Metropolitan Strategies and Climate Governance: Towards New Evaluative Approaches

In the new millennium, cities have become an emerging force among new forms of subnational climate governance. Of interest is how cities act unilaterally and directly in this new climate politics via the provision of relevant tools. Since metropolitan planning strategies have been considered as important mechanisms for achieving urban sustainability in this period, this research has sought to investigate the importance of these master plans in the delivery of urban responses to climate change. For this purpose, the study has employed a qualitative research methodology with the application of a comparative case study and the progression of a conceptual framework for evaluating climate policies in metropolitan plans of two selected cities—London and Melbourne. The study's results suggest that both the ‘London Plan’ and ‘Plan Melbourne’ incorporate critical elements to enhance climate governance, including the promotion of coordination principles, innovative technologies, a participatory planning approach and a long‐term planning scale. However, the review identified a consistent omission of key principles as identified through the proposed matrix for analysing the climate policies of a city's government, which include risk assessment tools, monitoring systems, distribution, impact frame and accountability. Moreover, the research also revealed the lack of vertical integration in policy formulation and implementation of ‘Plan Melbourne’. Our study suggests that a city's governance structure influences the way it undertakes its climate actions and the potential efficacy of these on a metropolitan scale.     

Social support and turnover among entry-level service employees: Differentiating type,source, and basis of attachment

Previous research on social support and turnover has yielded mixed results. To advance research in a more comprehensive manner, the present study examined how turnover is influenced by type of support (emotional or instrumental), source of support (coworker or supervisor), and basis of attachment (affective commitment and constituent attachment as mediators). In the context of entry-level service employees, these relationships were examined with a sample of restaurant servers company-wide from a casual dining restaurant chain in the USA. Coworker emotional support was directly and negatively related to turnover, and coworker instrumental support was directly and positively related to turnover. Furthermore, supervisor emotional support and instrumental support were indirectly related to turnover through affective commitment. When the mediators were considered independently, coworker and supervisor emotional support were both indirectly related to turnover through constituent attachment.     

The local market perception of firm risks during cross-listing events

We examine the local investors’ perceptions on the relative idiosyncratic risks around cross-listing events. We find that increases in relative firm-specific risks around the listing date are temporary and small for Level I American depositary receipts (ADRs) while Level III ADRs have the most variations. For exchange-listed ADRs from emerging markets, there is a significant decrease in the relative firm-specific risk in the year prior to listing, which increases during the cross-listing, while there are only significant increases in relative firm-specific risks for developed market firms. We interpret these as evidences of negative relationship between firm opaqueness and relative firm-specific risks.     

The Impact of IFRS Adoption on Public Sector Financial Statements

Following a sector neutral approach to standard setting for about a decade, New Zealand adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for profit‐oriented entities and all other sectors including the public sector, from 2007 with the option to adopt early in 2005. Some studies have examined the impact of IFRS adoption on the accounts of profit‐oriented entities and found that this change had a significant impact on assets, liabilities and equity. This study examines the impact of adoption of IFRS on New Zealand public sector entities’ financial statements. We analyse and compare the reconciliation notes of IFRS and pre‐IFRS New Zealand Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (NZ GAAP) reported in the first IFRS annual reports of all New Zealand public sector entities. The results indicate that there have been some significant increases in assets and liabilities, and significant decreases to overall equity in some sub‐sectors of the public sector. The primary causes of such changes were recognition of employee entitlements (IAS 19) and recognition of derivative financial instruments (IAS 39) for many public sector entities, as well as remeasurement of deferred taxation for public sector commercial enterprises (IAS 12). In addition, public sector entities made many reclassifications between current and non‐current financial statement elements that did not impact on the aggregate balances of the entities’ balance sheets. In general, the findings of this study are similar to findings of studies that examined the impact of IFRS on private enterprises. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of the implication of IFRS adoption and might be useful to policy makers and regulators who are currently reviewing the applicability of IFRS to public sectors in Australia and New Zealand and other countries.     

Corporate advantage in customer-centric diversification

Our theory explains how multi-product corporations that engage in customer-centric diversification can create and sustain corporate advantage. First, we invoke the concept of customer-centric assets to explain their role as the cornerstone of corporate advantage in customer-centric diversification. Second, our explanation of the corporate advantage in customer-centric diversification goes beyond the hypothetical ‘consumer synergies’ argument to also include the ‘market-power advantage’ argument. We explain the mechanisms employed by multi-product firms to share and/or leverage their customer-centric assets to create corporate advantage. Third, we explain how sustaining the corporate advantage so achieved requires the organizational-renewal activities to go beyond simply addressing the changing nature of the firm’s demand-side resource (i.e. customer-base) to manage revenue and/or profits.     

An exploratory study on part-time MBA program choice factors and characteristics of part-time MBA students

The majority of master of business administration (MBA) students are presently enrolled in part-time programs, yet little is known about their preferences, perspectives, and program selection processes. To fill this gap, the authors address three issues related to part-time MBA programs. First, they review important MBA program choice factors in the literature. Second, based on results of a survey with current MBA students, they identify the following as choice factors for part-time MBA programs: overall value/cost, location convenience, flexibility, and program quality. Third, the authors offer implications for part-time MBA programs that are related to employer reimbursement programs and program flexibility.     

Long-term contracts,expectations and wage inertia

This paper develops a macro model of contractual wage setting that is used to test the importance that increased contract length has in generating wage inertia. Using an errors-in-variables format to isolate the effect of price and productivity shocks, it is shown that the sensitivity of union wages to unanticipated disturbances would increase by only a small amount in the absence of long-term, three-year, labor contracts. Our results suggest that formal contracts are not a major source of nominal wage rigidity and the price surprises play a relatively small role in generating business cycles.     

Return on investment: benefits and challenges of baccalaureate nurse residency program

There are high rates of turnover among graduate nurses within the first year of employment. As the costs of recruitment and orientation have increased, employers are examining new strategies for increasing retention among this population. The Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX, partnered with an academic institution and University Health Consortium to apply an implementation strategy where graduate nurses participate in a year-long residency program. The residents attended monthly sessions that addressed pertinent needs of the group. During this 1-year period turnover decreased from 50% to 13% and return on investment was 326.5%.