Adolph Löwe's Political Economics: Instrumentalism as Enlightened Intervention

A bstract Adolph Lowe's work was dedicated chiefly to developing "political economics" as a foundation for economic theory and instrumental analysis to direct a politically free economy along the path of economic growth
This paper argues that the public management inherent in instrumentalism is not likely to be acceptable in the U S or the U K, except in national economic emergency Yet, the formerly planned economies of central and eastern Europe, whose history is one of stringent control, may have a political preference for a Lowe type of instrumentalism to avoid the results of uncontrolled market processes
The reception accorded Lowe's political economics by economists, as members of a professional community, reflects their methodological preferences and policy views Those who are skeptical of the market clearing capability of the price mechanism, and explain capitalist development as an ongoing historical process, are more likely to be appreciative of instrumental analysis as a policy tool     

Competitive Industry Dynamics with Constant Costs

This paper integrates investment and production decisions in a dynamic model of a competitive industry where producers, facing a technology involving fixed input–output coefficients, employ quantity adjustment rules. Whether complex dynamic price behaviour is consistent with producers breaking-even over time is explored. The proportion of costs which are sunk through investment is shown to have a potentially dramatic impact on the price dynamics. The implications of an alternative hypothesis— that producers ‘normally’ use their avail able capacities and only do otherwise if events are sufficiently dramatic—are explored     

The living product – using the creative nature of metaphors in the search for sustainable marketing

The challenge facing marketing (and business) is letting go of old assumptions and embarking on a journey of unprecedented uncertainty towards a more sustainable marketplace. Current marketing approaches are called into question in this paper and it is argued that they fail to represent adequately – and far less to confront – our relationships with products and the natural environment. This paper challenges marketing in this respect, investigating the consequences of putting marketing into an ecological context. By using the generative and creative power of metaphors we attempt to draw the sustainability debate away from the language of the mechanistic world; where matter is regarded as inert, mute, passive and exploitable. By using the ‘living product’ metaphor as a tool for change we explore the potential for a reorientation towards organizational–environmental configurations that are dynamic and flexible and provide space for dealing with uncertainty. These concepts are then illustrated in a number of practical examples, providing an insight into the potential of marketing in our search towards a more sustainable marketplace. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Cloud Computing As a Tool for Enhancing Ecological Goals?

Cloud computing has been introduced as a promising information technology (IT) that embodies not only economic advantages in terms of increased efficiency but also ecological gains through saving energy. The latter has become particularly important in view of the rising energy costs of IT. The present study analyzes whether necessary preconditions for accepting cloud computing as a new infrastructure, such as awareness and perceived net value, exist on the part of the users. The analysis is based on a combined research framework of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the technology acceptance model (TAM) in a cloud computing setting. Two consumer surveys, the one to elicit beliefs and the second to gain insight into the ranking of the variables, are employed. This study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate the hypotheses. The results indicate support for the proposed research framework. Surprisingly however, the ecological factor does not play a role in forming cloud computing intentions, regardless of prior knowledge or experience. Empirical evidence of this study suggests increasing efforts for informing actual and potential users, particularly in respect to possible ecological advantages through applying the new IT infrastructure.     

Border collision bifurcations in boom and bust cycles

Boom and bust cycles are widely documented in the literature on industry dynamics. Rigidities and delays in capacity adjustment in combination with bounded rational behavior have been identified as central driving forces. We construct a model that features only these two elements and we show that this is indeed sufficient to reproduce some stylized facts of a boom and bust cycle. The bifurcation diagrams summarizing the dynamic behavior reveal complex cycles and in particular also abrupt changes in the nature of these cycles. We apply new insights from the mathematical theory of piecewise smooth dynamic systems—in particular, results from the theory of border collision bifurcations—and show that the very existence of borders such as capacity constraints or nonnegativity constraints may lie behind abrupt changes in the dynamic behavior of economic variables.     

Panel data, cointegration, causality and Wagner's law: Empirical evidence from Chinese provinces

This paper tests Wagner's law of increasing state activity using panels of Chinese provinces. The paper's main methodological contribution is in that we employ for the first time in the literature on Wagner's law a panel unit root, panel cointegration and Granger causality testing approach. Overall, we find mixed evidence in support of Wagner's law for China's central and western provinces, but no support for Wagner's law for the full panel of provinces or for the panel of China's eastern provinces.     

Lying and Smiling: Informational and Emotional Deception in Negotiation

This study investigated attitudes toward the use of deception in negotiation, with particular attention to the distinction between deception regarding the informational elements of the interaction (e.g., lying about or misrepresenting needs or preferences) and deception about emotional elements (e.g., misrepresenting one’s emotional state). We examined how individuals judge the relative ethical appropriateness of these alternative forms of deception, and how these judgments relate to negotiator performance and long-run reputation. Individuals viewed emotionally misleading tactics as more ethically appropriate to use in negotiation than informational deception. Approval of deception predicted negotiator performance in a negotiation simulation and also general reputation as a negotiator, but the nature of these relationships depended on the kind of deception involved.     

FIRM COMPLIANCE WITH SOCIAL INSURANCE OBLIGATIONS WHERE THERE IS A WEAK SURVEILLANCE AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM SHANGHAI*

Abstract. This article examines why firms in Shanghai comply or over‐comply with social insurance obligations in a regulatory environment where the expected punishment for non‐compliance is low. Our first finding is that firms found to be in non‐compliance in the first audit in 2001 were moved into a separate violation category and the probability of being reaudited in 2002 was significantly higher if the firm was in that category. Our second main result is that, across the board, firms which were reaudited continued to underpay in 2002 but the extent of underpayment was significantly reduced.     

Servicescape moderation on personality traits, emotions, satisfaction, and behaviors

This study aims to extend the previous servicescape literature and to examine servicescapes as a moderating variable on a comprehensive model of individual personality traits, emotions, satisfaction, and approach-avoidance behaviors. The highlight of the present research is to incorporate the effects of different personality traits (i.e., extroversion, openness to experience, and arousal-seeking tendency) and moderation of different servicescape situations (i.e., Gestalt versus Non-Gestalt) on emotions, satisfaction, and approach-avoidance behavior. The value of assessing the effects of different personality traits with different settings is demonstrated. This study utilizes an experimental design with the appropriate manipulation of ambient stimuli of the combined colors and music to form differential servicescapes and participants were randomly assigned to these servicescapes. Survey data from 261 participants were then collected on personality traits, emotions, satisfaction and approach-avoidance behavior and the data were analyzed by structural equation modeling to test the present research framework. Results indicate that Gestalt versus Non-Gestalt servicescape situations moderated the relationship between arousal-seeking tendency and emotions. Pleasure was found to enhance satisfaction, and satisfaction was found to enhance approach-avoidance behaviors. Limitations, managerial and future implications are explained further in the content of the paper.     

Leisure,Stress, and Coping: An Evolving Area of Inquiry

Stress and coping are prevalent and ubiquitous in our everyday lives. The degree and manner in which we experience stress, and ways in which we cope with stress, strongly influence our daily choices and their outcomes, including those related to leisure. Research on leisure, stress, and coping is important within a broad spectrum of leisure research since it can be potentially integrated with leisure research on constraints and negotiations, lifespan development, diversity, and lifestyle. Such integration works to bridge the gap in the leisure research community that is often characterized as isolated entities. One important tangible benefit of such integration is that stress and coping have the potential to be a common language for many researchers with diverse interests, and it thus leads to opportunities for enhanced communication and understanding, as well as for possible collaborations. We hope that this special issue, presenting a diverse collection of papers focused on leisure, stress, and coping, may instill such ambitious, but important, desire. The role of this issue is threefold: (1) to better identify relationships among leisure, stress, and coping, (2) to introduce new theoretical and methodological approaches for such research, and (3) to encourage increased attention to and collaborations related to leisure, stress, and coping research.