Search results

This article takes its point of departure from the intellectual milieu in the mid-1980s that gave rise to Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s book, On Justification: Economies of Worth. It shows how exposure to ideas and concepts in that book came to take varied forms as they were elaborated and modified in the work of an American sociologist across several decades of research in diverse empirical settings.

Purpose – This chapter analyses the independent U.S. film Reefer Madness, a fictional full-length feature about marijuana use and selling that has grown in cult status since it was produced in 1936. In addition, this chapter discusses a number of examples of early and contemporary illegal drug films that focus on marijuana, including a short film scene from Broken Flowers (2005).

Methodology – Drawing from critical and feminist criminology, sociology, and cultural studies, this chapter provides an analysis of fictional illegal drug films with a focus on marijuana.

Findings – The significance of a century of film representations that reinforce a link between illegal drug use, immorality, and crime is discussed. It appears that these themes are quite enduring.

Value – It is worthwhile to analyze illegal drug films, not just to explore the stigmatization of users, but to examine the social/political effects of these films, particularly the ways that certain kinds of negative images support drug regulation and its attendant policing.

The purpose of this paper is to review current policy and practice in management of analogue‐digital switch in broadcasting.

The paper adopts a case study approach.

The paper finds that with regard the objectives of switch‐off, the broad policy aims of clearing spectrum, modernising infrastructure, and improving the services to the consumer are shared across the major countries studied. Uncertainty about the cash value and potential alternative uses of spectrum is natural given rapid technological change, but the common potential broadcasting uses include mobile television, high definition digital terrestrial television, and more digital broadcasters and channels, including regional and local developments.

The study is restricted to Europe, Japan and North America.

The study has implications for assessment of European switchover strategies and role of Digital Terrestrial.

There are some overviews, but none of so up to date, nor with this geographical coverage.

This study examines the historical return behavior surrounding foreseeable or expected special closings of the New York Stock Exchange. Pre and Post special closing return behavior supports no existing hypothesis, but instead clearly demonstrates a new pre and post special closing effect similar to the pre and post holiday effect found by Ariel (1990, 1987).

Purpose – Uses Kenneth Boulding's concept of “serial reciprocity” in conjunction with information about the evolution of emotions and social exchange processes to identify possible mechanisms that can help explain the rise of early Christianity.

Design/methodology/approach – Using the concept of serial reciprocity as a central organizing principle, a theoretical account is developed that integrates ideas from evolutionary sociology, the sociology of emotions, and exchange theory in order to extend Rodney Stark's analysis of social forces responsible for the success of early Christianity as a social movement.

Findings – Patterns of serial reciprocity may develop when evolved emotions such as gratitude, sympathy, and empathy are activated by recipients of altruism who, in turn, become motivated to repay their benefactor by transmitting a benefit to a third-party recipient. Historical evidence reviewed by Stark is consistent with the claim that serial reciprocity may have conferred benefits to victims suffering from plagues that swept the Roman Empire during the early history of Christianity. Similar processes may be operating today in regions of the world in which aid workers provide assistance to victims of natural and man-made disasters.

Originality/value – This analysis demonstrates the value of integrating conventional sociological analysis and evolutionary theory to gain new explanatory insights about social processes such as serial reciprocity that have received relatively little prior attention by sociological researchers.

To describe the need and suggest guidelines for a formal, written manual that provides a firm, its registered representatives, and its supervisory principals a line of defense against costly repercussions from sales practice violations.

Discusses regulations concerning the suitable sales of securities to customers, the legal basis for reasonable supervision, why a brokerage firm's business model should guide it in building its manual, contents of a prototype manual, how investment objectives and risk tolerance should be considered, how performance information is disclosed so it is understandable to the customer, both justifiable reasons and dangers related to switching a customer from one fund to another, commission savings issues (including breakpoints, letters of intent, rights of accumulation, and reinstatement privileges), and home office supervision of reps and supervisory principals.

Regulators are concerned with an investment firm's culture of compliance, including its written supervisory procedures and evidence of supervisor training and compliance performance. To support principals charged with supervising registered reps and investment adviser reps, a firm should have a formal training program that starts out with a well‐thought‐out mutual fund suitability guidelines manual.

A hands‐on guide for writing an important manual by a specialized investment compliance lawyer.