Make giving meaningful: key to development success. Interview by Larry Kofsky

Starting virtually from scratch in 1975, Berkshire Medical Center has built a fund raising success story. Its multi-faceted development program centers around the philosophy that donors must feel their gifts have purpose and are appreciated.     

Regulating Financial Services: How Severe are the Dangers?

The Financial Services Act has been variously criticised for obstructing competition and increasing operating costs for the producers of financial services in Britain. Robert R. Davis, Commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington DC, argues that there are 'public-goods' considerations to justify the imposition of the Act, and that its internal guarantees will check the growth of regulation. Len Ross, Principal Lecturer in Economics at the Polytechnic of Central London, maintains his earlier charge that the Act will do immense damage to British trade in financial services.     

THE ANALYTICS OF RELATIVE HOLDING-PERIOD RISKS FOR BONDS

The relation between default risk measures and holding-period risk measures for bonds is confusing for bond investors. Past studies show that lower-credit-quality bonds exhibit lower holding-period risk. In this research I develop models to decompose the risk of corporate bonds and specify the conditions necessary for lower credit quality to result in lower holding-period risk measures. Additionally, I offer insight into the seemingly haphazard pattern of holding-period risk as related to credit quality.     

Time compression and MBA behavioral skill acquisition

Trends in master of business administration (MBA) education are favoring coursework offerings in time-compressed environments but without careful examination of learning implications. The academic literature is weak in this area, so the authors conducted a study of 558 MBA students using a behaviorally based pedagogy in management. In contrast to previous research, the authors developed arguments supporting time compression assuming certain boundary conditions. They found that students showed better behavioral learning outcomes in a shortened, 4.5-week semester versus a full 14-week semester. The authors conclude with implications for theory and practice.     

Accounting for personal disposition and organizational context: connecting role ambiguity,public service motivation,and whistle-blowing in federal agencies

Abstract

Organizational psychologists and HRM scholars have long argued that prosocial organizational behaviors enhance organizational performance. However, prosocial behaviors are motivated by both self-interested and altruistic intent. Moreover, some have recognized that the factors that encourage shifts between egoistically and altruistically motivated prosocial behaviors may result from inherent tensions between individual disposition and situational contexts. As such, this study draws from literature examining prosocial behavior to evaluate whether work situations with clear task expectations dampen the extent to which prosocial personal dispositions diminish egoistically motivated prosocial behavior. Findings from a series of structural equation models reveal that altruistic dispositional traits diminish egoistic motives for engaging in one specific prosocial behavior, whistle-blowing. However, findings also reveal that work situations characterized by clear task expectations dampen the negative effect of altruistic dispositions on egoistically motivated whistle-blowing. Our findings imply that managers can adjust organizational contexts to capitalize on the enhanced benefits resulting from altruistically motivated prosocial behaviors.