The safety attitudes of people who use multi-purpose recreation facilities as a physical activity setting

Multi-purpose recreation facilities (MPRFs) are a popular setting for physical activity and it is therefore important that they are safe for all patrons. However, the attitudes of MPRF users towards safety are a potential barrier to the success of injury prevention programmes implemented within MPRFs. This article reports a survey of the safety attitudes of over 700 users of four indoor MPRFs. Factor analysis of 12 five-point Likert scale statements showed that the attitudes clustered around three major dimensions - the importance of safety, the benefits of safety and the perceptions of injury risk. Together, these three dimensions accounted for 49% of the variability in the attitudes. More than 85% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that: safety was an important aspect of physical activity participation; being injured affected enjoyment of physical activity; people should adopt appropriate safety measures for all physical activity; and individuals were responsible for their own safety. The MPRF users, particularly women and older people, were generally safety conscious, believed in adopting safety measures, and were willing to take responsibility for their own safety. Facility managers can be confident that if they provide evidence-based injury prevention interventions in these settings, then users will respond appropriately and adopt the promoted behaviours.     

Making compassion count: equal recognition and authentic involvement in mental health care

Compassionate care within mental health services is often taken for granted as something that can be made visible and authentic. However, recent government reports and policy suggest that we are far from providing compassionate care and may be more focused upon risk and surveillance. This paper will discuss the visibility of compassionate care and explore outcomes that consumers and practitioners could measure in practice. Separating the fact from fiction within compassionate care will make authentic involvement practices more visible and open to discussion around consumer collaboration. In a qualitative analysis of a small study with mental health consumers, compassion was found to be a major factor in whether consumers became more involved in their own health care. Demonstrating compassionate care may therefore also demonstrate consumer participation and engagement. This paper will argue that compassionate care can be observed in the relationships between practitioners and consumers that are collaborative and use presence and persistence as methods of practice. Emancipatory practices can be made more visible in mental health care in order to make compassion measurable and to encourage consumer participation and engagement.     

A pilot study of venture capital investment appraisal in Australia

Illiquidity, volatile returns and lack of information are sources of the high risk that characterise the investments made by venture capitalists (VCs). Despite the importance of such investments in the contemporary business and technological environment, and the associated risk-related difficulties, little Australian research has been conducted into the decision-making processes of VCs. This study investigates both the investment process and some of the strategies used by VCs for reducing selected risks. The specific source of risk examined is information asymmetry, which is caused by lack of information on the part of the VCs, and which can lead to the added risks of adverse selection and moral hazard. Four Australian VC firms were surveyed using a comprehensive open-ended questionnaire. A manual content analysis was employed to analyse the questionnaire responses. Consistent with prior research, the Australian VCs sampled are found to employ Berger and Udell' three steps of investment: selection, contracting and monitoring. Furthermore, the semi-formal selection step of the investment process is found to consist of three distinct stages: deal sourcing, screening and evaluation. A number of techniques are used to minimise the risks of information asymmetry during the screening and evaluation stages, as well as during the later steps of contracting and monitorin.     

The impact of auctions on residential property prices

This study assesses whether the sale method in residential real estate markets – auction versus private treaty – is a determinant of sale price. Utilising a larger and richer dataset than previous research, we test for a price effect in auction sales in Sydney and Christchurch. When self‐selection biases are corrected for, using two‐stage hedonic regression analysis and a matched sampling procedure, we find no significant difference between prices of properties sold at auction to those sold by private treaty. This conflicts with the conclusions of previous research in the Australian and New Zealand housing markets, which have documented a price premium associated with auction sales.     

The deep roots of economic development in the U.S. states: an application of Putterman and Weil (2010)

The “Deep Roots” literature investigates the effects of ancient cultural variables on economic outcomes. We extend Putterman and Weil’s (Q J Econ 125(4):1627–1682, 2010) inquiry into the effects of State History and Agricultural History to the economic output in ethnically and racially diverse fifty U.S. States. The ethnic and racial differences across the populations of the fifty U.S. states vary considerably due to historical immigration and slave flows that, as a result, produced radically different State History and Agricultural History scores across the states. Results derived from Putterman and Weil’s methodology do not robustly predict per capita levels of economic output across U.S. States. We also investigate the institutions channel, and find that they impact some measures of institutions, but they do not impact the quality of economic institutions which may be essential for promoting economic growth and development.     

Do economies stall?

A ‘stalling’ economy has been defined as one that experiences a discrete deterioration in economic performance following a decline in its growth rate to below some threshold level. We examine the international evidence for stalling in a panel of 51 economies using two different definitions of a stall threshold (time-invariant and related to lagged average growth rates). We find that the evidence for stalling is limited: only 7–12 of the economies in our sample experience statistically significant stalls at the 5% level based on any one definition.     

Are consumers' financial needs and values common across cultures? Evidence from six countries

Are consumers' financial needs, and financial values, the same or different across cultures? Two studies, with student (Study 1; n = 988) and non‐student (Study 2; n = 959) participants, explore the extent of equivalence, across six countries (Brazil, Russia, China, Taiwan, Tunisia and US), in financial need belief, and financial value, measurement models. The financial need beliefs, derived from self‐determination theory (SDT) principles, include financial self‐efficacy, financial autonomy, financial community trust and support; the financial values include materialism and financial altruism. Both the financial need and financial value constructs evidence configural invariance (similar factor structure), and factor invariance among student but not non‐student samples. The financial need constructs evidence full, and the financial value constructs evidence partial, metric (factor loading) invariance. Factor covariance invariance obtains for the financial need beliefs constructs but not the financial value constructs. Finally, neither financial need nor financial value constructs evidence scalar (intercept) invariance. These results provide partial support for extending SDT's hypothesis of universal human needs to the financial domain. In contrast, the financial value constructs of altruism and materialism are largely instable across cultures, suggesting that consumer views of giving, and the role of wealth in social status, differ between countries.     

A service sector classification scheme using economic data

Using economic data, this paper recreates a previously published service industry classification scheme that was derived using discursive data from interviews with industry experts. It triangulates the earlier results using a different methodology, and extends earlier classification schemes in a comprehensive, objective way. A principal component analysis of six sector parameter sets from a regression analysis of a productivity data set covering 14 countries produces three sector factors, the ‘capital type’, the ‘innovation type’ and the ‘quality type’, which form the basis of the classification scheme. A high degree of conformity is found between this and the previously published discursive-based scheme.