How serious is the aggregation problem? An empirical illustration

Heterogeneity in consumer behaviour may create problems with aggregation across consumers. If so, we may not be able to make correct inferences about behaviour based on aggregated data. However, using micro estimates to predict aggregate demand responses to policy changes may also create a bias if not aggregated properly. This may sound like a Catch 22 situation, but it is not, as it is possible to calculate both micro and aggregate demand responses based on microdata. The size of the aggregation bias is an empirical question. In this article, we show how to calculate theoretically consistent aggregate demand responses. We use both micro and macro data for Norwegian household electricity consumption to illustrate the magnitude and direction of different aggregation biases. We find considerable aggregation biases, in particular, when estimating with macro data.     

The case for ethical technology assessment (eTA)

New technologies often give rise to previously unknown ethical problems, and it often takes many years to fully integrate them in society. We propose a new form of technology assessment that will focus on the ethical implications of new technologies; ethical technology assessment (eTA). Ethical technology assessment will serve as a tool for identifying adverse effects of new technologies at an early stage. It should be undertaken in dialogue with technology developers and have the form of a continuous dialogue rather than a single evaluation at a specific point in time. eTA can be conducted on the basis of a check-list that refers to nine crucial ethical aspects of technology; (1) Dissemination and use of information, (2) Control, influence and power, (3) Impact on social contact patterns, (4) Privacy, (5) Sustainability, (6) Human reproduction, (7) Gender, minorities and justice, (8) International relations, and (9) Impact on human values. Ethical technology assessments should not be committed to any particular moral theory. Instead they should be open to different perspectives and solutions.     

Risk Perception and Demand for Risk Mitigation in Transport: A Comparison of Lay People,Politicians and Experts

This paper aims at examining risk perception, worry and demand for risk mitigation in transport and to compare judgements made by lay people, politicians and experts. The results are based on three questionnaire surveys carried out during autumn and winter 2004. The first study involved a representative sample of the Norwegian population (n = 1716), the second sample a group of Norwegian politicians (n = 146) and the third a group of experts on transport safety (n = 26). Studies carried out previously (Sjöberg, 1998a Sjöberg, L. 1998a. Worry and risk perception. Risk Analysis, 18(1): 85–93.  [Google Scholar], 1999 Sjöberg, L. 1999. Consequences of perceived risk: demand for risk mitigation. Journal of Risk Research, 2(2): 129–149.  [Google Scholar]) have given support to the idea that consequences are more important for demands of risk mitigation than probability assessments. In the present study it is hypothesised that this may be because they are associated with worry and it is also proposed that worry relates more strongly to demands for risk mitigation than evaluation of consequences. The results of SEM‐modelling showed that worry was a stronger and more significant predictor of demands for risk mitigation compared to consequences and worry mediated the effect of consequences. Probability assessment was a totally insignificant predictor. In accordance with previous studies, the results showed that experts demanded less risk reduction than lay people and politicians. The results indicate that this is because they stress the probability more than the other two groups.     

A systematic literature review identifying associations between outcomes and quality of life (QoL) or healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) in schizophrenia

Aims: There have been no systematic literature reviews (SLRs) evaluating the identified association between outcomes (e.g. clinical, functional, adherence, societal burden) and Quality-of-Life (QoL) or Healthcare Resource Utilization (HCRU) in schizophrenia. The objective of this study was to conduct a SLR of published data on the relationship between outcomes and QoL or HCRU.

Materials and methods: Electronic searches were conducted in Embase and Medline, for articles which reported on the association between outcomes and QoL or HCRU. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to identify the most relevant articles and studies and extract their data. A summary table was developed to illustrate the strength of associations, based on p-values and correlations.

Results: One thousand and two abstracts were retrieved; five duplicates were excluded; 997 abstracts were screened and 95 references were retained for full-text screening. Thrirty-one references were included in the review. The most commonly used questionnaire, which also demonstrated the strongest associations (defined as a p?Limitations: This study included data from an 11-year period, and other instruments less frequently used may be further investigated.

Conclusions: The evidence suggests that the PANSS is the clinical outcome that currently provides the most frequent and systematic associations with HCRU and QoL endpoints in schizophrenia.     

Recreation,cultivation and environmental concerns: exploring the materiality and leisure experience of contemporary allotment gardening

ABSTRACT

Allotment gardening has been identified as eco-leisure and associated with an ideological commitment to nature. Drawing on ten semi-structured interviews and observations of the materiality of allotments, this study explores the enactment of allotment gardening as leisure. Findings demonstrate tensions and complexities in this leisure experience. Firstly, it shows that allotment gardening entails both the experience of freedom and enjoyment and a contrasting sense of duty. Secondly, the study suggests that the freely exercised activity of the individual plotter is negotiated within a dependency on the social structures of the allotment community. Thirdly, the study indicates that ecological orientations amongst plotters are expressed through gardening practices rather than articulated as ideologies. Finally, it demonstrates the potential of a material and consumption perspective in explorations of how both environmental concerns and/or materialism is practised through everyday leisure. Overall, the study contributes to multi-faceted understandings of motivations for allotment gardening and dynamics in the garden as a project of self-fulfilment and care for nature.     

Rhetorical accounts of risk: interprofessional risk assessment in operational planning meetings

In the context of high-risk industries, risk assessment takes place not only through standardized methods for risk analysis, but is frequently negotiated and discussed as an integral part of operational decision-making. This is not least the case in the context of operational planning. Frequent changes in operations require ongoing assessment of risk as tasks are rescheduled and resources reallocated. The current study explores how professionals account for the presence or absence of risk in a setting in which risk analysis is not the primary objective. With data from the offshore petroleum industry, the rhetorical aspects of risk assessments are examined. A series of interprofessional planning meetings were video recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a rhetorical discourse analytic framework. The data are analyzed at a micro-interactional level in order to study how accounts of risk are presented and negotiated in this particular setting. The meaning and consequences of operational plan changes, and their implications for safety, are seen as negotiated discursively through interprofessional meeting talk. The analysis shows that accounts of risk are characterized by shifting rhetorical strategies that can be heard to echo established risk discourses often referred to as ‘technico-scientific’ and ‘contextualized’ conceptions of risk. Rhetorical devices are used interchangeably and strategically by the participants as they account for risk from their respective institutional positions and their specific areas of expertise and responsibility. The accounts are found to be increasingly persuasive and rhetorical in style as disagreements over risk and prioritizations surface. Accounts of risk, then, are not simply objective presentations of probability and consequence, but rather powerful tools for achieving specific professional outcomes. The study contributes to the understanding of risk assessment at its most concrete and practical level; as it takes place through professional interaction in an operational setting.     

The Effect of Animality in the Consumption Experience—A Potential for Disgust

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an experimental study to measure the effect of animality on consumers' disgust. In this study we have demonstrated how the negative emotion of disgust may be formed within meat consumption. While in the current literature animality is used as a broad and vaguely defined explanatory concept, we conceptualise and operationalise three components of animality; Meat Typicality, Vividness, and Personification. We show for each component that the more the meat stimuli can be animalised the more disgust they would provoke. Empirically, this study provides evidence for disgust with meat as being a phenomenon particularly concerning females and young consumers. The results also show a relatively good performance of personality measures as disgust sensitivity in the prediction of disgust with meat.     

Entrepreneurship at the Local Government Level: Stimulating and restraining forces in the Swedish waste management industry

Abstract

This article explores influential forces on public sector entrepreneurship in two different organizational forms: the local government administration and the local government corporation. In arguing for the need to consider the context of organizational form, this article presents a development beyond existing research on public entrepreneurship (PE) which so far has been conducted only to a limited extent. The inductive analysis identifies factors not previously perceived as influential on PE. These findings support the importance of distinguishing between organizational forms. Finally, the findings can be used for formulating hypotheses possible to test in larger research designs.     

Organizational Ambidexterity at the Local Government Level: The effects of managerial focus

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore how managerial focus influences organizational ambidexterity in different organizational forms at the local government level. An entrepreneurial, leadership, or stakeholder managerial focus will each find reflection in the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation of resources, and the influence will differ with the organizational form, i.e. whether a local government administration (LGA), or a local government corporation (LGC). Hypotheses are tested on Swedish public organizations operating in the waste management and water and sewerage industries. The findings indicate that LGCs have higher levels of organizational ambidexterity, and that the determinants differ from those in LGAs.