Predictors of Usage Intentions of Pirated Software

The purpose of this study is to investigate the salient factors influencing consumers’ attitudes and usage intentions towards pirated software. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour, this study investigates the relationships between three sets of factors, i.e. personal, social and perceived behavioural control onto attitudes towards pirated software. Through a multiple regression, only personal factors have shown significant relationship with attitudes towards software piracy. Further results from this study have supported that favourable attitudes towards pirated software is likely to result in stronger intentions to use pirated software. It was found that computer proficiency acts as a predictor for intentions towards pirated software, rather than a moderator as originally postulated.     

Watching the FIFA World Cup 2010 in England: the sojourner perspective

Recent years have seen an emergence of a varied academic literature focused on the football fan, with a wealth of studies exploring issues such as hooliganism, fan behaviour and fan identification. No research, however, has documented the experiences and perspectives of the international sojourner, who follows the televised tournament far away from the home country. This paper offers a contribution to the literature on fandom by focusing on the experiences of becoming a temporary fan among a sample of nine international students in England during the period of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It shows the importance of the tournament for students away from their home nation, acting as a point of celebration and as a means of bringing sojourners of the same nationality together to support their team. It reveals how the tournament offered escape from stress, became a focal point for social interaction, provided the opportunity for recreation of home, and for the reinforcement of feelings of national identity.     

An Instrument to Measure the ‘Degree of Professionalism’ in a Professional Service

Professional services have received considerable attention. This article describes a scale to measure the degree of professionalism of both a profession and an individual pro- fessional and use of the scale to differentiate between two sub-groups of the medical profession: general practitioners and medical specialists. As expected, medical specialists were found to be more professional. Possible managerial uses of the scale are discussed.     

Investment in organization capital

We study a firm’s investment in organization capital by analyzing a dynamic model of language development and intrafirm communication. We show that firms with richer internal language (i.e., more organization capital) have lower employee turnover, and higher diversity in skill and wages among incumbents who are promoted from within the firm. Our results also suggest that firms in rapidly changing industries are less likely to invest in organization capital, and are more likely to have high managerial turnover. Finally, our model shows that employment protection regulations lead to more investment in organization capital but less innovation.     

Power,policy networks and planning: the involvement of major grocery retailers in the formulation of Planning Policy Guidance Note 6 since 1988

This paper explores a neglected issue in the study of retail strategy and store location by considering the nature of policy networks operating at the interface between retailers and central government. It argues that informal networks, coupled with the economic power of retailers and the legitimization of their activities with reference to the 'consumer interest', have served to provide retailers with an influential avenue through which they can exert power over the nature of the regulatory environment within which they operate. The paper considers the limited extant 'evidence' of the operation of such networks before moving on to outline the results of a case study. The case study reflects on new store development in the UK grocery sector since 1988 as a backdrop to an analysis of the form of policy networks operating at the interface between government departments and retail organizations. It also explores the role of other stakeholders in this process. The existence of a number of such networks is described and their role explored with reference to the involvement of retailers in the formulation and evolution of Planning Policy Guidance Note 6 on retail development.     

TIME SERIES ANALYSIS OF ACCOUNTING POLICY CHOICE: REPLY

Taylor (1992) argues that accounting policy choices in any year are not assessed independently of policy choices adopted in previous years. This independence assumption is a maintained hypothesis of Anderson and Zimmer (1992). Although Taylor acknowledges that our results remain robust to his suggested adjustments for non-independence, we argue in this reply that such adjustments are unnecessary because temporal independence of accounting policy choices is consistent with the implications of costly contracting between the firm and its claimholders. We develop the arguments that (1) accounting choices are temporally independent and our research design is therefore, appropriate (2) to the extent that there is an independence problem of the type proposed by Taylor (1992) it also applies to cross-sectional studies of accounting policy choice.     

The new product development process: past evidence and future practical application, Part 1.

This article conducts a review of the research work into the process of product development and the way in which it has progressed over nearly forty years. It also shows that much of the work is unknown to many product development managers. The article goes on to show why the application of past research evidence has been restricted and describes attempts at translating the results into effective action.     

Corporate Hedging: The Relevance of Contract Specifications and Banking Relationships

This article examines the contribution of hedging to firm valueand the cost of hedging in a unified framework. Optimal hedgingand firm value are explicitly linked to firm risk, the typeof debt covenants and the relative priority of the hedging contract.It is shown that in some cases hedging is possible only if thecounterparty to the forward contract also holds a significantportion of the debt. Also, the spread in the hedging contractreduces the optimal amount of hedging to less than the minimum-variancehedge ratio. Among other results this article elucidates whysome firms hedge using forward contracts while other firms hedgein the futures markets, as well as why higher priority forwardcontracts are more efficient hedging vehicles. JEL Classificationnumbers: G13, G22 and G33.