The Value Relevance of Fair Value

This paper investigates the value relevance of revalued tangible assets and its variation depending on industry, size of the firm and age of revalued amounts. It examines the reaction of investors on the Romanian market, a developing market, in the period of economic growth between 2003 and 2007, before Romania’s adherence to the European Union. Also, it suggests a model which allows for the comparative analysis of the influence over share price attributed to two equity growth sources: revaluation reserves and operational profit. The findings confirm the central hypothesis of the study—revaluated amounts of tangible assets are value relevant—and verify the predictive and feedback value, timeliness, reliability, and the possibilities for fair value implementation, characteristics which have been selected for testing. However, the results are less consistent than the outcome of the variable which reflects the equity growth due to profit, which leads to a moderate value relevance of fair value in the case of revaluated tangible assets. The value relevance analysis on clusters verifies the established hypotheses regarding the superiority of value relevance for the manufacturing sector as opposed to the service sector and of revaluations older than 2 years compared to more recent revaluations. The hypothesis regarding higher value relevance of revaluated amounts disclosed by large firms compared to SMEs is not confirmed, as only the latter presented significant statistical values.     

Ruin Value

In this article I consider Albert Speer’s theory of ruin value through a discussion of the work of two Weimar theorists of ruination, Ernst Jünger and Walter Benjamin. The first section of the article relates Speer’s original theory of ruins to Nazi ideology. After this consideration of the Nazi obsession with ruination, the second division of the article explores the work of Jünger in terms of his problematic relation to National Socialism. Beyond this investigation of Jünger’s work the final section of the article argues against what I call the Weimar right’s version of ruin value through an elaboration of Walter Benjamin’s catastrophic utopianism. In this section of the article my argument is that it is possible to save the concept of ruin value for the cause of human emancipation through the construction of a critical theory that seeks to oppose the politics of memory to the ideological necrophilia of the Weimar right and National Socialism.     

Value added

Strategic Giving: The Art and Science of Philanthropy, by Peter Frumkin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 458 pp., $39.00 cloth.     

The Value Profile: A Factor Analytic Study of Value Statements*

The Value Profile is a general purpose inventory of values developed for use in research on interpersonal relations. Eight hundred and seventy-two value statements were collected from tests of values, personality tests, theoretical treatments of values, and statements made by subjects in group discussions. A factor analysis of 143 items representing all value positions yielded four orthogonal factors: I, Acceptance of Authority; II, Need-determined Expression vs. Value-determined Restraint; III, Equalitarianism; and IV, Individualism. The underlying factor space seems to be congruent with that obtained by Morris, and others, and provides a means of relating existing theoretical classifications of value positions to each other.     

The Value of Adoption

ABSTRACT

Recent work shows that the governmental cost of adoption is about half the cost of long-term foster care for children whose birth parents' rights have been terminated. Because adoption is also associated with greater accumulation of human and social capital, the total savings to government in areas such as special education and criminal justice is of the same magnitude as the child welfare savings. The private benefit to adopted children in terms of additional income earned over their working lives is similarly large. In all, a dollar spent on the adoption of a child from foster care yields about three dollars in benefits.     

Measuring Social Enterprise Value Creation

This article presents a case study that explores the creation of value by a social enterprise, Furniture Bank, for its stakeholders. The study is undertaken using the social return on investment framework. The case highlights insights and caveats that resulted from undertaking this type of analysis. This article calls for an integrated approach to social return on investment processes, incorporating both conventional accounting and social accounting.     

The Sexual Value System*

This paper has adopted an historical approach in order to elucidate the principal schools of thought which account for the differences among peoples' sexual value systems. It is argued that differential development is a manifestation of the conflict which exists over the moral implications of sexual behavior. Three traditions are identified as the primary forces influencing the developmental process associated with the acquisition of a sexual value system. The three systems of inquiry are examined for their variant interpretations of sex. Attention also is focused on the implications the three traditions have for contemporary sex counselors.     

The Value of Premarital Education

Premarital education programs have been designed with the aim of helping prospective spouses examine and evaluate their relationship prior to marriage. It is widely considered as preventative skills training and assumes that exposing couples to the skills to improve their relationship will help them deal with interpersonal difficulties as they arise. Skills commonly included in the programs involve communication, negotiation, problem-solving and decision making. There are a number of problems identified with the current status of premarital education programs including the atheoretical nature of most programs, the lack of specific goals in the program format, and poor evaluation procedures which are used to examine effectiveness. Overall it is concluded that although the concept of preparation for marriage is a good one, the current value of these programs is limited. A personal account of one premarital education program is also provided.     

Social Value Acquisition in Preschool Aged Children III. Internalization of Institutionalized Value Expectations*

This article is the last of a series of three concerned with studying the acquisition of social values in three-to-five year old children in an under-privileged area. Some of the children were reared under the dual influence of primary (mothers) and secondary (nursery teachers) socializing agents, and some of them were reared under the influence of primary agents only. The two groups of children were compared (i) for their internalization of the cultural values of self-reliance, cooperation, and compliance, (ii) for their integration among these internalized values, and (iii) for their congruity between conformity and internalization with respect to each value. Intelligence, nature of cultural expectations, the child's perceptions of the relevant expectations, and the quality of maternal acceptance of the child were additional independent variables considered in the study. Nursery children were found to have greater internalization of self-reliance and cooperation, to display higher value integration, and greater congruity with regard to compliance. Intelligence was positively correlated with internalization of each value and with integration. Level of maternal expectations was positively correlated with internalized self-reliance and cooperation. Perceptions of expectations were positively correlated for the same values. Maternal acceptance of the child was positively correlated with internalization of cooperation and compliance, and with integration, while it was part of a higher-order interaction effect with maternal expectations and treatment group in the case of internalized self-reliance.     

The Value Base of Social Work

Values may be conceived along three basic dimensions which would account for the major value orientations shared by social workers and related to all aspects of their professional practice. These are: preferred conceptions of people, preferred outcomes for people, and preferred instrumentalities for dealing with people. Distinguished from “knowledge,” and adequately refined, these categories of values might constitute a guide for planning and action in social work practice and education. The predictability of professional behavior which might then result would also define the expectations of clients and society with respect to what the social work profession stands for and what it does.     

后现代主义思潮与大学生价值观嬗变

进入新时期以来,在西方后现代主义思潮的浸染下,我国大学生的价值观发生了嬗变:由单一向多元转变、集体向个人位移、理想向世俗变动,甚至呈现出与我国社会主义核心价值观相背离的风险。后现代主义语境下的这一嬗变,因循于社会结构的变迁和大学生思维的非真实化变动,并深刻地受到大众传媒低俗化的影响。面对大学生价值观取向的变迁,引导大学生正确认识后现代主义思潮、强化大学生价值观再培育、发挥社会主义核心价值观的整合作用显得尤为重要。     

交往生活和价值选择

多元时代的交往生活考验着大学生的价值选择,也为提高大学生的价值判断和价值内化能力增加难度。概括、提炼大学生核心价值观理念,构建当代大学生核心价值观,是培养社会主义事业合格建设者和可靠接班人的必然要求。要取得培育大学生核心价值观的实效,必须从内化到外化、从灌输到交往、从教育条目到生活世界入手,引导大学生认同核心价值观,形成思想共识,并转化为自觉追求和行为实践。     

The Value of Seeking Financial Advice

Retirement planning data gathered from an online survey at a large university in October 2009 are used to examine differences in a variety of retirement planning measures between people who have and have not met with a financial advisor. Problems of self-selection and endogeneity are addressed through the use of propensity scores. The study’s major finding is that working with an advisor is related to several important financial planning activities, including goal setting, calculation of retirement needs, retirement account diversification, use of supplemental retirement accounts, accumulation of emergency funds, positive behavioral responses to the recent economic crisis, and retirement confidence. Use of a financial advisor was not related to self-reported retirement savings or short-term growth in retirement account asset values.     

Managing Organizational Social Capital through Value Configurations

Nonprofits are said to serve as places for the reproduction of social capital. However, little is known about how to manage social capital in a nonprofit. This article presents a theory‐based perspective on how to plan, execute, and measure social capital production in a nonprofit organization. By using the concept of value configurations as a method to analyze and describe the creation of organizational social capital, bonding and bridging social capital can be managed in alternative ways. In a value shop framework, the participants are more homogeneous, and growth is heavily based on referrals and reputation as well as the quality of the members. Organizations managed as value shops will foster bonding social capital. In contrast, a value network framework incorporates more likely heterogeneous, multilevel participants that add legitimacy to the network. Organizations in this framework will strengthen the evolution of bridging social capital.