Ethical Decision Making in Fair Trade Companies

This paper reports on a study of ethical decision-making in a fair trade company. This can be seen to be a crucial arena for investigation since fair trade firms not only have a specific ethical mission in terms of helping growers out of poverty, but they tend to be perceived as (and are often marketed on the basis of) having an "ethical" image. Eschewing a straightforward test of extant ethical decision models, we adopt Thompson's proposal for a more contextualist understanding rooted in ethnographic data. Our findings suggest that the fair trade mission of the firm is experienced as an over-riding ethical claim, which is often invoked to justify potentially ethically questionable decisions. Moreover, decision precedents emerge which can mean that the decision process is bypassed or hurried through. Finally we provide evidence that the significance of these precedents, and indeed, even moral intensity itself, could be actively shaped and constructed by organization members to support different, even shifting, conceptions of what is a morally acceptable decision for a fair trade company to make.     

The strategic role of knowledge management in nonprofit organisations

• Australian nonprofit organisations (NFPs) operate in an increasingly competitive marketplace for funding staff and volunteers and donations. In this context, many NFPs are being driven to adopt more commercial practices in order to improve their strategic performance, particularly competitive positioning for donor appeal, staff retention and service strategy and delivery. Knowledge management (KM) is one commercial practice being explored and implemented by the NFP sector to support strategic performance and operations. Although the concept of knowledge management is basically understood, the implications and strategies to pursue this practice in a NFP context are under explored. This paper presents a KM implementation planning framework for discussion and further research in the NFP sector. Specifically, this paper proposes that NFP's unique missions, many and varied organisational structures and operational maturity requires a customised approach to knowledge management. Implications for competitive strategy and performance are discussed.

© 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Peering and Settlement in the Internet: An Economic Analysis

This paper explores the implications of Internet peering in the context of a model of competing, vertically integrated Internet Access Providers. We show that if regulation forbids settlement payments between firms, there will be under-investment in capacity and under-pricing of usage, both of which lead to excessive congestion. To overcome these problems, firms that are net providers of Internet infrastructure should be allowed to charge firms that are net users. We characterize the efficient level of these access payments, assuming usage can be appropriately measured. We find that refusal to peer and the charging of settlement payments may well be efficiency enhancing.     

Beyond implicit prices: recovering theoretically consistent and transferable values for noise avoidance from a hedonic property price model

Using a two-stage hedonic pricing methodology we estimate a system of structural demand equations for different sources of transport-related noise. In the first stage, we identify market segments using model-based clustering techniques and estimate separate hedonic price functions (HPFs) for each segment. In so doing, we show how a semiparametric spatial smoothing estimator outperforms other standard specifications of the HPF. In the second stage, we control for non-linearity of the budget constraint and identify demand relationships using techniques that account for problems of endogeneity and censoring of the dependent variable. Our estimated demand functions provide welfare estimates for peace and quiet that we believe to be the first derived from property market data in a theoretically consistent manner.      

The song has ended but the melody lingers

This paper assesses the prospects for the Regional Development Agency (RDA) initiative, in light of the experience of Britain's Urban Development Corporation (UDC) programme. It explores the contrasts between the two initiatives and considers the prospects for the RDA programme. The paper argues that RDAs pose only limited constitutional implications, but should be more accurately considered as another managerial innovation — reflecting the Blairite preoccupation with “joined-up government” — in the search for more effective delivery mechanisms for sub-national economic development policy. It concludes by arguing that RDAs, like UDCs before them, represent a new hub of power to which locally accountable policy makers may prove to be marginal.     

Farm-level efficiency and productivity measurement using panel data: wool production in south-west Victoria

In this article we explore some issues surrounding the use of farm-level efficiency and productivity estimates for benchmarking studies. Using an eight-year balanced panel of Victorian wool producers we analyse annual variation between estimates of farm-level technical efficiency derived using Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist estimates of Total Factor Productivity. We find that farms change their relative rank in terms of efficiency across years. Also, unlike aggregate studies of Total Factor Productivity, we find at best erratic and modest growth, a worrying result for this industry. However, caution is needed when interpreting these results, and for that matter, benchmarking analysis as currently practised when using frontier estimation techniques like Data Envelopment Analysis.     

Hedonic Analysis of Consumers' Valuation of Country of Origin of Meat in the United Kingdom

We estimate the implicit prices consumers are willing to pay for country of origin labels, using hedonic price methods and panel data for meat and meat products in the United Kingdom. Our results show that consumers place significant value on origin information across fresh and processed meat products, especially since the horsemeat incident in 2013. The findings also suggest that retailers have increased the use of voluntary labelling of processed meat products since the incident. Hence, further extension of existing mandatory labelling requirements to processed meat products may not be required at least in the short term.     

Exports,jobs, growth! Congressional hearings on US trade agreements

Who testifies on US trade agreements before Congress and what do they say? We examine the content of Congressional testimony on US trade agreements, and the selection process which determines who testifies in the first place. We find that testimony is systematically tilted toward a sunny view of trade's positive economic effects, while import competition and offshoring are generally downplayed. We argue that trade's supporters strategically frame their motives for supporting trade agreements, and that pro‐trade committee chairs’ decisions on who testifies further skew testimony away from the distributive consequences of globalization within the United States. Congressional hearings on trade agreements therefore represent a key site where the influence of dominant pro‐trade interests is both revealed and reinforced.     

The Impact of Treasury Yields on US Presidential Approval, 1960–2010

ABSTRACT

The ‘power of bond markets’ is a widely assumed and poorly understood feature of the global economy. We demonstrate that even in a bond market as stable as the United States this influence is considerable. In this article, we scrutinise a particularly direct influence, the impact of US Treasury yields on presidential approval rates. Our empirical analysis from 1961 to 2010 demonstrates that rising/falling bond yields lead to a decline/increase in approval rates. We show that this impact is mediated via the US mortgage market. The stronger the rise in mortgage rates, the stronger the influence of Treasury yields on presidential approval. We then outline the broader possible political impacts of this, particularly given foreign and domestic central bank ownership of US Treasuries.     

Job stressors and voluntary work behaviours: mediating effect of emotion and moderating roles of personality and emotional intelligence

Framed within an emotion‐centred model, the current study investigated the mediating role of negative and positive emotion between job stressors and counterproductive work behaviours (CWB) and organisational citizenship behaviours, and the moderating effects of personality and ability‐based emotional intelligence (EI) on the relationships between job stressors and emotions. Results from a sample of 202 Caribbean employees across eight public and private sector organisations showed that both positive and negative emotion mediated the relation between job stressors and citizenship behaviours, whereas only negative emotion was found to mediate the relation between job stressors and CWB. Some support was found for the moderating effects of personality and EI. Implications for research and practice are discussed.