Discussion of “Communicated Values as Informal Controls: Promoting Quality While Undermining Productivity?”

Kachelmeier, Thornock, and Williamson ( 2016 ) investigate experimentally whether an employer's value statement can affect the way employees cognitively represent how they should approach a multi‐attribute task, and therefore performance. Counter‐intuitively, but consistent with their theory, they find that the value statement negatively affects performance for piece‐rate incentivized participants. In my discussion, I elaborate on my comments from the 2013 CAR Conference. Specifically, I discuss contexts where a firm's value statement may have positive effects on performance, and the importance of conducting research investigating how the decisions made by management accountants affect learning.     

The baby boomer market maven in the United Kingdom: an experienced diffuser of marketplace information

This study identifies and profiles market mavens among the baby boomer generation in the United Kingdom. Boomers are an important market segment, yet most advertising targets younger audiences, making word-of-mouth communications crucial among this older cohort. Findings suggest boomer mavens place great importance on ‘respect’ values, are particularly concerned with fashion and compared with non-mavens are more likely to try new brands, watch more television, hold positive attitudes towards advertising and seek out bargains. The study is useful to those businesses wishing to target a mature consumer who people perceive as a good source of marketplace information and who likes introducing new brands to others.     

Boredom in Free Time: Relationships with Personality,Affect, and Motivation for Different Gender,Racial and Ethnic Student Groups

The propensity to experience boredom in free time was investigated by exploring relationships with the individual's demographic characteristics, personality, motivational orientation, and affective style assessed through group-administered questionnaires to 999 university students. The self-as-entertainment personality attribute consistently predicted the likelihood that students would be bored, and inverse relationships with extraversion and intrinsic motivational orientation were found for all student groups. Multiple regression analyses revealed that race, ethnicity, and gender were the only significant demographic predictors of the likelihood an individual would be bored in free time. Group similarities and differences in depicting students who were prone to experience boredom in free time are described.     

A Feminist Comparative Economic Systems

Abstract

This study proposes that feminist research be integrated into the field of comparative economic systems (CES) and that CES return to its traditional institutionalist methodologies to facilitate more complete analyses of economic systems and feminist alternatives to these systems and institutions. The study describes the evolution of CES, drawing attention to an increasing reliance on econometric modeling that reflects a shift in focus away from systems. An inventory of research on women and gender that has appeared in CES journals and textbooks finds little on topics other than formal labor markets in transition economies. The study contrasts this literature on women and gender in transition economies to research on this topic by women from transition economies, a literature that CES journal authors do not reference. It concludes by proposing a feminist economics approach that focuses on gender-differentiated impacts of economic systems, analyses of households, and equity as a measure of progress.     

Paths into the economy: structural barriers and the job hunt for skilled PRC migrants in Canada

Well-educated and trained Chinese professionals immigrating to Canada face barriers in finding jobs. To understand this wastage of human capital, we see entry to the professions as mediated by frameworks. The social construction of careers influences the demand for labour. Human capital is a social construct defined by certification procedures in Canada and by the way Canadian employers perceive appropriate matches of jobs and job applicants. Their demand for people with 'Canadian experience' blocks entry into higher-level jobs. The study interviewed thirty-two couples in 1999-2001 using qualitative methods to learn about their experiences finding jobs in Toronto.     

Theorizing about play: Critique and direction

This paper presents a review of the extant theoretical models of play behavior. Play theories can be clustered insofar as they suggest different motivations and presuppose distinct underlying mechanisms for playful behavior. The biological view sees the motivation to play as instinctually determined and suggests a genetically inherited predisposition to emit playful responses. The play theories discussed under this heading stress the importance of homeostatic mechanisms and the transformation of energy states as determining when play will occur. The play theories subsumed under the environmental view focus on the typology of play activities and suggest that play is only a subclass of behavior to which the principles of environmental contingencies and reinforcement in learning also apply. Cognitive explanations impart the causation to play as a function of the information‐processing mechanisms of the individual. Within this framework play is defined as a state of mind rather than an activity and it is the player's perception of his environment, in interaction with cognitive processes, which determines the characterization of a playful response. Although the theoretical models of play are discussed within these three perspectives, it is suggested that it is more useful to view these three headings as lying on a continuum, since a review of the theories shows a gradual transition and later cognitive‐based models still presume an internal biological drive. The difficulties with each perspective are discussed and a synthesis is provided which extrapolates some of the tenets of each of the models, as well as presenting an alternative and interactive view of play behavior.     

Discrimination by Black Males Revisited:

ABSTRACT In an earlier article on faculty salary discrimination at a Southern, historically black, public university (SHBU), the authors presented evidence of salary discrimination by black males against other race-sex groups (Riggs and Dwyer 1995). The authors now contrast SHBU's salary model with the model of Riggs and Dwyer and apply the latter to new data to determine whether SHBU eliminated race and sex discrimination in faculty salaries. After equity adjustments, the evidence suggests that SHBU has eliminated the salary discrimination found by Riggs and Dwyer in their earlier study.     

Towards a $$\Delta $$Δ-Gamma Sato multivariate model

Review of Derivatives Research - The increased trading in multi-name financial products has paved the way for the use of multivariate models that are at once computationally tractable and flexible...