bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Is It Inefficient Investment that Causes the Diversification Discount?
Authors: Whited Toni M. 
Published: March 2003

ABSTRACTDiversified conglomerates are valued less than matched portfolios of pure‐play firms. Recent studies find that this diversification discount results from conglomerates' inefficient allocation of capital expenditures across divisions. Much of this work uses Tobin's q as a proxy for investment opportunities, therefore hypothesizing that q is a good proxy. This paper treats measurement error in q. Using a measurement‐error consistent estimator on the sorts regressions in the literature, I find no evidence of inefficient allocation of investment. The results in the literature appear to be artifacts of measurement error and of the correlation between investment opportunities and liquidity.
Block Share Purchases and Corporate Performance
Authors: Bethel Jennifer E. , Liebeskind Julia Porter , Opler Tim 
Published: March 2003

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the causes and consequences of activist block share purchases in the 1980s. We find that activist investors were most likely to purchase large blocks of shares in highly diversified firms with poor profitability. Activists were not less likely to purchase blocks in firms with shark repellents and employee stock ownership plans. Activist block purchases were followed by increases in asset divestitures, decreases in mergers and acquisitions, and abnormal share price appreciation. Industry‐adjusted operating profitability also rose. This evidence supports the view that the market for partial corporate control plays an important role in limiting agency costs in U.S. corporations.
Is It Fun? Language Play in a Fifth‐Grade Spanish Immersion Classroom
Authors: Broner Maggie A. , Tarone Elaine E. 
Published: March 2003

In this article, we use an approach to the study of interlanguage that challenges prevailing models of second language acquisition (SLA) which assume that negotiation of meaning is the only causal variable in SLA. Ludic language play may also play a role in the development of interlanguage (Tarone, 2000a). In this article, we examine two notions of language play as they have been presented in the applied linguistics literature: ludic language play, as defined in Cook (2000), and language play as rehearsal in private speech, as considered by Lantolf (1997), and its relationship to SLA. Through the analysis of classroom interactions among children attending a full immersion program, we show that these two types of play can be distinguished in classroom discourse by the presence or absence of five channel cues: presence/absence of laughter, shifts in voice quality and pitch versus shifts in loudness/whispering, use of language forms that are well‐known versus forms that are new; presence/absence of a fictional world of reference, and presence/absence of an audience other than the self. It is also argued that the distinction between the two types of language play in learner language allows us to study their distinct roles in the process of SLA. Child: Do machines ever play? Data: Yes! I play the violin and my chess routines are quite advanced. Child: No, I mean. Haven’t you ever played . . . for fun? Data: Androids do not have fun. Child: Look. If you want to know what it’s like to be a child, you need to learn to play. Star Trek, the Movie: a conversation between Data, a robot that looks human, and a human child
Image Sources for Informal Settlement Management
Authors: Mason S. O. , Fraser C. S. 
Published: March 2003

Informal settlements are a common feature of developing countries. In South Africa the improvement of living conditions in these settlements and the upgrading to formal housing types are regarded as being of central importance to the nation's development. Effective settlement improvement and upgrading activities, which we here term “management”, require adequate spatial data. To date, the acquisition of spatial models of informal settlements has been based on conventional mapping techniques, and mostly on photogrammetry. Data are compiled using analogue or analytical methods. These are manual and hence require both considerable expertise and expensive equipment. Moreover, these methods are uneconomical over the often relatively small, densely populated areas covered by informal settlements and are also too expensive to employ with a regularity required to support such tasks as change detection. Alternative imaging sources and mapping techniques are therefore needed.In this article we examine the problem of spatial information acquisition for informal settlement management from three perspectives: spatial information requirements, the role which imagery can play in satisfying these spatial information requirements, and effective imaging options. We focus on the potential of high resolution satellite imaging, small format digital aerial imagery and digital multispectral video systems for rapid mapping. We also discuss the example of automated shack extraction from aerial imagery.
The Rise of Professional Government: Evidence from Large‐Scale Public Works Projects
Authors: Lentz Corliss 
Published: March 2003

Books reviewed:Drew Fetherston, The Chunnel:The Amazing Story of the Undersea Crossing of the English ChannelJoanne Goldman, Abel.Building New York's Sewers: Developing Mechanisms of Urban ManagementStephen Halliday, The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victoria Metropolis
The Emerging Federal Quasi Government: Issues of Management and Accountability
Authors: Moe Ronald C. 
Published: March 2003

There has been a growing trend in the federal government toward reliance on organizations that commingle legal attributes of the government and private sectors. These hybrid organizations now constitute a quasi government that occasions both interest and concern by political leaders, practitioners, and scholars alike because these organizations touch the very heart of democratic governance: To whom are these hybrids accountable? How well is the public interest being protected against the interests of private parties?In this article, the author seeks to define the quasi government and place these hybrid entities into manageable categories from which legal and behavioral generalizations may be drawn. Are hybrid organizations a problem or a solution? Looking critically at this question, the author suggests the answer may depend in large measure on which of two management paradigms the reader accepts: the constitutionalist management paradigm or the entrepreneurial management paradigm, both of which are defined and discussed. The author concludes that the increasin reliance on hybrid organizations constitutes a threat not only to accountable management within the government, but to the fundamental values of democratic governance as well.
The “Best Place” Debate: A Comparison of Graduate Education Programs for Nonprofit Managers
Authors: Mirabella Roseanne M. , Wish Naomi Bailin 
Published: March 2003

This article presents a critical examination of the curricular elements of nonprofit management degree programs in colleges of business, public administration, and social work. What are the major curricular elements in each type of program? How do the curricular elements of these programs compare with generic management degree programs? What are the central challenges facing managers of nonprofit organizations, and how are these challenges addressed in each program? Based on the curricular review, is one setting more favorable for students of nonprofit management? What are the views of stakeholders regarding the “best place” to educate managers?Data collected from focus groups and surveys of stakeholders in each of these academic settings are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the future of nonprofit management education in the United States.
Prevention and Intervention of Writing Difficulties for Students with Learning Disabilities
Authors: Graham Steve , Harris Karen R. , Larsen Lynn 
Published: March 2003

This paper presents six principles designed to prevent writing difficulties as well as to build writing skills: (a) providing effective writing instruction, (b) tailoring instruction to meet the individual needs, (c) intervening early, (d) expecting that each child will learn to write, (e) identifying and addressing roadblocks to writing, and (f) employing technologies. Many students with LD experience difficulties mastering the process of writing. We examine how schools can help these children become skilled writers. Six principles designed to prevent as well as alleviate writing difficulties are presented. These include providing effective writing instruction, tailoring writing instruction to meet each child's needs, intervening early to provide additional assistance, expecting that each child will learn to write, identifying and addressing academic and nonacademic roadblocks to writing, and deploying technological tools that improve writing performance. The mn was sneB[translation:“The man was scared.”[ I think theu shold no how to speek differint langwges. If theu go to like dutch countri sombodie might ask them something theu cold have two kinds of langage
Instructing Adolescents with Learning Disabilities: A Component and Composite Analysis
Authors: Swanson H. Lee , Hoskyn Maureen 
Published: March 2003

Instructional components that positively influence performance of adolescents are identified based on a comprehensive meta–analysis of intervention studies for students with learning disabilities. Explicit practice and advanced organization are basic instructional components in a number of successful intervention programs. The purpose of this article is to identify the components of various instructional models that best predicted effect sizes for adolescents with learning disabilities. Three important findings emerged. First, 8 instructional factors (Questioning, Sequencing and Segmentation, Explicit Skill Modeling, Organization and Explicit Practice, Small–Group Setting, Indirect–Teacher Activities (e.g., homework), Technology, and Scaffolding) captured the majority of intervention programs for adolescents with LD. Second, only the organization/explicit factor contributed significant variance (16%) to effect size. This factor included only 2 instructional components: advanced organization and explicit practice. Finally, the single most important instructional component related to high effect sizes was explicit practice (treatment activities related to distributed review and practice, repeated practice, sequenced reviews, daily feedback, and/or weekly reviews).
Children at Risk: Legal and Societal Perceptions of the Potential Threat that the Possession of Child Pornography Poses to Society
Authors: Ost Suzanne 
Published: March 2003

This article examines legal and social discourses surrounding the phenomenon of child pornography, considering the legal responses to child pornography (particularly when an individual is found to be in possession of such material), and the way in which such material, the child, and the possessor of child pornography are socially constructed.The article raises the question of whether there has been a moral panic regarding child pornography and the possession of such material, but also considers whether there are real reasons to consider that the possession of child pornography should remain illegal. Research studies which aim to establish the existence of a causal link between possessing child pornography and the act of committing child sexual abuse are examined, as is the argument that criminalizing the possession of child pornography reduces the market for such material. Finally, there is an analysis of the possible impact of social constructions of the child as innocent.
Personality Judgments in Adolescents' Families: The Perceiver, the Target, Their Relationship, and the Family
Authors: Branje Susan J. T. , Van Aken Marcel A. G. , Van Lieshout Cornelis F. M. , Mathijssen Jolanda J. J. P. 
Published: March 2003

AbstractThe present study investigated whether personality judgments involve different processes in a family setting than in a nonfamily setting. We used the Social Relations Model to distinguish the effects of perceiver, target, perceiver‐target relationship, and family on personality judgments. Family members of families with adolescents judged their own and the other members' Big Five factors. Judgments were found to depend on the relevance of personality factors within the family setting: Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were judged most consistently. Large relationship variance indicated that parents adjust their judgments to the target family member; large perceiver variance indicated that adolescents judge family members' personalities rather similarly. However, a comparison of self‐ and other‐judgments showed adolescents' judgments to be no more related to their self‐perceptions than parents' judgments. We concluded that the relevance of personality factors may differ on specific tasks within a setting.
The Core Executive, Modernization and the Creation of PESC, 1960‐64
Authors: Lowe Rodney 
Published: March 2003

The period between 1957 and 1964 was one of immense yet underestimated political and administrative change. It culminated in what many have seen as a golden age in Whitehall. This is reflected by the wealth of records now available for the study of government and policy networks. The period is thus an ideal one for collaboration between historians and political scientists.The decisional case study examined in this article focuses on the early years of the Public Expenditure Survey Committee, as viewed from the perspective of welfare policy. The drive to ‘modernize’ government started with attempts to ‘roll back the state’ and to hive off the implementation of policy to executive agencies, very similar to those pursued in the 1980s by Mrs Thatcher and Next Steps. The reasoned rejection of such a policy was symbolized by the creation of PESC, a centralized attempt to allocate resources rationally. PESC itself, however, was initially a failure. External circumstances, such as the breakdown of political and administrative networks within the core executive, and internal tensions, including the Treasury’s covert attempt to impose its own departmental interest, led the Cabinet Secretary to conclude that the prioritization and strict control of forward expenditure commitments was ‘not possible’. This case study demonstrates how future studies of the core executive might be broadened and deepened.
Public Governance in the Netherlands: An Alternative to Anglo‐American ‘Managerialism’
Authors: Kickert Walter J.M. 
Published: March 2003

In many Western public administrations, particularly the American and Anglo‐Saxon ones, a remarkable trend is taking place ‐ the ‘new public management’ (Hood 1991). Many Western governments and public services are adopting a more ‘managerial’ approach to administration. Under conditions of heavy public demands but a severely constrained public budget, the only feasible alternative to cutting public services or raising taxes, seems to be to reduce costs, increase effectiveness and efficiency, and deliver ‘more value for the money’. This budgetary consolidation forces the public sector to become more businesslike, ‘work better and cost less’, and become more client‐oriented.In this article, this trend of ‘public managerialism’ will be critically examined. From a theoretical viewpoint the adequacy for the public sector of a businesslike concept of ‘management’ can seriously be criticized. From an empirical viewpoint it is also inadequate as a description of administrative practice. Without denying the budgetary circumstances and the need for ‘effectiveness and efficiency’, the one‐sidedness of ‘managerialism’ is ill‐suited to the public sector. Other politico‐administrative responses to these circumstances may be possible and more appropriate. In this article one such possible alternative is theoretically examined and practically illustrated. Although not as elaborate and well developed as the multitude of available ‘managerial’ models, methods and techniques, the alternative ‘public governance’ not only possesses theoretical and analytical cogency but also reflects the practice of administrative developments. The idea and practical impacts are illustrated in case studies of administrative reforms in the Netherlands.
Technology management and collaboration profile: virtual companies and industrial platforms in the high‐tech biotechnology industries
Authors: Weisenfeld Ursula , Reeves James C. , Hunck‐Meiswinkel Astrid 
Published: March 2003

In this paper we discuss collaboration in the area of technology management. We propose the concept of collaboration profile to describe various forms of networks along key differentiating characteristics. The collaboration profile is then applied using two examples to illustrate different forms of collaboration in the biotechnology industries, the ‘virtual company’ and the ‘industrial platform’. Based on interviews with members of a virtual company as well as members of industrial platforms and drawing conclusions from theoretical insights, the advantages and disadvantages of these forms and their suitability for different stages of the technology life cycle will be discussed.Specifically, we address the following questions:What kind of collaboration profile applies to virtual companies and industrial platforms?How does the suitability of collaboration forms vary with the stage of technology development?Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of the collaboration profile for analysing features and potential problems of collaborations by describing two examples. Focusing on the key characteristics of a collaboration helps to check the appropriateness of the collaboration form and to identify and manage respective problems.
Firm–specific competencies determining technological innovation: A survey in Greece
Authors: Souitaris Vangelis 
Published: March 2003

This paper investigates the ‘importance’ and ‘awareness’ of firm–specific competencies as determinants of technological innovation in the context of a European newly industrialised country. A literature–based portfolio model was developed including 17 established innovation–determining factors, related to the firm’s technical, market, human resource and organisational competencies. The ‘importance’ of those factors as determinants of innovation in the Greek industry was tested with a survey of 105 manufacturing firms. Using correlation and regression analyses the author classified the competencies into ‘major importance’, ‘moderate importance’ and ‘unimportant’ ones. ‘Major importance’ determinants of innovation included the intensity of R&D, strength in marketing, proportion of university graduates and engineers in the staff, proportion of staff with managerial responsibility, proportion of professional staff with previous experience in another company and incentives offered to the employees to contribute to innovation.The ‘awareness’ of the important competencies differentiating Greek innovative companies was tested by comparing the above ‘objective’ results with the perceptions of the responding managers. The perceptual analysis confirmed the importance of the statistically–driven variables at the aggregated level. At the level of the individual variables, a number of inconsistencies were identified. The managers overestimated the importance of international work experience of professional staff and of training and underestimated the importance of the potential contribution of shop–floor employees.Relating the results to the Greek institutional context, the study’s general finding was that the important determinants of innovation were scarce in the Greek business environment. The highly innovative companies were the ones to overcome country–specific innovation barriers, such as negligible industrial R&D, general weakness in marketing, outdated educational system, limited labour mobility and cultural problems with involving shop–floor employees in the innovation process.
The effects of privatization on corporate R&D units: evidence from Italy and France
Authors: Munari Federico 
Published: March 2003

Over the last two decades privatization programmes in a variety of different countries have radically reduced the role of the state as a major owner of productive assets. While there is empirical evidence to show that the switch in ownership generally improves productive efficiency and profitability at company level, its effects on research and development (R&D) activities, which can impact strongly on long–term performance, have been largely ignored in the literature.In this paper we address this issue by analyzing seven cases of privatization that have recently occurred in Italy and France in order to gauge how R&D activities may be affected by privatization in terms of objectives and organization. The organizations studied show that R&D units within privatized companies are subject to profound restructuring actions, generally designed to boost efficiency and to strengthen integration with the goals of the business units and of the final customers. A new role for R&D thus emerges: the aim is no longer to generate new knowledge in the broad national interest, but rather more directly to create value for the company and its clients, by emphasizing the assessment and integration of external knowledge.
Beat 'em or Join 'em? Export Subsidies versus International Research Joint Ventures in Oligopolistic Markets
Authors: Neary J. Peter , O'Sullivan Paul 
Published: March 2003

We compare adversarial with cooperative industrial and trade policies in a dynamic oligopoly game in which a home and foreign firm compete in R&D and output and, because of spillovers, each firm benefits from the other's R&D. When the government can commit to an export subsidy, such a policy raises welfare relative to cooperation, except when R&D is highly effective and spillovers are near‐complete. Without commitment, however, subsidisation may yield welfare levels much lower than cooperation and lower even than free trade, though qualifications to the dangers from no commitment are noted.JEL classification: F12; F13
Food Prices and Market Structure in Sweden
Authors: Asplund Marcus , Friberg Richard 
Published: March 2003

This paper examines retail grocery price levels across a large panel of stores in Sweden. We explain price variation across stores by market structure variables to capture differences in competition intensity and a number of store– and region–specific factors. Most of the explained variation in prices can be attributed to store–specific factors such as size and chain affiliation. Overall, the relation between market structure variables and food prices is weak, and effects are small in percentage terms. Nevertheless, higher local concentration of stores, higher regional wholesaler concentration and a lower market share of large stores are all correlated with higher prices. JEL classification: D43; L13; L81