Preventing wildlife crime with a focus on orangutans: Applying social influence techniques to public education efforts

Orangutans are projected to become critically endangered or extinct this century if humans continue to destroy their habitat. Threats include legal and illegal clearcutting of rain forests to establish palm oil plantations, climate change, and transnational organized crime. This study examines how self-benefit and other benefit appeals, knowledge of threats, concern about habitat loss, and liking orangutans are associated with (a) intent to protect habitat due to licit threats and crimes against wildlife, and (b) seeking information to save habitat. Upon entry to a zoo, 251 (118 men, 128 women, and 5 unknown) persons viewed posters highlighting the benefits of habitat conservation to self or others and completed a survey. Concern, threat knowledge, liking, and self-benefit and other benefit appeals accounted for 28% of the variance associated with intent to take action to protect the habitat. Integrating social influence principles into zoo displays and addressing barriers that prevent conservation behavior are discussed. The ideas in this paper are relevant to many primates and endangered species.     

Organizational mindfulness,mindful organizing,and environmental and resource sustainability

The research theorizes that environmental vulnerability can be minimized through mindfulness‐based strategies, and redesigning organizing processes, so that richer thinking is activated more quickly among greater number of people all of whom try to update their knowledge regardless of the knowledge source. It empirically evaluates the effects of organizational mindfulness and mindful organizing on resources and environmental sustainability. The model was tested in a very appropriate setting—Saudi Arabia, where increasing demand for and supply of energy culminates in unsustainable resources utilization and rise in greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental vulnerabilities. Data were collected from Saudi firms operating in the oil and gas sector and analyzed using SmartPLS software. The measurement and structural models were evaluated. The measurement model exhibits adequate model fit. The tests for the structural models show that four (of five) dimensions of organizational mindfulness (viz., commitment to resilience, deference to expertise, preoccupation with failure, and reluctance to simplify interpretations) and mindful organizing are significantly related at 5% significance level. Sensitivity to operations has no significant relationship with mindful organizing. Mindful organizing is significantly related to environmental and resources sustainability. Moreover, mindful organizing fully or partially mediates in the relationship between some of the dimensions of organizational mindfulness and environmental and resources sustainability. The study is one of the first to integrate mindfulness‐based approaches to sustainability and environmental research.     

Fluid Spatial Imaginaries: Evolving Estuarial City‐regional Spaces

This article looks at successive attempts to create new spatial imaginaries around three estuary‐based city regions in England: the London–Thames Gateway, the Atlantic Gateway/Mersey Belt (Manchester and Liverpool), and Hull and the Humber ports. We develop a framework of analysis for new planning and regeneration spaces that takes forward debates on relational and territorial geographies, spatial imaginaries and the creation of new regional identities as governance objects. Specifically, we adopt a long‐term and comparative perspective that allows an examination of how successive efforts at regional building are both path‐dependent and context‐specific, as new approaches reflect emerging ideas about how best to construct successful regions in a changing global economy.     

THE FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH NEXUS: A META‐ANALYSIS

We conduct a meta‐analysis of the literature of financial development and economic growth. We cover a large number of empirical studies and estimations that have been published in journal articles. We measure the degree of heterogeneity and identify the causes of the observed differentiation. Among the most significant factors behind this heterogeneity is the choice of financial‐variable proxies, the kind of data used as well as whether a study takes into account the issue of endogeneity. Our results suggest that the empirical literature on the finance–growth nexus is not free from publication bias. Also, a genuine positive effect exists between financial development and economic growth.     

Potential Impact of Climate Change and Armed Conflict on Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study investigates the potential impact of climate change and armed conflict on inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The system-GMM for a panel of 35 SSA countries is employed using annual data from 1997 to 2018. The empirical results indicate that armed conflict and climate are major drivers of inequality in SSA. The direct impact of the two determinants is more than the indirect impact. Also, the impact of armed conflict is more than the climate change. The coefficients of population growth, output growth, unemployment, natural rent, exchange rate and inflation rate are significant positive predictors of inequality in the SSA. The study advocates for a multidisciplinary inclusive growth strategy that prioritises the climate change reversal, de-escalation of armed conflict, population control, reduction of the unemployment rate and increasing informal sector productivity, to promote inclusive growth and reduce inequality. However, sequencing the policy targets relative to the magnitude of their impact on inequality is extremely crucial.     

The Great Divergence: Why Britain Industrialised First

What drove the precocious industrialisation in Britain was not demand for machines but rather (as Joel Mokyr and his co-authors have argued) the supply of useful knowledge and the skills needed to put it into practice. They were the force behind early innovation. But they did not act alone. They were reinforced by British institutions, which gave the British economy a century's head start over the rest of Europe and likely too over the rich parts of Asia. The institutions included a uniform fiscal and legal system; an effective means of training apprentices, who had escaped from local guild control; and a parliament that could raise taxes and exercise eminent domain but was at the same time a credible protector of private property. Among other things, these institutions facilitated the transportation of goods such as coal and they were backed up by policies that worked in favour of manufacturing. Together, the institutions and policies generated agglomeration effects that encouraged innovation. The agglomeration effects were more pronounced in western Europe than anywhere else in Eurasia and more developed in Britain than anywhere else.     

Marketing while Black: commentary on the Galak and Kahn 2019 Academic Marketing Climate Survey

Marketing Letters - Diversity serves to enrich decision-making, innovation, reputation, and performance. The marketing academy, a microcosm of business and society, is making slow advances in...     

Supervisors and Presenteeism: How do Supervisors Accommodate and Support Skilled Workers with Chronic Health Concerns?

There is a broad literature linking social support to health, which includes evidence that social support from supervisors is positively associated with worker health. In addition, once workers experience a health concern, supervisors may play a key role in supporting workers, keeping them on the job despite health issues. However, there are few studies that investigate the day-to-day strategies supervisors utilize to support their workers and help them stay on the job despite health concerns. The study presented in this paper addresses this gap. Thirty-two supervisors from three companies were interviewed about their experiences supporting and accommodating skilled workers during flare-ups of a health condition. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the text data and identify themes. Three key themes emerged from the data: 1) workplace policies provide the structure for mutual problem solving; 2) communication skills and existing relationships increase supervisor effectiveness; and 3) strategies were aimed at individual, interpersonal, and institutional supports. Supervisors regularly interact with workers to support and accommodate episodes of illness or pain. While supervisors employ novel and effective strategies, there is an opportunity to improve the range of strategies, better understand and utilize company policies, and facilitate appropriate communication about worker health concerns.