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Surveys the development of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) in the USA, Canada, Japan and the EU. Suggests that ESOPs are driven by management in the USA but are culturally approved by both sides of industry in Japan. Describes the European system as emphasizing profit sharing instead because of traditional polarity between management and workers. Concludes that the propensity to save, risk aversion and industrial relations are more important factors than tax or business climate.

The conventional wisdom regarding the rationale for employee stock ownership plans (ESOPS) holds that such plans provide incentives for improved worker productivity. This view minimizes the employees' portfolio problem inherent in ESOP participation — employment risk for ESOP participants is increased by tying their investment/retirement program to the fortunes of the company in which they are employed. We examine the extent of empirical support for the incentive alignment theory of ESOPs, along with two alternative explanations. One alternative holds that firms initiating ESOP plans signal high investment quality, thus reducing the cost of raising equity capital. Another theory is that ESOPs are a form of coalition, or “devil's pact” between managers and workers in which they agree to prolong and share in perquisite consumption. A large sample of ESOP plans is divided into three categories: anti‐takeover plans, wage concession plans, and “pure” ESOPs. Analysis of pre‐ and post ESOP conditions and stock returns is performed. Among the findings is that pure ESOPs appear to have effects consistent with improvements in worker productivity and/or signaling high investment quality. Strong support for the devil's pact theory is found in the anti‐takeover subcategories of ESOPs.

This article reconsiders the cross‐national determinants of female labour force participation in Islamic settings. It explores a neopatriarchal perspective using in dicators of the role of the government and the political role of women. The study shows that government plays a significant role in determining female employment. Islamic ideology as a cultural variable also contributes significantly to the model. Thus, the results indicate that Islamic ideology per se is not the only factor determining female labour force participation; the political atmosphere and economic development also contribute. In main stream sociology, Muslim countries have usually been classified as outliers on gender relations and demographic factors. These countries generally have lower‐than‐average levels of female labour force participation (FLFP) and higher‐than‐average levels of fertility and mortality relative to non‐Muslim nations at the same level of economic development (Weeks, 1988). For example, in 1995, female employment in Islamic countries was 21.7% while other Muslim and non‐Muslim developing countries, it was 38.1% (World Bank World Tables, 1999). The popular press and much of the academic literature interpret Islam as the “secluder” and “excluder” of women which, in turn, inhibits women’s integration into the formal labour force. What is missing from the analysis is the role of the state in those societies as the main employer and investor. In many Islamic societies, the patriarchal system has never been weakened but rather modernised into a system referred to in this study as the neopatriachal state (Moghadam, 1992; Sharabi, 1988). Neopatriarchy will be defined in this article as traditional patriarchy, especially embedded in religion, which gets appropriated by the state to reinforce its rule. In the following section the meaning of each of these factors and how they affect female employment opportunities is explored.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The authors aim to present a procedure for the parallel, steady and unsteady conjugate, Navier–Stokes/heat-conduction rotor-stator interaction analysis of multi-blade-row, film-cooled, turbine airfoil sections. A new grid generation procedure for multiple blade-row configurations, including walls, thermal barrier coatings, plenums, and cooling tubes, is discussed.

Steady, multi-blade-row interaction effects on the flow and wall thermal fields are predicted using a Reynolds’s-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulation in conjunction with an inter-blade-row mixing plane. Unsteady, aero-thermal interaction solutions are determined using time-accurate sliding grids between the stator and rotor with an unsteady RANS model. Non-reflecting boundary condition treatments are utilized in both steady and unsteady approaches at all inlet, exit and inter-blade-row boundaries. Parallelization techniques are also discussed.

The procedures developed in this research are compared against experimental data from the Air Force Research Laboratory’s turbine research facility.

The software presented in this paper is useful as both the design and analysis tool for fluid system and turbomachinery engineers.

This research presents a novel approach for the simultaneous solution of fluid flow and heat transfer in film-cooled rotating turbine sections. The software developed in this research is validated against experimental results for 2D flow, and the methods discussed are extendable to 3D.

IT is surprising that in these days of universal research the subject of library Fittings should have remained to all intents and purposes a virgin one. It is neither an unimportant nor an uninteresting subject; to the librarian it is one naturally of peculiar interest. Yet, if we except slight and largely incidental treatment of ancient and monastic libraries and accounts of present day fittings—and the latter mostly of the trade catalogue order—there has been almost nothing written on the subject. It is therefore a matter of congratulation that so capable a writer and scholar as Mr. John Willis Clark should have seen proper to devote much time and learning to the investigation of this subject. In his handsomely produced and profusely illustrated volume entitled “The Care of Books,” in which the evolution of library fittings is traced from the classic period to the end of the eighteenth century, Mr. Clark has made one of the most valuable contributions to library economy that has been issued for many a day, and has earned the gratitude of all librarians. Mr. Clark has already treated the subject in his valuable essay on “The Library” in “The Architectural History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge,” and in his Rede and Sandars lectures on the monastic and Greek and Roman libraries respectively, and these with much fresh material he has embodied in this monograph of over 350 quarto pages. Mr. Clark's descriptions of the mechanical appliances used in the libraries of olden time, such as, for example, the methods of chaining books and the details of the chains and their fastenings, are wonderfully clear, supplemented as they are by photographs and drawings, even to the most non‐mechanical reader. The many plans and elevations given are enhanced in value by being drawn to and accompanied by the scale, and altogether we have nothing but praise for this book. At least, if we have a grumble, it is that Mr. Clark has not been so full on the “wall system”—which brings us of course to our own fittings of to‐day, and which is therefore not merely of antiquarian value—as he is on the “press” and “lectern” systems. We should therefore be glad to see an expansion of chapter viii. in a new edition.

This chapter seeks to investigate the ways individualistic versus collectivistic values moderate neural responses to social exclusion among African American and White respondents. The author hypothesized that the vmPFC – a key brain region for emotion regulation – would correspond to collectivistic value moderation and the dlPFC – the cognitive control center of the brain – would be associated with individualistic value moderation.

This study used a virtual ball tossing game (Cyberball), where 17 African American and 11 White participants were excluded or included with ball tosses, while inside an fMRI scanner. Before the start of each round the participants were primed with individualism, collectivism or a comparison condition.

Results showed that (1) African Americans showed stronger neural responses to exclusion and (2) offered support for the hypothesis that the dlPFC showed greater activation in African Americans (compared to Whites) when they were primed with individualism values during exclusion. There was no support for the collectivism hypothesis.

Research limitations included a relatively small sample size (N = 28), a comparison of only two racial groups and that the partners in the game were virtual (pre-programmed by the experimenter).

This research offers an empirical framework for sociologists seeking to apply social theories into neurological studies.

Identifying effective coping strategies for historically oppressed racial groups.

The chapter is original for demonstrating the moderating effects of values on neural responses to exclusion for the first time and by offering a novel neurosociological framework.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.