The relative importance of social responsibility in determining organizational effectiveness: Student responses

This paper investigates the relative importance of social responsibility criteria in determining organizational effectiveness. The organizational effectiveness menu was used as a questionnaire with a sample of 151 senior undergraduates. Each respondent was asked to rate the importance of the criteria from three constituent perspectives within a service organization: (1) as a manager, (2) as an investor, (3) as an employee. Later, a subsample of students (n=61) responded to the same questionnaire acting as a manager in an assigned case study. The results indicated that students acting as managers, investors, or employees rate social responsibility criteria among the least important of the determinants of organizational effectiveness. Moreover, while specific situations may call for changes in the relative importance of these criteria, social responsibility criteria were not viewed, generally, as the most important determinants of organizational effectiveness.Kenneth L. Kraft is currently an Associate Professor of Management at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. His recent papers explore the relationships between strategy, structure, social responsibility, and organizational effectiveness in a variety of settings.     

Market and Welfare Effects of the U.S. Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act

This paper analyzes the market and welfare effects of the United States Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act enacted in 2001. The act mandates meat packers to report their transactions daily to a government agency and requires the agency to make a summary of those transactions available to the public through the Mandatory Livestock Meat Market News Reports. Considering the case of an imperfect packer cartel that uses trigger price strategies, this paper examines the impact of market information provided by the reports on equilibrium livestock slaughter and the welfare of the groups involved and identifies the determinants of the socially optimal level of information. A key result of the paper is that, even when facilitating collusion among packers, increased market information can be social welfare enhancing.     

E‐learning: emerging uses,empirical results and future directions

The use of network technology to deliver training is the latest trend in the training and development industry and has been heralded as the ‘e‐learning revolution.’ In an effort to separate hype from reality, this paper reviews practitioner and research literature on e‐learning, incorporating unpublished information from interviews with managers and consultants directly involved in e‐learning initiatives. Specific attention is given to why organizations use e‐learning, what the potential drawbacks to e‐learning are, what we know from research about e‐learning and what the future of e‐learning may hold.     

Logistical Strategies and Risks in Canadian Grain Marketing

Logistics management in grain marketing has become very important with the maturity of the industry. This is particularly critical in the Canadian grain marketing system, which has experienced disruptions for various reasons over many years. These problems have been the topic of numerous industry evaluations, have resulted in a complaint about service obligations during the 1996–97 crop year, and were addressed by the Estey Commission. A detailed model of the Canadian grain logistics system is developed in this paper to evaluate factors that cause disruptions, as well as the effect of several important logistics and marketing strategies on system performance. The results illustrate that there is sufficient randomness throughout the various functions of the system that it is expected that demurrage at the west coast would periodically be an important cost. The frequency of service disruptions and demurrage are affected by several factors, including the distribution of tough and damp grains, mis‐graded grain and the level of exportable supplies. Several strategic variables affect system performance. These include the aggressiveness in selling relative to capacity and the level of beginning port stocks. La gestion de la logistique dans le commerce des céréales a acquis une grande importance maintenant que ce secteur a atteint la maturité. C'est particulièrement important dans le système canadien de mise en marché des céréales lequel, pour diverses raisons, a essuyé bien des perturbations ces dernières années. Les problèmes en cause ont fait l'objet de nombreuses évaluations du secteur. Ils ont même abouti au dépôt d'une plainte sur les obligations de service dans la campagne agricole 1996–1997 et ont étéétudiés par la Commission Estey. Dans la présente communication nous avons construit un modèle détaillé du système canadien de logistique du marché des céréales ainsi que de l'effet de plusieurs stratégies importantes de logistique et de commercialisation sur la performance du systeme. Les résultats obtenus montrent qu'il y a suffisamment d'aléatoire dans les diverses fonctions du systeme pour conclure que les frais de séjour à quai sur la côte ouest seraient périodiquement un important poste de dépense. La fréquence des perturbations des services et les coûts a quai sont associés à plusieurs facteurs dont la livraison de grain gourd et humide, de grain mal classé et le niveau des disponibilités exportables. Plusieurs variables stratégiques influent sur le fonctionnement du système, notamment l'agressivité manifestée dans la vente par rapport aux stocks disponibles et le niveau des stocks disponibles dans les ports au début de la campagne d'exportation.     

The Simple Analytics of Evaluating NFL Trades

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

Using Information Communication Technology to Develop International Entrepreneurship Competencies

Many researchers claim that the use of web-based learning tools and information and communication technology (ICT) will revolutionize traditional learning methods in university contexts and fundamentally change the process of how knowledge is gathered and disseminated. However, there are conflicting views regarding the benefits of these techniques and actual learning outcomes. This paper posits that by using ICT and particularly the Web as a dynamic and integrating learning tool, several strategic competencies can be deployed and that the international knowledge, skills and competencies of entrepreneurship students can be radically enhanced. In light of an extensive literature review on research in the field, suggestions are provided for using the Web as a comprehensive teaching tool.     

Monitoring and Controlling Mastitis on Ontario Dairy Farms

The frequency of use and the marginal costs and marginal value products of mastitis control practices on somatic cell count (SCC) and milk yield are investigated. A survey of current management practices is combined with Dairy Herd Improvement production information to determine the relationships between milk yield, SCC, management practices, and production and producer characteristics under field conditions. The relationships are modeled and compared at the cow and herd level. A moment-generating approach is used in the herd model to determine which, if any, practices are risk reducing. The SCC for an individual cow is a better indicator of milk production lost due to mastitis than is a bulk tank SCC. Most recommended mastitis control practices are estimated to be economically beneficial, but some common practices are found not to be economical, and questions are raised about dry cow treatment. On a examiné la fréquence à laquelle on recourt aux pratiques de lutte contre la mammite, de même que les couts et les avantages marginaux de ces dernières en ce qui concerne la numération des cellues somatiques et le rendement laitier. On a combiné une enquête sur les pratiques zootechniques actuelles aux renseignements sur la production extraits du Programme d'amélioration des troupeaux laitiers en vue de déterminer les relations qui existent entre le rendement laitier, la numération des cellules somatiques, la conduite du troupeau ainsi que les caractéristiques associées à la production et aux producteurs, sur le terrain. On a ensuite modélisé ces relations et on les a compareées entre les animaux et les troupeaux. Pour le modèle touchant les troupeaux, on s'est servi d'une approche générant des moments, pour déterminer si une pratique quelconque diminuait les risques. La numération des cellules somatiques chez la vache est un meilleur indicateur du volume de lait perdu à la suite de la mammite que la numération des cellules somatiques dans la citerne. La plupart des méthodes de lutte contre la mammite recommendées offrent un avantage économique, mais certaines pratiques courantes ont l'effet contraire et on s'interroge sur l'utilité de traiter les vaches taries.     

Chasing Success: Health Sector Aid and Mortality

As many cases studies show, successful public health measures are being implemented in many places around the globe, and country-level mortality has fallen significantly in recent decades in all but a few countries. Are the two linked? Does development assistance for health (DAH) improve, on balance, recipient countries’ mortality trajectory? Using a new data source containing DAH on 96 high mortality countries, the regression analysis shows no effect of DAH on mortality. Other types of aid, including water development, also have no effect. Economic growth, on the other hand, has a strong negative effect on mortality. These findings confirm and build upon recent work by Williamson (2008) and are shown to be robust to a variety of sensitivity analyses and alternative model specifications and estimation methods.This analysis also shows that the effectiveness of DAH has not increased over time, even as the level of that funding has increased fourfold, though spending on infectious diseases and family planning may have caused small reductions in mortality. Furthermore, even though it is encouraging that DAH has tended to go where the need is highest, it also goes to states that have experienced the greatest mortality reductions in the recent past. In other words, DAH appears to be following success, rather than causing it.     

Time-Varying Response of Monetary Policy to Macroeconomic Conditions

We reject the hypothesis that the Federal Reserve's response to the macroeconomy over the period of 1953-1994 can be accurately represented with a fixed-parameter discrete choice model. Thus, we model the Fed's time-varying response with a nonlinear Kalman filter. The estimated time paths of the reaction function coefficients suggest that the Fed has responded countercyclically to movements in the price level except for the middle 1970s when it accommodated inflation. The Fed has generally responded countercyclically to unemployment and output during recessions. However, it has not maintained a countercyclical policy during nonrecessionary times until the 1980s.