Institutional Impact on Work-related Values in Chinese Organizations

This study in 29 Chinese organizations contributes to our understanding about work-related values in China. Empirical research in Chinese organizations indicates differences in work-related values between different age groups. The authors compared people (older age group) with work experience from the pre-reform period – pre-1978 China, with those who started their work life in a society that had already changed and become open to foreign investments (younger age group). The authors created a model of institutionally sensitive work-related values. The results could help multinational companies achieve competitive advantage.     

The invalidity of the Condorcet Jury Theorem under endogenous decisional skills

The current note clarifies that Condorcet Jury Theorem cannot be generalized to the extended setting where individual decisional skills are not assumed to be exogenous parameters even when these skills are homogeneous. This is true when skills are determined endogenously either by a central planner or, in a decentralized strategic setting, by the decision makers themselves.     

Dealing with Wicked Issues: Open Strategizing and the Camisea Case

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, based on an extensive study of the Shell-led Camisea gas project in Peru, how what we believe to be a new approach to dealing with stakeholders, focusing on sense-making and combining industry dynamics and stakeholder empowerment, was developed. The project’s success was measured by the fact that, unlike similar projects around the world, it did not meet with major opposition during its 4-year life span. Those involved in the Camisea project succeeded in creating an open approach to building stakeholder relationships, allowing them to navigate through a number of diverse and challenging socio-political and ecological issues. An integral part of Shell’s approach was acting upon its commitment to high standards of operation and values. The insights from this case clearly indicate that stakeholder management and theorizing can profit from a less controlled, open and sense-making oriented strategizing with stakeholders.     

Do Immigrant Groups Differ in Welfare Usage? Evidence from the U.S.

The study of welfare participation in the United States prior to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and afterward has primarily focused on comparing native and immigrant households. Analyses that have gone beyond this broad classification have focused on comparisons across race, with particular focus on Hispanic immigrants. This paper moves away from the existing literature by investigating whether there is a difference in welfare usage among immigrant based on their birthplace. Using a probit model, we investigate this potential difference by testing two related hypotheses. Our results suggest that the probability of welfare usage for immigrants with similar characteristic, differ for some immigrant groups. We also find that for some immigrant groups, citizen and noncitizens differ with respect to welfare usage.     

FARM TENURE AND FARMING PRACTICE

The performance of wholly owned, wholly rented and mixed tenure farms in the Farm Management Survey sample for England and Wales is compared on a range of criteria, controlling farm size and type. Mixed tenure farms are found to perform noticeably better than ‘pure’ tenure types. Possible explanations for inter-tenure differences in performance are reviewed under the headings of capital provision, farmer motivation and resource mobility. Evidence from the FMS and from interviews with 48 farmers provide only weak support for hypotheses relating performance to capital endowments, the ‘spur’ of market rents or asset appreciation. Findings on changes in farm size and tenure, however, suggest that tenure could be determined by, rather than being a determinant of, farm performance.     

The effects of schematic memory on imaginal information processing: An empirical assessment

The relationship between verbal and nonverbal modes of processing consumer information was examined in an investigation of schematic processing, a predominantly verbal mode, and visual imagery, a nonverbal method of information processing. It was found that individuals with a schema for a marketing event exhibited both a higher incidence and greater vividness of imagery during retrieval than did subjects without a schema. No differences were observed in either the frequency or clarity of images related to actions of varying degrees of abstraction in the event schema. These results indicate interdependence between schematic and imaginal processing consistent with the Cyclical Processing Model (Hampson and Morris 1979). A number of implications, both methodological and strategic, are developed from the observed relationship between imaginal and schematic information processing.     

The January effect across volatility regimes

Using a Markov regime switching model, this article presents evidence of the well-known January effect on stock returns. The specification allows a distinction to be drawn between two regimes: one with high volatility and another with low volatility. We obtain a time-varying January effect that is, in general, positive and significant in both volatility regimes. However, this effect is larger in the high-volatility regime. In sharp contrast with most of the previous literature, we find two major results: (1) the January effect exists for all sizes of portfolio; (2) the negative correlation between the magnitude of the January effect and portfolio size fails across volatility regimes. Moreover, our evidence supports a slight decline in the January effect for all sizes of portfolio except the smallest, for which it is even larger.     

An empirical analysis of the association between the use of executive support systems and perceived organizational competitiveness

A synthesis of management control theory suggests four major categories of use for management information: (1) score keeping, (2) improving individual understanding, (3) focusing organizational attention and learning, and (4) legitimizing decisions. A field study was undertaken to determine if these uses form a robust typology for classifying executive use of management information, and how useful each is perceived to be in enabling organizations’ competitiveness. The results of the study indicate that different uses have substantively different effects on perceptions of whether or not competitiveness is enabled. The study lends credence to the position that control and power, to a large extent, drive the perceptions of benefits associated with using management information in organizations.