Risk perception of mobile communication: a mental models approach

Some lay people confronted with a new base station project fear serious health consequences from the high‐frequency radiation, while experts consider exposure under the current international standards as unproblematic. These conflictive estimations may be attributed to the different mental models of lay people and experts. Less is known about lay people’s knowledge in regard to mobile communication and their intuitive understanding of the associated health risks. An adaptation of the ‘Mental Models Approach’ was used to reveal lay people’s beliefs about mobile communication and to learn more about lay people’s information requirements, potential knowledge gaps, and misconceptions. Through the means of open interviews with Swiss experts (N = 16), lay people (N = 16), and base station opponents (N = 15), different mental models were constructed and evaluated. Comparisons between the expert and the lay groups showed several qualitative differences in all identified knowledge domains. Knowledge gaps in regard to changing exposure magnitudes due to the interaction patterns of cell phones and base stations as well as misconceptions about regulation issues and scientific processes were found in both lay groups. In addition, lack of trust in responsible actors and disaffection with base station location processes were mentioned. The reported qualitative insights may be useful for the improvement of further risk communication tools.     

British Managers' Attitudes and Behaviour in Industrial Relations: A Twenty-Year Study

A unique longitudinal study of Britain's managers conducted in 1980, 1990 and 2000 permits comparisons of managerial attitudes and behaviour in industrial relations over twenty years. We find clear evidence of the relationship between macro‐level political and economic movements of the period from 1980 up until the late 1990s on managerial attitudes, the impact of changes in power relations and the ‘lag effect’ of institutions. The most unexpected findings are the modest rise of managerial unionism in the 1990s and the limited evidence of the replacement of collective bargaining by either individual or group involvement or by employee financial participation.     

Patterns of Continuity and Change in Managerial Attitudes and Behaviour in Industrial Relations, 1980-1990

In this paper, data are reported from a longitudinal study of managers' attitudes and behaviour in industrial relations based on a sample of fellows and members of the British Institute of Management. An account of two surveys, carried out in 1980 and 1990, follows an examination of theories of the managerial role in industrial relations and the presentation of a research model. Managerial attitudes and behaviour are then analysed with respect to views on trade unions, personal commitments to collective representation, collective bargaining, employee participation and involvement and views on the role of government. The findings have an added significance because survey dates roughly correspond with the so-called ‘Thatcher years’. The conclusion is that some major changes in industrial relations have occurred during the decade in question, but there are also substantial continuities which cannot be ‘read off’ directly from the dramatic alterations in the political, economic and legal environment.     

Single payer: the California referendum

The California Health Security Act is likely to appear on the November 1994 ballot. The bill would provide universal coverage to California residents and assign the state as the single payer for all medical care provided, financed with funding for programs already in place, employer payroll taxes, individual income taxes and taxes on tobacco products.     

B2B seller competence: Construct development and measurement using a supply chain strategy lens

In less than a decade, Internet-enabled business-to-business (B2B) commerce has become central to supply chain management. But little is known about the infrastructural competencies required for manufacturers engaged in Internet-enabled activities with downstream business customers. This paper aims to take a first step in operationalizing a set of new, multi-item measures that tap into infrastructural (or “soft”) competencies required for leveraging B2B commerce.We use a structured, two-stage approach to develop and refine a set of constructs, items, and new multi-item measurement scales in order to rigorously evaluate their measurement properties. By drawing upon the literature as well as extensive interviews with expert practitioners, we define and measure the salient infrastructural competencies – termed B2B seller competence (B2B-SC) – associated with the seller-side of Internet-enabled commerce. We find that the conceptual domain of B2B-SC comprises seven theoretically important dimensions: (1) technical skills, (2) change disposition, (3) conflict management, (4) market acuity, (5) coordinated logistics, (6) knowledge channels, and (7) fluid partnering. Operational indicators that tap into constructs pertaining to each B2B-SC dimension are developed through an iterative process.In the second stage, we conduct a field study to more fully assess the measurement properties of item and scale reliability and validity using a covariance structure framework. The results indicate that our new scales exhibit sufficient psychometric properties, which make them useful for theory building, testing, and the refinement of supply chain strategy paradigms in the emerging area of B2B commerce.     

The food pyramid challenge

Pyramid Power is a 1‐hour programme designed to teach food choices, serving sizes and nutrition. Participants (19 women and 8 men) were challenged to follow the recommendation in a step‐by‐step manner. Evaluation, two months after the programme, resulted in two major areas of change. Participants improved their scoring of three food groups (bread‐cereal‐rice‐pasta, vegetable and fruit) and decreased the number of fat–sweet mentions. The programme and challenge provides a way for nutritionists to identify what participants are eating, to track progress and to identify future programme needs.     

An unprecedented privatisation of mandatory standard-setting: The case of European accounting policy

The EU-member States have long intended to harmonise their respective accounting rules in order to facilitate the comparison between European companies. This process was brutally accelerated by a 2002 regulation announcing that as of 2005, listed companies would be required to comply with the accounting standards enacted by the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board), a private body which, until then, had no public mandate.After having tried to harmonise internally the respective standards of its members, the EU has thus decided to resort to private subcontracting, an even more puzzling decision when one realizes that at the time, the EU had simply no statutory control means on the IASB.Building on this striking episode of privatisation of the regulatory process, we first examine the structure and governance of the IASB, and the process leading to the transplantation of its norms into EU law. In a second part, we argue that while diverse, the reasons behind such relinquishment of public authority lie primarily within the EU itself. In a third part, we show that in the area of accounting, such transfer of competences went well beyond known forms of delegation to private sector. In a final part, we discuss the subsequent—and so far successful attempt of the EU to reassert its authority as well as its agenda in this area.     

Perfecting the Market's Knowledge of Monetary Policy

The rational expectations revolution made clear that a complete macro model requires a specification of the government's economic policy. We argue that monetary policy should be conducted in such a way that the market can predict policy actions. An implication of market success in predicting policy actions is that interest rates move ahead of the policy actions, and such a timing relationship may appear to some as the central bank following the market instead of leading it. Another implication of the market predicting policy actions is that nominal interest rate changes provide no useful information to the central bank about the strength of aggregate demand or inflationary expectations. Finally, failure of the market to predict policy actions reflects a problem that needs to be addressed.We explore the theoretical implications of a monetary policy that is completely specified and perfectly understood by the market. We construct a bare-bones model to illustrate the key concepts. Finally, we conduct an empirical investigation of these issues, especially in the context of monetary policy since 1988, when the establishment of the federal funds future market made available well-defined market information on expectations about Fed policy actions. We find that when the intended funds rate is changed, interest rates over the maturity spectrum respond to news measured by changes in the one-month-ahead funds futures yield but do not respond to the anticipated component of the change in the intended funds rate.