The Future of Privacy: A Consumer‐Oriented Approach to Managing Personal Data Online

Beginning with Facebook's recent controversial “tweaks” to its privacy policy and its promise to support users against employers and others who attempt to compel users to divulge passwords, we critically review European Union (EU) and US digital privacy initiatives. Whereas the EU proposal relies on legislative regulation, the United States proposes industry self‐regulation partially enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). We conclude that not only do the sharply differing EU and US approaches present significant problems of global digital interoperability, but neither proposal promises to result in practical and feasible consumer protection, at least not in the near term. Moreover, the EU proposal poses serious threats to the profitability of digital commerce. As an alternative, we propose a “third approach,” empowering the individual digital consumer/user through a personal online strategy we call “wide‐open privacy,” which provides security without sacrificing the transformative economic, cultural, and personal benefits of the Internet. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Measuring Women's Quality of Life: A Discussion of Alternative Approaches

This paper reports our experiences with the application of a number of alternative approaches to a study of women's economic circumstances and quality of life in a typical western city. The important work of, especially, Martha Nussbaum on the capabilities approach to evaluations of “quality of life” has highlighted pitfalls associated with the use of a narrow informational base in studies of women's lives and has emphasized the value of qualitative methods in these evaluations. However, to date, most discussions of the relevance of plural approaches to studies of women's lives have been conducted in the context of developing countries. This paper contributes a practical, current example of the relevance of such approaches to assessments of the lives of women in western countries as well. The research findings reported in the paper also cast further light on the importance of several, related themes in the literature on the capabilities approach, namely the importance of understanding how women's aspirations and expectations change with their economic and social experiences; and the importance of appreciating the social uses of language and how this affects the way in which women describe their lives.     

Culture and the Labor Market

This paper explores the relationship between culture and labor market behavior. An attempt is made to clarify, from an economic perspective, the meaning of culture; to discuss the importance of cultural studies in the economic analysis of the labor market; and to outline the major theoretical issues that are associated with adopting a cultural perspective on economic behavior in the labor market.     

New public management and the rule of economic incentives: Australian welfare-to-work from job market signalling perspective

Australia’s welfare-to-work system has undergone radical changes since the 1990s, with service delivery fully privatized in 2003 and incentives of various kinds introduced to underpin jobseeker and employment consultant activation. Informed by New Public Management (NPM), the reforms are intended to improve effectiveness and efficiency by addressing the problems of information asymmetry at different levels of the system. However, operationalizing NPM principles generated technical and regulatory challenges, and in this case, the incentive framework undermines some of the reform’s basic assumptions. This can trigger jobseekers’ and consultants’ rational decision-making behaviours which run contrary to programme expectations, hence generating suboptimal performance.     

Labour standards and capacity in global subcontracting chains: evidence from a construction MNC

This article investigates how fundamental labour rights specified in international framework agreements are implemented and monitored in subcontracting chains. It shows how labour's capacity for workplace‐based monitoring is influenced by factors such as ownership structures, the societal context, and, most importantly, the institutions and dynamics of local labour control.     

GROWTH, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY: A CAUTIONARY NOTE

Economic growth had less impact on poverty rates in the 1980s than in the 1960s. Could this be explained by Locke Anderson's observation that the higher median income, the greater the amount of growth needed to achieve a percentage point fall in the poverty rate? No, higher poverty rates are due instead to the rise in income inequality. With higher inequality, however, trickle down could be as effective in the 1990s as it was in the late 1960s. More generally, assessments of anti-poverty policy must recognize that inequality is as vital to changes in the poverty rate as growth in mean income.     

Destination Ireland: an ancestral and emotional connection for the American tourist

The direction of the research in this paper is dictated by the particular characteristics attaching to the special relationship that exists between Ireland and the USA. In order to understand the complexities that govern the motivating factors underlying American tourist interest in Ireland, this research examines the singular historical, psychological, emotional, and connectional dimensions that will afford us the knowledge from which deductible theories, conclusions, and recommendations can be extracted. This paper, therefore, seeks to outline the historical framework governing the development of the relationship between the USA and Ireland, and identifies the historical, ancestral, emotional, and connectional factors that bind the two nations. This research presents new empirical findings on the American tourist's quest for ancestral tangibility in destination Ireland. Destination Ireland is marketed in a highly competitive environment and the future of the Irish tourism industry will inevitably be dependent on the ability of tourism industry managers to deliver new viable options and motivations to travel to Ireland. A significant finding in this current research suggests that the development of an ancestral product would address this requirement in the market place.     

One foot in,one foot out: how does individuals' external search breadth affect innovation outcomes?

The “variance hypothesis” predicts that external search breadth leads to innovation outcomes, but people have limited attention for search and cultivating breadth consumes attention. How does individuals' search breadth affect innovation outcomes? How does individuals' allocation of attention affect the efficacy of search breadth? We matched survey data with complete patent records, to examine the search behaviors of elite boundary spanners at IBM. Surprisingly, individuals who allocated attention to people inside the firm were more innovative. Individuals with high external search breadth were more innovative only when they allocated more attention to those sources. Our research identifies limits to the “variance hypothesis” and reveals two successful approaches to innovation search: “cosmopolitans” who cultivate and attend to external people and “locals” who draw upon internal people. © 2014 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

‘Such unjustificable practices’?: Irish trade,settlement, and society in France, 1688–1715

This article explores Irish migration, settlement, and commerce in the Atlantic coast ports of France in the period between the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9 and the Jacobite uprising of 1715. Drawing on extensive archival material and using current methodologies, this study suggests that the composition of society was vital in the development of international associations. This is particularly pertinent in a period characterized by warfare, religious fervour, and the rise of Jacobitism. Common allegiance to Catholicism and support for the Stuart dynasty in both Ireland and France provided a framework conducive to international cooperation, but the Irish who settled in France held both Catholic and Reformed beliefs, and were not necessarily products of the Jacobite movement. Migration and integration, and commercial practices and successes, were not determined solely by religious or political affiliation, but were influenced by the composition of society and the support and acceptance received by immigrants and traders therein. Through an analysis of the Franco‐Irish case study, it is concluded here that the social context of mercantile activity was just as responsible as the political or religious climate in governing the development of international commercial relationships in this period.