Interactional Associations of Gender on Savings Behavior: Showing Gender’s Continued Influence on Economic Action

This study looks at how gender relates to a critical economic behavior—savings activity. We start with the proposition that gender is not merely an additional variable to explain savings choices. Gender is the primary type of social categorization in the U.S. today. Therefore, other variables will be differently relevant to savings depending on gender. We use a national survey, the 2006 Economic Decision Making Survey conducted by Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, to examine the proposition. Basic frequencies reveal nonsignificant differences in savings participation across gender, but regression analysis including interactions of gender with other key variables reveals that multiple aspects of individuals’ lives are influenced by gender to predict savings plan participation.     

Decisions,judgement and style

This paper, one of a series which have already appeared in previous issues, focuses on the role of people, their judgments and their styles in the process of making and taking decisions concerning the future; that future and the decisions which will shape it being part of the complex strategic planning process. The author does not deal with decision analysis but concentrates his analysis upon the delicate balance which is maintained between what Sir Geoffrey Vickers calls ‘the art of judgement’ and the quantifiable elements of decision. The author rightly makes a distinction between decision-making: and decision-taking: this distinction accurately mirrors the long and often complex consultation process which occurs in almost all organizations before a decision is actually taken. The author's analysis concentrates upon the important effect which ‘judgement styles’ can have upon an organization and its planning process. Indeed, this paper suggests quite positively that judgment styles have an important and indeed crucial effect upon the view of the future which an organization will regard as preferable as well as influencing the manner in which the planning process will operate.     

Influences on the effectiveness of peer interaction: children's level of cognitive development and the relative ability of partners

Studies of peer interaction among children have generally shown that this experience aids performance, or at the very least does not result in poorer performance in relation to control conditions. Furthermore, working with a more able partner has been found to be a particularly effective form of peer interaction. In contrast, a model proposed by Karmiloff-Smith suggests that at certain phases of cognitive development children may ignore feedback and information from task activities. These two ideas were tested in a study where pairs of 6–7 year old children had to balance a beam on a fulcrum during a computer task. The performance on a post-test did not support either viewpoint. Children who were working with a more able partner were found to perform significantly worse than other children. The findings of a second study suggested that this effect may have been due to the more able children having an incomplete understanding of the computer task and they may have dominated social interaction thereby restricting the progress of the less able pupil. The findings from these two studies indicate that peer interaction can result in poorer learning outcomes, and that Karmiloff-Smith's model should include the possibility of peer interaction effects.     

Management development in small firms

This paper is a review of the literature concerning management development in small firms. It looks at the benefits in terms of growing a small firm and whether the lack of management skills contributes to their failure. In addition, this paper looks at some of the barriers to management development, including the attitudes and characteristics of the entrepreneur, and also looks at learning models that may be appropriate for small firms. The paper also looks at the authors’ views on the effectiveness of management development for small firms, the barriers to learning as well as the skills required. Management development programmes are now widely accepted as a means of improving the competitiveness of firms and the economy as a whole. Although management education and training has, in the past, been designed mainly for larger firms, there is a growing awareness of the requirements of small businesses. Government initiatives designed to encourage start‐ups and to boost the growth of small firms have emphasized the importance of management development. This review of the literature shows that, on balance, management development programmes are effective for small firms. The main benefits appear to be survival and growth, reduction in failure and improvement in performance. The skills required include leadership and management, developing management systems and techniques and team building. Other skills include planning, delegation and financial management. The paper concludes that there is a need for further research into the effectiveness of management development programmes, the skills required and the barriers to learning in small firms and, also, whether they have an impact on the survival, growth and profitability of small firms.     

Retirement Plan Participation in an Era of Change: The Case of a Rural Region*

Individual savings are critical for retirement as government and employer‐based provisions fade or become less secure. Rural communities are vulnerable given their higher proportion of elderly and more who rely on Social Security. Using a telephone survey of working‐age residents in Michigan's rural Upper Peninsula, this research investigates factors associated with participation in tax‐advantaged retirement plans that have largely replaced defined‐benefit pension plans for earmarked retirement savings. The project also identifies factors predictive of making maximum contributions to those retirement plans. We consider several distinct categories of variables to reflect the social embeddedness of economic action. In addition, the research included community variables describing aspects of respondents' social context, a new component of the savings discourse, which we show to be significantly related to saving outside a tax‐advantaged retirement plan and making maximum contributions to a tax‐advantaged retirement plan.