Accounting for Gender in a Study of the Motivation-Involvement Relationship

ABSTRACT

The effects of gender on involvement in high-risk recreation have received limited research attention despite mounting evidence suggesting the learned interactions between people and places likely vary for men and women. The purpose of this study was to provide insights into how gender influenced the motivation-involvement relationship among whitewater recreationists on a Wild and Scenic River in California. Our results revealed the motivations of Risk, Escape, Learning, and Achievement/Stimulation positively influenced involvement in rafting activities. Although gender did not influence all dimensions of involvement, we found that identity expression varied between subgroups. Specifically, men were more likely to ascribe meaning to rafting than women because this activity allowed them to affirm and express their individual character. The implications emanating from this study advance theoretical understanding of the factors that influence enduring involvement and inform natural resource management decisions about maintaining the desired benefits of activities sought by nature-based recreationists.     

An Investigation of the Relationship between Use of International Accounting Standards and Source of Company Finance in Germany

This study examines the relationship between use of international accounting standards and companies’ source of finance. We investigate the proposition contained in Nobes’ (1998) model that postulates outsider companies (those with a higher level of public finance) in weak equity–outsider markets (capital markets where public equity finance is not the dominant source of finance) are more likely to change their type of accounting system from one focused on information for creditors and tax authorities to one that meets the needs of external financiers. We found strong support for Nobes’ model. Using 408 German listed companies at 1999, we observed that companies with more outsider finance (the proportion of shares held by outsiders and the presence of public debt) were more likely to use international standards (U.S. GAAP or IAS). The results indicate the importance of controlling for source of finance at the company rather than country level in cross‐country studies investigating the benefits of adoption of international standards.     

How does gender affect the adoption of agricultural innovations?

Why do men and women adopt agricultural technologies at different rates? Evidence from Ghana suggests that gender‐linked differences in the adoption of modern maize varieties and chemical fertilizer result from gender‐linked differences in access to complementary inputs. This finding has important policy implications, because it suggests that ensuring more widespread and equitable adoption of improved technologies may not require changes in the research system, but rather introduction of measures that ensure better access for women to complementary inputs, especially land, labor, and extension services.     

Why Press Coverage of a Client Influences the Audit Opinion

In this study I use an experiment to examine why auditors are more likely to issue going–concern opinions when the client has been the subject of negative press coverage prior to the date of the audit opinion. I find no evidence that negative press coverage increases auditors' perceptions of legal liability, as was suggested in the prior literature. I do find, however, that negative press coverage increases auditors' perception of a client's bankruptcy probability and this, in turn, leads auditors to modify the audit opinion. Because the press coverage presented in this study provides no new information, the results suggest that auditors react too strongly to redundant information. This over–reaction can result in inefficient allocation of audit resources and can have deleterious affects on clients. Accordingly, policy makers, auditors and their clients might be interested in how auditors' reliance on redundant information can be reduced.     

Beyond survival: the implementation of new forms of work organization in the UK and German steel industries

This paper outlines and analyses the major changes in work-force organization that have been introduced by British and German steel producers in the past decade, against a backcloth of retrenchment in the industry, new product development and technological change. Including multiskilling, a reduction in demarcation and team–working, these changes have had a major effect upon the composition of the work–force and the nature of work undertaken at the shopfloor level.

While these changes have had a common broad trajectory, they have been introduced at a different pace and in different forms. The contrasts are provided not only at the international level, but between plants in the same countries. The paper further outlines the response of trade unions to these changes and the implications for industrial relations at the shopfloor level.     

Public Service Leaders as ‘Change Agents’ – for Whom?

Abstract

This article examines how far senior staff in English educational and health service organizations view themselves as leaders who are ‘change agents’ for government-driven reform and independent change agendas. The contribution of external leadership development provision to shaping these self-perceptions is explored. Special attention is paid to national leadership development bodies with different degrees of formal association with government. Whatever this relationship, such provision and other development support apparently reinforced a strong sense of personal agency (choice of action) associated with being a leader, empowering senior staff to adopt a modestly mediatory stance towards both reform and leadership development provision.     

Street Children and Street Life in Urban Tanzania: The Culture of Surviving and its Implications for Children’s Health

This paper presents data from an in-depth study conducted among street children in an urban setting in Tanzania. It examines the reasons ‘children of the street’ leave their homes, how they survive and meet their daily needs, what problems they encounter whilst on the streets and how they surmount them. The paper also examines the implications of street life for children’s health. The findings show that general poverty lies at the center of the increasing number of street children in Tanzania. Street life makes the children vulnerable to a variety of problems including ill health. Policies in Tanzania have so far failed to solve this problem, particularly because social policies have been dealing with symptoms rather than essential causes. The paper ends by outlining short- and long-term policy solutions and also suggests directions for future research and early intervention. — Cet article présente les données d’une étude en profondeur conduite parmi les enfants des rues dans un cadre urbain en Tanzanie. Il explore les raisons pour lesquelles ‘les enfants des rues’ partent de chez eux, comment ils survivent et surviennent à leurs besoins quotidiens, les problèmes qu’ils rencontrent dans les rues et comment ils les surmontent. Cet article examine aussi les implications de la vie dans la rue pour la santé des enfants. Les résultats montrent que la pauvreté générale est la raison centrale du nombre croissant d’enfants dans les rues en Tanzanie. La vie dans les rues rend les enfants susceptibles à de nombreux problèmes, y compris la mauvaise santé. La politique de la Tanzanie n’a pas encore réussi à résoudre ce problème, en particulier parce que la politique sociale a adressé les symptômes plutôt que les causes essentielles. Cet article propose des solutions politiques à court et à long terme et suggère également des options pour les recherches futures et pour des interventions précoces.     

Human resources in the German maritime industries: ‘back-sourcing’ and ship management

In today's global shipping industry have management functions often been outsourced to separate companies and to overseas locations. With the appearance of socalled ‘flags of convenience’ the world shipping industry has increasingly registered commercial vessels overseas. Following this trend, human resource management functions have also been relocated, with the opening of recruitment offices and the use of HR agencies outside OECD countries. Recently, new German regulation has sought to attract previously outsourced HRM functions back to Germany. A case study of such a newly established firm, called ‘Reimarus’, will exemplify the impact of the new regulation on HR firms in shipping. The following paper analyses this process based on an empirical study of Germany's commercial shipping industry.     

Opening up the black box: a UK case study of top managers’ attitudes to their performance related pay

This paper examines the attitudes of the top managers within one large financial services organization in the UK to fixed and variable components of their compensation package. The rationale for performance-related pay for senior managers is to align their interests with those of the shareholders, but little is known about the views of top managers on the effectiveness of such incentives. The results suggest that the design of effective bonus systems is not just a technical issue: perceptions of market fairness with respect to the compensation package and the clear communication of goals are important in getting senior managers to focus on shareholder interests.