Effects of ideal image congruence and organizational commitment on employee intention to leave

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among employee self-image/store image congruence, employee–store commitment, and employee intention to leave within the context of retail stores. Data were collected using a survey method. Usable questionnaires were completed by 276 retail store employees. Path analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results revealed employee self-image/store image congruence was positively related to store image attractiveness. In turn, store image attractiveness was positively related to employee–store commitment both directly and indirectly through intrinsic job satisfaction. Lastly, both intrinsic job satisfaction and employee–store commitment were negatively related to employees’ intention to leave.     

Factors affecting the acquisition and transfer of novel attribute relationships to new product categories

This article investigates two factors posited to affect consumers' ability to learn a novel attribute relationship (e.g., “no pesticides → USDA organic symbol”) and apply this recently acquired knowledge when making judgments in a new product category. The first factor concerns the nature of the attribute encoding process and, in particular, whether it allows for comparison of examples. The second factor focuses on the relationship between the learning and transfer domains, and examines the influence of perceptual similarity (manipulated two ways: similarity in the elements comprising the attribute relationships, and similarity between the base and target domains) on the transfer process. Study 1 revealed a significant improvement in inter‐domain transfer when a relationship was learned in a multiple‐domain/multiple‐attribute learning environment over a single‐domain/single‐attribute environment. When attribute and domain diversity were examined separately (Study 2), it was found that attribute, but not domain, diversity produced the greatest improvements in transfer. Study 3 showed that the benefits of adding a perceptual similarity cue were most apparent when the transfer conditions were neither too easy (within domain and within attribute) nor too difficult (inter‐domain and inter‐attribute). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Public–private partnerships for nature-based tourist attractions: the failure of Seal Rocks

In 1998, the Seal Rocks Sea Life Centre opened on Phillip Island, Australia. It was a public–private partnership, with a privately funded tourist attraction built on a government-owned protected area. Almost immediately it was beset by problems and court action found in favour of the private developer, who was awarded $A37 million in damages, with ownership of the centre returning to the state. This article fills a gap in the literature examining public–private partnerships by considering this failed venture. It is a qualitative case study, analysing the 2003 appeal court judgement in the case and newspaper accounts from 1995 to 2004. Our findings highlight that deficiencies with the drafting of commercial contracts for public–private partnerships may limit the environmental and economic benefits that are being sought by governments through these arrangements. In this case, the application of a “best efforts” clause was critical, as it required that priority was given to the commercial success of the project over environmental and planning concerns. Furthermore, the development was a centralised decision made by the state government, affording very little input from local parks management and community stakeholders. Such a court finding has important ramifications for future developments of partnership agreements in nature-based tourism.     

Global and world cities: a view from off the map

Attention to global and world cities has directed the field of urban studies to the significance of international and transnational processes in shaping city economies. This article evaluates these approaches, from a position off their maps. I argue that the circulation of these approaches in academic and policy realms adversely impacts on cities which do not fall into these categories by setting up the idea of the global city as a ‘regulating fiction’, a standard towards which they aspire. It establishes a small sector of the global economy as most desirable in planning the future of cities. By contrast, mega–cities function as the dramatic ‘other’ of world and global cities, and highlight the developmentalist discourse through which most cities in poor countries are assessed as fundamentally lacking in qualities of city–ness. I argue that the long–standing categories of western/third–world cities have been translated into the apparently transnational accounts of global and world cities. Western cities continue to be the primary site of production of apparently unlocated urban theory; so–called third–world cities (and other cities off the map of the world cities cartography) are interpreted through a developmentalist lens and, where they are referred to at all, are framed in terms of ‘difference’ or irrelevance. This article draws attention to the emergence of an alternative set of theoretical approaches, which are more inclusive in their geographical reach and which are concerned with the diverse dynamics of ordinary cities. These approaches have not yet realized that they have the potential to broaden the base for theorizing about cities and, with this in mind, the article explores the potential for a more cosmopolitan urban theory. The policy stakes in this are high, and the article notes that there are important political reasons to promote the analysis of ordinary cities in the face of the persistence of ambitions in many cities to become ‘world cities‘. L’attention accordée aux villes planétaires et mondiales a orienté le champ des études urbaines vers l’importance des processus internationaux et transnationaux dans la configuration économique des villes. Partant d’un point situé hors de leur cartographie, l’article évalue ces approches. La circulation de celles–ci dans les sphères politiques et intellectuelles a une incidence néfaste sur les villes qui n’appartiennent pas à ces catégories, car elle instaure l’idée d’une ville planétaire en tant que ‘fiction régulatrice’, norme à laquelle aspirent les villes. Un secteur restreint de l’économie mondiale est ainsi établi comme le plus recherché dans la planification urbaine. Par contraste, les megacities fonctionnent comme l’impressionnant ‘autre’ des villes mondiales et planétaires, valorisant le discours développementaliste selon lequel l’évaluation des villes des pays pauvres indique le plus souvent des lacunes fondamentales dans les qualités propres à une ville. Les anciennes catégories de villes (Occident/tiers–monde) ont été converties en justifications apparemment transnationales des villes planétaires et mondiales. Les villes occidentales restent le site de production principal d’une théorie urbaine manifestement non–localisée; les villes dites du tiers monde (et autres villes ignorées de la cartographie des villes mondiales) sont interprétées à travers une optique développementaliste et, si on en parle, sont dépeintes en termes de ‘différence‘ ou d’inadéquation. Cet article souligne l’émergence d’un autre ensemble d’approches théoriques, plus inclusives dans leur géographie et soucieuses des diverses dynamiques des villes ordinaires. Sachant que ces démarches ne sont pas encore conscientes de pouvoir étendre la base théorique sur les villes, l’article explore la possibilité d’une théorie urbaine plus cosmopolite. Les enjeux stratégiques sont sérieux et il existe des raisons politiques importantes d’encourager l’analyse des villes ordinaires face aux ambitions persistantes dans de nombreuses villes de devenir les ‘villes mondiales’.     

Markets,torts, and social inefficiency

We provide a model wherein oligopolists produce differentiated products that also have a safety attribute. Consumption of these products may lead to harm (to consumers and/or third parties), lawsuits, and compensation, either via settlement or trial. Firm‐level costs reflect both safety investment and production activities, as well as liability‐related costs. Compensation is incomplete, both because of inefficiencies in the bargaining process and (possibly) because of statutorily established limits on awards. We compare the market equilibrium safety effort and output levels to what a planner who is able to set safety standards, but takes the market equilibrium output as given, would choose.     

Block Share Purchases and Corporate Performance

This paper investigates the causes and consequences of activist block share purchases in the 1980s. We find that activist investors were most likely to purchase large blocks of shares in highly diversified firms with poor profitability. Activists were not less likely to purchase blocks in firms with shark repellents and employee stock ownership plans. Activist block purchases were followed by increases in asset divestitures, decreases in mergers and acquisitions, and abnormal share price appreciation. Industry-adjusted operating profitability also rose. This evidence supports the view that the market for partial corporate control plays an important role in limiting agency costs in U.S. corporations.     

Communicating quality: a unified model of disclosure and signalling

Firms communicate product quality to consumers through a variety of channels. Economic models of such communication take two alternative forms when quality is exogenous: (i) disclosure of quality through a credible direct claim; or (ii) signalling of quality via producer actions that influence buyers' beliefs about quality. In general, these two literatures have ignored one another. We argue that firms should be viewed as choosing which means of communication they will employ. We show that integration of these two alternatives leads to new implications about disclosure, signalling, firm preferences over type, and the social efficiency of the channel of communication employed.