What Is Fair? Experimental Evidence

There has been growing interest within the economics discipline in the role of equity concerns in the distribution of resources. This paper presents empirical evidence from controlled laboratory experiments where third-party decision makers allocate resources between two individuals. The experimental results indicate that subjects view a wide range of different allocations as the fair distribution of resources. However, regression analysis indicates that both treatment effects and a few demographic variables explain some of this variation in fairness concepts. Most significantly, decision makers rewarded subjects who earned their favorable positions, and the gender of the decision maker was an important predictor of the allocation chosen.     

Friend or Foe?— Farmer Perceptions of Biotechnologh1

This paper is the result of survey investigation the attitudes of Western Canadian farmers toward two biotechonological products, ENFIX-L and PB-50. Farmers were asked to rate both the importance and the performance of 21 attributes of the products. Soil depletion was found to be an important concern to many farmers. personal and environmental risks were less of a concern. Overall, it was found that the non-biotech-nological aspects of a product would prevail in purchasing decisions.     

The role of capital investment project teams in organisational learning

The management and organisation of capital projects in the British National Health Service (NHS) is dependent upon project teams. An analysis of four case studies shows how these teams also act as agents of learning for individuals and the organisation. This article considers the process by which learning came about. In particular it identifies the ability of the project teams to develop a parallel organisation within a wider organisational context. These teams develop specific rules, roles and relationships which help individual project team members to more effectively share their knowledge with others and their organisation.     

An empirical investigation of organizational memetic variation

The potential of a theory based on organizational memes in coevolution with the environment has been postulated, but remains empirically under-developed. This study explores whether understanding organizational memetic variation is empirically possible and, if so, whether it might, with further development, provide managers with early indications of a misalignment between organizational action (operationalized as memetic variation) and strategic intent—the amount of memetic variation needed to stay aligned with the competitive environment. A method for empirically identifying knowledge-based memes in everyday practice is developed. It stems from modern advances in genetics allowing micro-level changes in genes to be linked to macro-environmental dynamics. Using the concept that memetic variation is caused by everyday, uncontrollable uncertainties of interpretation, memetic variation is reduced to seven categorical types. A highly exploratory quasi-experimental design allows a preliminary comparison of a would-be innovative ‘Portfolio Management Committee’ with self-organizing Internet chat-room settings that are representational of open-source innovation. Results are consistent with predictions showing that higher levels of variation are seen in the latter, despite the former’s strategic intent of innovating to stay aligned with a dynamic environment. Further work is needed, however, to test reliability and validity.      

Satanic Mills?: An illustration of Victorian external environmental accounting

The paper evaluates a Victorian environmental account of the pollution of the River Wandle. This account was produced during a period of social and environmental crisis, when there were no significant industrial environmental regulations. This problematising external environmental account provides valuable insights into the historical development of social and environmental accounting. Our analysis located this account within an institutional reform programme to create systems of governance to mitigate the damage arising from unfettered industrial growth. We argue that problematising external environmental accounting has a longer tradition than previously recognised in the literature and predates corporate social and environmental reporting.     

An Empirical Test of Cognitive Style and Strategic Decision Outcomes*

abstract We examine how cognitive style, as measured by the MBTI, affects strategic decision outcomes. Executives participated in a simulated strategic decision making environment that allowed controlled collection of decision outcomes, including manager decisiveness, decision quality, and perceived effectiveness. We found that iNtuiting/Thinking managers used their intuition to make cognitive leaps based on objective information to craft more decisions of higher quality than other managers. In contrast, Sensing/Feeling types used time to seek socially acceptable decisions, which led to the lowest number of decisions and the lowest perceived effectiveness of all. We found no effect on decisiveness or perceived effectiveness based on a manager's preference for Perceiving or Judging. However, we found that others perceived Extraverted managers as being more effective than Introverted managers when, in fact, the Extraverts were no more decisive than Introverts. Thus, cognitive style influences actual decision outcomes as well as how others perceive one's decision performance.     

How to close the gender pay gap in Europe: towards the gender mainstreaming of pay policy

The European Employment Strategy includes a new commitment to a substantial reduction in the gender pay gap in European Union (EU) member states, but progress requires a radical shift away from the traditional policy emphasis on the supply‐side deficiencies of women compared with men. Mainstream theory argues that gender inequality is reduced once the pay gap is ‘adjusted’ for differences in individual characteristics (education, experience, etc.). But new empirical studies in many EU member states demonstrate that the work environment—the general wage structure, job and workplace characteristics—shapes gender pay inequality. Given the negative gender impact of trend declines in minimum wages, moves towards more decentralisation of wage‐setting and public sector restructuring, the article argues for a holistic, gender mainstreaming approach to pay policy.     

Choice Certainty and Consistency in Repeated Choice Experiments

The main objective of this study is to examine how repeated choice affects preference learning in stated preference experiments. We test different hypotheses related to preference learning by analyzing response patterns and asking respondents in a choice experiment to report their experienced certainty when going through the choice tasks. In a split-sample test, we show that follow-up choice certainty questions are procedural invariant. The self-reported certainty results indicate that learning occurs, but econometric testing procedures do not identify any significant impact of learning effects on parameter estimates or variance across choice tasks. Additional tests of choice consistency suggest that preferences in the choice experiment are stable and coherent.