Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual

This paper takes the regulation of identity as a focus for examining organizational control. It considers how employees are enjoined to develop self-images and work orientations that are deemed congruent with managerially defined objectives. This focus on identity extends and deepens themes developed within other analyses of normative control. Empirical materials are deployed to illustrate how managerial intervention operates, more or less intentionally and in/effectively, to influence employees' self-constructions in terms of coherence, distinctiveness and commitment. The processual nature of such control is emphasized, arguing that it exists in tension with other intra and extra-organizational claims upon employees' sense of identity in a way that can open a space for forms of micro-emancipation.     

ISOLATING THE WILD CARD OPTION

Many embedded options are difficult to value the wild card option in the Treasury bond futures contract is one of these embedded options. We illustrate how narrow theoretical bounds on the value of this option, relative to the price of the contract, may be obtained in the presence of other embedded options. Simulations suggest that the value of the wild card option is close to zero. This implies that, in this economy, a simpler pricing model of the Treasury bond futures contract, which ignores the wild card option, will result in only a small loss of accuracy.     

An Investigation of the Determinants of Profitability in a Short-Stay Accommodation Market

This paper examines the determinants of the profitability of short-stay accommodation providers in Tasmania, utilising a survey conducted from July 2007 to June 2008. The survey provides insight into a time when some firms had adopted the 'new' information technologies to make sales while others continued with traditional methods. We find the use of online sales is associated with higher profit. Further profit is higher during summer (high season), for firms with a high star rating and for firms who make a larger proportion of their sales directly to customers, and lower when owner operators are motivated by lifestyle considerations.     

Risk factors in Australian bond returns

This study examines the risk factors in Australian bond returns. The study quantifies bond liquidity and estimates a liquidity risk factor in the Australian setting. We develop a three‐factor asset pricing framework that uses term, default and liquidity risk factors to explain the variation of Australian bond returns. Our findings corroborate the US evidence on the pervasiveness of these risk factors faced by bond investors. The three‐factor model developed in this study has practical applications when calculating the cost of debt, evaluating the performance of an active bond fund manager and hedging underlying risk in a bond portfolio.     

Competition,Prices and Quality in the Market for Physician Consultations

Prices for consultations with General Practitioners (GP's) in Australia are unregulated, and patients pay the difference between the price set by the GP and a fixed reimbursement from the national tax‐funded Medicare insurance scheme. We construct a Vickrey‐Salop model of GP price and quality competition and test its predictions using individual GP‐level data on prices, the proportion of patients who are charged no out‐of‐pocket fee, average consultation length, and characteristics of the GP's, their practices and their local areas. We measure the competition to which the GP is exposed by the distance to other GP practices and allow for the endogeneity of GP location decisions with measures of area characteristics and area fixed‐effects. Within areas, GP's with more distant competitors charge higher prices and a smaller proportion of their patients make no out‐of‐pocket payment. GP's with more distant competitors also have shorter consultations, though the effect is small and statistically insignificant.     

Competence‐based management development in small and medium‐sized enterprises: a multi‐stakeholder analysis

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered increasingly important for economic growth (Wilson, 1995) and effective management of them is regarded as essential for their survival and success (Jennings and Beaver, 1995). This study adopted a multi‐stakeholder perspective in order to explore the promotion, via Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs); provision and (potential for) purchase of competence‐based management training and development (MTD) in the SME sector in the United Kingdom. Survey data from (551) and interviews with (12) SMEs; plus interviews (6) with TECs and interviews (29) with providers of MTD are reported. ‘Product’ deficiencies in competence‐based MTD are identified and recommendations for promotion made.     

Characterizing the Real Roots for P,A, and F with Applications to Environmental Remediation and Home Buying Problems

Historically, work on multiple roots for the internal rate of return (PW = 0) equation focuses on tests for the root's uniqueness and interpreting the meaningfulness of computed roots. Instead, this article starts with problems that consist of P, A, and F cash flows. Then for all possible values of these cash flows, this article develops the boundary conditions for no, single, and multiple real roots of either positive or negative sign.

The results of characterizing these roots are applied to two examples as a foundation for conclusions about those multiple root problems and hypotheses about other problems with multiple roots. The first example is an important class of resource development projects that may require significant expenditures for environmental remediation at the conclusion of operation. The second example of buying versus leasing a home is often used to demonstrate the value of economic analysis to students.