Correlates of Drug Testing Attitudes in a Sample of Blue Collar Workers

Using responses from 1429 workers employed in the wood products industry, we examine the relationship between drug testing (DT) attitudes and several demographic, organizational, job attitude, and job outcome variables. After controlling for age and marital status, analyses revealed moderate correlations between DT attitudes and alcohol and drug variables, DT program characteristics, organizational, and work attitude variables. DT attitudes were weakly but significantly related to absences, late work arrivals, accidents, and injuries. Implications of the findings and future research suggestions are discussed.     

A theoretical framework for the studio as a learning environment

In this article we describe a holistic, ecological framework that takes into account the surface structures and pedagogical approaches in the studio and how these elements are connected to the construction of design knowledge: epistemology. In our development of this framework, we came to understand how disciplinary underpinnings and academic culture shape the ways that studio is enacted. Using practice theory, we illustrate our framework with two examples—one in Industrial Design and another in Human Computer Interaction—that demonstrate the ways in which the studio can act as a bridge between academic and professional communities. We came to see the studio as a unique practice community that connects academic and professional contexts. We argue that successful implementation of studio-based learning involves an awareness of disciplinary canons, ontological approaches to knowledge, and the academic constraints on studio-based approaches to learning.     

Value creation from the innovation environment: partnership strategies in university spin‐outs

University spin‐out (USO) companies play an increasingly important role in generating value from radical, generic technologies, but this translation requires significant resources from other players to reach the market. Seven case studies illuminate how relationships with each type of partner can be leveraged to help the firm create value. We find that most firms in the sample are aware of the importance of corporate partners and actively seek to cultivate these relationships, but may not be taking full advantage of the resources available through nonparent academic institutions and other USOs with similar or complementary technologies.     

Economic Growth Evens Out Happiness: Evidence from Six Surveys

In spite of the great U‐turn that saw income inequality rise in Western countries in the 1980s, happiness inequality has fallen in countries that have experienced income growth (but not in those that did not). Modern growth has reduced the share of both the “very unhappy” and the “perfectly happy.” Lower happiness inequality is found both between and within countries, and between and within individuals. Our cross‐country regression results suggest that the extension of various public goods helps to explain this greater happiness homogeneity. This new stylized fact arguably comes as a bonus to the Easterlin paradox, offering a somewhat brighter perspective for developing countries.     

The comparative effect of process and outcome accountability in enhancing professional scepticism

Responding to concerns about insufficient professional scepticism in audits (e.g. PCAOB, 2011 , 2012 ; ASIC, 2012 ), we investigate the effect of process and outcome accountability in enhancing the level of professional scepticism and the differences in effects across audit experience levels. In our experiment, we manipulate the type of accountability (outcome versus process) for both novice auditors and audit seniors. We examine the effect on four measures of professional scepticism and find that auditors show greater levels of professional scepticism when they are expected to justify their judgment process, rather than their final judgments. Our results also show that the professional scepticism of novice auditors improves to a greater extent than that of more experienced auditors (audit seniors) under process accountability.     

Small entrepreneurial ventures culture, change and the impact on HRM: A critical review

Effective management of people is increasingly recognized in the literature as a vital contributor to organizational performance and indeed survival. Nevertheless, studies of the dynamics of human resource management in small entrepreneurial ventures are relatively sparse. In this paper we draw upon a range of behaviourally-informed research publications to demonstrate that a culture of owner-influenced individualism and informality pervades these ventures, affecting prime human resource issues such as performance related practices, training and development, work–life balance and other critical dimensions of employee welfare. A preference for informality and an absence of strategy to inform owner–employee relations sits uneasily alongside growing political pressures toward codification of the management of employees in small entrepreneurial ventures. The response to these pressures may have significant implications both for relationships with employees and for organizational performance.     

Active engagement with nature: outdoor adventure tourism,sustainability and wellbeing

Abstract

This article draws on the conflicting arguments surrounding outdoor adventure tourism activities to determine if such activities might usefully be considered beneficial for humans and nature, and how they might offer avenues for sustainable tourism practice. Research in the field has often examined outdoor adventure activities through a lens that either highlights their negative environmental impacts or has sought to conceptualise motivations and/or experiences. In this article, we argue that through practices that are often seen as destructive, there is the possibility to think differently about human-nature relationships and pro-environmentalism. To explore these issues, we draw on data collected from a series of semi-structured interviews with outdoor adventure tourists. Our analysis highlights how outdoor adventure tourism facilitates reconnections to nature, offering potential wellbeing impacts and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. We conclude that outdoor adventure activities as a form of sustainable tourism have potential implications for our understanding of, and engagement with, sustainability, mental health and wellbeing.     

Local Planning for Recreation and Tourism: A Case Study of Mountain Biking from New Zealand's Manawatu Region

At the local level, planning for recreation and tourism is not necessarily a straight forward process. Local policy makers may be unable to reflect the complexity of the planning process, particularly when it should consider a variety of views representing different stakeholders. In addition, those involved in planning for recreation and tourism have often treated such activities in isolation from other factors which make up the social, environmental and economic fabric of a region. One of the reasons for this may belack of data, and the research in this article seeksto redress a similarlack in relation to mountain biking in the Manawatu Region of New Zealand. The recent increase in the number of mountain bikers world-wide has prompted studies in the USA and New Zealand, which have indicated a growing concern with environmental impacts, demonstrated attitudes of other recreationalists to mountain bikers and identified a number of management issues. This article presents research conducted in association with the Palmerston North City Council. It suggests that planning for recreation and tourism is often an ad hoc and reactive process and recommends the adoption of a more iterative approach.