The importance of threat,strategy, and resource appraisals for long-term proactive risk management among forest owners in Sweden

In natural hazards management, it is important to understand what motivates people to act when they or their property are threatened by natural hazards. Despite the importance of both threat and coping appraisals for responses to threats, less is known about the relations between threat and coping appraisals when risk management is long term. The present study examined appraisals of threat (cognitive and emotional), personal resources (cost and self-efficacy), and strategies (response-efficacy) as predictors of proactive management responses (past behavior and future intention) among forest owners in Sweden by means of a questionnaire (n = 1482). A path analysis revealed that threat appraisals and response-efficacy were direct predictors of past risk management behavior and the intention to respond in the future. Appraisals of resources, including cost and self-efficacy, were indirectly – via forest susceptibility and threat appraisals – related to threat responses. Although the model displayed reasonable fit for both owners more and those less involved in forestry, the cognitive appraisals variable was not a significant predictor of responses among owners less involved in forestry. In the full sample, the examined model explained approximately 50% of the variance in threat appraisals, and 28 and 17% in future intention and past behavior, respectively. Theoretical implications for how threat and coping appraisals are related during long-term risk management, and practical implications for forest risk management, are discussed.     

Physical activity advocacy in the UK: a multiple streams analysis of a hybrid policy issue

Physical activity is increasingly being defined as a major, complex, multi-sector issue. In order to understand more about how this expanded conception of physical activity is being factored into public policy, this article applies the multiple streams theory of policy change to examine the United Kingdom (UK) physical activity domain. Participant observation, policy analysis and media analysis are combined to examine the ways in which the political context, problem framing and policy solutions were brought together by a range of policy entrepreneurs. The study pays particular attention to how one lobby effort in the UK, the All Party Committee on Physical Activity (APCPA) attempted to elevate physical activity to a higher level of importance. The findings show how a hybrid form of organisation made up of traditional interest groups, corporations and government insiders, has successfully decreased ambiguity about physical activity and increased both official and public attention about the issue. The article suggests that while the multifarious benefits of physical activity and the diverse range of organisations involved have contributed to momentum towards policy change, these factors may also inhibit physical activity from remaining high on the policy agenda. Suggestions are offered for policy practices at a national level.     

Replicating,validating, and reducing the length of the consumer perceived value scale

This research reports an assessment of Sweeney and Soutar's (2001) consumer perceived value (PERVAL) scale. The PERVAL scale contains four dimensions: quality, emotional, price, and social values. The present study develops and evaluates two short forms of the original 19-item PERVAL scale based on Sweeney and Soutar's (2001) original data and three other studies in two different countries. In comparison with the full scale, the short 12-item and 8-item forms have equally good dimensional properties and equivalent predictive validity. The discussion includes implications, both for research and for retail managers.     

Managing publicly owned land in Canberra: Rural to urban change of use

All land in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is government owned. Prior to 1989, when the ACT became self-governing, the government developed land for urban use and auctioned leases for parcels of land for specified uses. Since then, leases for raw land have been auctioned for private development, to be completed within a specified time. A case study of a development where the ACT Government aimed to increase urban densities shows that the result was a reduction in quality. In addition, the financial returns to the ACT Government were much lower than if it had undertaken the development itself.     

Performance Related Pay In Operation: A Case Study From the Electronics Industry

Stephen Procter, Louise McArdle, Michael Rowlinson, Paul Forrester and John Hassard draw on the evidence of a longitudinal case study of a large electronics company to discuss the problems arising from the introduction and operation of a performance related pay system. These included resource constraints, difficulties in criteria selection, and subjectivity. Underlying these problems was the workforce's lack of confidence in the principle as well as the appication of the system. the authors conclude that companies face great difficulty in using such systems to effect cultural change: the necessary culture may already have to exist for such pay systems to work. Stephen Procter, Paul Forrester and John Hassard, respectively, are lecturers and Professor in the School of Management and Economics at the University of Keele, Louise McArdle is in the Department of Organisation Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, and Michael Rowlinson is in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Southampton.     

Differentiation in black education

Based on a graphical and statistical analysis of 1993 survey data, this article shows that educational inequalities among black school-age children were substantial and systematically associated with socio-economic status. Children of more affluent, better educated and metropolitan parents progressed better in schools, thus attaining higher levels of education, and also outperformed others who had progressed as far in terms of cognitive outcomes (measured by literacy and numeracy test scores). Thus, educational inequalities may become enduring, as the ability to benefit from education is usually transmitted across generations (better educated individuals obtain better jobs, and their children are again better educated). The abysmal educational quality of the largest part of the school system therefore has to be improved drastically, to allow poor children to overcome their socio-economic deficits and to benefit from education.     

Surveillant Science: Challenges for the Management of Rural Environments Emerging from the New Generation Diffuse Pollution Models

Current models of diffuse pollution are characterised by a progressive engagement with remotely‐sensed data coupled with more elegant modelling approaches. Central to these new models is the concept of connectivity, which leads to the identification and prioritisation of those landscape units (e.g., fields) where the consequences of land management activities are most readily transmitted to watercourses. The practice of diffuse pollution modelling using such models encounters certain problems. Following Brewer (1999) we argue that interdisciplinarity offers the opportunity to overcome these problems through: (1) its explicit recognition of the framing implicit in model development; (2) an emphasis on context in problem‐solving; (3) methodological pluralism; and (4) following from these other factors, the possibility of a different sort of engagement between land managers and modellers. Hence, the case for developing interdisciplinary approaches goes beyond the conventional dictates of problem‐led research and points to very different ways of conducting diffuse pollution research, taking on board the full dimensions of interdisciplinarity, with its emphasis on reflexivity, contextuality, substance and engagement.     

Optimal disclosure decisions when there are penalties for nondisclosure

We study a seller of an asset who is liable for damages if the seller fails to disclose to buyers an estimate of the asset's value he knew prior to the sale. Our results include as either the “damages multiplier” that determines the size of the damages the seller must pay buyers increases, or as the probability the seller is caught withholding his estimate from buyers increases, the seller discloses his estimate less often, and as the precision of the seller's estimate increases, he sells a larger fraction of the asset.     

The endogenous formation of scientific research coalitions

The paper develops a formal model of coalition-building ("network" formation) among research units that seek competitive funding from a supra-regional program, while also drawing support from their respective regional funding agencies. This analysis is motivated by the absence of frameworks of analysis applicable to problems of design of public R&D funding arrangements in the European Union, and in other regional systems were independent programs of "federal and state" support for research co-exists. The model assumes a fixed finite population of research units and an associated distribution of reputed quality, or scientific reputation, which may be modified as a consequence of research results. Non-cooperative games of coalition formation developed by Bloch (1995), and Ray and Vohra (1999), provides a useful single-period framework for this part of the analysis. Collaborations are formed in the expectation of attracting incremental research funding, given the selection criteria of the agency that offers funding for "networks". Invitations to join proposals for networks are initiated and acted upon following a specific ordering procedure. This gives rise to a repeated non-cooperative game of coalition (or collaboration) formation, in which the distribution of payoffs within the collaboration is governed by a fixed rule. Following Keely (2002), this type of game is applied to a multi-period setting in which a distribution of coalitions is tracked, along with the levels of funding received. The latter are determined according to a rule comparing the distribution of reputations within proposed collaborations, and the effects upon the distribution of reputations in the entire population are analysed. Alternative possible external funding rules are evaluated with the help of a numerical example, to determine how their impacts upon collaboration formation, and the resulting evolution of the reputation distribution (as that will be affected by the allocation of funding).