RATING SCALES NUMERIC VALUES MAY CHANGE THE MEANING OF SCALE LABELS

Three experiments indicate that the numeric values providedas part of a rating scale may influence respondents' interpretationof the endpoint labels. In experiment 1, a representative sampleof German adults rated their success in life along an 11-pointrating scale, with the endpoints labeled "not at all successful"and "extremely successful." When the numeric values ranged from0 ("not at all successful") to 10 ("extremely successful"),34 percent of the respondents endorsed values between 0 and5. However, only 13 percent endorsed formally equivalent valuesbetween –5 and 0, when the scale ranged from –5("not at all successful") to +5 ("extremely successful"). Experiment2 provided an extended conceptual replication of this finding,and experiment 3 demonstrates that recipients of a respondent'sreport draw different inferences from formally equivalent butnumerically different values. In combination, the findings indicatethat respondents use the numeric values to disambiguate themeaning of scale labels, resulting in different interpretationsand, accordingly, different subjective scale anchors.     

Multistakeholder initiatives in global production networks: naturalizing specific understandings of sustainability through the Better Cotton Initiative

In recent years, various academics, consultants, companies and NGOs have advocated a move towards more cooperative approaches to private sustainability standards to address the widely identified shortcomings of the compliance paradigm. However, is it possible to address these limitations by moving towards stakeholder inclusion and capacity building while at the same time catering to the demands of lead firms supplying the mainstream market? In this article, we analyse how the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) seeks to do just that, in the process identifying three key tensions and competing policy concerns with which standard‐setters have had to grapple – (a) stakeholder inclusion vs process‐control/efficiency; (b) stringency of the standard vs scale of production; and (c) capacity building vs auditing. Combining theoretical considerations about governance in global production networks (GPNs) with a convention theory perspective, we explore these inherent tensions and show that due to pre‐existing power relations in the cotton GPN, it is hard to develop more cooperative approaches because market and industrial values tend to win out despite efforts to follow current best practice on sustainability standard‐setting.     

BANKS,FREE BANKS,AND U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH

The “Federalist financial revolution” may have jump‐started the U.S. economy into modern growth, but the Free Banking System (1837–1862) did not play a direct role in sustaining it. Despite lowering entry barriers and extending banking into developing regions, we find in county‐level data that free banks had little or no effect on growth. The result is not just a symptom of the era, as state‐chartered banks seem to have strong and positive effects on manufacturing and urbanization. (JEL G21, N21, O43)     

The hostility triad: The contribution of negative emotions to organizational (un‐)wellness

The discourse of organisational wellness with its emphasis on the positive is seen here as too one‐sided. With discussion of three negative emotions—summarised as the hostility triad in the literature—and on the basis of a little incident that occurred during a major change in a large corporation, it will be shown how contempt, anger and disgust take place in everyday actions in organisations. A thesis deriving from research in cross‐cultural psychology will be presented indicating that negative emotions, compared to reasoning, play a more important role in moral judgement than often acknowledged. Disagreeable as the hostility triad may be, it deserves attention so we are able to take its effects on the relationship of different groups in organisations into consideration.     

Models,methods and tools for interorganizational logistics operations

Enterprise modelling is today one of the key techniques to improve the performances of an enterprise. This paper first defines enterprise modelling techniques as compared to BPR techniques. Then the latest developments in GRAI methodology are presented. Finally, examples of industrial applications are presented for three methods: GIM (GRAI Integrated Method) for re-engineering, GIMSOFT for the choice of an ERP software package and ECOGRAI for the design and implementation of performance indicator system.     

Exploring multivariate data using directions of high density

The most common techniques for graphically presenting a multivariate dataset involve projection onto a one or two-dimensional subspace. Interpretation of such plots is not always straightforward because projections are smoothing operations in that structure can be obscured by projection but never enhanced. In this paper an alternative procedure for finding interesting features is proposed that is based on locating the modes of an induced hyperspherical density function, and a simple algorithm for this purpose is developed. Emphasis is placed on identifying the non-linear effects, such as clustering, so to this end the data are firstly sphered to remove all of the location, scale and correlational structure. A set of simulated bivariate data and artistic qualities of painters data are used as examples.