Rethinking political correctness

Legal and cultural changes over the past 40 years ushered unprecedented numbers of women and people of color into companies' professional ranks. Laws now protect these traditionally underrepresented groups from blatant forms of discrimination in hiring and promotion. Meanwhile, political correctness has reset the standards for civility and respect in people's day-to-day interactions. Despite this obvious progress, the authors' research has shown that political correctness is a double-edged sword. While it has helped many employees feel unlimited by their race, gender, or religion,the PC rule book can hinder people's ability to develop effective relationships across race, gender, and religious lines. Companies need to equip workers with skills--not rules--for building these relationships. The authors offer the following five principles for healthy resolution of the tensions that commonly arise over difference: Pause to short-circuit the emotion and reflect; connect with others, affirming the importance of relationships; question yourself to identify blind spots and discover what makes you defensive; get genuine support that helps you gain a broader perspective; and shift your mind-set from one that says, "You need to change," to one that asks, "What can I change?" When people treat their cultural differences--and related conflicts and tensions--as opportunities to gain a more accurate view of themselves, one another, and the situation, trust builds and relationships become stronger. Leaders should put aside the PC rule book and instead model and encourage risk taking in the service of building the organization's relational capacity. The benefits will reverberate through every dimension of the company's work.     

“It’s freedom!”: examining the motivations and experiences of coastal freedom campers in New Zealand

Little is known about the motivations and experiences of freedom campers – travellers who choose to camp in open public spaces rather than formal campgrounds. In particular, the ‘freedom’ in their practices has not been examined – despite this concept being central to tourism, and leisure activities more generally. This article fills a gap in knowledge by describing the perspectives and behaviours of freedom campers, and by analysing the freedom(s) they experience. It focuses on the New Zealand context, where freedom camping is increasingly popular, especially at the coast. Over summer 2014–2015, we surveyed freedom campers at beachfront sites in three case study areas. The 61 participants characterised coastal freedom camping as a place-based activity, centred on locations offering views and leisure opportunities. Camping sites were typically selected on the basis of place appeal, recommendations and opportunity, rather than prior planning. Respondents indicated that freedom camping is a choice, and one that is often exercised alongside stays in formal campgrounds. Vehicle-based camping was understood to entail spontaneity, flexibility and mobility – inter-related benefits often labelled ‘freedom’. Participants valued the ability to travel without a fixed route, and to make opportunistic stops. They were also able to choose between sites offering privacy and spaciousness, and those offering social opportunities. The freedom of being able to camp without charge received inconsistent levels of emphasis. We conclude that freedom camping can be understood as offering a form of autonomy encompassing freedom from external constraints, as well as freedom to explore and to escape.     

Estimation in large and disaggregated demand systems: an estimator for conditionally linear systems

Empirical demand systems that do not impose unreasonable restrictions on preferences are typically non-linear. We show, however, that all popular systems possess the property of conditional linearity. A computationally attractive iterated linear least squares estimator (ILLE) is proposed for large non-linear simultaneous equation systems which are conditionally linear in unknown parameters. The estimator is shown to be consistent and its asymptotic efficiency properties are derived. An application is given for a 22-commodity quadratic demand system using household-level data from a time series of repeated cross-sections. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competition and market power in the European airline industry: 1976–90

In this paper, we study the market power of European airlines in an oligopoly structure with product differentiation for the period 1976–1990 and test the monopoly hypothesis (Captain, 1993). The paper analyzes the level of competition among eight major European airlines and finds little evidence for market power in the industry over that period. One of our main findings is that the high prices in Europe are not entirely due to the bilateral agreements (leading to possible monopoly power), but rather are a result of very high cost structures in the industry. These results are broadly in agreement with those of Roeller and Sickles (1994) which analyzes these issues in the European Industry by estimating a structural, two-stage game. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

VAT and the taxation of rents

Cash-flow corporate taxes can tax corporate-source rents and avoid some of the distortions on investment and financing caused by conventional corporate taxes. However, cash-flow taxes applied on an origin basis are prone to international profit-shifting, which can lead to a competitive reduction in tax rates. While this can be avoided by a destination-based cash-flow tax, most countries have opted for origin-based taxation, asserting the right to tax rents generated within their jurisdictions. Since a value-added tax (VAT) implicitly includes rents in its base, it can complement origin-based corporate taxation. We compare and contrast the use of destination and origin VATs as complements to an origin-based cash-flow corporate tax.     

Predicting intention to recycle on the basis of the theory of planned behaviour

Governments worldwide have launched various schemes to promote recycling by individuals, from legislation to voluntary and mandatory policies, waste charging, kerbside collection, waste separation bins, and promotional campaigns. Much remains to be done, however, in terms of understanding the psychological relationships among consumers' attitudes, intentions, and behaviours when it comes to recycling. This study was designed to examine recycling intention through the lens of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Using online survey, we recruited participants (n = 827) through an online survey platform ( mturk.com ). The results show that TPB can predict consumers' intention to recycle. It was further found, however, that attitude towards recycling did not predict intention to recycle. The findings presented here have significant implications for policymakers and practitioners who are interested in inculcating recycling intention and behaviours in members of the public. This study extends the TPB in the context of recycling. There is a need to examine the theories' explanatory power in different research settings and context. Moreover, regulations and policies on recycling continue to evolve. For example, recently in 2018, Australia is banning plastic bag. Consequently, the new policy will affect people's perception towards recycling. Hence, continued research on recycling is needed.     

WHAT DRIVES CAPITAL FLOWS TO EMERGING MARKETS? A SURVEY OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

This paper reviews the rapidly growing empirical literature on the drivers of capital flows to emerging markets. The empirical evidence is structured based on the recognition that the drivers of capital flows vary over time and across different types of capital flows. The drivers are classified using the traditional distinction between ‘push’ and ‘pull’ drivers, which continues to serve as a useful framework. Push factors like global risk aversion and external interest rates are found to matter most for portfolio debt and equity flows, but somewhat less for banking flows. Pull factors such as domestic output growth, asset returns and country risk matter for all three capital flows components, but most for banking flows.     

Consuming to Be Good: Therapeutic Ideology and Transracial Adoptive Mothers

This study reveals the therapeutic origins of the “good mother” ideal in a rarely studied context, that of transracial adoptive mothering. Using a comparative discursive analysis supplemented by illustrative case analysis, we show that what it means to be a “good mother” in transracial adoptive mothering discourse differs significantly from the ideal established in mainstream mothering discourse. The key differences uncovered relate to publicly contested challenges to legitimacy, the experience of stigma for families adopting children of difference races, and a relative dearth of market‐based solutions to these challenges. We propose therapeutic ideology as a powerful macro‐level theoretical construct capable of explaining the self‐reinforcing cycle of mothers' anxiety, expert advice, and market‐mediated solutions.