Materialism and Quality of Life

An attempt is made in this paper to establish a foundation for a theory of materialism and quality of life. The theory posits that overall life satisfaction (quality of life) is partly determined by satisfaction with standard of living. Satisfaction with standard of living, in turn, is determined by evaluations of one's actual standard of living compared to a set goal. Materialists experience greater dissatisfaction with their standard of living than nonmaterialists, which in turn spills over to overall life causing dissatisfaction with life in general. Materialists experience dissatisfaction with their standard of living because they set standard of living goals that are inflated and unrealistically high. These goals set by materialists are more influenced by affective-based expectations (such as ideal, deserved, and need-based expectations) than cognitive-based ones (such as predictive, past, and ability based expectations). Materialists' ideal standard-of-living expectations are influenced by social comparisons involving remote referents, more so than comparisons involving standards that are situationally imposed. Examples of situationally-imposed standards are perceptions of wealth, income, and material possessions of family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and so on. In contrast, examples of standards based on remote sources are perceptions of standard of living of others in one's community, town, state, country, other countries; perceptions of standard of living of others based on gender, age, education, ethnicity, occupation, and social class. This tendency to use remote referents in social comparisons may account for materialists' inflated and value-laden expectations of their standard of living. Materialists' deserved standard-of-living expectations are influenced by the tendency to engage in equity comparisons involving income and work. Thus, materialists compare themselves with others that seem to have more income and worked no harder. These equity comparisons generate feelings of inequity, injustice, anger, or envy. These emotions may also account for materialists' inflated and value-laden expectations of their standard of living. Materialists' standard-of-living expectations based on minimum needs are influenced by the tendency to spend more than generate income. This proclivity to overconsume and underproduce may be partly responsible for materialists' inflated and value-laden expectations of their standard of living.     

BUSINESS COMBINATION DECISIONS: A U.S./CANADA STUDY*

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the motives behind business combination decisions. Twenty-one favorable characteristics associated with the motivations for business combinations were selected to serve as the basis for an empirical survey. Our analysis revealed that there are seven motivational variables of varying import and that the motivations underlying business combination decisions are similar for U.S. and Canadian executives.     

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS WITH INTERACTION EFFECTS

The purpose of this paper is to extend the sensitivity analysis methodology as it applies to linear programming. The methodology developed herein is concerned with those changes in a technological coefficient that cause simultaneous changes in the relevant cost coefficients of the objective function. By proceeding from the definitions of feasibility and optimality, the authors develop formulas for determining bounds on the extent to which a technological coefficient, which has a predetermined effect on the corresponding cost coefficient, can vary without changing the optimal set of activities. After the formulas are developed, their use is demonstrated on a product-mix problem. This technique is of interest because changes in the rate at which an input is utilized can be expected to change the cost per unit of a resulting product. This interdependence should be recognized whenever a sensitivity analysis is performed on a technological coefficient of either a cost minimization or a contribution margin maximization problem.     

Vocational education,self‐employment and burnout among Australian workers

We examine the relationship between vocational education and occupational burnout among workers in different forms of employment. Although the self‐employed enjoy higher levels of job autonomy and work‐related satisfaction, we do not know whether they experience lower rates of occupational burnout, and whether vocational education plays a role in this relationship. This latter consideration is important, given that vocational qualifications often lead to self‐employment and prior research demonstrated that formal training may reduce burnout. However, formal education was previously measured in years of schooling, without considering the distinction between academically‐oriented and vocational courses. Therefore, using data from a 2001 national survey of working Australians, we first establish that the self‐employed are significantly less likely to experience burnout. We then demonstrate that some resilience to burnout can be attributed to the attainment of skilled vocational training, net of employment characteristics which are also very important.     

Reciprocal Family,Friendship and Church Support Networks of African Americans: Findings from the National Survey of American Life

This study examined reciprocal support networks involving extended family, friends and church members among African Americans. Our analysis examined specific patterns of reciprocal support (i.e., received only, gave only, both gave and received, neither gave or received), as well as network characteristics (i.e., contact and subjective closeness) as correlates of reciprocal support. The analysis is based on the African American subsample of the National Survey of American Life. Overall, our findings indicate that African Americans are very involved in reciprocal support networks with their extended family, friends and church members. Respondents were most extensively involved in reciprocal supports with extended family members, followed closely by friends and church networks. Network characteristics (i.e., contact and subjective closeness) were significantly and consistently associated with involvement with reciprocal support exchanges for all three networks. These and other findings are discussed in detail. This study complements previous work on the complementary roles of family, friend and congregational support networks, as well as studies of racial differences in informal support networks.     

Strategic Design Responsiveness: An Empirical Analysis of US Retail Store Networks

This study uses a service operations management (SOM) strategy lens to investigate chain store retailers' strategic design responsiveness (SDR)—a term that captures the degree to which retailers dynamically coordinate investments in human and structural capital with the complexity of their service and product offerings. Labor force and physical capital are respectively used as proxies for investments in human capital and structural capital, whereas gross margins are proxies for product/service offering complexity. Consequently, SDR broadly reflects three salient complementary choices of SOM design strategy. We test the effects of “brick and mortar” chain store retailers' SDR on current and future firm performance using publically available panel data collected from Compustat and the University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index databases for the period 1996–2011. We find that retailers that fail to keep pace with investments in both structural and human capital exhibit short‐term financial benefits, but have worse ongoing operational performance. These findings corroborate the importance of managers strategically maintaining the complementarity of design‐related choices for improving and maintaining business performance.     

The Effects of Multitasking on Operations Scheduling

This study considers a typical scheduling environment that is influenced by the behavioral phenomenon of multitasking. Under multitasking, the processing of a selected job suffers from interruption by other jobs that are available but unfinished. This situation arises in a wide variety of applications; for example, administration, manufacturing, and process and project management. Several classical solution methods for scheduling problems no longer apply in the presence of multitasking. The solvability of any scheduling problem under multitasking is no easier than that of the corresponding classical problem. We develop optimal algorithms for some fundamental and practical single machine scheduling problems with multitasking. For other problems, we show that they are computationally intractable, even though in some cases the corresponding problem in classical scheduling is efficiently solvable. We also study the cost increase and value gained due to multitasking. This analysis informs companies about how much it would be worthwhile to invest in measures to reduce or encourage multitasking.     

Consumption Dynamics During Recessions

Are there times when durable spending is less responsive to economic stimulus? We argue that aggregate durable expenditures respond more sluggishly to economic shocks during recessions because microeconomic frictions lead to declines in the frequency of households' durable adjustment. We show this by first using indirect inference to estimate a heterogeneous agent incomplete markets model with fixed costs of durable adjustment to match consumption dynamics in PSID microdata. We then show that aggregating this model delivers an extremely procyclical Impulse Response Function (IRF) of durable spending to aggregate shocks. For example, the response of durable spending to an income shock in 1999 is estimated to be almost twice as large as if it occurred in 2009. This procyclical IRF holds in response to standard business cycle shocks as well as in response to various policy shocks, and it is robust to general equilibrium. After estimating this robust theoretical implication of micro frictions, we provide additional direct empirical evidence for its importance using both cross‐sectional and time‐series data.