Hayek and liberal pedagogy

The author employs Hayek’s concepts of knowledge and spontaneous order to outline a learning-centered alternative to teacher- and student-centered pedagogies. In a Hayekian classroom, learning (intellectual order) emerges from a polycentric web of instruction, study, conversation, frustration, and discovery that continually elicits and tests the knowledge claims of students and teachers. Yet, unlike Hayek’s impersonal market process, the process of liberal learning is both personal and impersonal. To capture this hybridity, the author supplements Hayek’s insights with those of Parker Palmer, a liberal educator whose analysis of the classroom as a community of truth is attuned to the interpersonal dimensions of knowing and learning.     

The Success of American Communes

This study analyzes the effect of the structure of communes on their success, using the data of 281 communes started in America from 1683 to 1937. Factors increasing the likelihood of success include (i) being a pietist religious sect, (ii) inducing commitment as measured by an index of several underlying variables, (iii) allowing some private property, and (iv) with some qualification, having anarchic governance. These results support the prevailing commitment hypothesis. They additionally indicate that communes can increase their likelihood of success by making some concessions to egoistic concerns.     

Formative versus reflective measurement models: Two applications of formative measurement

This paper presents a framework that helps researchers to design and validate both formative and reflective measurement models. The framework draws from the existing literature and includes both theoretical and empirical considerations. Two important examples, one from international business and one from marketing, illustrate the use of the framework. Both examples concern constructs that are fundamental to theory-building in these disciplines, and constructs that most scholars measure reflectively. In contrast, applying the framework suggests that a formative measurement model may be more appropriate. These results reinforce the need for all researchers to justify, both theoretically and empirically, their choice of measurement model. Use of an incorrect measurement model undermines the content validity of constructs, misrepresents the structural relationships between them, and ultimately lowers the usefulness of management theories for business researchers and practitioners. The main contribution of this paper is to question the unthinking assumption of reflective measurement seen in much of the business literature.     

Risks and threats to civilization, humankind, and the earth

This paper is a brief look at a wide range of risks that are said to present great threats to humankind. It was stimulated by several interacting factors. First, too many books and articles about astrophysical catastrophes, in the scientific and semi-scientific press, give relatively little attention to their timeframe or the measures to anticipate and prepare for them. Second, and most important, is that the overblown effects of 9/11 have distorted the United States of America's perspective and agenda on catastrophes. The result is that billions of dollars have been wasted and attention turned away from threats that could be truly catastrophic for the United States and, in many cases, for the rest of the world. Third, are books that have become popular by raising the threat that what will happen to us will be similar to what happened to earlier societies such as the Maya and the Easter Islanders. Most notably among these is Jared Diamond's Collapse [Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Penguin Group, 2005]. The failure in these doomsday arguments is to overlook the greater sophistication, knowledge, awareness, monitoring and preparation currently in the United States and in other parts of the globe. The institutional structure and scientific knowledge today would either prevent or deal with the kind of socio-economic decline anticipated by the “collapse” arguments. In contrast several geophysical and celestial risks do imply global catastrophe. The value of this paper is as broad background to the specific scenario papers that follow. While it leans heavily on the work of others, it offers three new features for the analysis of any extreme risk. First is a scale of devastation, based on deaths. Second is a comprehensive time frame—now to the end of the Earth. Third is an outline of general questions that must be addressed for any risk, however large or small, if it is to provide insight into policy choices and promote systemic thinking.     

Buyer–Supplier and Supplier–Supplier Alliances: Do They Reinforce or Undermine One Another?

abstract    Previous research has portrayed buyer–supplier and supplier–supplier alliances as important mechanisms to foster learning and exchange efficiencies. Controversy remains, however, as to how these alliances interact. While some propose they reinforce one another (e.g. learning in horizontal ties generates positive spillovers to vertical ties), others propose a negative interplay (e.g. when increasing vertical-tie intensity, suppliers may weaken horizontal ties to avoid retaliation from buyers who wish to preserve bargaining power). We empirically test these competing views using survey data from the Brazilian auto-parts industry. In an attempt at reconciliation, we propose that the positive or negative interaction between vertical and horizontal alliances depends on the level of technological uncertainty of goods exchanged. Vertical ties seem to inhibit horizontal ties when technological uncertainty is low; when technological uncertainty is higher, vertical and horizontal ties do not seem to have any meaningful form of interaction. We discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Environmental taxes in a differentiated mixed duopoly

Beladi and Chao (2006) and Bárcena-Ruiz and Garzón (2006) considered the role of environmental policy on the decision whether to privatize a public firm in different market structures. This paper re-examines whether privatization improves (or deteriorates) the environment in a mixed duopolistic framework with differentiated product and pollution abatement. It is shown that, due to privatization, less attention is paid to pollution abatement by all the firms coupled with less environment taxes levied by the government in a differentiated duopoly, and the environment is more (less) damaged when the product is less (more) substitutable. When the product is highly substitutable, industry profits increase because this softens the intensity of the product market, but social welfare deteriorates accompanied with the path of privatization because the loss of consumer surplus and tax revenue exceeds the increases in profits, even if the environment is less damaged.     

Women,men and organic food: differences in their attitudes and willingness to pay. A Spanish case study

The main purpose of this work consists of displaying the different attitudes of men and women towards organic food, and their willingness to pay for it, in three different consumer intensities: usual, occasional and potential consumers. Several surveys have been carried out to obtain a representative sample of regular food purchasers living in Castilla‐La Mancha (Spain). Statistic analysis previously detecting significant differences with regard to gender and type of consumer has been conducted by univariate analysis to describe attitudes, and multivariate analysis, through ‘logit’ models, to calculate maximum willingness to pay. Results show that women have a more favourable attitude (directly related to their lifestyle) to the purchase and consumption of organic food than men, whereas men are inclined to pay a higher price for organic food than women. In general, men are disposed to pay a higher increase in price than women.