Do family resources matter? Educational attainment during transition in Poland*

We analyse the relationship between family background and children's educational attainment in the 1990s in Poland. If parental poverty affects children's educational prospects, the increase in social inequalities observed in the Polish transition process will be transmitted between generations. We apply an ordered probit model of educational attainment on longitudinal data from the Polish Labour Force Survey. Surprisingly, parents’ income and their labour market status have only a weak impact on children's education. Parents’ schooling, however, is strongly related to children's, and so are household structure, city size, and region of residence. We conclude that, if transmission of inequality takes place between generations, this seems to be primarily caused by the inheritance of human capital rather than by pure wealth effects.     

Collaborating Smartly: The Role of Open Strategy in Absorptive Capacity

Research on open strategy suggests that shared knowledge through collaboration can generate co‐created value. We explore this idea by assessing it as a predictor of absorptive capacity (ACAP) in cross‐sector partnerships in pursuit of social innovation. The findings of our study indicate that aspects of strategic openness, including a shared sense of interdependence toward a mutual goal, are the primary mechanisms that enhance knowledge accretion in cross‐sector partnerships. The data also suggest that formalized organizational mechanisms are more influential for producing ACAP than informal mechanisms.     

Approaching reality: Comparing stakeholder analysis and cultural theory in the context of natural resource management

Increased pressure on ecosystems and enhanced competition over the use of natural resources makes it necessary to develop sustainable methods for natural resource management (NRM). However, NRM is a complicated issue. It involves numerous stakeholders, with different needs, resources and perceptions of nature. Stakeholder participation will necessarily be selective, based both on theoretical assumptions about who is a legitimate stakeholder and unevenly distributed power among stakeholders. Although stakeholder involvement is important, sometimes the theory appears to be rather blunt. It has been suggested that, since different categories of stakeholders embody different perceptions of nature, cultural theory could provide important additional criteria for stakeholder involvement. Based on field studies in Naivasha, Kenya, this paper analyses pros and cons of stakeholder analysis and investigates the usefulness of cultural theory for improved stakeholder analysis.     

Sex Work,Sensory Urbanism and Visual Criminology: Exploring the Role of the Senses in Shaping Residential Perceptions of Brothels in Blackpool

Urban studies and criminology have much to offer each other, but the links between the two have so far been underexplored. This article is an illustration of how aspects of both can, and should, be brought into conversation: namely the literatures on sensory urbanism (in urban studies) and visual criminology. The benefits of doing so are evidenced by a case study exploring the ways in which the senses shape residents’ perceptions of brothels in Blackpool. Three key findings emerge from the case study. First, the residents interviewed tended to focus on the visual aspects of brothels rather than other sensory aspects. Nevertheless, touch and smell (and their interaction with the visual) also played small but important roles in shaping residential perceptions. Second, residential perceptions of sex work and brothels are linked to, and encompass, a plurality of emotional responses. Third, while the residents could see or hear little of what was happening inside the brothels, they often sought out sensory clues from outside, typically drawn from the architectural features of the brothels. Such insights, we argue, are made possible by, and highlight the possibilities of, the bringing together of urban studies and criminology.     

Macroeconomic announcement effects on the covariance structure of government bond returns

This paper concerns the effects of macroeconomic announcements on the covariance structure of US government bond returns for six different maturities; the study shows that the conditional variances, covariances, and correlation coefficients are significantly greater on announcement days. On non-announcement days, the correlation coefficients are relatively large and are greater the closer the bonds are with respect to the time to maturity. The maturity dependency is substantially dampened on announcement days and, hence, releases of macroeconomic news induce common movement in the government bond market that strengthen the correlations.     

Idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: influence of macro-finance factors

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We analyze the cross-sectional relation between expected idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. The expected idiosyncratic volatility is...     

When Rule Makers Become Rule Breakers: Employee Level Outcomes of Managerial Pro-Social Rule Breaking

We extend Morrison’s (2006) construct of pro-social rule breaking (PSRB) in two important ways. First, we explicate the processes through which PSRB may have unintended negative consequences. Second, we provide a conceptual model intended to guide future research into PSRB. The model discusses the mechanisms through which managerial PSRB may lead to negative employee outcomes. Specifically, we propose that when managers engage in PSRB, more complex processes (perceptions of organizational justice, attributions of management by employees, and psychological contract violations) mediate the unintended employee level outcomes of managerial PSRB.     

Too hot to handle? Trust and human resource practitioners' implementation of anti‐bullying policy

In this article, we examine the dynamics of trust in the triadic relationship between HR, employees and managers when dealing with allegations of workplace bullying. Previous research has shown employees to be dissatisfied with HR practitioners' responses to complaints of workplace bullying, and we explore the novel angle of the HR practitioners' perspective through semistructured interviews. Paralleling extant employee accounts, the findings suggest that HR practitioners rarely judge situations as bullying where a manager is accused. Trust between employee, manager and HR practitioner is essential for the successful resolution of bullying claims, yet this study suggests multiple directions of distrust. By virtue of their role alignment and previous experiences of handling bullying, HR practitioners were found to prioritise their relationships with managers, automatically distrusting employees' bullying claims. Despite also distrusting managers to effectively deliver HRM practices, it appears that bullying complaints are ‘too hot to handle’ for HR practitioners given the risks to their relationships with managers.     

Intertemporal risk-return trade-off in foreign exchange rates

We investigate the intertemporal risk-return trade-off of foreign exchange (FX) rates for ten currencies quoted against the USD. For each currency, we use three risk measures simultaneously that pertain to that currency; its realized volatility, its realized skewness, and its value-at-risk. We apply monthly FX excess returns and risk measures calculated from daily observations. We find that there is a significant contemporaneous risk-return trade-off for the currencies under investigation. There is no evidence of noncontemporaneous risk-return trade-off. We pay special attention to the risk-return trade-off during the recent financial crisis.