The role,power and influence of company chairs

This paper develops an analytical framework to depict the heterogeneity that characterises the role of board chair and demonstrate the potential variability in how chairs operate boards and exercise power and influence on strategy, control and resource related tasks at board level. Theories of power and influence, as applied to top management teams and boards of directors, are explicated within the context of contemporary governance practices that are establishing the role of the board chair as distinct to that of the chief executive officer. Specifically, the paper maps sources of power and varying contemporary chair practices, including chair nomenclature (i.e. executive vs. non-executive chairs), chair origin (insider vs. outsider) and chair time (full-time vs. part-time). A number of theoretical chair-power models emerge from this analysis and are subject to empirical analysis using data collected from 160 chairs of 500 FTSE-listed companies. Theoretically and empirically, the paper complements structural approaches to studying boards with attention to behaviour on boards. By linking board structure, board process and the exercise of influence, the study reveals both differences amongst chairs in how they run the board, but also that chairs’ differ in the influence they exert on board-related tasks. Full-time executive chairs exert their greatest influence in strategy and resource dependence tasks whereas part-time, non-executive chairs seem to exert more influence over monitoring and control tasks.     

Cultural analysis through semiotics: Len Norris' cartoons on official bilingualism*

Les caricatures éditoriales forment un métalangage pour parler de l'ordre social. Elles créent des mondes imaginaires qui permettent une nouvelle perspective sur le monde actuel en renversant certains de ses traits. Les dessins de Len Norris sur le bilinguisme montrent un monde carnavalesque. Dans les légendes ses personnages offrent des commentaires sur notre monde et captent le parcoureur, qui doit avouer que ces bouffons ont remarqué ce qui nous avait échappé. Les optiques sémiologiques de Greimas et d'Angenot permettent d'éclairer et de situer le modèle linguistique de Norris, et son avertissement qu'une nouvelle lingua franca fédérate est en train de remplacer symboliquement et le français et l'anglais. Editorial cartoons are a metalanguage for discourse about the social order. They create imaginary worlds which allow a fresh perspective on the present world by inverting certain of its features. Len Norris' cartoons on bilingualism portray a zany imaginary world, whose characters comment in the captions on our world and trap the skimmer into admitting that these fools have noticed something which we have missed. Greimas' and Angenot's semiotic approaches serve to elicit and situate Norris' elaborate model of language skills, and his message about the symbolic replacement of both French and English by federal bilingualese.     

Follow-up of male pathological gamblers after treatment: The relationship of intellectual variables to relapse

Male pathological gamblers entering a comprehensive treatment program were followed-up for twelve months after treatment completion. Twelve month follow-up was obtained for 45 of the 66 patients entering treatment. Total abstinence was reported by 55% (n=25) of the patients located for twelve month follow-up. A relationship was found between abstinence at six month follow-up and selected subscales of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, performance scale. The implications of these findings for sub-typing gamblers are discussed.     

ASYMPTOTIC LIKELIHOOD APPROXIMATIONS USING A PARTIAL LAPLACE APPROXIMATION

Elimination of a nuisance variable is often non‐trivial and may involve the evaluation of an intractable integral. One approach to evaluate these integrals is to use the Laplace approximation. This paper concentrates on a new approximation, called the partial Laplace approximation, that is useful when the integrand can be partitioned into two multiplicative disjoint functions. The technique is applied to the linear mixed model and shows that the approximate likelihood obtained can be partitioned to provide a conditional likelihood for the location parameters and a marginal likelihood for the scale parameters equivalent to restricted maximum likelihood (REML). Similarly, the partial Laplace approximation is applied to the t‐distribution to obtain an approximate REML for the scale parameter. A simulation study reveals that, in comparison to maximum likelihood, the scale parameter estimates of the t‐distribution obtained from the approximate REML show reduced bias.     

Digital Image Processing

Many of the tasks encountered in image processing can be considered as problems in statistical inference. In particular, they fit naturally into a subjectivist Bayesian framework. In this paper, we describe the Bayesian approach to image analysis. Numerical examples are not included but can be found among the references, in the previous Special Issue of this Journal and elsewhere. It is argued that the Bayesian approach, still in its infancy, has considerable potential for future development.     

The Lottery and Income Inequality in the States*

Objective. Since the early 1970s, income inequality in the United States has increased dramatically. We examine the impact of state lotteries on income inequality in the American states from 1976–1995. Methods. We use cross‐sectional time‐series data to evaluate the effect of lotteries as well as those of other state tax policies, redistributive programs, and demographic factors on income inequality. Results. We find that state lotteries foster income concentration. Ceteris paribus, states with lotteries have higher levels of income inequality than those states without a lottery. We also find that additional demographic and policy factors have an impact on income inequality in the states. Conclusions. One of the most important policy‐oriented determinants of income inequality is the lottery and a significant portion of the increase in income inequality over our two‐decade time period is attributable to the increasing prevalence and popularity of state lotteries.