Small business and entrepreneurship in the knowledge economy: A comparison of Australia and Sweden

Dominant explanations within the existing development literature for the differences in poverty levels around the world have tended to ignore the influence of international inequality on poverty, instead focusing solely on domestic factors. In this paper, I conduct a regression analysis of the effect of inequality between countries on world poverty between 1980 and 2007, employing a new structural measure of international inequality which is created using social network analysis to calculate countries' positions in international trade networks. Countries' infant mortality rates are used to measure poverty. The results of the empirical analysis provide cross-country evidence to demonstrate that structural inequalities in the international system have a significant impact on poverty around the world. As such, the analysis demonstrates the need to move beyond focusing exclusively on domestic attributes of developing countries towards considering the broader international political economy in analysing contemporary poverty.     

Testing servers' roles as experts and managers of tipping behaviour

This article studies the ability of servers to predict their own tips. A distinction is made between the two roles of servers with regard to tipping behaviour: the role of expert and the role of manager. As experts, servers understand the relations between several predictors and tip size, and are able to predict the tip they are about to receive. As managers, servers designate certain tip amounts, and then manage the service encounter so that their predictions are realised. This study maps the necessary conditions for an expert position and outlines the process for managing a service encounter. Empirical testing suggests that servers have an impressive predictive ability. The findings also offer some support to the view of the role of the server as manager.     

Trust in Second Life

In this article, some issues are raised with regard to conducting economic decision‐making experiments in virtual worlds. I make suggestions for addressing these issues. The issues are illustrated via a visit to an experimental laboratory in Second Life.     

Price and quality of durable goods: Are they more closely related in the seventies than in the sixties?

The objectives of this paper were to investigate price-quality relations for durable goods over an extended period of time and to determine if there had been any improvements in price-quality relations in recent years. Durable goods were selected since they are expensive, infrequently purchased items, and are hence more likely to stimulate the development of an expert buyer's market. The relation between price and product quality was measured using data fromConsumer Reports from 1970–1977. The results were compared to an earlier study by Morris and Bronson which usedConsumer Reports data from 1960–1967. A comparison of data for the two time periods showed an increase in the percentage of significant correlations but a decline in the median correlation coeffizient. On the whole, it was concluded that price-quality relations in the two time periods did not differ to any great extent. In addition, there was no significant improvment in price-quality relations from 1970–1977.     

Partially sighted persons and the public debt elephant

Recent data on the accumulation patterns of public debt across OECD countries suggests a synthesis is possible between the theoretical and empirical approaches to public debt and also between the traditional and more recent political economy explanations of public debt accumulation. The inductive approach of recent political economy explanations is combined with the intertemporal constraints highlighted in the Ricardian–Barro theory to present a reinterpretation of cross-country debt accumulations patterns. Like the elephant in the blind men and the elephant fable, the conclusion is glaringly obvious. Formal and informal budgetary constraints matter.

Public involvement in policy-making: the case of a Citizens’ Jury on genetic testing for common disorders

Abstract: Improving public involvement in policy-making is generally accepted to be a good thing, and a whole range of methods now exist in the UK that try to achieve this aim. However, few steps have been taken to involve the public directly in decisions on policy issues that will be vital in the future but are not yet on the immediate agenda of policy-makers. One attempt to do just this was made in Wales in November 1997 when a Citizens’ Jury explored future policies for genetic testing for common disorders in the NHS. This paper describes the Citizens’ Jury experiment and also includes a summary of this Jury's recommendations.     

The 'NZ' in 'NZ IFRS': Public Benefit Entity Amendments

In 1992, New Zealand adopted a sector-neutral approach to standard setting – where the difference in accounting treatment is driven by differences in the nature of transactions and not by ownership or the objectives of the reporting entity. This study reviews the impact of adaptations of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to ensure their successful application in a sector-neural environment. A fundamental question of the move to IFRS is whether the public benefit entity amendments in NZ IFRS have contaminated the IFRS for profit-orientated entities or diluted the available guidance for public benefit entities. This suggests that it is worthwhile for Australia and New Zealand to monitor and reconsider their sector-neutral approach to adopting IFRS.     

ZBB,MBO, PPB and their effectiveness within the planning/marketing process

Substantial attention has recently been focused on the reported failures of zero-base budgeting (ZBB), management by objectives (MBO), and planning, programming, and budgeting (PPB) as management techniques for corporations as well as governmental agencies. This writer has determined that these failures occur because the ZBB, MBO, and PPB techniques are used in lieu of an integrated planning/marketing process and fail to recognize the process or the limitations and scope of these techniques. The techniques can and do work well where they are treated as part of, rather than as a substitute for, the planning/marketing process, and are modified to function efficiently within the process. All elements of the planning/marketing process must be given a fair share of attention if the profit or non-profit enterprise is to succeed.