Selection institutions and war aims

We explore how the sizes of the winning coalition and selectorate influence the war aims of states. Leaders who answer to a small winning coalition are more likely to seek territorial gain as a way to increase state resources. Nonterritorial war aims produce a commitment problem in that after the war the defeated state may not comply with the victor's demands. States with large winning coalitions are more willing to continue the war to remove the enemy leader as a solution to this commitment problem. We test our hypotheses against the Militarized Interstate Dispute data set, and we find some support for our argument. Received: June 2004, Accepted: April 2005, Correspondence to: James D. Morrow     

Play it again: how game-based learning improves flow in Accounting and Marketing education

ABSTRACT

Flow theory is used in this article [Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). The domain of creativity ] to determine whether gamified resources, named Accountingame and Marketingame, possess certain characteristics which, in the form of educational games, increase the performance of Portuguese undergraduate students attending Accounting (N?=?816) and Marketing (N?=?195) curricular units for the first time. A structural equation model was used to look into the direct effects of the characteristics of the game, such as Concentration, Clarity, Feedback, Challenge, Autonomy, Social Interaction, and Perceived Learning, on students’ learning Flow. Results clearly show that, with the exception of Feedback, all the other dimensions were Flow predictors. Overall, by introducing games into the curriculum, students’ motivation and interest increased and demonstrates that games can be an effective way for students to learn.     

Education for sustainable development: current discourses and practices and their relevance to technology education

Technology education is a well-established field of knowledge whose applications have many ramifications. For example, technology education may be used as a tool in meeting the challenges of sustainable development. However, the usefulness of technology education to the sustainability debate as a whole and to education for sustainable development in particular, has largely been overlooked in the past. Indeed, there is a paucity of academic studies which examine the contribution technology education may provide to education for sustainable development. On the basis of the need to address this knowledge gap, this paper reviews the state of affairs in relation to education for sustainable development and considers its links and appropriateness to technology education. A further objective of this paper is to present examples of initiatives and existing practices around the world, drawing partly from the results of the 1st European Conference on Education for Sustainable Development held in Greece in October 2007, as well as from other initiatives undertaken in Europe and North America. Finally, some measures that may be adopted in order to enhance the contribution of technology education to education for sustainable development are outlined.     

Online advertising disclaimers in unregulated markets: use of disclaimers by multinational and local companies in the Brazilian toy industry

ABSTRACT

Researchers have documented whether and how companies use advertising disclaimers in regulated markets. We complement the extant work by analysing a sample of 449 online toy advertisements targeting children in Brazil, a largely unregulated market. Results show that multinational corporations are more likely to include disclaimers in their online ads than local Brazilian companies. Further analyses reveal, however, that advertising disclaimers used by multinational subsidiaries have more distractors that reduce viewer comprehension. Our research contributes to the fields of advertising and institutional theory by being the first to document whether and how multinational subsidiaries use disclaimers in online ads targeting an unregulated market.     

Nascent Entrepreneurs' Motivations in European Economies: A Gender Approach Using GEM Data

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship is becoming an important source of employment for women in many countries. There are different circumstances and motives that contribute to the decision to start a business. In this study, we developed a model that can estimate the probability of individuals becoming nascent entrepreneurs by opportunity or necessity. The model considers individuals' sociodemographic characteristics and European economies' perceived characteristics as oriented towards efficiency or innovation. Statistical logistic regression was used to test the model. The results show statistically significant differences between genders, European economies oriented either to efficiency or innovation, and entrepreneurs who are born out of opportunity or necessity.     

The Risk-Return Relationship of Pension Funds With Investments in Hedge Funds

This article investigates if investing in local hedge funds improves the risk-return relationship of Brazilian pension funds. Investment in hedge funds by pension funds is growing elsewhere, with an increasing utilization of a multiplicity of hedge funds specialized in specific strategies or niches. We analyzed the performance of a typical pension fund allocation in Brazil as well as alternate allocations that included hedge funds. We used robust estimates of the covariance matrix to mitigate the errors in variables that are problematic in the inputs of the optimization. The results show that hedge funds improve the risk-return relationship of the typical pension fund allocation, contribute to a higher accumulated return at the end of a one-year period, and reduce portfolio rebalancing. Investments in hedge funds ease reaching the typical 6% annual return target with less risk exposure.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Trade: A Study on Selected Brazilian Industries

This study aims to investigate whether foreign direct investment (FDI) growth improved the Brazilian foreign trade in the long run and whether there is a predictable relationship between a firm's FDI strategy and a firm's foreign trade. We applied moderated multiple regressions and generalized linear models to test the effects of FDI on both export and import equations of 11 Brazilian industries from 1996 to 2009. Our data sources include the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Ministry, Central Bank of Brazil, and the Applied Research Institute. Results showed that FDI is correlated with increased exports in the short run, but not in the long run. In the long run, the positive relationship between FDI and exports will only occur for export-oriented industries in which resource-seeking strategies are preponderant. We found a positive relationship between imports and FDI in the short run, particularly in import-oriented industries. A negative relationship between FDI and imports was found in the long run.     

Bargaining or Backlash? Evidence on Intimate Partner Violence from the Dominican Republic

This essay explores the role of economic, political, and social factors in the incidence of intimate partner violence (IPV). It considers the extent to which two prominent theses on the determinants of IPV – (1) the household bargaining model (HBM), and (2) the male backlash model (MBM) – best explain this phenomenon in the case of the Dominican Republic. Drawing on the 2007 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), which differentiates between physical and sexual IPV, results from logistic regressions reveal that the HBM better explains physical IPV, while the MBM better predicts sexual IPV. Further, the HBM does better accounting for IPV among wealthier women, while the MBM best explains IPV among poorer women. The findings suggest the need to reconsider broad programs and policies intended to prevent and ameliorate IPV in the Dominican Republic, and to implement targeted initiatives focusing on the economic factors motivating them.     

An overview of corporate social responsibility in Greece: perceptions,developments and barriers to overcome

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Greece and present the challenges that need to be met in order to further promote socially responsible business behaviour in the domestic economy. This is the first attempt to provide a systematic analysis of CSR in Greece and adds to the existing pool of knowledge of CSR embeddedness in countries where CSR awareness is still rather low, a literature field that is still quite limited. Drawing from prior literature, the paper is built around three basic questions in relation to the Greek context: how is CSR perceived by Greek business professionals? How is CSR practised in Greece? And which issues evident in the modern domestic environment act as underlying barriers to the broader dissemination of CSR in Greece? The extant empirical work suggests that, while CSR in Greece appears to be developing, there is still scope for improvement and further diffusion of relevant practices. While some of the patterns shaping CSR in Greece have been analysed, much work still remains to be carried out in extending and deepening our knowledge in this part of Europe.