Du Lijing, Jian Huang, Daniel Singer and Gokhan Torna
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social and economic factors on home ownership as an investment in American urban areas.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social and economic factors on home ownership as an investment in American urban areas.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors run a spatial analysis using home ownership data on 817 American counties from US Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey.
Findings
While the amenity value of home ownership is found to be important to overall housing tenure decisions, it is found to be less so for the ownership cohort without mortgages. Economic factors are found to impact the spatial pattern of owner-occupied housing without mortgage differently than that of all owner-occupied housing. The implications of these differences for investors are explored.
Research limitations/implications
The results may lack generalizability outside of the American urban areas.
Practical implications
As a result of the findings of this study, a shift in investor focus from minimizing initial housing costs to sustainable housing costs is recommended.
Originality/value
This study provides insights into the social and economic dimensions of owner-occupied housing in order to create a more profitable investing policy for promoting home ownership.
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Daniel Singer, Albert Avery and Babu Baradwaj
The purpose of this paper is both to determine Citibank's response to cultural diversity in the dynamic, highly competitive global market for online banking facilities and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is both to determine Citibank's response to cultural diversity in the dynamic, highly competitive global market for online banking facilities and services, and whether or not international online bank web sites are constructed in a manner sensitive to the culture of their host country.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes the perspective of managing innovation for shareholder wealth maximization where consumer behavior is mediated through the technology acceptance model (TAM) belief constructs. The incorporation of variables reflecting Hofstede's four‐factor framework in 45 country‐specific web sites operated directly by Citibank are compared with those variables in 189 web sites of indigenous banks.
Findings
The results suggest that culture has an important influence on international online banking web sites and that Citibank has adapted the form and content of its web sites to local cultural influences in a manner comparable to that of the indigenous banks. Further, the role of each of Hofstede's four cultural dimensions is seen to influence the form and content of online bank web sites. This finding confirms earlier research about the role of culture in the TAM.
Research limitations/implications
The results of this study are constrained by the extent to which the Hofstede framework actually captures the relevant dimensions of culture and the extent to which the measures of web site cultural attributes used in this study are valid. Further, the results are also limited by the fact that 23 of the Citibank web sites were located in countries for which Hofstede data were not available and by the small size of this study.
Practical implications
Success in the burgeoning and highly competitive online banking environment requires bank management to adapt their web sites to local cultural conditions. Small differences in language, the portrayal of individuals, and the background used in the site can significantly impact the acceptance of this distribution channel by the target population. This study confirms the importance of the cultural values of individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance with respect to consumer acceptance of online banking.
Originality/value
These findings provide guidance for bank managers as they expand their online banking operations into the international arena. They also support research confirming the importance of culture in determining international consumer behavior within the TAM.
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The aim of this chapter is to compare the content of two essays: Oskar Lange's 1931 ‘Crisis of Socialism’ and Tadeusz Kowalik's 1996 ‘August – the Bourgeois Revolution of the…
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to compare the content of two essays: Oskar Lange's 1931 ‘Crisis of Socialism’ and Tadeusz Kowalik's 1996 ‘August – the Bourgeois Revolution of the Epigones’ in order to try to determine the extent to which Lange's paper influenced Kowalik's ideas. We find that Lange's article was possibly Kowalik's only source of theoretical knowledge about bourgeois revolutions and their course when he wrote his 1996 piece. What probably struck Kowalik most in ‘Crisis of Socialism’ in the context of Polish transformations was the similarity (real or apparent) between the situation in Poland in 1905–1918 and that in 1980–1989 (or even 1980–1992), that is, the possibility of constructing a ‘bourgeois class state’ only through a workers revolution immediately preceding such a construction. On the basis of this analogy, in ‘August…’ Kowalik, as we argue, introduced a novelty into his reflections: he fortified his earlier, more lax analyses with the concept of ‘bourgeois revolution.’
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This chapter focuses on the normative importance of what attitudes our actions express to others. Business is not conducted in a vacuum – rather, it is conducted against a…
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the normative importance of what attitudes our actions express to others. Business is not conducted in a vacuum – rather, it is conducted against a background schema of social meaning. This chapter argues that the public meaning of our actions, what our actions express, is normatively important. The piece imports familiar norms regarding expressions from interpersonal morality to business ethics, such as those surrounding insult, blame, and gratitude. It argues that many of ethicists’ gripes across a range of business ethics topics – from disproportionate compensation to immoral investing – can fruitfully be analyzed from an expressive perspective.
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Mary Ellen Kyger Davis and John F. Riddick
Since 1901 the public has relied on H.W. Wilson's Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature to locate articles of general interest related to its information needs. For nearly…
Abstract
Since 1901 the public has relied on H.W. Wilson's Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature to locate articles of general interest related to its information needs. For nearly seventy years, the Readers' Guide (RG) was virtually unchallenged by other general indexing tools. In its long years of service, RG earned a respected place in the library and became the index most known to the public. Bill Katz described it as the “closest thing to mom in the library — soft, all embracing, ready to educate us for anything.”
Morgan Mowatt, Mandeep Kaur Mucina, Gina Mowatt, Josephine Simone and Shilo Shiv Suleman
Indigenous and racialized people have suffered multifaceted dispossession as a result of ongoing and historical violence by the Canadian state. Most greatly affected are…
Abstract
Indigenous and racialized people have suffered multifaceted dispossession as a result of ongoing and historical violence by the Canadian state. Most greatly affected are Indigenous gender-queer and nonbinary people, who have been erased by law and policy and are targets of violence; Indigenous women, who are targeted by gender discrimination and violence; and Indigenous children, who continue to be removed from their communities. Nonwhite or racialized migrants to Canada are victims of the same colonial project, which relies on the slavery of Black and Brown bodies and Orientalist constructions that portray the West as “superior” in relation to the “barbaric” East. This dispossession, oppression, and violence are met by a constellation of local and global approaches to resist, heal, and create Fearless futures for Indigenous and racialized people.
Through collaborative storytelling, this chapter centers a radical project focused on resistance to gender violence, reconnection to land and body, Indigenous and settler solidarity, storytelling and witnessing, and healing through art. These efforts, including multiple community workshops and mural projects with Indigenous and racialized women, as well as queer and two-spirit people and youth, have recentered Indigenous healing and medicine, promoted intergenerational teachings, fostered intercommunity relationship building and solidarities through stories and witnessing, reconnected disconnected Indigenous peoples (both local and settler) to their bodies, lands, and communities, and unsettled colonial mentalities on gender and Indigeneity publicly and privately. This project was a collaboration between The Fearless Collective, based in South Asia, the Innovative Young Indigenous Leaders Symposium, based in British Columbia, Canada, and research from the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, British Columbia.
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Larry W. Isaac and Daniel M. Harrison
In recent years, and especially with the war in Iraq, the U.S. military's reliance on private contractors as forces in the theater of war has grown and become increasingly clear…
Abstract
In recent years, and especially with the war in Iraq, the U.S. military's reliance on private contractors as forces in the theater of war has grown and become increasingly clear. We critically evaluate some of the best literature on the emergence of this phenomenon – especially Ken Silverstein's Private Warriors and P. W. Singer's Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry – and find a neglect of the historical path-dependent character of the rise of the new corporate armed forces. In particular, we concentrate on American experience and two silences that are integral to understanding the path-dependent character of this process: (1) earlier historical reliance on private armed force to suppress the labor movement in America, the template for this new form of irregular armed force and (2) the ghost of Vietnam as a continuing political liability in the mobilization of sufficient troop levels under neo-imperialist aspirations and “the global war on terror,” as the main condition for the rise of the new private military form. Both elements suggest the theoretical importance of state strength/weakness in any explanation of private armed force. We discuss several important political implications of our findings.
Craig Mitton, François Dionne and Diane Schmidt
The purpose of this chapter is to describe a method for priority setting that can be used to identify options for disinvestment, and is also meant to serve as a tool for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to describe a method for priority setting that can be used to identify options for disinvestment, and is also meant to serve as a tool for re-allocation of resources to achieve better outcomes with a given pot of resources.
Approach
This chapter draws on findings from the application of a priority setting and resource allocation framework known as Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis (PBMA). Case studies are used to illustrate key points around implementation including factors for success and guidelines for improving priority setting in practice.
Findings
PBMA has been applied in over 150 settings over the last 30 years. Purposes varied from focusing strictly on disinvestment to examining opportunities for re-allocation. Many organizations report continued use of the framework and decision makers typically express a desire to not revert to historical allocation or political negotiation in deciding on the funding for programs.
Practical implications
Practical implications of this body of work on priority setting abound in that there are significant opportunities to improve resource allocation practice including better engagement of staff, clinicians and public members, greater use of evidence in decision making and improving process transparency.
Social implications
As healthcare resources are limited, particularly in predominantly publicly funded health systems, prudent use of resources is critical. Actually applying the appropriate tools to ensure that funding aligns with organizational and system objectives is paramount.
Originality/value
Although there is a large body of literature on priority setting particularly in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada, this chapter serves to highlight key messages specifically in the context of fiscal constraint and in relation to the concept of disinvestment or service reduction.