used to empirically test a structure-conduct-performance (SCP) model in a marketing setting. It is proposed that within the macroenvironment there exist, varying levels of resource constraints and structural fluctuations which are positively correlated. Increased resource constraints and structural fluctuations, which are characteristics of a turbulent environment, are expected to increase the competitive intensity is an industry. This higher level of competitive intensity is hypothesized to result in increased use of nonprice marketing strategies. Nonprice marketing strategies are also expected to increase business performance because of the contingency relationship between conduct (strategy) and performance. The possible role of “blind” luck or stochastic processes in determining success is also discussed.     

DIVISIONALIZATION,DECENTRALIZATION AND PERFORMANCE OF LARGE UNITED KINGDOM COMPANIES 1

Questionnaire survey data from 144 large U.K. firms are used to describe and discuss the nature of organization design in major companies. It was found that the majority of firms were multidivisional. However a considerable variation in internal operating procedures was found which emphasized that many multidivisional companies do not behave in the way that the strategy/structure literature predicts. Empirical testing of the relation between structure and financial performance also emphasizes that divisionalization is not necessarily the key to a superior profit performance. Rather it would appear that organizational procedures need to be reconsidered in the light of recent divisional structures established in many companies. It is argued that a powerful divisional head office may weaken overall performance and that instead greater attention should be paid to the opportunity to decentralize operating decisions to the individual business units within each division.