Choosing and sharing

Implementing a project, like a nationwide nuclear waste disposal, which benefits all involved agents but brings major costs only to the host is often problematic. In practice, revelation issues and redistributional concerns are significant obstacles to achieving stable agreements. We address these issues by proposing the first mechanism to select the efficient site (the host with the lowest cost) while simultaneously allowing for the implementation of any individually rational division of the whole hosting cost. The subgame perfect Nash equilibria of our simple mechanism are efficient, budget-balanced and individually rational. Moreover, the truthful equilibrium is immune to coalitional deviations.     

Profit sharing in unique Nash equilibrium: Characterization in the two-agent case

Two agents jointly operate a decreasing marginal returns technology to produce a private good. We characterize the class of output-sharing rules for which the labor-supply game has a unique Nash equilibrium. It consists of two families: rules of the serial type which protect a small user from the negative externality imposed by a large user, and rules of the reverse serial type, where one agent effectively employs the other agent's labor. Exactly two rules satisfy symmetry; a result in sharp contrast with Moulin and Shenker's characterization of their serial mechanism as the unique cost-sharing rule satisfying the same incentives property [Moulin, H., Shenker, S., 1992. Serial cost sharing. Econometrica 60 (5), 1009–1037]. We also show that the familiar stand-alone test characterizes the class of fixed-path methods under our incentives criterion [Friedman, E.J., 2004. Strong monotonicity in surplus sharing. Econ. Theory 23, 643–658].     

Cost-effectiveness of Access to Critical Cerebral Emergency Support Services (ACCESS): a neuro-emergent telemedicine consultation program

Aims: Access to Critical Cerebral Emergency Support Services (ACCESS) was developed as a low-cost solution to providing neuro-emergent consultations to rural hospitals in New Mexico that do not offer comprehensive stroke care. ACCESS is a two-way audio-visual program linking remote emergency department physicians and their patients to stroke specialists. ACCESS also has an education component in which hospitals receive training from stroke specialists on the triage and treatment of patients. This study assessed the clinical and economic outcomes of the ACCESS program in providing services to rural New Mexico from a healthcare payer perspective.

Methods: A decision tree model was constructed using findings from the ACCESS program and existing literature, the likelihood that a patient will receive a tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), cost of care, and resulting quality adjusted life years (QALYs). Data from the ACCESS program includes emergency room patients in rural New Mexico from May 2015 to August 2016. Outcomes and costs have been estimated for patients who were taken to a hospital providing neurological telecare and patients who were not.

Results: The use of ACCESS decreased neuro-emergent stroke patient transfers from rural hospitals to urban settings from 85% to 5% (no tPA) and 90% to 23% (tPA), while stroke specialist reading of patient CT/MRI imaging within 3?h of onset of stroke symptoms increased from 2% to 22%. Results indicate that use of ACCESS has the potential to save $4,241 ($3,952–$4,438) per patient and increase QALYs by 0.20 (0.14–0.22). This increase in QALYs equates to ～73 more days of life at full health. The cost savings and QALYs are expected to increase when moving from a 90-day model to a lifetime model.

Conclusion: The analysis demonstrates potential savings and improved quality-of-life associated with the use of ACCESS for patients presenting to rural hospitals with acute ischemic stroke (AIS).     

The Revival of Private Landlords in Britain’s Post-Homeownership Society

Homeownership has been declining in favour of private renting in most developed English speaking countries since the early-2000s. Public debates in countries like Britain, Australia and the US have subsequently focused on the ostensible coming of age of ‘generation rent’, constituted of younger individuals excluded from home buying and traditional routes to housing asset accumulation. While the focus of this paper is the significance of access to housing assets as a means to offset potential economic and welfare precarity, our concern is landlords rather than tenants. Drawing on British survey data, we show that the rental boom has been accompanied by increasing multiple property ownership among classes of largely middle-aged and relatively affluent households. Over one-million small-time landlords have emerged in the last decade alone, who, we argue, are part product of historic developments in housing markets and welfare states. Generations of British have not only been orientated towards their homes as commodity assets, they have also begun to mobilise around multi-property accumulation in a context of shifting welfare and pension expectations.     

The Arduous Journey of Private Labels: Insights From the South African Market and Further Afield

This article presents an overview of private label brands (PLBs) by considering both the status quo and emergent trends in this sphere. The initial focus is profiling private labels in the country of South Africa, with developments from abroad then being juxtaposed against the local retail landscape. Global market trends are brought to the fore at the end of the article. PLB adoption in South Africa currently sits at a paltry 18% (little moved in the last 5 years), compared with a European average penetration rate of 30%. The reasons for this lackluster growth are varied, with a lack of retailer R&D at the root cause. Yet the conditions are right for rapid growth of this merchandise should household incomes continue to remain under pressure and should consumers fully appreciate the value proposition of such brands. Furthermore, it is expected that the global share of the market will reach 50% by 2025 (double that presently) with retailers abandoning B-brands and replacing these with their own substitute PLBs.     

Tour Guide Styles and Penal History Museums in Canada

Although the existing penal tourism literature examines displays at penal heritage sites, little research has explored the work of tour guides within them. Drawing from interviews and observations, this article assesses the styles of tour guides working at penal history museums in Canada. We situate carceral guides' styles along a continuum encompassing those who claim to convey historical facts as well as ones who explicitly engage in staging and performance, which are primarily responsive to penal tourists' expectations for fun and entertainment. In the discussion and conclusion, we address the practical implications of this assessment of guide styles. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Business Under Threat, Technology Under Attack, Ethics Under Fire: The Experience of Google in China

Although not frequently regarded as controversial, digital communications industries continue to be sites of CSR conflicts, particularly internationally. Investigating CSR issues in the digital communications industry is pertinent because in addition to being one of the fastest growing industries, it has created a host of new CSR issues that require further attention. This case study examines an incident in early 2010, when Google Inc. China and the Chinese government reached an impasse that produced a large-scale, transnational conflict that reached a head ostensibly over state-mandated censorship, ultimately prompting Google to withdraw from the mainland Chinese market and redirect its activities to Hong Kong. We track Google’s experience in China, both to explore its strategies and to consider the implications for corporate social responsibility. We situate Google’s drastic decision to withdraw entirely from mainland China in the complex multiplicity of ethical, cultural, and political conflicts that affect this particular case. On a broader level, the incident raises the question of how multinational corporations (MNCs) can achieve corporate growth while negotiating the highly sensitive sociopolitical and institutional environments of foreign nations.     

Crossing the great divide of strategic entrepreneurship: Transitioning between exploration and exploitation

Managing uncertainty effectively is perhaps one of the most significant challenges a firm's decision makers face today. Strategic entrepreneurship—defined as exploration for future sources of competitive advantage, combined with exploitation of current sources of competitive advantage—has been proposed as a means via which decision makers can manage uncertainty. In this article, we discuss the transition between exploration and exploitation activities within organizations as a vital part of strategic entrepreneurship; this transition process can involve various types of internal firm challenges. Additionally, we highlight various sources for these internal challenges and mechanisms through which firms can overcome them.     

The Deal Structuring Stage of the Venture Capitalist Decision‐Making Process: Exploring Confidence and Control*

This exploratory study examines the deal structuring stage of the venture capitalist decision‐making process. Here, the primary issues of concern are investor confidence and potential control of a venture in relation to the level of financing the investor provides and the structure with which the funding is delivered. Confidence comes in support of the entrepreneur, the venture itself, or a combination of the two, prior to capital transfer, but after the initial “invest or not invest” decision has already occurred. Findings support a multicriteria perspective of the pre‐investment decision‐making process and a distinct difference between entrepreneur confidence and venture confidence in the deal structuring stage.