Social policy and women in accounting: A cross-cultural comparison

Unless "family-friendly" policies are developed, women will continue to leave public accounting in larger numbers than men. Affirmative action, family leave, and child care policies in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. are compared. The greater strength and duration of U.S. affirmative action policy may partially explain the superior progress of women in the labor force as compared to the other nations. In contrast, maternity leave and child care policies in Australia and Canada surpass those in the U.K. and the U.S. The weaker government provisions for family leave and child care in the latter two nations increase the importance of policies in the private sector for persons attempting to balance employment and family commitment.     

Saying “No” to Cake or “Yes” to Kale: Approach and Avoidance Strategies in Pursuit of Health Goals

In developing plans for achieving health‐related goals, two fundamentally different strategies are often used: focusing on healthy foods that one should include in their diet, such as kale (referred to as “approach”), and focusing on unhealthy foods that one should exclude from their diet, such as cake (referred to as “avoidance”). The present research examines the differential effectiveness of approach‐ and avoidance‐based strategies across levels of self‐control, highlighting differences in food choices. The results reveal that those low in self‐control focus on avoidance items they really like and approach items that are less appealing, while those higher in self‐control show an opposite pattern, leading to more‐motivating plans. In addition, the results show that the self‐control by strategy type interaction on liking leads to differences in propensity to choose healthy items. Overall, this research highlights the importance of understanding differences in the implementation of commonly recommended strategies to improve one's health and wellness.     

Asymmetric promotion and strike effects in an oligopolistic service industry

The effects of promotion and selling expenses as well as the impact of striks on the sales of two major airlines in an oilgopolistic service industry are investigated through simultaneous and recursive multiple regression modelling. Results indicate that the independent variables asymmetrically affect the respective sales of the duopolists. Additionally, there is evidence that the two firms appear to have adopted a form of competitive response model regarding their promotional expenditures which may be questionable given the results of this study.     

Religious service attendance and labour force status: evidence from survey data using count data methods

I undertake count data estimation with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort and the Health and Retirement Study to evaluate the relationship between time spent out of the labour force and the frequency of religious service attendance for individuals of working age. I also examine whether being out of the labour force is correlated with the frequency of religious service attendance.

?Results using Poisson fixed-effect and negative binomial estimation suggest that men under age 50 appear to attend religious services less frequently when out of the labour force. I ascribe this finding to younger men’s religious service attendance being related to having work or the pursuit of work. Men between ages 50 and 65 attend religious services less frequently when out of the labour force, which I attribute to serious health problems in later age forcing labour market exiting and reduced frequency of religious service attendance. Women between ages 50 and 65 attend religious services more frequently when out of the labour force, which I ascribe to having more time to pursue religious activity in addition to women’s established proclivity to religious commitment.     

The evolution of the intellectual structure of operations management—1980–2006: A citation/co-citation analysis

Citation analysis combined with a network analysis of co-citation data from three major operations management (OM) journals is used to reveal the evolution of the intellectual structure of the OM field between 1980 and 2006. This spans the entire time since the beginning of research journals specific to the field. Employing a bibliometric citation/co-citation analysis to investigate the foundations of the discipline enables a robust, quantitative approach to uncovering the evolution of research in OM. The study finds that the intellectual structure of the field made statistically significant changes between the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s and evolved from a pre-occupation with narrow, tactical topics toward more strategic, macrotopics, including new research methods and techniques. A factor analysis identifies the 12 top knowledge groups in the field and how they change over the decades. Illustrations of the structure of the co-citations representing the field are generated from a spring-embedded algorithm that is an improvement over the standard multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) approach to illustrating the knowledge groups.     

Examining how advocacy groups build relationships on the Internet

• In 2006, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) became American law after brief Congressional discussions despite the public outcries from animal rights organizations. The AETA made it a federal terrorist crime to harm any animal enterprise financially, which could include legal forms of protests and boycotts. Members of the “Stop AETA” coalition failed to draw attention to the legislation. The relationship management theory of public relations provides a framework to determine how well the coalition members developed relationships with like‐minded individuals and the media. Results from a content analysis of the coalition members' Web sites revealed that nonprofit organizations and citizen‐advocacy groups attempted to develop relationships through a variety of strategies, including making the visit a positive experience, being open and transparent in their advocacy efforts, and providing access to coalition leaders. The results suggest that the coalition was unable to generate much news coverage for the issue because coalition members did not sufficiently reach out to cultivate relationships with journalists. Specific suggestions are provided for future advocacy groups to use the Internet to develop and cultivate relationships with key stakeholder groups.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emergency and routine MRO part buying

This article examines the effect of emergency vs. routine replacement part buying situations on the purchasing criteria used by maintenance and purchasing managers in process industries. Criteria included expediency, distance, part quality, price, and similar factors. Three sources were considered: OEMs, non-OEMs, and in-house production. The study found significant differences between criteria as a function of the buying situation. No significant difference was found between the criteria of maintenence managers and those of purchasing managers.     

Developing and using a customer profile data bank

This article proposes the implementation of a customer profile system to aid the industrial marketer in: making daily sales decisions involving the firm's customers; the development of the vendor's “buyer mix”; and the production of marketing analysis reports used by the firm. The components of the customer profile are presented and the procedures by which these elements can be incorporated into the firm's decision making are explained. Working examples are also provided to reinforce the concepts. Unfortunately the names of the actual corporations had to be deleted or changed for reasons of confidentiality.