Resolving the empty core: trust as a determinant of outcomes in three-party negotiations

This research examined how trust affected resource allocation in a three-party negotiation. Negotiators were presented with an empty core problem in which their theoretical share of resources exceeded the resources available for distribution. We tested which of three components of trust—reliability, predictability and empathy—predicted negotiators’ outcomes. We distinguished between absolute and relative trust. We found that relative trust was a more consistent predictor of individual outcomes than absolute trust and that the most trusted party in a network obtained the highest individual outcomes. This finding highlights the importance of social context in shaping trust judgements. The component of trust that predicted individuals’ outcomes was affected by structural power. High and low power negotiators benefited from conveying empathy (identity-based trust), whereas moderate power negotiators benefited from conveying predictability (knowledge-based trust). Low power parties also benefited from appearing unreliable (low calculus-based trust). The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2002 International Association of Conflict Management Conference, Park City, Utah.     

Stakeholder involvement in the new service design process

The role of innovation/new product/service development as a source of organisational growth and profitability is well recognised. Similarly, the need to build ‘quality’ into the design of new products and services is understood. Research focusing on the development of new financial services usually includes new product development models, emphasising the ‘technical quality’ of the service, while service design models emphasise process or ‘functional quality’. Additionally, while the impact of staff on service delivery at the implementation stage and the need for inter-departmental cooperation is widely discussed, many studies do not focus on the range of stakeholder interests that affect the new product development/design process. The case study presented highlights both the focus of service design and the multiple stakeholders involved in the process. In-depth interviews with managers of the new product development department of a UK bank reveal potential and actual sources of conflict.     

World sugar outlook and the European policy

Sugar has always been a highly political and controversial commodity, but never more so than at the present time. The uneasy rivalry between cane and beet sugar, the products of tropical and temperate countries respectively, is giving way to open conflict.     

Ma and Sun on Insider Trading Ethics

Ma and Sun have recently argued that some forms of insider trading are ethically acceptable. We argue that the authors fail to prove three key premises of their argument, which is therefore unsound.     

The Impact of Affective Reactions on Risky Decision Making in Accounting Contexts

In this study we examine whether managers' affective reactions influence their risk–taking tendencies in capital budgeting decisions. Prior research on risky decision making indicates that decision makers are often risk averse when choosing among alternatives that yield potential gains, and risk taking when the alternatives yield losses. The results reported here indicate that negative or positive affective reactions can change this commonly found risky behavior. Managers were generally risk avoiding (taking) for gains (losses) in the absence of affective reactions, as predicted by prospect theory. However, when affect was present, they tended to reject investment alternatives that elicited negative affect and accept alternatives that elicited positive affect, resulting in risk taking (avoiding) in gain (loss) contexts. The results also indicate that affective reactions can influence managers to choose alternatives with lower economic value, suggesting that managers consider both financial data and affective reactions when evaluating the utility of a decision alternative. These findings point to the importance of considering affective reactions when attempting to understand and predict risky decision making in accounting contexts.     

Pricing, Sunk Costs, and Market Structure Online: Evidence from Book Retailing

While online consumers are less concerned than traditional consumersabout firm location, they may be more concerned about unobservablequality and, to signal this, online retailers rely more on advertisingthan traditional retailers. Imperfect price competition mayarise because of vertical product differentiation, incompleteconsumer awareness, and near-perfect information exchange betweenretailers. This paper evaluates alternative theories of competitionand market structure in online retailing. Advertising, productdevelopment, and revenue data for the online book market revealthat consumers respond to advertising and website spending ratherthan low prices. As the market size expanded, during 1997–2001,these endogenous sunk costs escalated and there was no majornew entry. Advertising-to-sales ratios and market-concentrationratios are much higher than for traditional bookselling. Usingprice and demand information for individual books over a numberof weeks, we find counter-cyclical and cross-sectional pricevariation inconsistent with perfect price competition.     

Agricultural Chemical Residues as a Source of Risk

Exposures to individual agricultural chemical residues are a relatively small source of risk across selected environmental and human health end points; nutrients in water, of which agricultural uses are only one source, may be an exception. This may explain recent policy decisions to tighten regulation of nutrients in water resources. However, uncertainty about nutrient damages hinders design of an efficient policy to deal with nutrients.     

Big Business: The Corporatization of Primary Care in the UK and the USA

The corporatization of primary care in the USA and the UK over recent years has transformed the way that these services are managed and delivered. Traditional approaches based around small practices of doctors and their teams as the primary organizational unit have been largely overtaken by new models in which doctors, nurses and other primary care professionals work within much larger organizations. This article explores the experience in the USA and the UK of seeking to organize primary care more corporately, and suggests that a tightly managed organizational model does not work well in primary care. Looser, network-based models are needed in which some of the benefits of corporatization can be achieved while the traditional small-organization virtues of primary care can continue to thrive.     

探析旅游卫星帐户(TSA)的基本思想

本文陈述了旅游卫星账户(TSA)方法作为国家账户体系有机延伸的基本内涵,描述了TSA框架之内旅游、旅游商品、旅游业等概念的定义与范围,介绍了国家账户体系的相关内容与TSA之间的关系,结合加拿大TSA方法用于旅游经济影响分析的实例,对中国的情况给出建议.