How the burdens of ownership promote consumer usage of access-based services

Services that let customers access goods, such as car-sharing, are gaining increasing relevance as an alternative to ownership. These access-based services allow consumers to avoid the “burdens of ownership”, i.e., risks and responsibilities that come with owning a good. However, the interplay between consumers’ risk perception of ownership, access-based service usage, and the subsequent decision to reduce or forgo ownership has not been sufficiently investigated. Based on risk perception theory, we hypothesize the effects of different risk dimensions (financial, performance, social) on the intensity of access-based service usage, as well as the latter’s influence on ownership reduction. Using a unique dataset that links survey and actual usage data of car-sharing users, we test four corresponding hypotheses. The results reveal that access-based service usage is positively influenced by all three ownership risk perceptions. Moreover, a higher usage of an access-based service increases the likelihood that consumers subsequently reduce ownership.     

When organizational relocation means family relocation: An emerging issue for strategic human resource management

Relocations of entire organizational units raise special family adjustment issues. This article reports on the reactions of employees and their families to such a relocation. Employees' adjustment was more strongly related to nonwork and family impacts of the move than to factors in the workplace. Adjustment was more difficult for families inexperienced in relocation, despite extensive company assistance programs.     

Is Classroom Cheating Related to Business Students' Propensity to Cheat in the "Real World"?

Previous studies have reportedstudents' widely held belief that they are moreethical than businessmen. On the other hand,widespread cheating among college students hasbeen reported. This paper examines thisinconsistency between the beliefs of collegestudent regarding the need for ethical behaviorin a business setting and their actions in anacademic setting.The results of this study indicate that whilestudents are generally upset with cheating intheir class, a large proportion of themnonetheless engage in such behavior. It wasfurther found that students have a goodunderstanding of what constitutes ethicalbehavior in the business world and the need forsuch behavior. However, they also believe thatbusiness people fail to act in an ethicalmanner, and that they may need to actunethically to advance their careers.     

Economic freedom and growth specification debate: a retrospective

This article revisits a 2006 theoretical debate on the appropriate specifications for testing the relationship between economic outcomes and economic freedom. It provides out-of-sample empirical tests corresponding to each of the theoretical positions of the two sides of the debate. The two methods of testing the relationship essentially tie in their ability to predict out-of-sample, although neither model predicts very well for the decade following the debate.