Living next to godliness: Residential property values and churches

This article extends the analysis concerning the impact of neighborhood churches on residential property values by investigating nearly 5,000 residential property transactions in Henderson, Nevada, between January 1986 and December 1990. We find that real property values decrease, at a decreasing rate, as distance from a neighborhood church increases. This result is the opposite of that reported by Do, Wilbur, and Short in a previous edition of this journal. We bolster our findings by showing that distance from the site of a future church has little or no impact on residential property values, whereas distance from an existing church is associated with lower property values. Our evidence indicates that neighborhood churches are amenities that enhance the value of neighborhood residential property. Finally, we demonstrate that larger churches (as measured by square foot of lot size) tend to have a greaterpositive impact on residential property values.     

Doing qualitative field research in management accounting: Positioning data to contribute to theory

In this paper we argue that theory, method, methodology, and knowledge gains in qualitative field studies are intertwined through the ongoing hypothesis development in the field. We develop our argument through a discussion of specific qualitative field studies in management accounting. We emphasise in particular the distinctive role of theory in qualitative research as relating to expression of a subjective reality more than clarification of an objective one. In considering this subjectivity we discuss the ways in which the doing of qualitative research brings to bear discipline on the researcher allowing us to assess the trustworthiness of their accounts. The intention is to develop a more appropriate basis for judging the plausibility of qualitative field studies than notions borrowed from positivistic methodology.     

Trading Costs in Early Securities Markets: The Case of the Berlin Stock Exchange 1880-1910

Based on daily prices (amtliche Kurse) we estimate effective spreads of securities traded at the Berlin Stock Exchange in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910. Several extensions of the Roll measure are applied. We find surprisingly tight effective spreads for the historical data, comparable with similar measures of the MDAX and DAX at the end of the 20th century.     

INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTION LOCATION AND PRO FORMA FINANCIAL HEDGING OF EXCHANGE RATE RISK

There are many considerations in a firm's choice of where to locate a production facility. One of the least understood is the implication of foreign exchange risk. The issue is complex because, in addition to the concept of operational hedging, managers must also consider economic exposure and, in cases with foreign competitors, competitive exposure. As shown in this article, a firm's competitive exposure to exchange rate changes depends upon the location of its competitors' plants as well as its own.
The currency exposures of various international production strategies are demonstrated using hypothetical scenarios. The scenarios can also be used to perform a pro forma financial hedging analysis of currency exposure in simple three-outcome cases. By implicitly accounting for the market's pricing of exchange rate risk, the financial hedging analysis provides a straightforward way for managers to evaluate various international production possibilities.     

Large-scale participatory co-shaping of technological developments: First experiments with PARDIZIPP

A future-oriented participatory procedure on the basis of the Delphi method was developed and empirically tested a first time with the goal to improve the shaping of technological developments. The technology under study here was micro-electronics or rather their relationship with labor and the test took place in NorthRhine-Westphalia.Today problems exist in all walks of life. There is a lot of talk about today's problems as if they were new, though one has heard similar arguments throughout history. How do we assess if we are really in danger of bringing the world to an end? Although this danger appears real, it would not be the first time in history that people have thought and felt like this--However, one thing that is new are the consequences of modern sciences and technology, which are not suited to given social and environmental requirements. They have given rise to questions concerning the quality of the decision-makers. The questioning of many of these decisions has increased for some time and is now getting more and more specific, with a demand for quality and information rather than managerial skills and competitiveness from the decision-makers. The term ‘decision-maker’ describes those who determine the application of technology, science and technical equipment which has either existed for a long time already or has recently been developed.--It is not easy to change the structures and processes of decision-making so that new structures and processes will be more suited to social and environmental requirements. We have tested our ideas as to how this could be done, in an empirical project. Although we called it ‘Project NRW-2000’, it would probably be better described as an experiment.--We persuaded 90 ordinary people to participate in this project as ‘experts on daily life and work’. This group was asked to work in six regional sub-groups and discuss, with reference to three given normative societal scenarios for the year 2020, the relationship between microelectronics and labour markets of the year 2020, on the basis of a participatory Delphi procedure. Before we elaborate on the concept of our project in Section 3, we would like to outline it in terms of the mainstream of the sociology of technology as well as with research on ‘acceptance’ in Section 1. In Section 2 we will briefly illustrate the framework of the research programme ‘Socially Oriented Shaping of Technology’ of the state of Northrhine-Westphalia, which funded our research project. Section 4 particularly deals with the participatory elements of our project, while Section 5 is devoted to the development of the scenarios. Section 6 sums up the results of the ‘scenario-construction’. Regarding specific elements, we restrict ourselves to topics concerning technology, labour, and the relationship between women workers/employees and technology. As a final outlook we deal with the political implications of our approach. All that is left is to remind our readers that we regard this project as a first application or experiment within our overall approach.     

Linear versus process tracing approaches to judgment modelling: A new perspective on cue importance

For a bankruptcy prediction problem, the judgment formation process is studied using linear models and process tracing models. The linear models are constructed using traditional linear discriminant analysis techniques. The process tracing models are constructed using computer-generated algorithmically-based decision nets. All the models presented show good predictive accuracy. However, the linear models and process tracing models diverge widely on several measures of cue importance. This divergence, for a fairly straightforward problem, is intriguing since virtually all the evidence in the accounting literature about cue importance is based on linear models research. The importance of different information cues to decision-makers is clearly a critical issue in the design of effective accounting information systems. Thus, this study suggests the need for much more careful attention to the complex question of assessing cue importance.     

CO-ORDINATION STRATEGIES AND NON-MEMBERS' TRADE IN PROCESSING CO-OPERATIVES

This paper addresses three major issues set forth by LeVay (1983). These may be summarised as (1) the conflict of interests of the individual vis-à-vis the co-operative, (2) the arrange-ments or contract provisions which may be used to increase the efficiency of the co-operative, and (3) modelling of the co-operative trade with non-members and how members can derive maximum benefit from it.     

Bluffing in labor negotiations: Legal and ethical issues

This paper presents an analysis of bluffing in labor negotiations from legal, economic, and ethical perspectives. It is argued that many forms of bluffing in labor negotiations are legal and economically advantageous, but that they typically constitute lying. Nevertheless it is argued that it is generally morally acceptable to bluff given a typical labor-management relationship where one's negotiating partner is familiar with and most likely employing bluffing tactics him/herself. We also consider whether it is an indictment of our present negotiating practices and our economic system as a whole that, given the harsh realities of the marketplace, bluffing is usually morally acceptable.