Finding oneself,losing oneself: the lesbian and gay ‘scene’ as a paradoxical space

In recent years, geographers and urban sociologists have sought to map and understand the emergence and development of lesbian and gay spaces within the city — popularly dubbed ‘the scene’. It is often asserted that the city is a space of sexual liberation and that specifically the ‘scene’ can play an important part in lesbian and gay men's identity formation and development. However, despite the range and richness of the academic literature on the production and emergence of lesbian and gay urban spaces, relatively little attention has been paid to the actual role of the scene in the ‘coming out’ process and the way young lesbians and gay men negotiate transitions to adulthood. This article addresses this neglect by drawing on empirical work with lesbians and gay men in the UK to explore what the scene has meant to them. In the first half of the article we focus on the positive roles that the scene can play in helping young people to find themselves as they make the transition from childhood to adulthood. In the second half of the article we consider the risks that they can encounter in the process. We conclude by reflecting on the scene as a paradoxical space, and on the implications of this research for the youth transitions and urban studies literatures, and for social policy.     

The remuneration of CEOs and corporate financial performance in Norway

Economics and management literatures advocate that senior company executives should be remunerated on the basis of the financial performance of the firms they manage. This helps align the interests of management with those of stockholders. There are, however, problems in implementing pay for performance schemes and these, along with other factors, may lead to there being no empirical relationship between compensation and stockholder returns. This study set out to explore the determinants of chief executive compensation in Norwegian stock exchange listed firms. To date there have been very few studies on this topic using data from Norway; most previous research has employed American data. The results show a positive relationship between CEO pay and corporate size but there was no significant association between remuneration and corporate financial performance as measured by accounting profitability and as measured by stock returns. Estimates of the value added by companies were significantly related to chief executive pay. There was also a positive and significant relationship between a CEO's compensation and the average wage level of the company. This association may be due to the unique characteristics of Norway's social and economic structure.     

Justifying top management pay in a transitional economy

We investigate some aspects of top management pay in China's listed firms. We find positive pay and performance sensitivities and elasticities for top executives. In terms of magnitude, these sensitivities are similar to those reported in U.S. firms during the 1970s. However, the pay and performance relation is slightly weaker for firms located in less developed provinces. We also find that the pay disparities between top managers and employees are positively related to a firm's performance. Thus, it appears that any deviation away from a manager-worker compensation norm has to be justified by superior firm performance. In additional analyses, we find that managers' perquisites are not related to performance.     

Enhancing mental models,analogical transfer,and performance in strategic decision making

Recent research suggests that managers often make strategic decisions in novel situations by utilizing past experiences to reason by analogy. However, there is substantial evidence that decision makers often fail to identify and apply knowledge about one situation to a similarly structured situation. Two experimental studies investigated the mechanisms impacting knowledge transfer from one managerial situation (the source) to an analogous situation. The results show that exposure to variation in the source situation improves transfer performance. Variation decreases performance in the short term but improves learning and increases analogical transfer. Higher performance on and systematic search of the source situation also increase transfer performance. These results yield important implications for enhancing analogical transfer in strategic decision making and for future research on reasoning by analogy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Krux

你经常能听到专业人士讲他们在过去的学生时代猛灌咖啡通宵达旦的故事,荷兰四个年轻创意工作者类似的昔日同学情谊促使他们将一个废弃仓库改造成一个新的工作区,从而促进了知识的交流. 荷兰人Dajo Bodisco与荷兰同胞Erasmus Scherjon、法国人Francois Dumas、德国人Gero Asmuth开发了Krux阿姆斯特丹,这是一个1500平方米的类似街道环境一样的工作区,位于一个工业区内,设计师、艺术家和手工艺者可以在此分享知识和工具.Dajo Bodisco说:"我们很怀念我们学生时代的社区."     

Price setting and the value of a strong brand name

The measurement of quality for a service product is very difficult and consumers have to rely heavily on the brand name reputation of the supplier. This paper examines whether the brand name reputation of accounting firms, who supply audit services, earn premium audit fees. The sample data uses accounting firms who switched brand names and the effect of this switch on audit fees is analyzed. The results indicate that the repositioning of brand to that of a high prestige name leads to higher audit fee revenue. Brand name reputation appears to be important in the provision of audit services.     

Stock Price Reaction to Non-financial News in European Technology Companies

Drawing upon a series of interviews conducted with leading practitioners and opinion formulators in the social, ethical and environmental audit arena, together with an extensive review of recent literature in the area, this paper offers a critical appraisal of current developments in the newly revitalized social audit movement. We particularly question whether in their enthusiasm for bringing social audit into the mainstream of current business thinking its advocates risk compromising the democratic ideals of the founding fathers of the movement. A particular concern raised is that without real change in corporate governance structures, social audit could become monopolized by consultants and/or corporate management and hence amount to little more than a skilfully controlled public relations exercise.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Bias and Rationality of Profit Forecasts Published in New Issue Prospectuses

Our study sets out to assess the accuracy of profit forecasts made by IPOs in Hong Kong. We use a variety of measures and tests to examine the accuracy, bias, rationality, and superiority of earnings estimates. The results show that forecast accuracy compares favourably with the findings from the developed economies of Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. Forecasts are shown to be superior to the predictions from time series models. IPOs tend to underforecast in the sense that actual profits exceed the forecasts. The rationality tests show mixed results. Cross-sectional analyses of forecast accuracy have poor explanatory power although the Big Six reporting accountants are associated with smaller forecast errors.     

Affective and Cognitive Components of Attitudes in High‐Stakes Decisions: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Hormone Replacement Therapy Use

Consumers are increasingly encouraged to take charge of high‐stakes decisions such as those regarding medical treatments. However, the important inputs into overall evaluations of risky and important behaviors, such as undergoing medical therapy, are not well understood. The purpose of this research is to study the interplay of cognitive and affective factors in determining consumer attitudes and intentions toward high‐stakes decision behaviors. This is done in the context of consumer choices regarding medical treatments, and specifically, the decision to use (or not to use) hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Overall, both affective and cognitive responses are found to be independent significant predictors of attitude toward HRT use. Moreover, the results support an extended version of the theory of planned behavior model that is useful in predicting consumer's intentions to engage in high‐stakes decision behaviors, such as using HRT. These findings have implications for the design of decision support systems and behavioral change interventions.     

The use of accounting information for the valuation of dual-class shares listed on China's stock markets

This study examines whether accounting data are useful in helping explain the market value of listed firms in China. In particular, we focus our investigation on companies that have issued dual-class shares sold to domestic investors (A-shares) and foreigners (B-shares). Domestic accounting standards (DAS) are used for the financial statements of A-shares while international accounting standards (IAS) are used for B-shares. Our results show that IAS earnings information is incorporated in the prices and returns of B-shares. In contrast, A-share investors appear to place most weight on DAS earnings and only recently has there been an association with IAS information. Book values are value relevant for B-share prices but not for A-share prices. Sensitivity tests show that accounting information is more likely to be impounded in share prices and returns for firms with high individual (i.e. non-government) share ownership. Based on our results, we argue that China's move towards the adoption of IAS will be useful for A-share investors, especially in light of the country's recent accession to the WTO and the consequent opening-up of the economy.