Fear and anger: antecedents and consequences of emotional responses to mobile communication

Many people fear that exposure to mobile phone base stations leads to severe health effects. In addition to those fears, many citizens are unsatisfied or even angry about prevailing base station site-selection procedures. In the present study, it was investigated how these emotions, i.e. fear and anger, determine risk and benefit perceptions and the acceptance of mobile communication. Using structural equation modeling, we found that benefit perception and the acceptance of mobile phone base stations were primarily determined by anger. Risk perception, in contrast was influenced by both emotions. In addition, controllability and fairness emerged as important cognitive appraisals, or antecedents, of fear and anger, while certainty was not related to these emotions. In sum, our findings highlight that fear and anger have specific influences on risk, benefit, and acceptance of mobile communication. Furthermore, the study provides an in-depth understanding of the antecedents that lead to emotional responses within the context of mobile communication. Implications for risk communication will be derived.     

Muslim Hoedowns,Tenuous Language and the Uncertain Lives of an Urban Majority

Drawing upon diverse elements of Islamic thought, this essay examines the notions of gathering and footwork to think through the elaborations of a material sensibility embedded in the everyday navigations of contemporary urban life. From reflections on the surreptitious encounters of African Americans in various contexts of subjection, to zar practices in Amman and to popular orientations to megacomplex residencies in Jakarta, the essay attempts to address what it means to think and act collectively in urban contexts that fragment, track, evict and erase long‐relied‐upon forms of collaboration. How might we discover in the seeming contraction of urban sociality something else besides intensive individuation, and what kinds of vernaculars and rhythmic encounters, of bodies moving towards and away from each other, might turn the peripheral forms of the urban into sites of new generativity?     

The Role of Social Capital for Organizational Identification: Implications for Strategic Communication

Scholars in the fields of organization and strategic communication have long been interested in organizational identification as a phenomenon favoring employees’ alignment with corporate values and consequently achievement of the organizational mission. To date, most studies on the subject have relied on social identity theory, which focuses on cognitive categorization processes but overlooks the role of employees’ relationships within their organization. In this research, we introduce a social capital perspective into organizational identification models. We propose and test a model looking at the influence of an individual’s social capital, a variable deriving from different dimensions of an individual’s communication network (i.e., prestige, resourceful others, friendship), on organizational identification, mediated by the attractiveness of perceived organizational identity. The results from a survey conducted in a business organization suggest that a person’s social capital influences organizational identification, both directly and through the attractiveness of perceived organizational identity. Our organizational identification model contributes to extend knowledge on the complementarity of the cognitive and relational perspectives of strategic communication and on the role of relationship building and networks in strategic communication management.     

Practicing Human Dignity: Ethical Lessons from Commedia dell’Arte and Theater

The paper considers two main cases of how the creative arts can inform a greater appreciation of human dignity. The first case explores a form of theater, Commedia dell’Arte that has deep roots in Italian culture. The second recounts a set of theater exercises done with very minimal direction or self-direction in executive education and MBA courses at the Darden School, University of Virginia, in the United States. In both cases we highlight how the creative arts can be important for promoting human dignity in organizations, and how they can lead to a more authentic conversation about values, ethics, and meaning.     

Information asymmetry and the value of cash

This study investigates the market value of corporate cash holdings in connection with firm-specific and time-varying information asymmetry. Analyzing a large international sample, we test two opposing hypotheses. According to the pecking order theory, adverse selection problems make external financing costly and imply a higher market value of a marginal dollar of cash in states with higher information asymmetry. In contrast, the free cash flow theory predicts that excessive cash holdings bundled with higher information asymmetry generate moral hazard problems and lead to a lower market value of a marginal dollar of cash. We use the dispersion of analysts’ earnings per share forecasts as our main measure of firm-specific and time-varying information asymmetry. Extending the valuation regressions of Fama and French [Fama, E.F., French, K.R., 1998. Taxes, financing decisions, and firm value. Journal of Finance 53, 819–843], our results support the free cash flow theory and indicate that the value of corporate cash holdings is lower in states with a higher degree of information asymmetry.     

The market premium for the option to close: evidence from Australian gold mining firms

This study shows the market value of gold mining firms contains a premium for the option to close. The sample uses 41 gold mining producers listed on the Australian Stock Exchange from 1987 to 2013. The premium of the market price over the present value of cash flows is isolated and a pooled cross‐sectional regression tests the degree of association between that premium and theoretical option premiums. The results show market prices incorporate a premium reflecting the option to temporarily close operations. The magnitude of the option premium to close depends on whether firms are out or in the money options.     

Cost-effectiveness of everolimus plus reduced tacrolimus in de novo liver-recipients in the Italian setting

Introduction: Long-term exposure to calcineurin inhibitor-based immunosuppressant (IS) therapy in liver transplant (LT) recipients is associated with renal complications. In the randomized trial H2304, everolimus?+?reduced-dose tacrolimus (EVR?+?rTAC) demonstrated equivalent efficacy and superior renal function compared to standard-dose tacrolimus.

Methods: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of EVR?+?rTAC vs TAC, in de novo LT patients, a Markov model simulating both liver and kidney function was developed and estimated the long-term outcomes of IS following LT. The analysis used the Italian healthcare payer perspective.

Results: Patients treated with EVR?+?rTAC gained on average 1.92 years and 1.62 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) were €35,851 and €42,567 for LY gained and QALY gained, respectively. For the hepatitis-c sub-population, the ICERs decreased to €22,519 and €30,658, respectively.

Conclusion: EVR?+?rTAC improves survival and quality-of-life and is a cost-effective alternative to calcineurin-inhibitor monotherapy for patients requiring LT.     

Testing the sufficiency of the theory of planned behavior: a case of customer dissatisfaction responses in restaurants

This study tested the sufficiency of both the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the extended TPB models by adding the variable of past behavior. In addition, the present study examined the mediating role of the TPB variables on the relationships between past behavior and customers’ intentions to engage in different types of dissatisfaction responses (i.e., voice, negative word-of-mouth communication, and exit). Results of the study demonstrated the strong predictive power of the original TPB mode but the inclusion of past behavior did not significantly improve the predictability of the three dissatisfaction response intentions. Furthermore, the mediating analyses indicated that the influence of past behavior was mediated by TPB variables. In the contexts of negative word-of-mouth communication, the effect of past behavior on intention was mediated by attitude. Meanwhile, both subjective norm and perceived behavioral control mediated the relationship between past behavior and the intention to engage in voice behavior.     

A Minimizing Risk Strategy for Brazilian Fixed-Income Portfolios

This study presents various risk immunization strategies for fixed-income portfolios, including not only classical measures like duration, convexity, and dispersion but also modern measures such as VaR (value-at-risk) and ES (expected shortfall). Empirical tests are conducted in the Brazilian domestic and international bond market. Because it has had one of highest interest rates since the 1990s, Brazil offers an interesting case study for fixed-income studies. Our results are different for domestic and international bonds. For domestic bonds, using the highest convexity criterion to choose the best portfolio is better than using minimum dispersion, and there is a coincidence between the optimum portfolio selected by the convexity, historical VaR, and ES criteria. For international bonds, our findings indicate that the minimum dispersion strategy performs much better than the maximum convexity strategy. The overall performance of portfolios chosen by minimum VaR and ES criteria is also good, with satisfactory realized returns and squared errors.