Learning from Doing Participatory Rural Research: Lessons from the Peak District National Park

Understanding the socio‐economic and environmental implications of rural change requires the active participation of many research disciplines and stakeholders. However, it remains unclear how to best integrate participatory and biophysical research to provide information useful to land managers and policy makers. This paper presents findings of a RELU scoping study that has formulated and applied a research framework based on stakeholder participation and adaptive learning to model rural change in the Peak District National Park in the north of England. The paper describes a learning process that integrates different types of knowledge to produce future scenarios that describe possible economic and environmental changes due to a national review of burning practices on heather moorland and blanket bogs. We stress the need for using social network analysis to structure stakeholder engagement and outline how a range of participatory approaches can facilitate more inclusive environmental planning and policy development.     

The impact of agricultural technology adoption on income inequality in rural China: Evidence from southern Yunnan Province

This study analyzes the impact on income inequality of government efforts to increase agricultural incomes in rural China. It collects and analyzes survey data from 473 households in Yunnan, China in 2004. In particular, it investigates the effects of government efforts to promote improved upland rice technologies. Our analysis shows that farmers who adopted these technologies had incomes approximately 15% higher than non-adopters. Despite this relatively large increase, we estimate that the impact on income inequality was relatively slight. This is primarily due to the fact that lower-income farmers adopted the improved rice technology at rates that were roughly equivalent to those of higher-income farmers.     

Profits and Corporate Philanthropy: An Economic Rationale for Dual Mission Firms

This paper provides an economic rationale for corporate social responsibility. We develop a model of a dual mission firm that produces both a private good and a philanthropic good. By incorporating economies of scope arising from shared inputs into our model, we demonstrate that corporate social responsibility and profit maximization can complement each other. Supporters of new legal corporate forms that facilitate the creation of dual mission businesses have persuasive new evidence in support of hybrid firms. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Product quality and competition: evidence from the broadband industry

Access to high-quality broadband internet is important in many different respects such as in communication, education, commerce and information acquisition. We investigate the relationship between the number of broadband providers in an area and the quality of broadband service provided where download speed is used as a proxy for quality. We find that increased competition in an area positively affects the access to fast download speeds. This finding is robust to three different top download speeds tested. Additionally, a theoretical model is provided which shows that competition can decrease the profits associated with offering slow speeds; this gives an incentive for providers to offer higher speeds as a way to increase profits.     

Allocating audit resources to detect fraud

This paper addresses how to allocate audit resources across different auditable units when misstatements may occur in any or all of the units. We consider two benchmark scenarios. In the first, the extent of overstatement affects only the cost of detection, but not the effectiveness of audit inputs in determining the likelihood of detection. In the second, overstatement directly affects the likelihood of detection but not audit cost. In a two location setting, if overstatement affects only audit effectiveness, the realized value at one location has no impact on the reported value at the other. In addition, the auditor allocates an identical amount of audit resources to each location. In contrast, if overstatement affects only audit cost, the agent’s reporting strategy reflects interdependencies between both realized values and audit costs across locations.     

PROFESSIONALIZING MANAGEMENT AND MANAGING PROFESSIONALIZATION: BRITISH MANAGEMENT IN THE 1980s

The purpose of this article is to analyse the strategy of managerial professionalizatin through educational reform as it has been attempted in Britain during the course of the 1980s. This strategy-whatever its internal contradictions and inherent weaknesses- is located within the longer-term historical context in which British management has developed. In turn, this brief historical analysis is complemented by an assessment of the feasibility of the strategy of professionalization in relatin to some of the most recent work carried out on the sociology of the professions/expert knowledge. Finally, we discuss the broader implications of this analysis for current debates concerning the reality of managerial work and management culture, as well as the pedagogical principles and practices thought most appropriate to the latter-that is, how managers ought to be educated and developed.     

The Reform of Medical Malpractice Law:

The major stimulus for the extensive, state level, reform of medical malpractice during the past two decades was the widespread belief in a malpractice crisis. The perception of a crisis arose in the 1960s largely because of what was viewed as sudden and dramatic increases in the malpractice liability of physicians. However, historical data demonstrate that the common perception that physician liability increased suddenly and dramatically beginning in the 1960s Is incorrect. Since malpractice reform has been based upon the false premise that the medical malpractice liability system, previously working smoothly, was in disarray, the soundness of much of the malpractice reform which has occurred in the past two decades is questioned.     

Marketing journal hierarchies: Faculty perceptions, 1986-87

This article reviews the latest perceptions among AACSB school professionals in the field of marketing regarding journal hierarchies. With the proliferation of marketing journals during the past few years comes the need to address the relative position of all marketing journals. This study lists journal rankings using prestige and importance indices. The paper concludes with a discussion on the relative importance of journal rankings in the consideration of promotion and tenure among faculty members.     

Bimodality in diversification: An efficiency and effectiveness rationale

Various researchers have observed that the frequency distribution of firm diversification is bimodal. The two modes are created by a majority of firms employing either very little or substantial amounts of diversification. Only a minority of firms opt for medium amounts of diversification. From theoretical discussion of the forces of efficiency and effectiveness in diversification, this work provides a rationale for the bimodality phenomenon. In turn, research implications arise regarding optimum degrees of diversification, what the impact of optimization is upon firm performance, and why the measurement of both type and degree of diversification is important.