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When assessing the psychometric properties of measures and estimate relations among latent variables, many studies in the social sciences (including management and marketing) often fail to comprehensively appraise the directionality of indicants. Such failures can lead to model misspecification and inaccurate parameter estimates. The purpose of this paper is to apply a post hoc test called confirmatory vanishing tetrad analysis (CTA hereafter) to a single construct called mass media consumption information exposure, which antecedent studies conceptually posited to be a formative (causative) representation.

This paper analyses a consumer sample of 585 US respondents and applies the CTA test to a single construct by its inclusion in various matrices within a statistical analysis system‐macro that takes into account nonnormal data characteristics. The matrices are derived from Mplus 5 through the estimation of a single‐factor congeneric model. The CTA test calculates a test statistic similar to an asymptotic χ² distribution with degrees of freedom equal to the number of nonredundant tetrads tested.

The preliminary data analyses reveal that the data characteristics are nonnormal which is not uncommon in social research. The CTA results reveal that the reflective (emergent) item orientation cannot be fully ruled out as being the correct model representation. This is in contrast to prior theoretical conceptual work which would strongly support this construct being a formative representation.

Insofar as the authors are aware, there is no paper with a particular focus on how the CTA might not provide sound results with a demonstrated example. The paper makes a valuable contribution by discussing modelling philosophy and a procedure for directionality testing. The authors advocate the implementation of pre and post hoc tests as a key component of standard research practice.

The purpose of this paper is to present a socio‐legal case study, examining how the legal notion of “reasonable safety” provision has come to be constructed by municipal cemetery managers in relation to gravestones and other memorial structures over the last decade in England.

The paper takes a social constructionist approach to the subject of the case study. It is based upon a literature review of relevant law, policy and guidance, and on the results of qualitative face‐to‐face, semi‐structured interviews with a small sample of English municipal cemetery managers.

The issue of memorial safety illustrates the tensions that can arise between safety and conflicting priorities, in this case sensitivity to the bereaved. The paper shows that the simple promulgation of guidance will not automatically lead to it being accepted by all as “good practice”. The interviews show how organisations and individual managers have sought to make sense of, and render workable, their legal obligations, by drawing upon, and at times ignoring or adapting, available guidance.

The interview study is based upon a small non‐random sample, accessed via a single phase of enquiry in Spring 2008. The influence of fear of liability may manifest differently in other cemetery managers and/or change over time. In view of the novel, and powerful, “resisting‐forces” in the case of cemeteries direct comparison with the risk perception of managers in other parts of the built environment may be difficult.

Given the lack of existing research in the field of liability perception by landowners, the paper contributes to the analysis of the generic processes by which safety guidance is negotiated, and reconciled with competing drivers in the management of the built environment.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between interorganizational integration with respect to its intensity and span, as well as the propagation and amplification of disruptions alongside a supply chain.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using a survey of companies. In order to extract the constructs manifesting the span and intensity of integration between companies in supply chains, the principal component analysis was employed. The obtained factor scores were then used as classification criteria in the cluster analysis. It enabled to include similar organizations in terms of intensity and span of supply chain integration. In order to validate the obtained results, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted and regression models were developed.

The findings of the study show that there is a relationship between the intensity and span of supply chain integration and the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions. The obtained findings show that the span of supply chain integration is negatively associated with the strength of the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions. In addition, the results suggest that more intense supply chain integration contributes to the “snowball effect” in material flows in the forward and backward transmission of disruptions.

Although the current study investigates the intensity and span of integration within the basic, extended and ultimate supply chain structure, it still lacks the broader analysis of the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions. The study investigates this phenomenon only within the basic supply chain structure, constituted by the primary members. Another challenge is to examine if the effects of external risk factors (e.g. natural disasters) may also be transferred to other links in the supply chain structure, and what are the similarities and differences (if any) between the mechanism of propagation and amplification of disruptions elicited by internal and external risk factors. Another future direction of study is to define other ways of identification and measurement of the “snowball effect” in order to make cross-industrial and international comparisons of disruptions amplified in the transmission more standardized and objective. In the current study, the phenomenon of the “snowball effect” is anchored in the subjective opinions of managers who may view the problem from different angles. Consequently, the study is limited to individual perceptions of the strength of disruptions affecting the solicited company, its customers and suppliers.

In practical terms, the findings provide crucial information for the framework of supply chain risk management and therefore enable its more efficient and effective implementation. The better the managers understand the nature of the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions, the easier it is for them to allocate resources and apply necessary managerial tools to mitigate the negative consequences of risk more effectively. The deliverables of the study also confirm that the interorganizational exchange of information accompanying the supply chain integration enables to mitigate the strength of the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions. Another important implication is the broadening of practical expertise concerning the use of integration not only as a means of obtaining and sustaining supply chain effectiveness and efficiency, but also as the way to mitigate the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions. Therefore, nowadays the supply chain managers are facing another challenging task – namely, how to balance supply chain integration in terms of span and intensity to ensure profits from integration and mitigate the negative risk consequences transmitted among the links in supply chains.

The paper elaborates on the underestimated issue of the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions and its drivers. In particular, the paper attempts at filling the gap in empirical studies concerning the relationships between the “snowball effect” in the transmission of disruptions and supply chain integration.

The purpose of this paper is to review the recent literature on housing with care in England where a longitudinal approach has been adopted and to identify possible new research projects that focus on gaps in the existing literature.

The review of the relevant research literature draws in part on an earlier overview of the broader literature on housing with care, part of an NIHR School for Social Care Research project, Adult Social Services Environments and Settings (ASSET).

The literature review suggests that the findings from longitudinal studies on housing with care in England have usually been based on administrative sources (such as assessments) rather than the primary focus being on the voice of residents and frontline staff. It is therefore suggested that further studies are required to reflect the views of everyday life in housing with care settings.

This literature review and the longitudinal qualitative framework for undertaking further inquiry forms the basis for a major bid for funds from the NIHR School for Social Care Research. This is a collaborative endeavour between the University of Bristol’s School for Policy Studies, the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester, the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent and the Housing and Learning Improvement Network. The limitations of this paper reflect the paucity of past investigations on the contribution of social care to the quality of life of elderly residents in extra care housing.

As noted above, the reviews of this draft paper have helped to determine the form of the bid for research funds. Informal discussions with commissioners and providers of extra care housing for older people indicate that access for fieldwork along the lines proposed should not prove to be a major barrier. One of the important implications is to add to the weight of evidence about the working conditions of care staff in extra care housing. The research is likely to highlight both good and poor practices, not least with consequences for the quality of life of elderly residents.

As indicated above, the paper draws attention to the need for a longitudinal qualitative study on the contribution of social care to the quality of life of older residents in extra care housing. Such a study would focus both on the details of everyday lives experienced by residents and the interaction in this setting between frontline staff and residents. In the context of major demographic change in the UK and planned further substantial cuts in public expenditure, this research is of high relevance for both policy and practice in this field of social care.

The review indicated a reliance on administratively derived information about residents rather than focusing on the voice of residents and frontline staff. Future longitudinal research should pay attention to the latter.

Management is constantly looking for ways to show how exactly the competitive advantage can be enhanced to achieve the desired results. As such, control mechanisms that are designed to ensure that the desired results are achieved play an important part in the successful implementation of a business strategy, which is why, in this study, the authors analyze how formal and informal control levels are deduced from the marketing decisions that operationalize the organizational strategy.

The authors conducted a cross-section survey among 301 marketing managers. To determine which types of strategies are prevalent, the authors performed a hierarchical cluster analysis using the IBM SPSS Statistics 24 software and then constructed an ANOVA table to see whether there are differences in the characteristics of the different clusters. To determine the configuration of marketing control across strategy typologies, the authors conducted a mean difference test, aligning marketing control mechanisms with the strategies under study, significantly changing the intensity levels from one to another.

It is worth emphasizing that higher levels of control are related to prospector strategic business units (SBUs) and that informal control was significantly more prevalent than formal control for all the strategy typologies the authors' studied.

This research provides empirical evidence to gain a better understanding of the role marketing decisions play on formal and informal control mechanisms.

Economic structural complementarity between country A and country B, or the way the two countries specialize in different industries is a useful tool for the analysis of the likely impact of trade liberalization. Although implicit in earlier work on economic integration, this concept has been overshadowed subsequently, probably because of the “econometrization” of the studies on trade liberalization. This paper aims to discuss first the relevance of the concept of structural complementarity between two economies in the context of regional integration. Second, since the EU and Korea are on the verge of signing a free trade agreement (FTA), it aims to show that measuring economic structural complementarity in the case of these two countries is all the more desirable.

The paper applies a number of indices such as the trade complementarity index and the Kreinin‐Finger similarity of export index to the manufacturing sector.

On the whole the EU and Korea are structurally complementary, implying large potential gains from the FTA. However, the existence of two critical industries, namely road vehicles and electrical machinery are revealed.

The FTA poses some sectoral challenges to the industries, in particular for the EU, and it calls for appropriate strategies in these areas.

This article both clarifies and measures economic structural complementarity, a concept connected with, but not reduced to that of competitiveness. By using several indicators, the present study shows that the manufacturing sectors of the EU and of Korea are on the whole complementary.

The TUC is opposed to the decision by the British Government to abolish wages councils, which if successful will worsen the pay and conditions of the 2.6 million workers covered by them, and many other low paid workers who use the rates set as reference points. Drawing on theoretical literature and empirical research, explores the arguments for and against abolition and discusses the case for a statutory national minimum wage. Concludes by arguing that the case for abolition is far from proven on economic and social grounds, and that the introduction of a statutory national minimum wage, combined with other active labour market intervention by the Government, is needed to overcome the problem of low pay.

Heat is generated in electronics and other electrical systems by resistive heating, hysteresis losses, eddy currents, and switching activities. The faster a micro‐chip performs, the greater the rate of heat generation, and the smaller the chip, the greater the rate of heat flux generated. Thus, as electronics technologies advance, thermal systems designers are presented with even more complex problems as to how to extract heat from micro‐electronics, printed‐circuit boards, electronics racks, thyristor assemblies, transformers, rotating electrical machinery, space vehicles, aerospace structures and control systems.

We study here the effects of FTA on demand, consumer surplus, dealer profit, and tariff revenue depending on the degree of substitution between two goods and import competition structure in a two country’s static model. We consider monopolist dealer, and perfect competition in imports market. The base model is with a positive tariff and we compare the equilibrium with a zero tariff under FTA. The rankings in the consumer utility are such that it is i) the highest under perfect competition with FTA or without FTA, ii) second highest under monopoly with FTA, and iii) the lowest under monopoly without FTA.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the inter-relations among the US stock indices.

Data of nine US stock indices spanning a period of sixteen years (2000-2015) are employed for this purpose. Asymmetries are examined via an error correction model. Non-linear inter-relations are researched via Breitung’s nonlinear cointegration, a M-G nonlinear causality model, shocks to the forecast error variance, a shock spillover index and an asymmetric VAR-GARCH (VAR-ABEKK) approach.

The inter-relations are significant. The results are robust across all types of inter-relations. They are highest in the Lehman Brothers sub-period. Higher stability after the EU debt crisis, enhances independence and growth for the US stock indices.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine the inter-relations of US stock indices. Most studies on inter-relations concentrate on the portfolio analysis to reveal diversification benefits among various asset markets internationally. Hence this study contributes to this literature on the inter-relations of a specific asset market (stock), and in a specific nation (USA). The evident inter-relations support the notion of diversification benefits in the US stock markets.