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Experimental economics has been treated with skepticism by some Austrian economists. We argue that experimental methods are consistent with strong versions of praxeology, and are therefore not methodologically problematic for Austrians. We further argue that experimental research methods have illustrated many uniquely Austrian themes and provide a fruitful method for future Austrian-inspired research.

This chapter compares interdisciplinary research that engages genomic science from economics, political science, and sociology. It describes, compares, and evaluates concepts and research findings from new and rapidly developing research fields, and develops a conceptual taxonomy of the social environment.

A selection of programmatic and empirical articles, published mostly since 2008 in leading economics, political science, and sociology journals, were analyzed according to (a) the relationship they pose between their discipline and genomic science, (b) the specific empirical contributions they make to disciplinary research questions, and (c) their conceptualization of the “social environment” as it informs the central problematique of current inquiry: gene-environment interaction.

While all three of the social science disciplines reviewed engage genomic science, economics and political science tend to engage genomics on its own terms, and develop genomic explanations of economic and political behavior. In contrast, sociologists develop arguments that for genomic science to advance, the “environment” in gene-environment interaction needs better theorization and measurement. We develop an approach to the environment that treats it as a set of measurable institutional (rule-like) arrangements, which take the forms of neighborhoods, families, schools, nations, states, and cultures.

Interdisciplinary research that combines insights from the social sciences and genomic science should develop and apply a richer array of concepts and measures if gene-environment research – including epigenetics – is to advance.

This chapter provides a critical review and redirection of three rapidly developing areas of interdisciplinary research on gene-environment interaction and epigenetics.

This paper examines the labor policies of the United Typothetae of America (UTA) from its birth in 1887 through the late 1920s and argues that labor policy differences among its members (personified by two prominent New York City-based printing employers, Theodore DeVinne and Charles Francis) created a “house divided” that not only prevented it from creating and maintaining a unified labor policy but also ultimately led to its demise as an employers' association and reconstitution primarily as a trade association. It will do so by analyzing key episodes in the UTA's labor history to show how the two competing labor philosophies – DeVinne's absolute authority & independence and Francis's stability & order – interacted with industry conditions – intense price competition, a decentralized industry structure, proprietor autonomy, the relative power of unions, and economic conditions – to impact the UTA's labor policies and its institutional survival. The UTA's experience reveals the diversity of American employers' experiences as well as the challenges that they have faced when attempting to act collectively in the industrial relations arena. Moreover, recent IR research on employers' associations around the world also reveals that, as unions have declined in power, many also are shifting their focus away from labor relations to other member services.

This chapter provides an overview of the explanations and factors affecting dividend policy. This study employs a systematic literature review approach to review a large sample of studies related to the dividend puzzle. Although the analysis reveals mixed evidence involving the theories and determinants of dividend policy, some determinants appear in numerous studies. However, no consensus exists on an optimal dividend to resolve the dividend puzzle, and the authors propose a model to deal with the same. When examining dividend policy, researchers should consider the firm, market, behavior, and other determinants. When making significant dividend or stock decisions, managers and shareholders should also contemplate the factors, interactions, inadequacies, and consequences. Future researchers should strive to take a more comprehensive view when resolving the dividend puzzle. This study provides a current and complete picture of dividend policy's available theories and empirical determinants. Its significant contribution is identifying some of the more consistently essential determinants of dividend policy while proposing a holistic model to address the prevailing dividend dilemma.

The study of the diffusion of innovations into libraries has become a cottage industry of sorts, as libraries have always provided a fascinating test-bed of nonprofit institutions attempting improvement through the use of new policies, practices, and assorted apparatus (Malinconico, 1997). For example, Paul Sturges (1996) has focused on the evolution of public library services over the course of 70 years across England, while Verna Pungitore (1995) presented the development of standardization of library planning policies in contemporary America. For the past several decades, however, the study of diffusion in libraries has tended to focus on the implementation of information technologies (e.g., Clayton, 1997; Tran, 2005; White, 2001) and their associated competencies (e.g., Marshall, 1990; Wildemuth, 1992), the improvements in performance associated with their use (e.g., Damanpour, 1985, 1988; Damanpour & Evan, 1984), and ways to manage resistance to technological changes within the library environment (e.g., Weiner, 2003).

Accelerated internationalization occurs when a firm engages in international business early in its life cycle or when it builds international business experience with great speed, perhaps incorporating international activities in more parts of the firm's value chain than has occurred historically. Such acceleration seems to have been occurring since the late 1980s, and evidence indicates that it is not a temporary or abnormal phenomenon (Organisation for Economic co-operation and development (OECD), 1997). Many firms around the world experienced an era of accelerated internationalization in the 1990s (OECD, 1997) and many are continuing to do so.

The chapter revisits and updates an earlier analysis to assess the extent to which sociological social psychology’s treatment of race has changed since 2000, and evaluates the degree to which issues of intersectionality and sexuality are engaged in social psychological scholarship.

The chapter provides a content analysis of articles published between 2000 and 2012 in Social Psychology Quarterly, a leading journal in sociological social psychology, and of chapters published in two influential handbooks in social psychology.

It documents a notable increase in the percentage of articles in Social Psychology Quarterly in which race/ethnicity is referred to, included in the analysis, or seriously engaged. Patterns vary by methodological approach used in these articles. Social psychological attention to intersectionality and sexuality, as measured by the percentage of articles that broach these topics, is minimal.

This chapter restricts its analysis to the leading journal in sociological social psychology, but still demonstrates that there is potential for greater movement toward the incorporation of race/ethnicity, intersectionality, and sexuality in social psychological scholarship.

It calls attention to core topics in sociology that would benefit from greater scholarly engagement by social psychologists.

This chapter considers whether and how race/ethnicity can be examined using experimental methods.

We begin by discussing the highly contextual nature of race/ethnicity and reviewing the properties of experiments. After examining existing experimental literature that focuses on race/ethnicity, we turn to our current study that uses the incompatible complexity condition to examine the multilevel interactions of diverse racial/ethnic groups composed of Mexican American and White participants in Texas and Black and White participants in Ohio.

We argue that experiments, when guided by formal theoretical approaches that allow for general inquiries of theoretical principles, are especially suitable for studying interactional characteristics such as race/ethnicity.

We suggest a particular approach that emphasizes interactional aspects of race/ethnicity and how these aspects can be utilized to diminish inequality in group processes.

Understanding how leaders make foreign policy and national security decisions is of paramount importance for the policy community and academia. It is our assertion that decisions in these domains can be explained best by tracing the cognitive process leaders go through in formulating and arriving at their decisions, using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method (Mintz, 2005; Mintz & DeRouen, 2010).

Consequently, this chapter summarizes the Applied Decision Analysis method which is utilized throughout the chapters comprising this volume. We then discuss the findings presented in this volume, while demonstrating the merit of both ADA and the poliheuristic theory of decision (Mintz, 2004), in the robust analyses of decisions made by Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Benjamin Netanyahu, Winston Churchill, Mao Zedong, Barack Obama, Saddam Hussein, Khaled Mashal, Muammar Gaddafi, Pieter Botha, and Frederik de Klerk. We conclude by providing a brief summary of the case studies which are included in this volume.