Capacity Building for Post-Disaster Mental Health Since Katrina: The Role of Community Health Workers

The floods and devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita contributed to socioeconomic instability and psychosocial trauma for the affected communities and populations, significantly for people of limited economic means and persons of color. Though more than 1/3 of the adult population from impacted areas experienced significant psychological distress, few people had access to or received appropriate health or mental health services in the months and years that followed. Community health workers (CHWs)—defined as lay community members whose backgrounds are similar to those for whom they provide such services as culturally relevant health education, individual- and community-level advocacy, and links to the health care system— may represent a particularly promising workforce strategy to increase access to quality mental health services and overcome racial and ethnic disparities in care. In this paper, we briefly review a post-disaster mental health training program for CHWs from the greater New Orleans area. We present preliminary evidence that CHWs remain engaged in addressing post-disaster concerns, and that there is community support for further CHW education. We discuss implications for CHW participation in recovery from future disasters and we highlight the work of Cynthia Carriere, a CHW from the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans.     

The Influence of Regulatory Focus on the Effect of Product Cues

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which informational cues interact with individuals’ motivational states during their evaluation of a product. This article confirms the interaction effects between informational cues and motivational states by examining product attributes and advertising appeals as informational cues, and regulatory focus as a motivational state. The results from three studies indicate that consumers with promotion focus find extrinsic cues as more important and have more favorable evaluation toward a product with superior extrinsic cues. Prevention‐focused consumers, however, perceive intrinsic cues of a product as more important, and thus have more favorable evaluation toward a product with superior intrinsic cues.     

The United Nations Global Compact: Engaging Implicit and Explicit CSR for Global Governance

In the past few decades, a growth in ethical consumerism has led brands to increasingly develop conscientiousness and depict ethical image at a corporate level. However, most of the research studying business ethics in the field of corporate brand management is either conceptual or has been empirically conducted in relation to goods/products contexts. This is surprising because corporate brands are more relevant in services contexts, because of the distinct nature of services (i.e., intangible, heterogeneous, and inseparable) and the key role that employees have in the services sector (i.e., they can build or break the brand when interacting with customers). Accordingly, this article aims at empirically examining the effects of customer perceived ethicality in the context of corporate services brands. Based on data collected for eight service categories using a panel of 2179 customers, the hypothesized structural model is tested using path analysis. The results show that, in addition to a direct effect, customer perceived ethicality has a positive and indirect effect on customer loyalty, through the mediators of customer affective commitment and customer perceived quality. Further, employee empathy positively influences the impact of customer perceived ethicality on customer affective commitment, and customer loyalty positively impacts customer positive word-of-mouth. The first implication of these results is that corporate brand strategy needs to be aligned with human resources policies and practices if brands want to turn ethical strategies into employee behavior. Second, corporate brands should build more authentic communications grounded in their ethical beliefs and supported by evidence from actual employees.     

Lookism in the Chinese Nursing Industry: A Content Analysis of Online Recruitment Advertisements

This study investigated the prevalence of lookism through a content analysis of nursing recruitment advertisements in China. Lookism or physical appearance-based discrimination is prevalent in roles predominantly occupied by women. This attributive bias assumes greater significance in the context of a patriarchal society like China within industries such as nursing that are highly feminized. Nevertheless, few studies explore the existence of lookism within the nursing industry in China. Reporting on the intent of Chinese health care employers to discriminate based on physical appearance, this article argues for awareness of and sensitivity toward the implications of workplace lookism in China.     

Estimating Transaction-Based Price Indices of Local Commercial Real Estate Markets Using Public Assessment Data

This study examines the feasibility of constructing reliable commercial property price indices using property tax records. We employ the Clapp and Giacotto (Journal of American Statistical Association, 87(418), 300–306, 1992) assessed-value method to estimate price indices for commercial properties in Florida. The estimated Florida commercial property price index is compared to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) and to the transaction-based index (TBI) produced at MIT. Our results are promising, suggesting that this widely-available data source can be used to produce commercial property price indices for a variety of precise market locations and specific investor segments. A secondary but interesting objective of this paper is to use our rich and comprehensive database to examine the price performance of two specific subsets of properties in more detail. First, we narrow our range to focus on just the office sector for Florida. We compare price movements for the Florida office sector with the comparable CPPI. Estimates produce very similar price movements providing support to both methods. Second, we contrast the price performance of higher- and lower-valued properties and reject the hypothesis that their periodic price index levels are equal. The mean price changes of Florida commercial properties assessed at $2.5 million and above are observed to be slightly higher than for properties assessed below $2.5 million, although not statistically different. In particular, higher-valued properties had higher mean price changes relative to lower-valued properties during periods of economic expansion. This economic difference represents an important contribution toward beginning to understand the relative performance of smaller and investment-grade commercial properties.     

The Choice between Bank Debt and Trace Credit in Business Start-ups

This paper investigates the choice between bank debt and trade credit in business start-ups. While trade credit is more expensive than bank debt, suppliers tend to follow a more lenient liquidation policy when client firms encounter financial distress. As a result, suppliers are more willing to renegotiate the outstanding debt or grant additional debt whereas banks are more likely to liquidate borrowers upon default. Given the risky nature of business start-ups, we argue that the entrepreneur’s choice of debt instruments reflects these differences in liquidation policy between lenders and is thus determined by the venture’s failure risk, the entrepreneur’s private control benefits that are lost upon liquidation and the liquidation value of firm assets. Using unique data on 325 first-time business start-ups, we find that firms in industries with high historical start-up failure rates and entrepreneurs who tend to highly value private benefits of control use less bank debt. These effects are especially prevalent in start-ups where assets have a high liquidation value and thus banks are more likely to liquidate the venture following default. An erratum to this article can be found at     

How do standard setters define materiality and why does it matter?

Material information is a core aspect of a firm's governance and reporting activities. If corporate information is material, then the firm has a responsibility to disclose it. Currently, firms must judge information as material largely based on a confusing set of standard setters’ definitions. I analyze the particular conditions laid out by each standard setter and explain the ethical implications that result from materiality judgments made by firms using these varied standards. Importantly, this analysis underscores that regulators, firms, and researchers alike must consider the impact of these implications on the fiduciary duty and promise-keeping that firms make as well as the potential for unfairness and financial harm to others’ welfare that could result.     

Internet and distance channel use and European consumer complaint behavior

This exploratory study analyzes the effect of distance-shopping channel choice (i.e. the format first used by consumers in a retail transaction) on consumer complaint behavior, with a special focus on the Internet channel. It analyzes 2011 Eurobarometer data using a logistic regression model controlling for sociodemographic and country-specific variables to measure the impact of using the Internet, post/catalog, and telephone channels on complaint behavior. The results indicate that consumers using the Internet channel exhibit the greatest likelihood of complaint behavior when compared to consumers using traditional distance-shopping channels. Implications and suggestions for retailers are discussed, as are the contributions to the consumer complaint behavior literature.     

Optimal Input Use When Inputs Affect Price and Yield

Input use has been shown to impact the variance of output and therefore risk. When inputs affect both output level and the price of the output, the variance of revenue and profit depend on each effect and their interactions. We analyze the effect of nitrogen (N) use rate applied to wheat on the variance of yield, revenue, and the price of wheat, when protein premiums (discounts) are applied. We find that N use rate increases the variance of yield, but reduces the variance of price. The net effect of N use rate on revenue and profit is variance increasing, but the variance effect is less than for yield alone. Optimal rates of N are about 60% higher with protein payments compared with a constant wheat price over all protein levels. Risk-averse producers apply less N than risk-neutral producers but, because revenue and profit risk is lower with protein payments, the reduction in N is less than if based on a constant price over all protein levels.