“Going natural”: Black women’s identity project shifts in hair care practices

Hair care, a seemingly mundane consumption practice, is packed with sociocultural meanings and constitutes an important realm of identity work for consumers. Drawing upon existing literature on consumer identity projects, this paper investigates the experiences of urban, Black women in Kenya as they disengage from the normative practice of altering their natural hair texture using chemical straighteners (a practice that conforms to Eurocentric beauty ideals of straight, flowing hair), and adopt the non-normative hair care practice of “going natural,” in which they embrace their natural hair texture and hairstyles. This paper traces the historical, sociocultural, and political events that underpin the normative ideology associated with the identity marker of natural Black hair, and how this ideology influences the women’s “going natural” experience. Findings reveal tensions that emerge in the women’s identity project disengagement and reconstruction process, and how the women navigate their position as they reimagine their embodied identity quest.     

Periodic strategies in optimal execution with multiplicative price impact

We study the optimal execution problem with multiplicative price impact in algorithmic trading, when an agent holds an initial position of shares of a financial asset. The interselling decision times are modeled by the arrival times of a Poisson process. The criterion to be optimized consists in maximizing the expected net present value of the gains of the agent, and it is proved that an optimal strategy has a barrier form, depending only on the number of shares left and the level of the asset price.     

Cross‐Functional Integration: Concept Clarification and Scale Development

The centrality of cross‐functional integration (CFI) to supply chain theory and practice has long been recognized. Yet researchers continue to struggle with consistently defining or measuring the CFI construct, thus limiting the utility of CFI research. This research develops (1) a comprehensive definition of CFI that synthesizes previous supply chain research and (2) a valid set of scale items that measure the conceptual domain outlined by this definition. The goal is to build a common foundation for extending knowledge on CFI's antecedents and consequences, and ultimately to improve scholars’ ability to guide a broader practitioner community still struggling to achieve integration in their organizations.     

Characterizing physical habitat preferences and thermal refuge occupancy of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) at high river temperatures

Anthropogenic influences, including climate change, are increasing river temperatures in northern and temperate regions and threatening the thermal habitats of native salmonids. When river temperatures exceed the tolerance levels of brook trout and Atlantic salmon, individuals exhibit behavioural thermoregulation by seeking out cold‐water refugia – often created by tributaries and groundwater discharge. Thermal infrared (TIR) imagery was used to map cold‐water anomalies along a 53 km reach of the Cains River, New Brunswick. Trout and salmon parr did not use all identified thermal anomalies as refugia during higher river temperature periods (>21°C). Most small‐bodied trout (8–30 cm) were observed in 80% of the thermal anomalies sampled. Large‐bodied trout (>35 cm) required a more specific set of physical habitat conditions for suitable refugia, that is, 100% of observed large trout used 30% of the anomalies sampled and required water depths >65 cm within or adjacent to the anomaly. Densities of trout were significantly higher within anomalies compared with areas of ambient river temperature. Salmon parr were less aligned with thermal anomalies at the observed temperatures, that is, 59% were found in 65% of the sampled anomalies; and densities were not significantly different within/ outside anomalies. Salmon parr appeared to aggregate at 27°C, and after several events over 27°C variability in aggregation behaviour was observed – some fish aggregated at 25°C, others did not. We stipulate this is due to variances of thermal fatigue. Habitat suitability curves were developed for velocity, temperature, depth, substrate, and deep water availability to characterize conditions preferred by fish during high‐temperature events. These findings are useful for managers as our climate warms, and can potentially be used as a tool to help conserve and enhance thermal refugia for brook trout and Atlantic salmon in similar systems.     

Analyzing the Operational Materials on Crack Formation in Blades of Francis Turbines at the Krasnoyarsk HPP

Equipment of the Krasnoyarsk HPP is considered as an example to analyze the dependence of crack formation in runner blades on the operating conditions of t     

Real Incentive Effects of Soft Information

Both soft, noncontractible, and hard, contractible, information are informative about managerial ability and future firm performance. If a manager's future compensation depends on expectations of ability or future performance, then the manager has implicit incentives to affect the information. We examine the real incentive effects of soft information in a dynamic agency with limited commitment. When long-term contracts are renegotiated, the rewards for future performance inherent in long-term contracts allow the principal partial control over the implicit incentives. This is because the soft information affects the basis for contract renegotiation. With short-term contracts, the principal has no control over the basis for contract negotiation, and thus long-term contracts generally dominate short-term contracts. With long-term contracts, the principal's control over implicit incentives is characterized in terms of effective contracting on an implicit aggregation of the soft information that arises from predicting (forming expectations of) future performance. We provide sufficient conditions for soft information to have no real incentive effects. In general, implicit incentives not controllable by the principal include fixed effects, such as career concerns driven by labor markets external to the agency. When controllable incentives span the fixed effects of career concerns, the latter have no real effects with regard to total managerial incentives—they would optimally be the same with or without career concerns. Our analysis suggests empirical tests for estimating career concerns that should explicitly incorporate noncontractible information.     

Working days in a London construction team in the eighteenth century: evidence from St Paul's Cathedral

This article provides new information and data on the work and pay of skilled and semi-skilled men on a large London construction project in the early 1700s. It offers firm-level evidence on the employment relation in the construction industry at the time and sheds some light on the number of days worked per year and per week, showing that employment was more irregular and seasonal than current estimates of income infer. The patterns are considered in the context of new debates about industriousness and economic growth.