Coddling Our Kids: Can Parenting Style Affect Attitudes Toward Advergames?

This study examined parents’ understanding of and experience with child-targeted advergames through exploratory interviews and quantitative pretests of an advergaming definition. Exploratory findings revealed that parents tended to overgeneralize when identifying advergames. Through the use of an online survey, this study also examined how parental socialization styles affect parents’ attitudes toward advergames. As predicted, results indicate that authoritarian and authoritative parents hold more negative perceptions toward advergames compared to indulgent parents, while all parenting styles exhibited negative leanings toward advergaming as a practice. These findings indicate the efficacy of parental socialization theory in explaining parents’ perceptions and attitudes toward this new form of advertising—advergames. We discuss important implications for regulators, practitioners, and parents.     

IMPACT OF THE MINIMUM WAGE ON THE INCIDENCE OF SECOND JOB HOLDING IN BRITAIN

The advent of any earnings boost, such as provided by the introduction of a minimum wage, might be expected to reduce the supply of low‐paid individuals wanting to hold a second job. This paper uses difference‐in‐differences estimation on a panel of individuals matched across successive Labour Force Surveys around the time of the introduction of the national minimum wage in the United Kingdom in order to estimate the impact of the minimum wage and its subsequent upratings on second job working. There is little evidence to suggest that the extra pay provided by the introduction of the minimum wage was sufficient to affect the incidence of second job holding significantly. However, hours worked in the main job by second job holders may have risen relative to those not covered by the minimum wage; and hours worked in second jobs may have fallen for those whose second job was initially below the minimum.     

A point optimal test for heteroscedastic disturbances

A new test for additive heteroscedasticity in the disturbances of the linear regression model is proposed. Power functions of various forms of the new test are compared empirically with those of currently favoured tests for a range of heteroscedastic models. The results highlight the power advantage of a test which is MP1 at a central point in the alternative hypothesis parameter space. The main conclusion is that the recommended version of the new test is generally more powerful than existing tests against medium and severe heteroscedasticity, whereas the King and Szroeter tests perform better against weak heteroscedasticity.     

The re-emergence of the public accounting profession in China: A hegemonic analysis

This paper draws on Gramsci's concept of hegemony to examine and explain the circumstances leading to the re-emergence of the public accounting profession in China in the early 1980s. In particular, the paper attempts to understand the political and ideological influence upon the professionalisation process of the Chinese accountants. The paper not only highlights a major difference between the professionalisation process of the public accounting profession in China as compared to the West, but also the authoritative and dominant role assumed by the Chinese state in the whole societal set-up. Through effectively exercising its political and ideological leadership, the state successfully mobilised the Chinese accountants in the implementation of its economic-related agenda. The paper demonstrates that the state has clearly achieved hegemony within the accounting community, and further suggests that the state-accounting profession relationship could be likened to the father–son relationship as encompassed within the Confucian notion of wu lun.     

Exchange Rates,Domestic Prices,and Central Bank Actions: Recent U.S. Experience

Central banks that are primarily concerned with the behavior of prices will use monetary policy to try to insulate prices from exchange rate changes. Prices then appear unresponsive to changes in the exchange rate. The observed relationships between prices and the exchange rate will reflect central bank actions instead of the underlying relationship between exchange rates and prices. This paper explicitly recognizes the role that policy plays in determining the observable relationships between exchange rates and prices, and in so doing, it illustrates how the underlying relationships can be unraveled. Using three different empirical approaches, we examine the recent experience of the United States. We find that the prices of various nondurable goods, and even of some services, respond modestly to the exchange rate, and we find that the responses emerge most clearly when the role of monetary policy is explicitly considered. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the Federal Reserve acts to mitigate the effects of exchange rate fluctuations on domestic prices.     

Reflections on longitudinal action research with the English National Health Service

This paper reflects on a longitudinal collaborative action research programme between the Centre for Research in Strategic Purchasing and Supply and the UK National Health Service Purchasing and Supply Agency that has operated since 1995. During the collaboration, research has changed practice and practice has changed research. A framework for analysing change is introduced as a means of examining how supply strategy has changed during the course of the research. The framework is applied to three supply strategy cases of prosthetics, clinical waste and cardiology, illustrating how practice and research have changed and influenced the production of knowledge over time. The methodological, theoretical and managerial implications of such longitudinal action research programmes are reflected on.     

Tourism and cross cultural communication

Adaptive strategies that facilitate economic and socio-cultural interaction in a West Mexican resort community, Puerto Vallarta, are examined over time. The special role played by bilingual culture brokers and the presence of both seasonal and resident foreigners contribute to rapid culture change, the expansion of tourism, and strenghening ethnic identity. This paper focuses on the spatial, temporal, linguistic, and cultural factors that mediate between the various types of guests and the host country.     

Germany and the Euro-Zone Crisis: The European Reformation of the German Banking Crisis and the Future of the Euro

Analysis of the German response to the euro crisis has been framed around a narrative of the relationship between domestic sacrifice and hegemony and sustains an assumption that the German commitment to the euro is proven. Such analysis downplays the importance of the banking crisis in Germany in explaining the decision-making of the German government around the euro-zone debt crisis. Giving German interests in relation to the German banking crisis analytical weight can explain both the positions taken by the German government and their consequences for the underlying structural problems the euro-zone faces as a monetary union. Since the outcomes of German policy have advanced German interests, German handling of the euro-zone crisis cannot sustain a claim that Germany has demonstrated its commitment to the euro.