Making sense of new technology during organisational change

This article examines how employees interpret the use of various social media and web 2.0 technologies by managers of an organisation during a merger process. The article explores the way in which managers use technology to give sense to the merger process, the corresponding sensemaking of employees and also how employees make sense of the use of technology itself. The findings show that new media enables the sharing of emotional sense about organisational processes between managers and employees and places employees with different levels of involvement with the process and at different points in the organisational hierarchy on equal footing. In spite of this, employees view the use of technology negatively and feel mastered by the technology itself. In discussing these unintended consequences of the use of this technology, the article further discusses the paradoxes that emerge from using new technology to give sense during organisational change.     

I am who I am: Sharing photos on social media by older consumers and its influence on subjective well-being

We are faced with an aging population whose longer lives need to be lived well. Extant marketing scholarship has largely neglected older consumers' behavior in relation to the social media realm and its influence on well-being. This two-stage qualitative study investigates subjective well-being, exploring whether and how sharing photos on social media increases the dimensions of self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. The findings indicate that photo-sharing is a powerful behavior in augmenting older consumers' well-being as it enables individual self-reflection, self-representation and transforms the individual experience into a collective one. Contributions include, that photo-sharing acts as a bridge in creating, reinforcing but also breaking bonds among older consumers, also a tension exists between the desire for autonomy and the need for relationships with others, and finally that the digital self is a component of subjective well-being in older consumers.     

Price discrimination in political advertising: Evidence from the 2012 presidential election

In 2010, the US Supreme Court loosened contribution limits to Political Action Committees (PACs), sparking fears that big donors could exert outsize influence on elections by funding PAC advertising. However, PACs are potentially handicapped when buying advertising time; data from 2012 reveal that PACs pay 32% above regulated campaign rates. I estimate a model of demand for advertising by PACs, exploiting the misalignment of state and media market borders to address price endogeneity. I find that prices reflect willingness-to-pay for viewer demographics rather than media bias. The estimates further suggest that network-owned stations discriminate more successfully than do local affiliates.     

Conceptualizing businesses as social actors: A framework for understanding sustainability actions in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises

Small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) can play a crucial role in advancing environmental and social well‐being. Yet various—often conflicting—explanations have been offered to clarify why SMEs pursue sustainability. Some arguments foreground possibilities of profit maximization, whereas others emphasize individual values and convictions. Research supporting such contradicting explanations is often biased towards large enterprises or small, innovative frontrunners. In this article, we examine the underlying drivers of social and environmental interventions of SMEs by exploring empirical data from a survey of over 1,600 Canadian SMEs and complementary in‐depth interviews. We argue that sustainability actions of SMEs can be understood by viewing these firms as social actors—organizations that are shaped by individual values, internal and external interpersonal relationships, and are embedded in a social environment. This conceptualization directs attention to the full range of factors that shape sustainability engagement of SMEs and highlights frequently overlooked forms of sustainability‐oriented actions.     

Evidence of Place: Becoming a Region in Rural Canada

The purpose of this article is to investigate whether place is emerging in practice as a critical dimension in the development of Canadian rural regions. Recently, Jones and Paasi set regional researchers the task of better understanding how regions ‘become'. In researching this question, we are particularly interested in the definition and expression of place‐based identity as a mobilizing force for regionalism. Our findings suggest that, while identity plays a critical role in fostering regional development processes, it is either too emergent or actively resisted within our research sites to be a significant force for place‐based regional development.     

Propuesta de indicadores SMARTER de trabajo decente para la agenda de desarrollo posterior a 2015

Los indicadores actuales de los ODM sobre empleo presentan deficiencias importantes, como problemas de medición, uso inadecuado de estadísticas agregadas, ambigüedad interpretativa y supuestos de base no aplicables a los países en desarrollo. Tratando de superar estos problemas, los autores proponen cuatro nuevos indicadores de empleo productivo y trabajo decente: el crecimiento de la contribución del trabajo al valor añadido por trabajador, la tasa de trabajadores pobres y los porcentajes de trabajadores que ganan menos de un ingreso laboral mínimo absoluto y relativo (el 60 por ciento de la mediana del ingreso laboral). Aplican empíricamente estos indicadores a los casos de Uganda y Perú.     

Attracting Long‐Term Shareholders

Corporate CEOs often say they don't hear enough from shareholders about strategic issues related to long‐term value creation. At the same time, they claim to hear with predictable regularity from short‐term investors about their success (or failure) in hitting consensus earnings targets. But as the authors of this article begin by noting, there is mounting evidence that companies get the shareholders they deserve—that companies that provide quarterly earnings guidance and otherwise focus investor attention on near‐term earnings targets tend to attract more transient investors. The authors go on to argue that companies with a compelling long‐term vision can expect to benefit not only from more farsighted managerial decision‐making, but also from building a base of longer‐term investors who share management's view of success, and how it can and ought to be achieved. Such a shift in strategic focus and disclosure toward longer‐run performance creates a virtuous cycle—one in which companies that gain the interest and backing of investors with longer horizons end up reinforcing management's confidence to undertake value‐adding investments in their company's future. Even if most companies can't pick their shareholders, they can develop an investor engagement strategy designed to attract long‐term investors. In this article, the chairman and president of FCLTGlobal outline the underlying strategy behind long‐term investor relations and the four key components of such an approach.     

Learning and development opportunities as a tool for the retention of volunteers: a motivational perspective

The growing reliance on volunteers in Australia has heightened the need for non‐profit organisations to retain these valuable resources. However, the current literature on volunteer retention is limited. One potential way volunteers can be retained is by providing learning and development opportunities (LDOs). This study investigates the relationship between volunteer perceptions of LDOs, their motivations for volunteering, and retention. Analyses revealed significant main effects for LDOs and volunteer motivations on retention and several interactive effects demonstrating that LDOs can have differential effects on retention depending on the reasons for volunteering.     

An Economic Analysis of Requirements to Prevent Handheld Hair Dryer Water Immersion Electrocutions in the USA

Before 1987, when handheld hair dryers were not required to protect against water immersion electrocutions, there were almost 16 such electrocutions annually in the USA. This article presents a retrospective evaluation of the benefits and costs of the 1987 and 1991 immersion protection requirements of the voluntary hair dryer safety standard in the USA. The benefits are based on estimates of the reduced risk of electrocution resulting from the requirements, and the valuation of the reduced risk derived from willingness to pay studies of the “value of statistical life” found in the economics literature. The costs were defined as the incremental costs associated with incorporating the immersion protection technology into handheld hair dryers. The study found that the requirements were highly effective and may have reduced the immersion-related mortality rate by almost 97%. The expected present value of the estimated benefits of the requirements amounted to about $4.56 per dryer in 2014 dollars and substantially exceeded the costs of about $2 per dryer. The primary outcome measure, the expected net benefits (i.e., benefits minus costs) of the requirements, amounted to an average of about $2.56 per hair dryer, over the hair dryer’s expected product life. Given sales of about 23 million handheld hair dryers annually, the present value of the expected net benefits associated with 1 year’s production would have amounted to about $58.9 million. A sensitivity analysis showed that the major findings were robust with respect to changes in the underlying parameters of the analysis. The study also discusses the factors leading to a high rate of effectiveness estimated for the immersion protection requirements.