Challenges and Risks in the International Monetary System

SPECIAL ISSUE OF OPEN ECONOMIES REVIEW

Challenges and Risks in the International Monetary System     

Black-White Inequality in Reading and Math Across K-12 Schooling: A Synthetic Cohort Perspective

While much has been written on the racial gap in achievement, few national studies have assessed the gap’s trajectory over K-12 schooling. The reason for this is understandable—most national data sets do not contain respondent information for this entire educational period. I utilize survey data from three national data sets containing White and Black students to document the trajectory of reading and math inequality between school entry and the end of high school. An attempt to clarify these observed patterns is made by assessing changes in the score distributions of these students across grade level, and examining how Black score distributions would fare if held to the White score distributions. Findings suggest that efforts to equalize achievement disparities must not only focus on “bringing the bottom up”, but also on keeping the top Black achievers on pace with the top White achievers across grade level.     

Ethical and Unethical Bargaining Tactics: An Empirical Study

Competitive negotiators frequently use tactics which others view as "unethical", in that these tactics either violate standards of truth telling or violate the perceived rules of negotiation. This paper sought to determine how business students viewed a number of marginally ethical negotiating tactics, and to determine the underlying factor structure of these tactics. The factor analysis of these tactics revealed five clear factors which were highly similar across the two samples, and which parallel (to a moderate degree) categories of tactics proposed by earlier theory. Data from one sample also permitted comparisons of the appropriateness of certain tactics across gender, nationality, ethnic origin and perception of one's negotiating style.     

Adjusting for risk in comparing the performances of male- and female-controlled SMEs

Small and medium enterprise (SME) research has typically found that female-owned SMEs underperform male-owned SMEs. Further, this underperformance usually persists after controlling for variables such as industry, age of business, and size of business. However, previous studies have normally limited their assessment of performance to sales or profit (or growth in sales or profit) without controlling for differences in risk. Our results indicate that although profits are significantly higher for male-controlled SMEs, so is the variation in profits (risk). After adjusting for risk, we find no significant difference between the performances of male- and female-controlled SMEs.     

The Impact of Employee Share Ownership Plans On Employee Participation and Industrial Democracy

This article examines employee participation in recently-formed employee share ownership plan organisations (ESOPS) in the UK. the various legal/institutional forms of ESOP are outlined prior to considering the nature and determinants of participative institutions and processes. It is suggested that there are three ‘constellations’ of ESOP in terms of employee participation:‘technical ESOPS’, ‘paternalist ESOPs’ and ‘representative ESOPs’. There are relatively few innovations in participation in the first of these, while in paternalist ESOPs, innovations centre on individualistic forms of participation and communication at the level of the workplace. In representative ESOPs employees gain more of a say in strategic decisions through such innovations as employee representation on company boards. It is argued that these differences in the nature of participation are due neither to differences in legal structure nor to variations in the extent of employee share ownership. Instead, participative systems are viewed as the outcome of the philosophies and objectives of those involved in the conversion to employee ownership.     

The relationships between stress,health, and physically active leisure as a function of life‐cycle

This article examines relationships between stress, health, and participation in physically active leisure using data collected as part of the 1985 and 1990 U.S. National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS). In particular, the article analyzes: (a) the effects of life‐cycle progression (controlled for gender) on subjectively perceived stress and self‐reported health; (b) the role of physically active leisure in enhancing health or buffering adverse health outcomes of stress; and (c) the effects of selected social‐economic factors, such as education and income, on the relationships between life‐cycle, stress, health, and physically active leisure. According to our analyses: (1) stress is unevenly distributed across the life span; (2) stress‐reducing effects of physically active leisure are present among retired older people more so than in the middle‐aged life‐cycle groups; and (3) direct health‐enhancing effects of participation in physically active leisure are more evident than the buffering effects of leisure on stress‐health relationships. A critical discussion of methodological and substantive issues facing researchers interested in the relationships between leisure, stress, and health is provided.     

Linkages between creativity and intention to quit: An occupational study of chefs

Human resource issues persist as a vexation for tourism managers. Foodservice is a core component of many tourism destinations and attractions yet the foodservice labour market is historically volatile. This article reports on the findings of a job satisfaction survey of chefs working in Australia's tourism and hospitality industry. This study's aim is to determine empirically whether there is a positive relationship between creativity and job and occupational satisfaction. A customised instrument is designed to mitigate the shortcomings of generalising scale items and findings of generic job satisfaction surveys to a single occupation. This paper focuses on identifying a range of dimensions of job satisfaction and occupational attributes connected to creativity and its associated dimensions. Reliability and data reduction analyses were conducted to validate the construction of composite ‘creativity’ variables for the basis of further comparisons. The findings indicate that the sample ranks creativity more highly than working conditions and that there is a clear relationship between creativity and both organisational and occupational satisfaction. Results vary as a function of gender. In conclusion, theoretical and practical implications for occupational and tourism management are discussed.