Renewable resource market obeying difference equations: Stable points,stable cycles,and Chaos (1991)

In this paper, the basic principles of the Chaos Theory are applied to dynamic systems involving renewable resource and harvest. The results of simulations are presented regarding harvested resource stock time path. It is shown that stationary steady-state is only one of many different possible outcomes of bioeconomic equilibrium. The varying impacts that different management policies have on an unstable dynamic system are also studied. It is shown that in unstable resource systems, the effects of some policy measures will be very different from the ones obtained through traditional resource analysis. It also shows that policies which induce a stabilizing effect in stock time series will generally provide greater welfare gains. The results are illustrated by two market examples.     

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA): an application for the industry

This article examines the management in Colombian industrial sectors using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). This method conceptualizes cases as combinations of attributes and use Boolean algebra to derive simplified expressions of combinations that lead to a specific outcome. In this analysis, we show the value of this method for studying the management in the industrial from different approaches.     

Board structure and price informativeness

We develop and test the hypothesis that stock price informativeness affects the structure of corporate boards. We find a negative relation between price informativeness and board independence. This finding is robust to the inclusion of many firm-level controls, including firm fixed effects, and to the choice of the measure of price informativeness. Consistent with the hypothesis that price informativeness and board monitoring are substitutes, this relation is particularly strong for firms more exposed to both external and internal governance mechanisms and for firms in which firm-specific knowledge is relatively unimportant. Our results suggest that firms with more informative stock prices have less demanding board structures.     

Contemporary Indigenous education: A nature-centered American Indian philosophy for a 21st century world

This paper recognizes the need to integrate, synthesize, organize, and give focus to the enormous amount of accumulated materials from a wide range of disciplines about American Indian cultures and American Indian education toward the evolution of a contemporary epistemology for American Indian education that is indigenously inspired and ecologically based. Traditional American Indian forms of education must be given serious consideration as conceptual wellsprings for the “new” kinds of educational thought capable of addressing the tremendous challenges of the 21st century.     

The implementation of a quality management system based on the Q tourist quality standard. The case of hotel sector

The Q Tourist Quality Standard is proving to be highly successful not only in Spain but also in several other countries across the European Union. The Q Certificate lays the ground for companies to build competitive differences not because they have obtained a certificate but because the groundwork the certificate implies means that they are capable of defining a quality management and control system which can achieve cost and differentiation advantages. The purpose of this article is to analyse the case of the Majestic Hotel in order to illustrate that the process must be implemented correctly if it is to create these advantages. The main results of the study show that, after an initial successful period, the project had to be shelved. The main cause of failure was the lack of involvement and commitment on the part of management. This led to inflexibility among the members of the organisation when it came to accepting change, a lack of training in quality and to a perception that a quality system was simply more “paperwork”.     

Changes in family food habits: the role of migration

The food habits of people generally dictate their nutritional well‐being, which subsequently affects their physical and mental health. A change in environment is one of the major factors that could bring about positive or negative changes in food consumption patterns. The food habits of 50 migrant families living in a suburb of Accra were studied to find out what changes have taken place as a result of a change in living environment. The homemaker in each family was interviewed to obtain information on socioeconomic characteristics, past and present food procurement and consumption patterns, food avoidances and factors that influence food selection and consumption. The findings revealed that, although the majority stuck to foods they were accustomed to, there were striking changes in sources of food procurement, the number of meals prepared at home and the relative frequency of consumption of some staple foods. One‐third of the study group felt that their diets had become poorer as a result of the change in environment. Two factors, time and money, were associated with the changes that had taken place. The study provides some evidence for the existence of inadequate diets among migrant families. This might even reflect a more serious situation facing the numerous migrant youth, who have no families to cater for them and, hence, put their health at risk. Home economists and other related professionals could be instrumental in drawing up intervention programmes to ensure adequate selection and consumption of food to promote good health among migrants to the city.     

X-Inefficiency,Competition and Market Information

Whether competition forces firms toward efficient behaviour is an open question. We consider a duopoly with firms run by managers and affected by adverse selection on costs. In contrast to recent literature, we point out that, to have a genuine effect on firm X-inefficiency, competition must change managerial incentives. By introducing the availability of some signal on the rivals' behaviour we show that, if costs are correlated, the contractual use of that signal can render private managerial information uninfluential. This result stresses the informational role of the market and suggests scope for future work.     

Countervailing power? Collusion in markets with decentralized trade

We consider the collective incentives of buyers and sellers to form cartels in markets with decentralized trade and pairwise bargaining. Cartels are coalitions of buyers or sellers that limit market participation and compensate inactive members for their abstention. In stable market outcomes, cartels set Nash equilibrium quantities and cartel memberships are immune to deviations. The set of stable market outcomes is non-empty and its full characterization is provided. Stable market outcomes are of two types: (i) at least one cartel restrains trade and market participation is balanced; (ii) only one cartel is active and it reduces trade slightly below the opponent’s.     

Combining creativity and control: Understanding individual motivation in large-scale collaborative creativity

Recent research has shown that management control systems (MCS) can improve performance in contexts characterized by high levels of task uncertainty. This seems to conflict with a second stream of research, which argues that MCSs risk undermining the intrinsic motivation needed for effective performance in such settings. To solve this puzzle, we build on theories of perceived locus of causality and self-construal and develop an integrative model summarized in 15 propositions. To explicate our proposed solution and to show its robustness, we focus on the class of activities we call large-scale collaborative creativity (LSCC) - contexts where individuals face a dual challenge of demonstrating creativity and embracing the formal controls that coordinate their creative activities with others’. We argue that LSCC requires the simultaneous activation of intrinsic and identified forms of motivation, and simultaneously independent and interdependent self-construals. Against some scholarship that argues or assumes that such simultaneous combinations are infeasible, we argue that they can be fostered through appropriate attraction-selection-attrition policies and management control systems design. We also show how our propositions can enrich our understanding of motivation in other settings, where creativity and/or coordination demands are less pressing.