Why Dick and Jane don’t ask: Getting past initiation barriers in negotiations

Negotiation is an essential skill for personal well-being and professional success, a skill that begins with identifying and acting on one's wants and needs. Many individuals, however, lack the confidence, motivation, or training to simply ask for what they want in certain situations; for example, when negotiating with an important client. Still others are reluctant to initiate requests in general. This article discusses the personal characteristics and situational factors that influence an individual's likelihood of engaging another party in a negotiation, making a request, and optimizing that request. Herein, specific suggestions are offered for managing this critical phase of the negotiation process via three steps: mental preparation prior to the engagement; positioning prior to, and at the point of, the engagement; and verbal craftsmanship during the delivery of one's request.     

Multivariate risk aversion and uninsurable risks: Theory and applications

The objective of this paper is to develop conditions for global multivariate comparative risk aversion in the presence of uninsurable, or background, risks, and thus generalize Kihlstrom and Mirman [1974] and Karni [1979,1989]. We analyze von Neumann-Morgenstern (VNM) utility functionsas well as smooth preference functionals which are nonlinear in distribution but locally linear in probabilities. In each case we provide an economic application which illustrates how our theorems can be used. We analyze a risk sharing, a portfolio choice, and a labor supply problem for VNM utility functions, and the optimal allocation of effort to risky technologies in the presence of a random supply (or quality) of a public good for nonlinear preference functionals. We consider thecase where the random variables are mean-independent as well as the case where they are independent. In the labor supply application for VNM utility functions, we show that if the two risks are independent, the comparative statics effect of greater risk aversion on labor supply in the presence of a background non-wage income risk is determined by a monotonic relationship between labor supply and the wage rate under certainty. That is, we extend the applicability of the Diamond-Stiglitz [1974]-Kihlstrom-Mirman [1974]single-crossing property to the case where an independent background risk is present.     

A Hong Kong view of offensive advertising

Considerable research has been conducted on offensive advertising in Western countries. However, not much is known about consumers' views of offensive advertising in an Asian context. This research, which was conducted in Hong Kong, aimed at identifying what product/service advertisements consumers find offensive, what executional styles consumers find offensive, consumers' tolerance of offensive advertisements in different media and the effects of offensive advertisements on consumers' purchase intentions. The results from a survey of 200 consumers showed that chat-line services and funeral services were considered the most offensive products or services to be advertised. When looking at the manner of advertising, sexist themes, indecent language and nudity were found to be the major reasons for the respondents finding advertisements offensive. In general, direct mail was considered to be a medium that prompts lower tolerance by consumers to potentially offensive advertisements while men and women's magazines were considered to be media that prompt higher tolerance to potentially offensive advertisements. Finally, it was found that levels of advertising offensiveness had an effect on purchase intentions.     

Antecedents of attitude towards online mediation

While the majority of studies so far have examined the effectiveness and benefits of electronic settlement applications, this study explores factors that affect the adoption and use of online mediation services. To this end, structural equation modeling analysis was applied to data obtained from users and mediators involved in an online mediated dispute. Subject perceptions regarding an overall mediation system including information technology and a human mediator were assessed. The findings suggest that while perceived usefulness of the information system explains the variance in attitude towards online mediation, the perceived usefulness of the mediator does not shape this attitude. Thus, mediators are being conceptualized as external to the service and their characteristics do not affect attitudes towards online mediation services, nor the intention to adopt it. This phenomenon is explained using biases in attribution.     

Enhancing youth's attitudes towards microcredit in the bottom of the pyramid markets

The bottom of the pyramid (BOP) market comprises a huge customer size of approximately 4 billion globally; hence, segmentation is necessary within this market. The BOP market refers to an aggregate of customers who survive on relatively low‐income levels. In this respect, youth in war‐affected regions can be considered to be a segment of the BOP market. However, there is scant research on customers' attitudes and purchase behaviours in the BOP markets or segments therein. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate war‐affected youth's attitudes towards microcredit and the related drivers of these attitudes. The literature revealed four types of attitudes towards microcredit: positive affect, perceived benefits, perceived deterrents and default risk perceptions. Also, knowledge of microcredit and entrepreneurial desire were considered to be the drivers of these attitudes. A total of 795 valid completed surveys were collected from youth aged 18 and above who live in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The findings revealed that positive affect enhanced intentions to obtain microcredit, whereas perceived deterrents reduced them. Knowledge of microcredit enhanced attitudes towards microcredit. Also, entrepreneurial desire enhanced the association between positive affect and intentions to obtain microcredit and it decreased the negative association between perceived deterrents and intentions to obtain microcredit. The implications to theory and practice have been discussed which will go a long way in enhancing the attitudes towards microcredit among war‐affected youth and possibly those in the other segments of the BOP market.     

Predicting Hunting Intentions and Behavior: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Using a mail survey ( n = 395) of outdoor recreationists, the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) was applied to the prediction and explanation of hunting. In a series of hierarchical regression analyses, it was found that hunting intentions, but not perceptions of behavioral control, contributed to the prediction of self-reported hunting frequency. Hunting intentions, in turn, were strongly influenced by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceptions of behavioral control, and these predictors correlated highly with theoretically derived sets of underlying beliefs. Broad values related to wildlife and to life in general correlated weakly with hunting behavior, and their effects were largely mediated by the components of the theory of planned behavior.     

Farmers’ Preferences for New Environmental Policy Instruments: Determining the Acceptability of Cross Compliance for Biodiversity Benefits

This paper addresses the issue of farmers’ views concerning the perceived legitimacy of environmental cross compliance as a governance mechanism. Recent work on the theory of regulation emphasises the importance of the legitimacy ascribed to a regulation in determining the effectiveness with which it can be implemented. The current study outlines a rationale for why this motivational question should receive attention in economic studies of policy design and reports the results of a survey of 102 arable farmers in East Anglia, UK, which investigated the level of support for the principle of cross compliance for biodiversity objectives. It was found that two attitudinal factors, referred to as ‘Stewardship Orientation’ and ‘Technological Beliefs’, were by far the most significant in determining the acceptability of cross compliance in the sample, and that structural and socio‐demographic factors were considerably less important. The study also identified clusters of farmers according to their overall attitudinal orientation. Of the five groups thus categorised, four appeared on average likely to reject cross compliance as a general principle, leaving only the most ‘Environmental’ cluster in support. The policy implications are discussed and some conclusions drawn.     

Pre‐school staffs’ attitudes toward foods in relation to the pedagogic meal

The aim of this study, with the pedagogic meal in focus, was to identify pre‐school staff members’ attitudes to the role of food and meals as part of daily activities at pre‐school. Interviews were carried out at 12 pre‐schools and a total of 34 pre‐school staff participated. The staff revealed strong opinions as well as ambivalence towards how food and meals should best be integrated into their daily work and pedagogic activities. The pre‐school staffs’ lack of or insufficient education and knowledge regarding food and nutrition resulted in an ambivalent and uncertain situation with respect to how they should see themselves as teachers in the meal situation. Nevertheless, most of the staff had a clear perception of what it meant to practice a pedagogic meal. It meant helping and encouraging the children to help themselves and serving as an adult model for the children at table, though this pedagogic activity was uncommon. While the staff were satisfied with the pre‐schools’ role of catering for the children, they expressed concern about or even mistrust towards the children's parents. Despite, or perhaps due to, their inadequate knowledge about food and nutrition and the lack of specific aims for the pedagogic meal, they assumed that the public sector was a better educational institution regarding foods and a better guarantor for children's food habits and dietary intake. As the teachers’ identities have changed over the past years they have not yet found a solid ground for determining how food and meals could be integrated into their everyday work as pre‐school teachers and childminders.     

The legacy of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration

Does the politico–economic system affect preferences for immigration? In this study, I show that individuals exposed to life under state socialism have formed and persistently hold different attitudes toward immigration. By exploiting the division and reunification of Germany, I estimate the influence of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration. Drawing on rich individual panel data, I find that East Germans who lived under state socialism, are 15 percent more likely to oppose immigration than West Germans who spent their entire life in a democratic, capitalist country. This difference in attitudes toward immigration is persistent over time and across space, and largest for cohorts born and raised under state socialism. This gap in attitudes can be traced back to a longer-term deterioration in trust. Evidence from members of a group that opposed the authoritarian system highlights the importance of state socialist ideology for attitude formation.     

Relationships among budgetary leadership behavior, managerial budgeting games, and budgetary attitudes: Evidence from Taiwanese corporations

In this paper, we examine the relationship among leadership behavior (contingent reward vs. contingent punishment), managerial budgeting games (devious games vs. economic games), and attitudes towards the budgetary process. Relationships were tested using a structural equation model that was estimated on the basis of questionnaire data from 216 Taiwanese managers. The majority of respondents were accounting/finance managers employed by manufacturing firms. Results reveal that contingent-reward leadership behavior has a direct and positive effect on attitudes toward the budgetary process, and an indirect effect through economic games. On the other hand, we find evidence that contingent-punishment leadership behavior has only an indirect and negative effect on attitudes toward the budgetary process through devious games, especially for non-accounting/finance managers. Managers who play economic games tend to have positive attitudes towards the budgetary process, while those who play devious games do not. The findings should be useful to management in understanding what effective leadership behavior is in the budget-preparation process in Taiwan, and assessing how budgeting games are likely to be adopted by Taiwanese managers.