Reviews

“THE RURAL ECONOMY” M. Healey and B. llbery (Eds), 1985: The Industrialization of the Countryside Norwich: Geo Books, £32.50.

P. Lowe, G. Cox, M. MacEwen, T. O'Riordan, M. Winter, 1986: Countryside Conflicts. The Politics of Farming, Forestry and Conservation.

Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company, £19.50 hardback, £8.95 paper.

E. Stern and J. Turbin, 1986: Youth Employment and Unemployment in Rural England. Report of a One Year Pilot Study in Four Rural Areas for the Development Commission Development Commission/Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

“GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, LOCAL RESPONSE?” Philip Cook (Ed), 1986: Global Restructuring, Local Response. London: Economic and Social Research Council £10.00.

“LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” Cordle, P., 1985: Employment and Industrial Development-Local Authority Initiatives. CIPFA, £5.00. V. Hausner (Ed) 1986: Critical Issues in Urban Economic Development, Volume II. Oxford: Clarendon Press, £22.50

“CRISIS IN THE INDUSTRIAL HEARTLAND” Spencer, K., Taylor, A., Smith, B., Mawson, J., Flynn N. and Batley, R., 1986: Crisis in the Industrial Heartland: A Study of the West Midlands. Oxford University Press, £7.95.

“BLACK POLITICS AND URBAN CRISIS” Brian D. Jacobs, 1986: Black politics and urban crisis in Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press £25.00 Hardback.

“UNEMPLOYMENT AND LABOUR MARKET POLICIES” Hart, P. E. (Ed), 1986: Unemployment and Labour Market Policies Aldershot: Gower, 1950     

Classical conditioning of unattended stimuli

Recently, marketing has increasingly recognized the potential application of classical conditioning principles. However, the design of marketing studies involving classical conditioning create focused attention upon the conditioned stimulus; whereas in the realistic marketing environment the conditioned stimulus seldom receives focused attention and most likely receives attenuated attention. Using a classical conditioning paradigm, the present study investigated the use of positive and negative unconditioned stimuli in the formation of affect for attended and unattended conditioned stimuli. The results indicated that the use of positive unconditioned stimuli can establish the formation of affect for both the attended and unattended conditioned stimuli. However, classical conditioning was not demonstrated when the unconditioned stimuli were negative. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Optimal Number of Stock Holdings in Mutual Fund Portfolios Based on Market Performance

Among the decisions that most mutual fund portfolio managers make is the number of stocks to hold. We posit that there is an optimal number of stocks for each mutual fund, reflecting the trade‐off between diversification benefits versus transactions and monitoring costs. We find a significant quadratic relation between number of stock holdings and risk‐adjusted returns for U.S. equity mutual fund portfolios during 1992–2000. Moreover, we find that changes in the number of stocks held over time are more highly correlated with mutual fund flows than with funds' investment returns.     

The legal aspects of teleworking

This article discusses teleworking from a legal perspective. Although spreading rapidly, the many legal aspects of teleworking are under‐represented in the literature. The main issues covered in this article are the definition of teleworking, employment relationships and employment contracts, civil liability, and other legal considerations. Lastly, implications are discussed for both the management of organisations and the legal establishment.     

Uncertainty orientation: Expalaining diffeerences in purchase involvement and external search

This study incorporates uncertainty orientation, an individual difference variable concerned with cognitive response to uncertainty, and purchase involvement in a multiple indicator model of consumer external search activity. The model is tested using partial least squares in two contexts: for durable purchase decisions. Purchase involvement was found to be a multidimensional construct and only the experienced purchaserisk dimension was captured in the measurement models. For durables, uncertainty-oriented consumers experienced greater purchase risk and engaged in greater external seach than certainty-oriented consumers. For nondurables, uncertainty-oriented consumers experienced lower purchase risk than certainty-oriented consumers. Although the results are modest, they suggest that uncertainty orientation might be fruitfully examined in other applied contexts. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.