Theorizing the Financial Statecraft of Emerging Powers

‘Financial statecraft’, or the intentional use of credit, investment and currency levers by the incumbent governments of creditor – and sometimes debtor – states for both international economic and political advantage, has a long history, ranging from money doctors to currency wars. A neorealist, zero-sum framing of international monetary relations is not inevitable, yet casts a persistent shadow especially during periods of prospective interstate power transitions when previously peripheral countries find themselves with unexpected new capabilities. This article seeks to understand and theorise the financial statecraft of emerging economies, moving beyond the traditional understanding that closely identifies the concept with financial sanctions imposed by a strong state on a weaker state. We propose that the aims of financial statecraft may be either ‘defensive' or ‘offensive’. Financial statecraft may be targeted either ‘bilaterally' or ‘systemically’. Finally such statecraft may employ instruments that are either ‘financial' or ‘monetary’. As emerging market economies have moved up in the ranks in the interstate distribution of capabilities, they have also expanded their financial statecraft strategies from narrowly defensive and bilateral to those involving offensive tactics and targeted at the global and systemic level. Historical and contemporary examples illustrate the analysis.     

Identifying peer mentors in the sales force: An exploratory investigation of willingness and ability

There has been a high level of interest in the sales management practitioner literature in mentoring, but very little is known about peer mentoring relationships between more experienced and less experienced salespeople. Sales organizations that wish to initiate or encourage peer mentoring relationships must identify those salespeople who are both able and willing to mentor less experienced salespeople. The results of an exploratory study to identify mentors in an industrial sales force are reported. The authors find that job experience, job satisfaction, a measure of interpersonal competence, and role conflict are associated with willingness to mentor; interpersonal competence and role conflict are associated with ability to mentor. Results are discussed and opportunities for future research are offered. She received her M.S. from Ohio State University and her M.B.A. from Wright State University. She has experience in personnel training with an industrial sales organization. Her research interests are in the areas of salesperson communication competence, buyer-seller interactions, and buyer-seller negotiation. Her research has been published in various conference proceedings. She received her Ph.D. from University of Tennessee. She has experience in industrial sales and sales management. Her research interests are in the area of buyer-seller interactions and managing sales relationships. Her research has been published inJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and various conference proceedings. Wendy L. Warren is in management at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and has experience in new product development. She received her M.S. from Ohio State University. Her research has been published inJournal of Consumer Research.     

Registered nurses' perceptions of nursing

In Part II of this six part series on the state of the registered nurse (RN) workforce in the United States, the focus is on RNs' perceptions of nursing including RNs' satisfaction with their jobs in general and on specific elements of their work experiences, such as the quality of professional relationships. Satisfaction with a nursing career and whether RNs would recommend nursing to others are also examined. The improvements in nursing found in this analysis of two national surveys in 2002 and 2004 should be broadly communicated not only to energize individuals and organizations to continue their efforts to improve the workplace environment, but to challenge the many individuals in the nursing profession who hold onto a sense that nothing will ever improve in their organizations.     

Information technology supporting fast food phone-in order responsiveness

Foodservice establishment managers seeking to gain a competitive advantage in operating multiple units in one local area have anew type of information tool available. The systems include call-routing, data base and reporting software, in conjunction with a PC-based telecommunications network between units. Using it, phone-in orders can be expedited to the unit in closest proximity to the customer for pickup or delivery. Also, on-line customer records equip order takers to service callers on a more personable and, potentially, a more profitable basis. System management reports assist decision makers in more effective menu and operations management.     

Telecommunications/ transportation substitution and energy conservation Part 2

Part 1 of this article reviewed existing research both on attitudes toward telecommunications substitution for travel and on operational experiments with teleconferencing and telecommuting. Part 2 examines major factors influencing substitution, including government policy. It concludes that government policy can significantly facilitate telecommunications substitution for travel and, indeed, the achievement of any real measure of substitution may depend upon proactive government policy. However, this is an unlikely prospect in the current US national policy environment.     

Generalised weakened fictitious play

A general class of adaptive processes in games is developed, which significantly generalises weakened fictitious play [Van der Genugten, B., 2000. A weakened form of fictitious play in two-person zero-sum games. Int. Game Theory Rev. 2, 307–328] and includes several interesting fictitious-play-like processes as special cases. The general model is rigorously analysed using the best response differential inclusion, and shown to converge in games with the fictitious play property. Furthermore, a new actor–critic process is introduced, in which the only information given to a player is the reward received as a result of selecting an action—a player need not even know they are playing a game. It is shown that this results in a generalised weakened fictitious play process, and can therefore be considered as a first step towards explaining how players might learn to play Nash equilibrium strategies without having any knowledge of the game, or even that they are playing a game.     

The Value of Secondary School Quality*

Improving the quality of state‐funded secondary school education has become a major policy aim in the UK. However, without a valuation of the social benefits derived from public provision of educational services, the rational evaluation of policy to this end is difficult. Utilizing the argument that dwellings near better schools command a price premium, this paper presents results from an empirical exercise aimed at providing such a social valuation of increased school quality. Using a large set of data for England, and an instrumental variable approach, results indicate an elasticity of dwelling purchase price with respect to exam performance by schools at around +0.05. One implication is that society would value a general increase of five percentage points in exam performance by about £450 million per annum.