The thrust to free trade: Conviction or fashion

Recently many developing countries flocked to free trade because the forces that led policymakers to resist trade reforms in the past have weakened. Apart from obvious external pressures from lending institutions, developing countries may simply have seen that cooperation promises more benefits than conflict in the area of international trade. The ideological debate between market forces and government planning has been decided in favor of market forces. However, another possibility not much considered is that trade reform is in vogue and this provides the motivation for following suit. Thus, trade reform can precipitate a cascade effect (Hirshleifer's term) of countries queuing up to adopt trade reform policies. A country is more likely to favor the notion of trade reform if two or more other countries have already successfully moved in that direction.     

Retail change: effects on employees' job demands and home life

Causes and effects of occupational stress have received research attention for several decades, with increasing focus during the 1990s as organizations and individual workers attempt to adapt to economic change. Stress arising from either the work or home domain can have a variety of outcomes in the workplace, and similarly can impact in many ways on relationships and activities at home. This paper reports the first phase of a research study to identify the impact on work and home life of changes in retailing, a sector of the economy which has experienced significant change over the past few years. A qualitative methodology was adopted, using group discussions to allow staff to identify the specific changes in retailing most important for themselves, and then to explore how these changes related to satisfactions and dissatisfactions at work, and their impact on general aspects of home life. The results suggest that the 'spillover' relationship between work and home stress seems to be the most useful in describing the impact of change. This suggests that additional role demands at work brought about by change have an impact on relationships and social life outside work. However, some individuals described instances of 'compensation' between work and home, and independence between the two domains. This suggests that the issue of stress in the home/work interface is complex, and that the demands in each domain may be positively or negatively related depending on characteristics of the demands themselves, or may vary according to individual characteristics of the people in the study.     

Humor and cognitive responses to advertising stimuli: A trace consolidation approach

Despite the predictions of several attitude change theories, most empirical research suggests that humorous communications are no more persuasive than their serious counterparts. The present study adopted a trace consolidation theory approach and tested the hypothesis that humorous appeals are more persuasive than serious appeals when time for trace consolidation is allowed. The trace consolidation theory hypothesis was supported most directly by shifts in cognitive responses. On some measures, sex differences were also observed. Specifically, males were found to be more susceptible than females to the humorous persuasive appeal.     

Numbers don't lie—do they?

It's easy to forget that behind every number is a person trying to impress, mislead, or please an interviewer.     

Equality for women?

Many women still perceive men as their superiors in intellect. Although this double standard is dying, it is dying oh, so slowly.