Quantifying experts' uncertainty about the future cost of exotic diseases

Since the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak of 2001 in the United Kingdom, there has been debate about the sharing, between government and industry, both the costs of livestock disease outbreaks and responsibility for the decisions that give rise to them. As part of a consultation into the formation of a new body to manage livestock diseases, government veterinarians and economists produced estimates of the average annual costs for a number of exotic infectious diseases. In this article, we demonstrate how the government experts were helped to quantify their uncertainties about the cost estimates using formal expert elicitation techniques. This has enabled the decisionmakers to have a greater appreciation of government experts' uncertainty in this policy area.     

Trends in and determinants of outcomes in multi-union certification elections

We use data on 68,000 single-union and 3,600 multi-union elections during the years 1977–1994 to investigate factors influencing outcomes of multi-union elections. We find that, even though the win rate is much higher in multi-union as opposed to singleunion elections, the factors influencing the outcomes are surprisingly similar.     

Anthropology, class and the 'big heads': an ethnography of distinctions between 'rough' and 'posh' amongst women workers in the UK pottery industry

In the context of the take‐over by a global corporation (Royal Doulton) of a family‐owned and run pottery factory in Longton Stoke‐on‐Trent, known as ‘Beswick’, and the subsequent re‐structuring of production, this paper explores the way in which women pottery workers make social distinctions between the ‘rough’ and ‘posh’, ‘proper paintresses’ and ‘big heads’ which cut into and across abstract sociological notions of class. Drawing on ethnographic data I show that for these working class women, class as lived is inherently ambiguous and contradictory and reveal the ways in which class is gendered. I build on historical and sociological studies of the pottery industry, and anthropological and related debates on class, as well as Frankenberg's study of a Welsh village, to develop my argument and draw analogies between factory and village at a number of levels. My findings support the view that class is best understood not as an abstract generalising category, but in the local and specific contexts of women's working lives.     

LIQUIDITY AND INEFFICIENT INVESTMENT

We study consumer liquidity in a general equilibrium model where the friction is the nonpledgeability of future income. Liquidity helps to overcome the absence of a double coincidence of wants. Consumers over‐hoard liquidity and the resulting competitive equilibrium is constrained inefficient. Fiscal policy following a large negative shock can increase ex‐ante welfare. If the government cannot commit, the ex‐post optimal fiscal policy will be too small from an ex‐ante perspective. The model throws light on the holding of foreign reserves in international markets.     

Employee fitness programmes, absenteeism and general well-being

Increasingly, European organizations are developing employee fitness programmes (EFPs) on the assumption that doing so will improve the health, well-being and work performance of employees. Although rigorous evaluation is not common practice among these organizations, this study represents an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of an EFP at the headquarters of the ING bank in Amsterdam. The study focused on possible changes in absenteeism, general well-being, self-confidence and perceived physical condition among EFP participants and non-participants over a 12-month period. Data were collected from 152 white-collar employees subdivided into four groups on the basis of participation or non-participation in the bank's EFP. The results indicated that taking part in an EFP could lead to a significant decrease in absenteeism amongst both regular and irregular participants. With respect to employee general well-being, scores on the factor 'worn out' did not differ significantly among the four groups. Differences between a non-exercising group and both EFP and non-EFP exercising groups' scores on the general well-being factor 'up-tight' approached significance. No significant differences in self-confidence between the groups were obtained, but significant differences in perceived physical fitness were apparent.     

Judgments about personal identity in childhood and adolescence

Judgments concerning personal identity were studied in children and adolescents. Each subject was asked to imagine entering a hypothetical machine which simultaneously produced two persons, with each person receiving one of four sets of the subject's characteristics: physical, active, social, or psychological. Subjects were asked to judge which of the resulting persons was most nearly identical with the self. Results from the first study with middle-class Americans demonstrated that the social characteristics are most frequently chosen by young adolescents. With age, the physical characteristics were less frequently selected and the psychological characteristics were more often selected. In Study 2, middle-class American children between the ages of 6 to 7 judged the psychological characteristics of self most important in preserving identity, even though their self-concepts as elicited by other methods appeared physicalistic. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for accounts of self-concept development.     

Interdependence in Dating and Cohabiting Relationships: The Role of Cognitive Interdependence,Commitment, and Marital Intent

This study uses Interdependence Theory, specifically cognitive interdependence and the investment model of commitment, to further understand the impact of marital intent in cohabiting versus dating relationships. Contrary to the hypothesis posed, results revealed that individuals in cohabiting relationships and dating relationships experience similar levels of interdependence. However, people who report an intent to marry their partner, whether dating or cohabiting, have higher degrees of centrality of relationship, commitment, satisfaction, investments, and a lower level of perceived relationship alternatives than those who did not report marital intent. The results of this study suggest that marital intent may work similarly in dating relationships and cohabiting relationships, and that Interdependence Theory has utility for understanding why marital intent makes a difference in relational stability.     

How a Learning-Oriented Organizational Climate is Linked to Different Proactive Behaviors: The Role of Employee Resilience

Social Indicators Research - This study develops and tests a model of the relationship between a learning-oriented organizational climate, employee individual resilience and three broad categories...     

Radical Authentic Leadership: Co-creating the conditions under which all members of the organization can be authentic

Recently, in response to ethical challenges and loss of meaning within business, leadership theory and research has seen a proliferation of literature on ‘Authentic Leadership’. In this paper we argue that Authentic Leadership (AL), in the way it is currently theorized, is in danger of not reaching its stated objectives. We systematically address the “paradoxes” and shortcomings in current theory and suggest an extended focus of study. To do so, we draw on four existential authenticity themes: 1) inauthenticity is inevitable; 2) authenticity requires creating one's own meaning; 3) authenticity does not imply goal and value congruence, 4) authenticity is not intrinsically ethical. We systematically pursue the implications of these themes for the future development of Authentic Leadership theory and propose a more radical form of AL in which the focus of study shifts from the individual leader to understanding the conditions under which all members of the organization behave authentically. We suggest this is more likely to achieve the objectives of Authentic Leadership theory.