A “brer rabbit” case for reverse mandated benefits

Reverse mandated benefits is a government-mandated policy that requires employees to provide their employers with benefits that workers would not provide otherwise. Of course, only those benefits would be mandated that are worth more to employers than they cost, as determined by political authorities. My case for such a policy argues that it is at least as sensible as policies mandating that employers provide benefits to their employees that would not be provided otherwise.     

Risk,trust and knowledge networks in farmers’ learning

This study reports on New Zealand dairy farmers’ access to and use of information as mediated through conditions of risk and trust within the context of their interpersonal social networks. We located participants’ reports of their information use within their perceived environments of trust and risk, following Giddens's [1990. The consequences of modernity. Polity Press, Stanford, CA] typology of trust and risk in pre-modernity and modernity. The research participants were constant users of interpersonal and print information from numerous sources, and monitored their incoming data in the light of strategic needs, reflecting their roles as both farming practitioners and business owners. Socio-spatial knowledge networks (SSKNs) combine individuals’ explanatory cognitive models of information acquisition and use with a micro-geographical analysis of their interpersonal networks. The participants showed characteristics of pre-modern, modern and even post-modern society in respect of their use of complex interactional forms, as well as a blending of individualistic and communitarian practices and concerns in their professional and personal lives.     

Problem gambling and policy advice: The mutability and relative effects of structural,associational and attitudinal variables

Research on gambling has the double mandate of public service and the advancement of science. This paper is meant to carry forward that mandate. Latent in research on the causes of problem gambling is the policy insight that these causes represent different types of phenomena and are unequally mutable to practitioners' efforts to prevent and/or treat problem gambling. By making the issue of mutability manifest in research, findings from research would have more policy relevance and practical import. Data from a 1989 Iowa survey on lottery play and problem gambling are analyzed to illustrate this point. 1,226 respondents were contacted by phone and phone interviews were completed with 1,011 of these 1,226 eligible respondents. With multiple regression, we assessed the contributions of mutable and immutable variables to the explained variance in problem gambling. The results show mutable correlates explain enough variance in problem gambling to recommend their consideration in treatment/prevention. The results also suggest a social as well as a psychological etiology to problem gambling. Future research should, however, do a more complete comparison of social and psychological causes of problem gambling.This research was partially supported by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the National Institute of Mental Health (1 R01 MH50369-01A1). The authors wish to thank Willis Goudy, anonymous readers and the editor of this journal for helpful comments.     

Colonialization and community: Implications for first nations development

First Nations' communities have been a major focus for the longhistory of colonial action in Canada. The results have beendisastrous for Native cultural, identity and pride. Four majorcommunity institutions – political, economic, religiousand educational and the family – have been devastated.This has robbed Aboriginal Nations of their identity and theirsense that they have the ability effectively to manage theirenvironments and has contributed significantly to their disadvantagedposition within Canada. If community development is to be utilized in First Nationscommunities, four objectives must be addressed: (1) strengtheningcommunity traditions and culture; (2) development of culturallyappropriate community-based organizations; (3) reflection onthe importance of land for local communities; (4) the forgingof links between local and national issues.     

Immigrants' Language Skills and Visa Category1

This article is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency among immigrants in a longitudinal survey for Australia. It focuses on both visa category and variables derived from an economic model of the determinants of destination‐language proficiency among immigrants. Skills‐tested and economic immigrants have the greatest proficiency shortly after immigration, followed by family‐based visa recipients, with refugees having the lowest proficiency. Other variables the same, these differences disappear by 3.5 years after immigration for speaking skills; and although they diminish, they persist longer for reading and writing skills. The variables generated from the model of destination‐language proficiency (such as schooling and age at migration) are, in part, predictions of visa category, but they are more important statistically for explaining proficiency.     

Joint impact of multiple observations on a subset of variables in multiple linear regression

In multiple linear regression analysis, each observation affects the fitted regression equation differently and has varying influences on the regression coefficients of the different variables. Chatterjee & Hadi (1988) have proposed some measures such as DSSE_ij (Impact on Residual Sum of Squares of simultaneously omitting the ith observation and the jth variable), F_j (Partial F-test for the jth variable) and F_j(i) (Partial F-test for the jth variable omitting the ith observation) to show the joint impact and the interrelationship that exists among a variable and an observation. In this paper we have proposed more extended form of those measures DSSE_IJ, F_J and F_J(I) to deal with the interrelationships that exist among the multiple observations and a subset of variables by monitoring the effects of the simultaneous omission of multiple variables and multiple observations.     

How can David orchestrate resources to enhance firm performance? A dynamic approach to coping with resource constraints

Given that the possession of abundant resources does not always guarantee superior firm performance, this study proposes a dynamic approach to enhancing firm value. Building on the resource orchestration thesis, we investigate how firms facing resource constraints enhance their capabilities over time by orchestrating resources and how this resource orchestration can play a role in improving firm performance. Using the dynamic perspective, this study identifies four resource orchestration modes, which are specified based on how a given firm dynamically allocates its resources to technology (enacted by R&D activities) and marketing (enacted by advertising activities). Accordingly, we claim that firms with resource constraints can enhance their performance by escalating or altering their resources over time. To test our hypotheses, we used a sample of 4078 small and medium-sized enterprises in manufacturing industries between 1984 and 2018. We found that focus escalation for technology positively affects firm performance, captured by Tobin's q, and that focus alternation toward either technology or market is positively related to firm performance. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

Who Pays? Can We Pay Them Back?

This chapter is about a very old question that is thrown up again in discussion related to ANT. Do orders have necessary limits to what can belong to them? It is possible to read ANT as containing or demanding a moral commitment to the inclusion of the disenfranchised. It can often seem to be in the business of giving credit where credit is due, spreading recognition to even the most unexpected quarters. To sustain itself such a morality would depend on the possibility of infinite inclusion. By identifying this picture of 'belonging-by-assemblage' and its traditional counterpart 'belonging-by-banishment' and by finding both at play within ANT, the papers argues that ANT is an ethical rather than a moral enterprise, bringing the unanswered question of the nature of belonging to bear across domains, rather than approaching each domain with a 'cookie-cutter' moral formula. The disturbing 'unsecuring' of belonging that ANT involves continues within the philosophical tradition ANT trades on and contributes to in the form of an abiding controversy over the place of the natural world.     

Sex preference versus number preference: the case of Korea

The author argues that the effect of sex preference must be disentangled from the effect of number preference in Korea. This study tests--with hazard models--the effect of the number of previous children on the next birth according to the sex composition of previous children. Data were obtained from the 1974 Korean Fertility Survey. This paper also analyzes the timing of childbearing in recent periods in order to determine whether replacement-level fertility is temporary or permanent. The ideal number of children declined from 3.9 children in 1965 to 2.1 in 1991. The age-specific fertility rates for ages 20-24 years declined rapidly during the late 1980s. The fertility rates among women aged 25-29 years and 30-34 years increased during 1985-90. The proportion of fertility among women aged 20-29 years increased from 67.9% in 1975 to 86.6% in 1984. Women born in the late baby boom period of the late 1950s to mid-1960s reached prime reproductive age during the late 1980s and 1990s, but the crude birth rate remained about the same during 1985-92. A higher percentage of women (22.4%) born during 1955-59 remained single in 1990. During 1960-90, the percentage of women aged 20-24 years who were married declined. These trends indicate later age at childbearing and an explanation for the temporary nature of below-replacement fertility in the late 1980s. Korean women did not want to have more than 2 children, and the interval between first and second births increased since 1985. Among pregnancies of parity 2 conceived since 1985, over 90% of women with at least one son ended subsequent pregnancies by abortion compared to only 59% without sons. Hazard models of 1974 data reveal that son preference had an important effect on fertility. Fertility was higher among women with only daughters. Findings suggest that the value of sons must be measured at the societal and not at the individual level.