The impact of trust and contract on innovation performance: The moderating role of environmental uncertainty

Research into two important control mechanisms for managing the supply chain relationship - contracts and trust - is on the rise. However, our understanding of how they influence innovation in a firm remains rather unclear. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to examine the individual and interactive effects of contracts and trust on firms' innovation performance and the contingent effects of environmental uncertainty on those relationships in China. The empirical results from a survey of Chinese manufacturing firms indicate that there is a positive relationship between trust and firms' innovation performance, an inverted U-shaped relationship between the use of contracts and firms' innovation performance, and that contracts and trust are substitutes. Moreover, we find that environmental uncertainty enhances the effects of trust, but does not influence the impact of contracts on innovation performance.     

The relevance of personal characteristics in health care rationing: what the Australian public thinks and why

This article examines the preferences of the general public in Australia regarding health care resource allocation. While previous studies have revealed that the public is willing to give priority to particular groups of patients based on their personal characteristics, the present article goes beyond previous efforts in attempting to explain these results. In the present study, there was strong support among respondents for giving “equal priority” to people regardless of their personal characteristics. However, respondents did reveal a preference for married patients over single, for children over adults, for carers of children and the elderly, sole breadwinners, and good community contributors. Further, they would give a lower priority to those perceived as “self-harmers”—smokers, individuals with unhealthy diets, and those who rarely exercise. Variation in the answers according to broad economic and social beliefs across seven different categories (“factors”) influenced the pattern of the public's attitudes towards rationing. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) indicated that most of the items in our survey are associated with seven factors that explain or capture much of the variation. These relate to a patient's avoidance of self-harm behaviors (Safe Living), their Life Style (diet, exercise, etc.), their contribution to the community through caring for others (Caring), their talents (Gifted), their sexual behavior (Sexuality), their age and marital status (Family), and whether they are an Australian citizen or employed (Citizen). The strength of social preferences—e.g., how strongly respondents would “discriminate” against a recreational drug user or preference a person with a healthy diet—is related to the particular class of preferences.     

Escalation effects and the player draft in the AFL

This study investigates escalation effects in the Australian Football League (AFL). We use a sample of players selected in the AFL player draft (National Draft) between 1986 and 2002, and test for escalation effects by examining whether a player's draft order affects his subsequent utilisation by the club to which he was drafted. Utilisation is represented with measures of games played and tenure. Limited evidence of an escalation effect is found. Any relation between a player's draft order and his games played and tenure at the club to which he was drafted is concentrated in the early years of his career, and this apparent relation can be explained by the information about a player's ability that is contained in the player's draft order and by incentives for clubs to provide greater playing experience to higher ability players. Escalation effects in the AFL competition are therefore much weaker than have been found in studies of the US National Basketball Association (NBA). It is suggested that differences in the structure of the competitions may explain why the escalation effect in the AFL would be weaker than in the NBA.     

The comparative test in marketing research and theory development

The comparative test has traditionally been viewed as a theoretical and methodological technique that was useful for making rapid advances in the development of marketing as a science. Enthusiasm for the comparative test is rooted in logical empiricism. Unexplored implications for the use of the comparative test in marketing are offered from the sophisticated methodological falsificationist and the social constructionist perspectives. A proposed solution to the problems that are created from using the comparative test in the traditional manner is presented. The solution proposed is relevant to methodology in science in general and should aid research and the development of theory in marketing.     

The value of a story in organisation learning

Projects of Organisation Learning (OL) are designed to facilitate a change in an organisation's ability to engage or construct their futures. However, OL remains difficult to explain and operationalise. Traditional views of Organisational Learning, by relying on implicit views of individual learning, distort the importance of the social/cultural context of learning. A Communities of Practice perspective is used to focus on locally negotiated and situated meanings in the context of the practice of valued work. A narrative approach is employed to access the values of a group of advisers required to learn and change according to the requirements of a central government department. The findings show a pattern of values not entirely disconnected from the requirements for change. However, by relying on the assumption of the diffusion of change, a change agent was unable to gain the acceptance of advisers to the requirements. It is suggested that future thinking about OL and change need to examine how talk is used to make new realities with others.     

The Poverty of Politics: How Income Redistribution Hurts the Poor

In spite of the significant research literature identifying a tradeoff between income redistribution and economic growth, massive public programs have been implemented to help the poor by transferring income to them. Since Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty began in 1964, over 3.5 trillion dollars have been transferred. However, the possibility that everyone, including the poor, may in fact be made worse off by the transfer has largely been ignored. With a simple algebraic model, the authors demonstrate that, over time, both high and low-income groups are harmed by redistribution. In addition, social mobility, as well as political concerns with relative poverty and international income redistribution increases the damage to all income groups produced by redistribution.     

Estimating society's willingness to pay to maintain viable rural communities*

Declining populations in rural and regional areas have become a high political priority in Australia. Calls for measures to support rural communities have been prompted by substantial population declines in some country areas. In Europe and the USA, similar political pressures to halt population losses in rural and regional areas are also apparent; often as a component of the multifunctionality of agriculture. The question addressed in the present paper is whether or not the Australian tax‐paying public would be willing to pay to avoid losses of people from rural and regional areas that may result from environmental protection measures. As an integral component of two recent non‐market, environmental valuation exercises using Choice Modelling, the value of the benefits associated with the maintenance of rural populations has been estimated. The results demonstrate that a positive existence value is held primarily by urban dwellers for rural population levels.     

International Portfolio Diversification and the Magnitude of the Market Timer's Penalty

Market timers without timing skill suffer a penalty relative to buy-and-hold investors in the form of higher portfolio risk. With transactions costs, timers suffer lower expected returns as well. We derive the magnitude of this penalty for a timer randomly switching funds between two or more risky assets. Assuming costless trades, a U.S.-based timer randomly switching between U.S. and Japanese national stock funds can expect to face a 26.2% higher standard deviation than a comparable buy-and-hold investor at the same level of expected return. A timer randomly switching between a globally diversified equity portfolio and U.S. T-bills faces a 50.3% higher standard deviation of return than a comparable buy-and-hold investor.     

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.     

Accounting for Executive Stock Options: A Case Study in Avoiding Tough Decisions

We review the development of accounting requirements for executive stock options (ESOs) and find that the standard-setting process has been susceptible to pressure groups including the corporate sector, politicians and even the accounting profession itself. The failure of Australian and overseas accounting regulators to take tough decisions may have created a systematic bias towards the use of ESOs which can result in grossly inefficient compensation structures motivated by a desire to maximise reported profits rather than to create optimal managerial incentives. We conclude that most of the arguments against recognition of stock option expense can be dismissed as blatant self-interest at worst, or remarkably muddled thinking at best.