Meta programmes for identifying thinking preferences and their impact on accounting students’ educational experience

Meta programmes are a way of indicating unconscious thinking preferences that influence how a person perceives the world, and how that person behaves and communicates with others. Meta programmes provide an easily understood language that can facilitate an understanding on the part of accounting students and faculty, of metacognitive processes, an important pre-requisite to developing the skill of learning to learn. This paper reports the results of an interview-based study which identifies 11 meta programmes important to the specific context of students’ educational experience. Meta programmes are found to affect the ability/inability of certain students to manage the educational process, a result that improves our understanding of why some students are better at coping with the demands of higher education than others. Since meta programmes are considered to operate at an unconscious or metacognitive level, raising awareness of their thinking and learning styles offers students the opportunity to influence, or change, their own cognitive processes involved in learning and therefore to enhance that learning. An increased understanding on the part of accounting faculty of their own and their students’ meta programmes offers potential for improving communication with students and designing more effective teaching and feedback strategies.     

Voluntary Contributions to Personal Pension Plans: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

In this paper, we use data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for the years 1992 to 1998 to study the determinants of saving in the form of voluntary contributions to personal pension plans (PPPs). We first estimate a probit model with selection for the probability of making these voluntary contributions. We then estimate a random‐effects tobit regression for the amounts contributed and compare the results with those of a similar regression for conventional saving. Our findings suggest that voluntary contributions to PPPs are made essentially for retirement purposes, whereas conventional saving is undertaken for precautionary motives. The former type of saving is thus unlikely to offset the latter completely.     

用开放的复杂巨系统理论探讨现代企业管理问题

复杂性科学是上世纪80年代兴起的科学研究新领域,许多研究成果在自然科学、社会科学、管理科学、人文科学等领域得到广泛的应用。本文概述了中国著名科学家钱学森在世界科学前沿领域复杂性研究中的重要成果--开放的复杂巨系统理论及其方法论,并将这一理论用于研究现代企业管理创新的问题,以期抛砖引玉。     

Meta‐analyses of post‐acquisition performance: indications of unidentified moderators

Empirical research has not consistently identified antecedents for predicting post‐acquisition performance. We employ meta‐analytic techniques to empirically assess the impact of the most commonly researched antecedent variables on post‐acquisition performance. We find robust results indicating that, on average and across the most commonly studied variables, acquiring firms' performance does not positively change as a function of their acquisition activity, and is negatively affected to a modest extent. More importantly, our results indicate that unidentified variables may explain significant variance in post‐acquisition performance, suggesting the need for additional theory development and changes to M&A research methods. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling farmer participation in agri-environmental nitrate pollution reducing schemes

Why do farmers choose to participate in agri-environmental programmes and how do they choose the amount of land they allocate to such programmes? This paper examines the determinant factors influencing farmers' adoption of the EU-financed agri-environmental Nitrate Reduction Programme (NRP) in Greece and the extent of the programme's adoption, in terms of land allocation. The decision to adopt the NRP is modeled as a two-step procedure. First, farmers decide whether to participate in the agri-environmental programme and second, the extent of participation is determined. We employ Heckman's self-selection bias correction model to derive unbiased estimates. Based on farm level data, we develop the profile of farmers who choose to adopt the agri-environmental programme and the characteristics of their farms. The results of the analysis provide valuable policy insights decomposed into the main factors determining first, the adoption of the agri-environmental programme and second, the extent of adoption. By decomposing the determining factors, policy makers can employ this information to design effective agri-environmental programmes, desirable to farmers and more targeted towards specific environmental and agricultural development goals.     

国际会展管理专业的教育模式及其启示

比较详细地介绍国外会展管理专业的教育模式，具体包括国外会展管理专业的教育层次、学科体系、课程设置以及存在的普遍问题。重点以在会展管理教育方面卓有成效的澳大利亚维多利亚大学（Victoria University）、英国利兹城市大学（Leeds Metropolis University）、新西兰林肯大学（Lincon University Newzealand）为例具体说明和解释。还就如何调整我国的会展教育体系以便进一步与国际接轨提出策略建议。     

Environmental farm planning in Ontario: exploring participation and the endurance of change

The Ontario Environmental Farm Plan Programme (EFP) represents a significant departure from previous agri-environmental initiatives in Canada. In this programme, the focus is not on the promotion and adoption of any particular farming innovation, but rather on the completion of a farm-level environmental appraisal and the development of a farm-specific environmental action plan. As with more traditional schemes, there is interest in understanding how the programme is performing and in documenting outcomes. Evidence suggests that a significant proportion of farmers who enter the programme complete only part of the process or apply the evaluation to only certain aspects of their operation. In effect, there is variation in the way participants participate. This paper examines the nature of, and reasons for, differing levels of engagement among participants in the EFP Programme. Results from a survey of past participants suggests that farm-specific environmental conditions, farmers’ motivations concerning the environment, and positive perceptions of the programme itself are associated with more complete levels of participation. Underlying some of the revealed variations in participation are abiding concerns for the confidentiality of the process and more general concerns relating to the intervention of the state in agricultural land use.     

Cookie cutter cooperatives in the KwaZulu-Natal school nutrition programme

This article examines an initiative by the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government to increase the income opportunities emerging from the school feeding programme. Since the inception of the programme, small medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) have been enlisted to provide schools with ingredients. However, in 2006 the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government replaced some SMMEs with women's cooperatives. By 2009, 12 of the original 42 cooperatives had collapsed, and some schools serviced by the cooperatives complained of unreliable delivery of ingredients. This article examines the interface between policy and implementation through a case study of four cooperatives in one district. Our data suggest that some cooperatives struggled to take root as a result of a variety of factors which we discuss under the themes of viability, membership and skills. The top-down creation of these cooperatives according to inflexible guidelines also resulted in significant problems.     

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Role Breadth: A Meta‐Analytic and Cross‐Cultural Analysis

We provide a meta‐analysis of the empirical literature concerning role breadth, defined as the degree to which employees consider organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to be an inherent part of their job. Results based on a combined sample size of 9,222 showed: (a) Confucian Asians consider OCB as part of their job to a greater extent than do their Anglo counterparts; (b) affiliative kinds of OCB (e.g., helping, conscientiousness, and courtesy) are more likely to be considered part of one's job than are change‐oriented OCB (e.g., voice, taking charge, and initiative); and (c) OCB‐inclusive role breadth correlates strongly with OCB (r_c = .43). The implications of these findings for human resources practice, such as competency modeling, employee selection and training, organizational rewards, and employee‐employer/supervisor relations, are discussed. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.