Children aged 9-14 living in disadvantaged areas in England: Opportunities and barriers for cycling

The aim of this paper is to take a holistic perspective to explore levels of cycling and opportunities and barriers to increase children’s safer cycling in disadvantaged areas in England. The study was one part of a larger study which explored the factors underlying the high level of road traffic casualties especially among children in the most disadvantaged areas of England and to explore how this impacts on mobility and quality of life. The methods involved a cross sectional survey comprising school based questionnaire surveys with children aged 9-14 and focus groups with parents who had children within this age range. The surveys were conducted in 2007 and the focus groups during 2008. 4286 children completed the survey and eight focus groups were held. Bike ownership (77%) was high, use in previous week moderate (39%) but only 2% cycled to school. Ownership was significantly lower in minority ethnic groups. Despite young children’s strong preference to travel by cycle (30%) than walk or go by car, most parents felt it was too hazardous. It is unlikely that these findings would be any different from the rest of England, however the combination of environmental and social factors may elevate the risks for young cyclists in these areas. This paper concludes that a number of barriers exist to increasing levels of cycling among children living in disadvantaged areas particularly amongst ethnic groups. These barriers could be addressed by environmental modifications to reduce speeds and by reducing the levels of antisocial driving and riding in residential areas and around destinations where children travel, by providing cycle training to improve children’s skills and parent’s confidence, and by providing secure storage facilities for bikes. Until these barriers are addressed it is unlikely that cycling will increase despite the strong preferences children have to travel by bike. Such preferences to cycle provide an opportunity for local authorities to act on.     

When we are onstage,we smile: The effects of emotional labor on employee work outcomes

A growing body of literature has confirmed the deleterious effects of emotional labor on service employees. The study adds to it by investigating two hypothesized antecedents to emotional labor; affectivity and empathy which is conceptualized as a two-dimensional construct composed of emotional contagion and empathic concern. It also examines the impact of emotional labor on job satisfaction and exhaustion. The results confirmed a two-dimensional structure of emotional labor, emotive dissonance, and emotive effort. Hospitality employees with higher positive affect tend to experience less emotive dissonance while individuals with higher negative affect exert more effort to enact emotional labor. A positive relationship was found between emotional contagion and emotive dissonance, and emotive effort and job satisfaction. The results also suggested a negative relationship between emotive effort and emotional exhaustion. An unexpected negative relationship was found between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion. Managerial implications discuss training and acting techniques to more effectively manage employee emotional labor.     

Learning to surf: Spillovers in the adoption of the Internet

This paper develops an identification strategy to generate unbiased estimates of Internet usage spillovers using a unique data set of US households. This strategy addresses the effects of variables that affect consumers' decisions but are unobservable to the researcher that lead to biased estimates. The estimator developed here examines changes in household behavior over time and uses county level instrumental variables for county level spillover measures.Multiple potential sources of learning are identified including those from the household's locality, from educational Internet subsidies, and from universities. There is general support for all sources, but the locality and subsidy results are both more robust and larger. These findings directly address the policy relevance of these spillover sources and they have implications for policies to encourage Internet use as well as for identification strategies for the effects of the Internet on behavior.     

The S&P500 index effect reconsidered: Evidence from overnight and intraday stock price performance and volume

This study focuses on S&P500 inclusions and deletions, examining the impact of potential overnight price adjustment after the announcement of an S&P500 index change. We find evidence of a significant overnight price change that diminishes the returns available to speculators although there are still profits available from the first day after announcement until a few days after the actual event. More importantly, observing the tick-by-tick stock price performance and volume effects on the key days during the event window for the first time, we find evidence of consistent trading patterns during trading hours. A separate analysis of NASDAQ and NYSE listed stocks allows for a detailed examination of the price and volume effect at an intra-day level. We find that index funds appear to cluster their rebalancing activities near to and after the close on the event date, suggesting that they are more concerned with tracking error than profit.     

Dynamic capabilities through continuous improvement infrastructure

We examine the content of continuous improvement strategies and identify infrastructure decision areas that are important for continuous improvement initiatives. We present a framework of infrastructure based on the idea that continuous improvement can serve as a dynamic capability when it includes a comprehensive organizational context. Further, we study continuous improvement initiatives in five companies to investigate the practices used by them in each of the decision areas of our framework. This research adds to the conceptual understanding of continuous improvement and results in grounded propositions about critical areas of infrastructure for continuous improvement.     

Measuring the Level and Inequality of Wealth: An Application to China

We construct and compare three distinct measures of household asset wealth that complement traditional income‐ or expenditure‐based measures of socioeconomic status. We apply these measures to longitudinal household survey data from China and demonstrate that household asset wealth has been increasing over time, a theme consistent with many previous studies on the process of development in China. Unlike other studies that have shown rising income inequality over time, however, we show that asset wealth inequality has actually been declining in recent years, indicating widespread participation in the benefits of economic reforms. Furthermore, the evolution in the cumulative distribution of household welfare is such that social welfare has been increasing with the passage of time, despite rising inequality in the early years of the survey.     

Annuity Values in Defined Contribution Retirement Systems: Australia and Singapore Compared

Annuities promise to play an increasingly important role in countries with national defined contribution retirement systems. In this article we examine life annuities in two countries, Singapore and Australia, each of which has a national mandatory pension program. Exploiting data on annuity pricing and purchase behaviour, we compare the money's worth of life annuity products across these two nations. Our results indicate that, after controlling on administrative loadings, there are important differences in measured adverse selection. Part of the explanation may be due to the different structures of the two countries’retirement systems.     

Retaining volunteers for the cause: Hope and pride associated with cause-related charity events in cancer control

Special charity events are an important source of revenue for non-profit organisations in cancer control yet volunteering is declining and turnover is high. Experiences at cause-related events may influence retention, particularly emotions connected to the cause and ceremonies which honour cancer survivors and remember loved ones. We explore the degree to which emotions associated with cause-related volunteering and collective action in the literature are felt in response to Relay For Life and what emotions predict three indicators of retention: intention to return for future events, satisfaction with volunteering, and organisational commitment. Volunteers (n = 410) completed a cross-sectional survey at Relay For Life events in Queensland, Australia. Multiple regression analyses examined whether emotions associated with events predicted each indicator of retention, adjusting for number of years spent volunteering for events. Sixty-two percent reported an intention to return the following year. The most commonly reported event-related emotions were hope, pride, and empathy (62–69%). Intention to return, satisfaction, and commitment were each significantly predicted by hope and pride. The findings suggest special charity events in cancer control could retain volunteers by fostering pride and hope (e.g., for a cancer free future); however, future prospective research which examines the mechanisms of these relationships is warranted.