Limits to growth rates in an ethereal economy

It has been argued that economic growth can continue despite the finite nature of the Earth and its ecological systems if growth is concentrated in an ethereal economy where ideas and information dominate over physical inputs. In this paper, we agree that in a sustainable society continued growth must eventually be concentrated in the ethereal economy; however, we argue that such growth cannot occur at the ongoing exponential rate that currently underpins the constant rate of returns relied upon within our economies. As there is a limit to how fast a population can adopt new ideas, and as such adoption and innovation itself occurs in unpredictable bursts, growth in an ethereal economy will follow a model of punctuated equilibrium composed of exponential bursts, logistic growth, and stable/stagnating periods in a manner similar to ecological evolutionary processes. Although such an economic environment is likely far in the future, lessons in not overtaxing ecological capital and encouraging information dissemination and knowledge diffusion are applicable to problems we face today.     

Stopping the exodus of women in science

A new study reveals that U.S. companies face a troubling brain drain: Fifty-two percent of female scientists, engineers, and technologists abandon their chosen professions. If companies understand why women drop out, however, they can create targeted interventions and head off a talent shortage.     

Fostering Innovation in Complex Product Development Settings: The Role of Team Member Identity and Interteam Interdependence*

Much of the existing research on innovation has concentrated on the study of individuals in small group settings. However, projects marked by multiple teams, high task interdependence, long duration, and large scale have become increasingly common in practice. Very little is known about how extant research findings related to innovation may generalize to such complex settings. Taking a multilevel theoretical approach, individuals' propensity to innovate is hypothesized as the product of individuals' relationship with their work team (team member identification) and their team's relationship to other teams within the organizational system (interteam interdependence). A large, diversified manufacturing firm engaged in a multibillion dollar project that involved the development of a technologically intense, highly innovative, new product served as the research site. Based on archival and survey data (n=118), five hypotheses were tested. The findings indicate that individuals' strong team identification and their perceptions of high interteam interdependence each had positive main effects on individuals' intentions to innovate. However, these two variables also interacted negatively to significantly decrease innovation intentions. Therefore, high identification with team may lead individuals to view interdependence with another team as a threat deflecting attention from innovation. The finding related to the role of identity, although consistent with work linking identity to other team behaviors, usefully broadens the reach of identification theories to demonstrate their impact on innovation. Additionally, this study is the first to demonstrate the impact of interteam interdependence on innovation. The alternative operationalizations of interdependence used in this paper highlight the fact that it must be strongly perceived and experienced by individuals to affect their innovation attitudes. The findings of this study also have implications for managerial practice in complex project settings. Since team identification has a direct effect on innovation, managers might employ strategies related to the creation of social bonds to complement task related connections among team members. Further, managers should configure staffing and incentive mechanisms to reinforce team identification. Finally, the results suggest that managers need to carefully attend to individuals' perceptions of each team's interdependence with other teams. Although perceptual interdependence can be an enabler of innovation, it can also be a disabler, through its interaction with team identification. Recognizing this potential for negative effects, managers might emphasize the benefits that can come from cooperating across teams, thus encouraging team members to identify not only at the team level but at the overall project level as well. Such actions might deflect negative identity threats that can derail positive innovation intentions.     

If it weren‘t for my hobby,I'd have a life: dog sports,serious leisure,and boundary negotiations

In the social sciences, work, family and religion - but not leisure - are commonly thought to shape the meanings people give their lives. But increasingly leisure research reports that under modernism, leisure practice and cultural consumption are at least as essential. What happens when leisure and ‘real world’ institutions pose different, even conflicting expectations? We focus on ‘serious leisure’ as elaborated through Tomlinson's ‘culture of commitment’. Our case study is people who participate in serious leisure involving dogs. The data comes from 61 interviews plus field notes based on our own involvement in dog sports. We ask how as an alternative world often perceived by self and others as marginal, this passionate avocation interfaces with the ‘real world’ of work, family, religion, and other social institutions. We find that dog sports indeed represent a ‘culture of commitment’. For hobbyists, involvement shapes such life realms as how time is used, how money is spent, how kin are defined, and how profit is viewed. Sometimes it generates strong behavioural expectations for participants, expectations that clash with those of the ‘real world’. Examples include gender identity and religious and work obligations. When these clashes occur, respondents neither simply succumb to nor resist either set of demands. Rather, they negotiate between the two, reproducing and reshaping each simultaneously. Meanwhile, they also deal with the intrinsic tensions that a serious leisure pursuit brings.     

Convention center facilities,attributes and services: The delegates' perspective

Convention centers are among the key players in the convention industry, make a critical economic contribution to the destination and present an important consideration in meeting planners' site selection process. Given the substantial investment in convention centers in recent years and the increased competition among them for business, an understanding of critical facilities, attributes and services is vital. This article assesses convention delegates' perceptions of the importance of select venue facilities, attributes and services. Furthermore, the performance of one of the top convention centers in Asia is assessed, identifying its strengths and weaknesses on the basis of an importance-performance analysis.     

Ethical perception: are differences between ethnic groups situation dependent?

This study was conducted to determine how culture influences the ethical perception of managers. Most studies conducted so far have only stated similarities and differences in ethical perception between cultural or ethnic groups and little attention has been paid towards understanding how cultural values influence the ethnic groups' ethical perception. Moreover, most empirical research in this area has focused on moral judgement, moral decision making and action, with limited empirical work in the area of ethical perception. A total of 22 interviews were conducted and the questionnaire survey yielded 272 managerial responses. Three implications were obtained based on the findings of the study. The first implication is that differences in ethical perception can exist when one culture attributes moral significance to something that another culture does not. The results of the study also suggest that similarities in ethical perception can occur when a situation is viewed as an accepted and institutionalised part of doing business. Finally, the findings of the study also show that the influence of culture on ethical perception varied according to the different types of scenarios.     

Evolutionary Economics and Cultural Hermeneutics: Veblen,Cultural Relativism,and Blind Drift

The aim of this paper is to quantify the importance of institutions in economic growth and to identify the factors that determine institutional quality. For this purpose, we estimate a system of simultaneous equations with an income equation and another one of institutional quality and use a broad sample of countries with very different levels of development. The analysis is also carried out for three sub-samples of different income levels. In addition, a test of the robustness of the results to econometric techniques is performed.     

The Impact of Segment Reporting Under the IFRS 8 and SFAS 131 Management Approach: A Research Review

This paper evaluates the impact of adopting the management approach for segment reporting. We review studies of the effect of the application of SFAS 131 and IFRS 8 on the number of reported operating segments and items of disclosure, segment reporting gaps and reconciliations, entitywide geographic disclosures, and competitive harm and decision usefulness of segment information. We report on the advantages and disadvantages of the management approach and explore whether the concerns of critics of adopting the management approach in IFRS 8 have been realized. We also identify opportunities for important and policy‐relevant research in the area of segment reporting based on IFRS 8.     

From newsletter to academic journal: creating the European Accounting Review

This paper looks at the evolution of the European Accounting Review as the journal of the European Accounting Association. It provides an historical background to the launch of the journal in 1992, and traces how the European Accounting Review has developed to be a widely accepted academic journal in accounting. The journal tried at one and the same time, and managed with some success, to fulfil several different functions: to be an academic journal, a newsletter for the members and a place for debate on European accounting regulation. It seems that one of the main reasons that this was possible was the way EAR grew out of earlier initiatives by the EAA such as the Newsletter, the annual doctoral colloquium and the EIASM accounting workshops. The journal was thus a product of the development of a community of accounting researchers in Europe. In turn it began to play a constructive role in contributing to the further development of the accounting research community in Europe. During its first decade, the period on which our analysis concentrates, the European Accounting Review has acted to develop the idea of European accounting research in a research environment which has tended, at the international level, to be dominated by the Anglo-Saxon countries. EAR has tried to become a journal for European academics, and to be sensitive to European issues while being published in English. Being published in English, it thus directly competes for submissions and for readers in the global market for accountancy journals. In this way it has acted as one of the catalysts in the process of internationalization of the European academic accounting community. After the reform of 1999, the structure and aims of the journal are now more tightly focused on being a successful academic research journal, and less on playing a role as a forum for information and discussion. In this article we hope that we can contribute to celebrating the 25th anniversary of the EAA and reflect on EAR 's future role in a world where the focus in both research and practice in accounting is more and more at the ‘global’ level.     

Rent seekers in the U.S. international trade commission escape clause investigations

This article addresses the question of the political and economic characteristics of firms that are active in filing escape clause petitions. Filing an escape clause petition is considered to be a part of a political rent seeking strategy of a firm. The sample consists of publicly traded firms in industries in which escape clause petitions were filed 1975–1986. The results of a logit analysis suggest that firms active in the petitioning process tend to be profitable and dependent on the petitioned product. We also find tentative support that these firms are in concentrated industries and have Washington offices. These results raise some questions about the utility of the escape clause in providing aid for those firms that it is intended to help.