Targeting Child Labor in Debt Bondage: Evidence, Theory, and Policy Implications

Despite recent multilateral efforts to single out child laborin debt bondage as one of the worst forms of child labor, severalimportant questions have yet to be addressed: How pervasiveis the phenomenon? Are there systematic correlations betweenthe incidence of children in debt bondage and the economic,legislative, and financial development indicators of the economy?How does an understanding of these correlates affect the waynational and international policy measures aimed at targetingthis form of child labor are perceived? This article addresseseach of these questions. The empirical findings suggest strongcorrelation between the likelihood of the incidence of childlabor in debt bondage with the stage of development of an economy,the stage of financial development, and enforcement of corelabor rights. Building on this evidence, the article presentsa theoretical model that highlights the drawbacks and meritsof a number of policies aimed at putting checks on child laborin debt bondage.     

Can Consumers Forgo the Need to Touch Products? An Investigation of Nonhaptic Situational Factors in an Online Context

Touch is an important source of information for consumers, and there is much to learn about its role in an online purchase decision context where the ability to touch products is not (at least currently) possible. The present investigation examines three nonhaptic situation‐specific factors that moderate the relationship between haptic motivation and consumer responses. The results indicate that positive mood, price promotions, and level of situation‐specific product expertise are influential, yielding greater purchase intentions and product judgment confidence when touch is not available. Additionally, the findings of the investigation suggest that imagining a Web site is comparable to actually viewing a Web site. Several implications for consumer behavior research and online marketers are discussed.     

Getting Shut Out of the International Capital Markets: It Doesn't Take Much*

We use a simple model of international lending to show that an emerging market borrower who might default can be shut out of international capital markets without warning. A modest haircut on obligations, for example, can shut down lending.     

Strategic and Business Planning Practices of Fast Growth Family Firms

Fast-growth family firms were surveyed about their business and strategic planning practices. Of the 65 fast-growth family firms surveyed, the majority prepare written formal plans. The business plans are in sufficient detail to enable the business to tie planning to actual performance and to adjust management compensation accordingly. The majority of the firms regularly share information with employees regarding comparisons between actual company performance results and goals or planned performance. Further, the majority of the firms describe their business strategy as a high quality producer strategy rather than as a low-cost or time-based strategy. Further, when bringing new products to market, these fast-growth family firms adopt a first mover or early follower strategy. Implications of these findings for growth-oriented family firms are presented.     

Performance analysis of a focused hospital unit: The case of an integrated trauma center

The concept of focus [Skinner, W., 1974. The focused factory. Harvard Business Review 52 (3), 113–121], notably operationalized in manufacturing entities like cells and focused factories, has also been adopted by the health care industry. Examples include patient-focused care systems and product/service lines. Despite its longevity, there is a paucity of studies analyzing the focus concept and its link to performance, especially in health care. This research is aimed at enhancing our understanding of how a focus-based approach to organization redesign in health care affects processes and practices, and what operational, clinical, and financial outcomes result from such a change. The research setting is a single case site within a large medical center for which costs for trauma care used to exceed income. Using a structured framework, we document the design and operation of this physically and organizationally integrated Level I trauma care center and compare it to its preceding operation. Its pre- and post-conversion performance is analyzed using symmetric event windows covering three-year periods before and after the focused hospital unit (FHU) was established. Under a sizable increase in workload, we find no change in mortality, moderate improvement in length of stay, and a large improvement in net operating margins. Surprisingly, the latter stem not from reductions in cost but in sharply increased hospital reimbursements. Previous studies of hospital restructuring involving focused patient populations have not conclusively supported a positive link between focus and outcomes. However, this investigation of a specific FHU suggests, conceptually as well as quantitatively, that focus can be an attractive element in health care system design.     

Tourism Policy Making:: The Policymakers’ Perspectives

This research explores tourism policy making, from the perspectives of policy makers using grounded theory. It focuses on Leeds, a city in the North of England, which is characterized by its turbulent environment. The paper identifies themes around policy making, including low status, lack of clarity, uncertainty, lack of consensus and congruence and complexity. Its findings indicate policy making is essentially a social process, involving communication and negotiation between people in the context of wider change. It suggests a social conceptualization, and further research to investigate the communications involved in producing policy rather than the focus on the tangible outputs of the process such as a plan or a physical development.     

Liberalizing Services Trade In APEC: A General Equilibrium Analysis with Imperfect Competition

The paper studies services-sector trade liberalization in the Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Forum using a global, multicountry, multisector applied general equilibrium model with an imperfectly competitive service sector. Reducing the service sector's nontariff barriers is modeled by eliminating the possibility for oligopolistic firms to price-discriminate between client countries within APEC and lowering the fixed costs of the firms doing service exporting business. The results suggest that services trade liberalization reinforces existing sectoral trade balances. Increase in demand for intermediate services tends to reinforce rather than counteract the role of primary factors in determining sectoral comparative advantage. The western APEC members received the greatest welfare gains from services trade liberalization, while the developing economies gained more if only tariffs were eliminated.     

The Effects of Moral Reasoning and Self-Monitoring on CFO Intentions to Report Fraudulently on Financial Statements

This study adapts the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to the behavior of fraudulent reporting on financial statements so as to examine the effects of moral reasoning and self-monitoring on intention to report fraudulently, using structural equation modeling. The paper seeks to investigate two of the red flags for financial statement fraud identified in Loebbecke et al.'s (1989) paper: client management displays a significant lack of moral fiber and client personnel exhibit strong personality anomalies. As expected, high moral reasoners are more influenced than low moral reasoners by their own attitude towards the behavior. Contrary to prior research, low self-monitors are found to be more influenced than high self-monitors by subjective norms. Future research is recommended to investigate the counter-intuitive results for self-monitors, to consider the implications of group decision making as regards the promulgation of fraudulent financial statements, and to examine additional red flags for financial statement fraud.