Perceptions of facilitators of a keypad‐based group support system

Organizations are using Group Support Systems (GSSs) to improve the quality of group meetings. Keypad‐based GSSs are a widely used form of this technology, yet there has been little research on their use and effects. This paper reports the findings of a survey of facilitators of a particular keypad GSS. Facilitators indicate that keypad technology improves the quality of meetings for a variety of tasks in a range of group settings and cultures. The findings are in general agreement with field studies of workstation‐based systems.     

Barcode Empires: Politics,Digital Technology,and Comparative Retail Firm Strategies

Like other service sectors, information technology has dramatically altered the growth and character of the retail trade sector in the affluent economies. Nevertheless, significant variation exists in the typical strategies of retail firms in different countries. This article explores this variation and proposes an explanation for why retailers achieved scale and solved their make, buy, and partner decisions along such different trajectories. It argues that national bases for scale retailing were shaped by a series of political negotiations starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This demonstrates once again that technology implementation is rarely determined by the technology itself, but more often by social and political rules. Future technology platforms, such as web-based or mobile commerce, should be expected to follow similar political logics. As multinational retailing firms spread around the globe, this has important implications for national competition policy.     

Rent-seeking distortions and fiscal procyclicality

Recent research has demonstrated that while government expenditures are countercyclical in most industrialized countries, they tend to be procyclical in developing countries. We develop a dynamic political-economy model to explain this phenomenon. In the model, public expenditures provide insurance to uninsured households, and optimal fiscal policy is countercyclical. The introduction of a political friction, in which successive governments disagree on the desired distribution of public spending, can lead to procyclical fiscal policies. Numerical simulations of the model allow us to compare quantitatively the relative role of common explanations for fiscal procyclicality. We conclude that political distortions in the fiscal process can explain fiscal procyclicality better than other common explanations, such as borrowing constraints and macroeconomic volatility.     

Job satisfaction and quit intentions of offshore workers in the UK North Sea oil and gas industry

The North Sea oil and gas industry currently faces recruitment and retention difficulties because of a shortage of skilled workers. One means of retaining existing employees is to improve workers’ job satisfaction. In this paper, we investigate the determinants of job satisfaction and intentions to quit within this industry sector. We find that individuals in good financial situations, those whose skills are closely related to their job and those who received training reported higher levels of job satisfaction. Furthermore, we establish the importance of job satisfaction, promotion prospects and training opportunities in determining workers’ intentions to quit their job.     

Accounting for Negative,Zero and Positive Willingness to Pay for Landscape Change in a National Park

In contingent valuation, despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others, most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non‐negative. In this paper, we investigate the impact of allowing for negative, zero and positive preferences for prospective changes in woodland cover in two UK national parks, the Lake District and the Trossachs. An extended spike model is used to accomplish this. The policy implications of not allowing for negative values in terms of aggregate benefits are also investigated, by comparing the extended spike model with a simple spike making use of only zero and positive bids, and a model which considers positive bids only. We find that ignoring negative values over‐states the aggregate benefits of a woodland planting project by up to 44%.     

The relationship between aggregate managed fund flows and share market returns in Australia

This paper presents the relation between aggregate equity managed fund flows and excess share market returns in Australia and evaluates the issue of causality therein. Using a large data set of 3613 managed funds for the period January 1990 to September 2009, the paper addresses two important questions yet to be addressed within the Australian market: First, for research question one; it aims to determine whether a positive feedback process exists between aggregate equity managed fund flows and excess share market returns. Second, for research question two; it examines the relation between unexpected aggregate equity managed fund flows and excess share market returns. The empirical findings contribute to the literature by confirming, in Australia, aggregate equity managed fund flows do not Granger-cause excess share market returns; however, compelling evidence reveals that share market returns do in fact Granger-cause managed fund flows. These findings support those of Edwards and Zhang (1998), who find similar evidence for the United States over the sample period 1961–1996. In addition, aggregate equity managed fund flows are found to be positively related to excess share market returns, indicating herding behavior.     

Elections with platform and valence competition

We study a game in which candidates first choose platforms and then invest in costly valences (e.g., engage in campaign spending). The marginal return to valence depends on platform polarization—the closer platforms are, the more valence affects the election outcome. Consequently, candidates without policy preferences choose divergent platforms to soften valence competition. Moreover, exogenous increases in incentives for valence accumulation lead to both increased valence and increased polarization—the latter because candidates seek to avoid the costs of extra valence. As a result, the increase in valence is smaller than it would have been with exogenous platforms. Finally, the model highlights the overlooked substantive importance of common modeling assumptions. Changing the source of uncertainty in our model from noise around the median voter's ideal point to a shock to one candidate's valence (as is common in the literature) leads to complete platform convergence for all parameter values.