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Sketching is a creative skill that most architects develop over their long period of study and is considered an effective medium for communicating imaginative thinking and conceptual ideas in architecture. As a concept, mood is generally associated with imagining specific ambiance and spatial experience during the schematic phase of the architectural design process. While most architectural research on mood revolves around post-occupancy evaluation, colour effect and lighting comfort, few studies have been conducted to systematically investigate conceptual issues related to mood imagination. Besides, there has been little attempt to appreciate sketches as a reliable conceptual data source for architectural research.

To bridge this knowledge gap, this paper explores a semiological analysis of mood visualisation using architectural sketches. By framing the experiment within the architecture education context, the paper begins by discussing the relationship between sketching, mood and semiology in architecture. The discussion continues by highlighting methodological issues in the design of our experiment. The experiment comprised architecture students from undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Following the visual and textual data derived from the experiment, two semiological analyses, namely, mood sign analysis and mood signifier analysis, were conducted to understand their imaginative thinking.

The results revealed significant preferential differences between the students on the use of specific semiotic representation and design language to conceptualise their mood idea.

As a preliminary experiment, this study constitutes an early attempt to further explore potential research related to architectural sketches and the creative imagination that may be beneficial to designers, art psychologists, educators and researchers alike.

We use Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) data from the United States and Great Britain to investigate the association between adults’ health and the income inequality they experienced as children up to 80 years earlier. Our inequality data track shares of national income held by top income percentiles from the early 20th century. We average those data over the same early-life years and merge them to CNEF data from both countries that measure self-reported health of individuals between 1991 and 2007. Observationally, adult men and women in the United States and Great Britain less often report being in better health if inequality was higher in their first five years of life. Although the trend in inequality is similar in both countries over the past century, the empirical association between health and inequality in the United States differs substantially from the estimated relationship in Great Britain. When we control for demographic characteristics, measures of permanent income, and early-life socio-economic status, the health–inequality association remains robust only in the U.S. sample. For the British sample, the added controls drive the coefficient on inequality toward zero and statistical insignificance.

Alvin Hansen and John Williams’ Fiscal Policy Seminar at Harvard University is widely regarded as a key mechanism for the spread of Keynesianism in the United States. An original and regular participant, Richard A. Musgrave was invited to prepare remarks for the fiftieth anniversary of the seminar in 1988. These were never published, though a copy was filed with Musgrave’s papers at Princeton University. Their reproduction here is important for several reasons. First, it is one of the last reminiscences of the original participants. Second, the remarks make an important contribution to our understanding of the Harvard School of macro-fiscal policy. Third, the remarks provide interesting insights into Musgrave’s views on national economic policymaking as well as the intersection between theory and practice. The reminiscence demonstrates the importance of the seminar in shifting Musgrave’s research focus and moving him to a more pragmatic approach to public finance.

There is an on-going debate as to whether health is negatively affected by economic inequality. Still, we have limited knowledge of the mechanisms relating inequality to individual health and very little evidence comes from less-developed economies. We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test three hypotheses consistent with a negative correlation between income inequality and population health: the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (IIH). The results confirm that absolute income positively affects health. For the RIH we find sensitivity to the reference group used. Most interestingly, we find higher income inequality to robustly associate with better child health. The same pattern appears in a cross country regression. To explain the conflicting results in the literature we suggest examining potential mediators such as generosity, food sharing, trust and purchasing power.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Chinese and US students differ in preference for group work (PGW) and whether the factors contributing to PGW differ in the two countries.

The sample included 412 Chinese and 423 US college students who completed a survey measuring cultural values and motives. Hierarchical regression and simple-slope analyses were used to examine main effects and interactions.

Overall, the US and Chinese students did not differ in PGW. Although US men exceeded US women in PGW, no gender difference occurred in China. PGW was positively associated with others focus (concern for what others think) and helping others in both countries, but the association was stronger in China. In China, but not in the USA, PGW was positively associated with extrinsic motivation and need for achievement. Therefore, despite the general acceptance of group work in the USA, participation in groups is not seen as critical in attaining rewards as it is in China.

Other populations, including practicing managers, should be studied to better represent the workforce of each country. Also, other variables, including personality traits, may impact PGW.

Managers and educators should pay attention to how cultural values and motives of group members vary. Business education should offer more opportunities to increase exposure to cultural differences, including experience working in culturally diverse groups.

The study supports some traditional assumptions concerning the impact of culture upon PGW, but also suggests that a global business orientation can mitigate the impact of traditional national cultures.

Presents a review on implementing finite element methods on supercomputers, workstations and PCs and gives main trends in hardware and software developments. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on the subjects retrospectively to 1985 and approximately 1,100 references are listed.

This study aims to investigate the price effects, if any, of various types of residential developments' security mechanisms.

Previous literature suggests home buyers pay a premium for homes located within gated communities, but no prior study investigates the various levels of community security features often associated with gated communities. This study extends this literature by examining the presence of gates, guards and patrols (individually and in combination) within residential communities. The findings indicate that home prices are significantly higher in communities that have gates, guards, or guards and patrols. In the presence of guards and patrols, however, the premium associated with gates disappears. These results suggest that the previously identified premium for homes in gated communities may be more appropriately interpreted as a premium for enhanced security provided by guards and patrols within the communities.

Prices of homes in communities exhibit premiums for security gates, security guards and security patrols, but the premium associated with security gates is less impactful than security guards and security patrols.

Developers, home buyers, appraisers and other parties should carefully consider neighborhood security features when evaluating home prices in communities.

The presence of security guards and security patrols implies higher home prices in residential communities and are more impactful than security gates alone.

Prior research reports a price premium for homes in gated communities. This study contributes to that literature and finds that the premium associated with security guards and security patrols dominates the mere presence of security gates.

The aim of this study is to reveal how workplace fun promotes team performance in the hotel business context.

The conceptual model of this study was tested based on responses from 271 frontline hotel employees (including managers) in the USA, who had full-time work tenure of more than three months in a three-star or above-rated hotel.

This study revealed that workplace fun activities enhance team performance by promoting employees’ workplace fun experience and by facilitating interpersonal trust and group cohesion, which, in turn, reduce intra-group conflict and stimulates interpersonal citizenship behaviors, respectively.

First, this study adopted subjective team performance measures. Although it can be exaggerated unconsciously, the literature suggests that how team members perceive their team’ performance is also an important indicator of team effectiveness. Second, the conceptual model of this study was tested in the US context. So, in a more collectivistic culture, the model might generate somewhat different results from those of this study.

The findings of this study indicate that workplace fun initiatives by the management are an effective means to promote the performance of frontline work teams at a hotel. Discussions are extended to incorporating fun elements into existing organizational cultures.

By adopting the input–process–outcome framework, this study shows how workplace fun, as a critical input, creates positive group processes and, thereby, promotes positive group outcomes in the hotel business context.

Drawing from our current original research on cultural trends in Latin America‐based multinational firms, this paper challenges the stereotypical perception of Latin America as a homogeneous region and explores the cultural distances among groups of multinational employees. After collecting surveys from 733 employees across eight multinationals in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, we establish that, much like it happens in other lumped‐together regions of the globe, such as “East Asia” and “Africa”, Latin American countries present significant differences in the way firm employees respond to situations where cultural traits are at stake. By researching these countries, we recorded significant variation in aspects such as the treatment and place of women in the workplace, attachment or detachment to formal rules, formal organizational hierarchies, and structured business planning, in addition to varying levels of tolerance to invasion of privacy. Implications of the study include the need to develop methodologies that adequately capture cultural differences within large geographic blocs and business practices that prepare the expatriate, the international manager, and the policy maker for the different realities they are bound to encounter in different countries.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of ethical decision-making that applies to accountants and the accounting profession.

This model is an integration of five factors that influence ethical decision-making by accountants: professional codes of conduct; philosophical orientation; religious orientation; culturally derived values; and moral maturity.

This model is a synthesis of previous identified factors that influence ethical decision-making and incorporates them into a model that is specific to professional accountants.

The authors develop a set of propositions and explain how this model can be tested and its implications for both the accounting profession and the teaching of business ethics.

This model presents a new way of viewing ethical decision-making by accountants that is predicated on the importance of professional codes of conduct that influence both behaviour and decision-making. The external certification of professional accountants provides a layer of accountability not previously incorporated into ethical decision-making models.