Variable Royalty Rates for Improving Franchise Channel Coordination*

A business format franchisor obtains a major part of its revenues from franchise royalties, which are typically a fixed percentage of franchisee gross sales. When a fixed royalty rate is used and the marginal costs of operating the franchise are increasing, the franchisee does not have an incentive to increase sales beyond a certain “optimal” volume. We present a model that recommends the use of a variable franchise royalty rate for extending this optimal sales volume. For a general convex cost function, we show that a new lower rate can be applied to incremental sales beyond the original optimal level. We show that this new rate should be less than half of the original rate when a quadratic cost function is applicable. Adopting a variable royalty rate increases franchisor royalty revenues and franchisee profits.     

E-leadership: Re-examining transformations in leadership source and transmission

At the turn of the century, the first integrative review and conceptualization of the work on e-leadership was published in The Leadership Quarterly. During the late 1990's, with the rapid rise in advanced information technology (AIT) such as the Internet, e-mail, video conferencing, virtual teams, and groupware systems (GDSS), there were a number of authors beginning to examine how AIT would transform how organizations organize their work and the implications for leadership in those organizations. Much of this discussion fell under the broad label of “virtual” with authors at that time speculating how such technology might impact how leadership was practiced and investigated. Now, over a decade later, we re-examine how the theory, research, and practice domains have evolved with respect to the work on e-leadership and its implications for the way leadership functions. In this review, we have broadened the notion of what constitutes e-leadership, considering how AIT affects the leadership dynamic, how the leadership dynamic affects the faithful or unfaithful appropriation of AIT, how AIT can and is being used to develop leadership, and ultimately how each will shape how organizations function well into the future. In sum, we examine what we've learned about e-leadership, what needs to be learned, and what might constitute emerging topics that could drive the e-leadership agenda over the next decade and beyond.     

Is It a Pleasure to Eat Together? Theoretical Reflections on Conviviality and the Mediterranean Diet

In 2013 the Mediterranean Diet was recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of Spain, Greece, Italy and Morocco. Conviviality – the pleasure of eating together – was recognized as the cornerstone of food culture in the region. Although the concept of commensality has been explored widely in the literature, studies on conviviality and convivial dining are almost non‐existent. This review explores the concept of conviviality and its significance in relation to the Mediterranean Diet. It draws on sociological and anthropological literature to define conviviality and to address the perceived benefits of eating together as well as the social constraints on pleasurable meals. The paper draws upon the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his ideas of Habitus, Field and Cultural Capital, examining how these concepts relate to pleasurable eating and conviviality. It offers an interdisciplinary perspective on who and what makes conviviality happen and the potential obstacles to the experience and promotion of convivial dining.     

Divorce: obstacles and opportunities – South Asian women in Britain

As divorce rates appear to rise amongst South Asian communities in Britain the repercussions for their members remain invisible and neglected in the research literature. The paper argues that this oversight needs to be addressed as it explores the findings from two separate studies to highlight some of the possible ramifications of divorce on South Asian women. The experiences presented here show that whilst divorce can have the most devastating effects on women in terms of their exclusion, it also presents some opportunities and optimism for their future. Furthermore, divorced women can not only bring positive change to their own lives, but also in the process, transform the cultures in which they live.     

Patterns Of Residence In Poona,India, By Caste And Religion: 1822–1965

An analysis of the residential distribution of caste and religious groups in Poona (India) over the past century and a half shows distinctive patterns of segregation and centralization that have largely remained unchanged despite the city's growth and development. The upper castes are residentially centralized and the lower castes are decentralized in Poona. Such a centralization of the elite has been observed in most other past and present cities of the world, although the pattern is less common in the contemporary United States. The Jews and Parsees, and the Christians, tend to be highly segregated and decentralized in Poona. However, Negroes in large American cities are generally more highly segregated residentially than the Jews, Parsees, Christians, and even the depressed and untouchable castes in Poona. The American cities show an average degree of segregation of the foreign-born white ethnic groups, and of the native whites of foreign or mixed parentage, from the native whites that is as great, if not greater, than the mean extent of segregation of caste groups in this Indian city.     

E-leadership: Implications for theory, research, and practice

In this article we review literature to build a broad understanding of what constitutes e-leadership in organizations. We propose a framework based on Adaptive Structuration Theory that could be used to study how Advanced Information Technology could influence and is influenced by leadership. According to our framework, the effects of Advanced Information Technology emerge from their interaction with organizational structures of which leadership is a part. Furthermore, organizational structures, including leadership, may themselves be transformed as a result of interactions with Advanced Information Technology. We use our Adaptive Structuration Theory–based framework to pool relevant results and suggestions from a diverse array of literature to provide recommendations for developing a research agenda on e-leadership.     

Sequential testing procedures for a class of distributions representing various life-testing models

A class of probability density functions is considered, which covers several life-testing models as specific cases. Sequential probability ratio tests are developed for testing simple and composite hypotheses regarding the parameters of the probabilistic model. Expressions for the operating characteristic and the average sample number functions are derived and their behaviour is studied by means of graph-plotting.     

Effects of Source and Participant Anonymity and Difference in Initial Opinions in an EMS Context*

This laboratory experiment studied the effects of source and participant anonymity, and differences in initial opinions in an electronic meeting system (EMS) context. Results indicated that (a) inhibition to participate did not mediate the effect of anonymity on participation as suggested in prior deindividuation and EMS literature; and (b) the effect of anonymity on participation, satisfaction, and postdiscussion agreement depended on the level and type of anonymity involved and whether initial opinions among group members were similar or different. A mechanism that suggests that anonymity may cause participants to focus more on their task by turning attention away from other participants partly accounts for the effects of source and participant anonymity on participation in this study. Future work should focus on determining how different types and levels of anonymity influence process and outcomes in different types of groups.