Corporate Scandals and Capital Structure

The present study investigates the influence of self-regulatory focus on consumer ethical beliefs (i.e., consumers’ judgment of various unethical consumer practices). The self-regulatory focus framework is highly influential and applies to an impressively wide spectrum of topics across a diverse array of domains. However, previous research has not yet examined the link between this personality construct and the consumer ethics field. Findings indicate that promotion affects one’s attitude toward questionable consumer practices with those having a stronger (versus weaker) promotion focus being more likely to believe these consumer misbehaviors to be acceptable. Further, this study shows that prevention influences one’s perception of morally dubious consumer practices with those having a stronger (versus weaker) prevention focus being more inclined to believe these questionable consumer activities to be unacceptable.     

An environmental social marketing intervention among employees: assessing attitude and behaviour change

Abstract

The paper examines the impact of individual and organisational factors on two simultaneous environmental social marketing interventions (SmartPrint and heating/cooling) and types of behaviours (recycling, printing and heating/cooling), among employees of a British City Council. Using a quantitative methodology, in the form of a situated experiment, self-reported attitudes, perceptions of organisational support, self-reported behaviours and actual behaviours were measured before and after the interventions. The interventions generated significant changes in employees’ overall environmental behaviour, heating/cooling behaviour and in some perceptions of organisational support (support and incentives/rewards). Findings are used to detail recommendations for future campaigns aiming to improve organisations’ environmental performance and to drive enduring employee behavioural change.     

Corporate lobbying,political connections,and the bailout of banks

Political involvement has long been shown to be a profitable investment for firms that seek favorable regulatory conditions or support in times of economic distress. But how important are different types of political involvement for the timing and magnitude of political support? To answer this question, we take a comprehensive look at the lobbying expenditures and political connections of banks that were recipients of government support under the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). We find that politically-engaged firms were not only more likely to receive TARP funds, but they also received a greater amount of TARP support and received the support earlier than firms that were not politically involved.     

Women's Access to Credit: Does It Matter for Household Efficiency?

Studies that assess the impact of credit constraints on farm households' efficiency have largely used the household as the unit of analysis. This can be problematic when there are gender-based market imperfections and asymmetries in how rights, resources, and responsibilities are distributed within the household. Constraints on women matter: in addition to the efficiency loss associated with the husbands' credit constraints, when women are unable to meet their needs for capital, their households experienced an additional 11% drop in efficiency. This suggests that there are efficiency-based arguments for enhancing women's access to capital and that studies based only on the household's head may significantly underestimate the true economic impact of credit constraints.     

Who Owns the Land? Gender and Land‐Titling Programmes in Latin America

The main focus of state intervention in Latin American agriculture in the 1990s was on land-titling programs, designed to promote security of tenure and enliven land markets. A review of seven of these projects suggests that they were often designed without sufficient attention to civil codes and marital regimes that protect women's property rights. They often ignored that a household's endowment of land may consist of three forms of property: the wife's, the husband's and jointly owned property. By assuming that the family farm is owned by the male household head, these projects trampled upon women's ownership rights. Nonetheless, the share of female beneficiaries of land-titling projects has been much higher than the share of women adjudicated land under the agrarian reforms of previous decades. This is partly because the primary way that women acquire land is through inheritance, and inheritance appears to be more gender equitable than other manners of acquiring land. It is also due to the impact of the more gender-equitable agrarian legislation of the current period, itself a product of the impact of women's movements on the state.     

Can we explain airport performance? A case study of selected New York airports using a stochastic frontier model

This paper uses stochastic frontier models to assess whether technical efficiency at Newark Liberty International, New York John F. Kennedy International, and New York LaGuardia airports improved from June to August 2008 compared with the summers of 2000 and 2007. An airport is efficient if it can handle operations on-time by minimizing overall demand and maximizing available airport capacity. Granger-causality tests determined the factors that may cause changes in key components and indicators of airport performance. Compared with the other airports, JFK experienced the greatest improvement in technical efficiency. The Granger-causality tests stressed the significance of airport operations and en route factors in supporting efficiency.     

Sketching: Friend or Foe to the Novice Designer?

Previous research by one of the authors showed that novice designers do not use sketching as a way to generate, develop and communicate design proposals, but move immediately to three-dimensional modelling. Neither do they generate multiple solutions. The follow-up study described here addressed the questions: Does teaching two-dimensional modelling enable Grade 7 pupils to better express their ideas and organize their thoughts? What role does discussion play in pupils' attempts to generate a design proposal? Does the use of contextualising items make a difference to pupils' success with designing? Eight Grade 7 pupils were drawn from each of two classes. One class had received instruction in sketching; the other served as a control group. Each group of eight pupils was divided into single-sex dyads. The eight dyads were videotaped while producing a solution to a common design brief. Analysis of the data has provided insights into the effects of instruction on the proposals produced by pupils. Additionally, their ability to generate, develop and communicate design ideas is enhanced by both the dynamic relationship between pupils' talk and 3D modelling and the way the task is contextualised. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.