Adimpact—a multi-media advertising effectiveness-measurement method

Recall and recognition are the methods which are usually used to establish if a person has been exposed to advertising or not. Recall tends to greatly underestimate exposure. Recognition, though coming much closer to actual exposure, has severe practical limitations, especially for radio commercials and in terms of the number of advertisements that can be tested at a time. Adimpact is a method offering an alternative way of establishing probable exposure to advertising, which is independent of the respondents' ability to recall or recognize the advertisements they have seen or heard.     

Developing managerial learning styles in the context of the strategic application of information and communications technologies

This article reports on collaboration between a research university and a consortium of leading public and private sector organisations to enable their senior executives ‘to get our arms around this thing called IT’. The project started in 1995 and ran for almost four years. The learning materials were developed with the participants at face‐to‐face meetings mediated by group decision support software. The initial requirement for paper‐based out‐puts was soon augmented with bespoke software, CD‐ROM and online databases accessed via an extranet and then an interactive website. An action research approach was used to observe and measure the effectiveness of a theoretical model – the Executive Learning Ladder. During one 12‐month period, 50 events involved 561 executives. Analysis of the results indicated that sense‐making was accelerated when conducted within peer‐groups before being ‘cascaded’ to less experienced managers. Senior executives preferred metaphors that triggered connections whereas their subordinates tended to display an appetite for extensive case study portfolios. The report concludes with a discussion of the successes and failures of the Executive Learning Ladder and its potential as a generalisable model for executive development in the ICT domain.     

New development: Exploring public service markets

The authors explain why public service markets are fundamentally different from regulated utilities markets by looking at the product characteristics, market structure, funding oversight and legal arrangements in such markets. They highlight the issues which will be important as marketized delivery becomes increasingly mainstream in public services provision.     

Problems in valuing the benefits of biodiversity protection

This paper considers two problems in valuing the benefits of biodiversity protection. These are, firstly, that preferences for biodiversity protection may be lexicographic rather than utilitarian. The more individuals for whom this is true, the less is cost-benefit analysis validated as a means of decision making for biodiversity protection, since lexicographic preferences are incompatible with the Kaldor-Hicks Compensation Test. Secondly, people may be poorly informed about the meaning of biodiversity, complicating the use of contingent valuation as a means of measuring preservation benefits. This paper first discusses the meaning of biodiversity, and trends in diversity over time. We offer some empirical evidence with regard to lexicographic preferences; consider the implications of having poorly-informed consumers; and then report the results of a contingent valuation study of biodiversity protection with varying levels of information. We find that willingness to pay for biodiversity protection increases with the level of information provided.We thank David Pearce, participants at a seminar at University College London, and two referees for comments on earlier versions of this paper.     

DELIBERATIVE MONETARY VALUATION: IN SEARCH OF A DEMOCRATIC AND VALUE PLURAL APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

The use of deliberative methods to assess environmental values in monetary terms has been motivated by the potential for small group discussion to help with preference formation and the inclusion of non‐economic values. In this review, two broad approaches are identified: preference economisation and preference moralisation. The former is analytical, concentrates upon issues of poor respondent cognition and produces a narrow conception of value linked to utilitarianism. The latter emphasises political legitimacy, appeals to community values and tends to privilege arguments made in the public interest. Both approaches are shown to embrace forms of value convergence, which undermine the prospects for value pluralism. As a result exclusion and predefinition of values dominates current practice. In order to maintain democratic credentials, the importance attributed to monetary value needs to be left as an open question to be addressed as part of a process determining an “agreement to pay”. To this end we identify a discourse‐based approach as a third way consistent with the democratic and value plural potential of deliberative monetary valuation.     

The impact of the ‘school run’ on road traffic accidents: A spatio-temporal analysis

Engineering and improved road safety education has resulted in an overall decrease in road traffic accident numbers in Christchurch, New Zealand. The temporal trends of crash data from 1980 to 2004 reveal that lowering of crash rates is not occurring at a uniform rate throughout the day, with comparative increases in crash rates occurring during morning rush hour, and during the ’school run’. No spatial clustering around schools was identified. This suggests that policies to reduce school travel related road accidents need to be focused on reducing overall traffic levels rather than focusing geographically on areas in the immediate vicinity of schools.     

Audit Quality and Auditor Size: An Evaluation of Reputation and Deep Pockets Hypotheses

Empirical studies have shown that large auditors are more accurate than small auditors. The reputation hypothesis states that large auditors have more incentive to be accurate because an inaccurate report may lead to a loss of client-specific rents (DeAngelo, 1981). The deep pockets hypothesis states that large auditors should be more accurate because they have greater wealth at risk from litigation (Dye, 1993). This paper presents evidence on the relationship between auditor size and litigation and on the market shares of criticised and uncriticised auditors – the findings give greater support to the deep pockets hypothesis than the reputation hypothesis.