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Managing the interface between the corporation and government has become one of the most rapidly growing management areas. The examination, evaluation and teaching of this aspect has been the work of the Max Bell Business‐Government Studies Programme at York University in Canada. The author describes the work of the programme to date and pays particular attention to the research being undertaken. The Programme has established itself as a major force in research and teaching in this area in Canada. The way in which both the public and private sectors can operate in the best interests of society as a whole is important to all.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the gender composition of a fund management team influences investment decision-making behavior. Specifically, we focus on how portfolio choice is affected by team risk aversion and loss aversion.

Using an experimental economics approach, the paper examines the relationship between gender diversity and investment decisions. Teams of four persons each were given the task of making investment portfolio management decisions.

The paper finds that team composition does influence financial decisions with regard to the assessment of risk and loss. The paper finds evidence that a male presence increases the probability of selecting a higher risk investment. However, the all male teams are not the most risk seeking. Moreover, having a male presence can increase loss aversion.

In the context of workforce composition, these results could have important implications for team investment decisions driven by the assessment of risk and return tradeoffs. To curb excessive risk taking and loss aversion, the findings would suggest that understanding the role of gender diversity in risk management would be useful in effecting change.

The purpose of this study is to determine how self-driven (intrinsic motivators) and monetary incentives (extrinsic motivators) are mediated by an effort to affect fundraising outcomes. This integration sheds light on crowding out between the two types of incentives as well the drivers of fundraising outcomes, specifically effort and donations.

A field experiment is conducted over a two-month period, involving an online fundraising campaign with over 300 volunteers assigned to one of five different incentive conditions. A special website was created to monitor fundraiser efforts. Fundraisers filled out pre- and post-study surveys.

While high monetary incentives result in the greatest immediate increase in funds raised, they crowd out future intentions to volunteer once incentives are withdrawn. Mediation analyzes show that fundraiser effort fully mediates the effect of intrinsic motivators and partially mediates the direct effect of extrinsic motivators on funds raised.

A major limitation of field experiments is the lack of control, resulting in higher variation. However, while a more controlled experiment will reduce this variation, this goes at the expense of lower external validity.

Results indicate that – at least in the short run – monetary incentives can result in higher fundraising outcomes. However, this goes at the expense of a reduction in future volunteering once the incentives are withdrawn.

This study examines whether extrinsic or intrinsic motivators have a greater impact on funds raised and whether extrinsic motivators crowd out future intentions to volunteer. Different from previous research in which effort is a latent variable, the effort is directly observed over time.

Institutions of higher education face challenges of fiscal responsibility and their value proposition for students and other stakeholders they serve. Strategies used in business sectors, such as merger and acquisition, are being increasingly adopted by higher education governing boards, especially for public institutions and systems. The purpose of this paper is to guide policy decisions related to university mergers.

This paper focuses on the interplay between the pre-merger status of the institution, the individual faculty member's sense of belonging, and their commitment to the organization on levels of job-related stress, which has well-established negative impacts on individual and organizational performance. Using survey data collected at the same time post-merger from two different universities within the same state system, we explore regression models to identify similarities and differences between the faculty responses in terms of the impact of the merger on faculty stress.

Differences are found between the two universities in terms of faculty stress with faculty of one low status institution pre-merger having significantly higher stress post-merger. A case is presented for differences in stress based on a part on differences in how the mergers were managed at the system and university levels.

This research is instructive for higher education policy makers and university administrators as the institution of higher education continues this type of transformation.

This paper examines the impact of mergers on a university's single-most important asset, faculty. Comparative and timely faculty survey results from two related universities early post-merger provide valuable insights for leaders in higher education.

There is a global increase in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) with relative paucity of data on the burden of this syndrome in developing countries like Nigeria. This study evaluated the prevalence of MetS among apparently healthy subjects in Nigeria.

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted with 550 (249 men, 301 women) healthy subjects recruited using multi-stage technique. Anthropometric measurements were taken using standard procedures and instruments. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure was measured in all the subjects. Blood samples were collected from selected subjects and analyzed for hematological variables.

The prevalence of MetS was 36.8 per cent using the IDF criteria and 34.6 per cent using the NCEP-ATP III criteria. In all, 1.64 per cent (9) of respondents were underweight, 22.55 per cent (124) were of normal body mass index, 49.64 per cent (273) were overweight and 26.17 per cent (144) were obese. The mean waist circumference and waist to hip ratio for male and female were 83.27 ± 2.6 cm and 0.84 ± 0.1 and 86.22 ± 13.9 cm and 0.84 ± 0.1, respectively. Total cholesterol was elevated in 16.04 per cent of the respondents, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was observed in 41.83 per cent of the respondents. High values of triglycerides were observed in 5.79 per cent of respondents. Elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was observed in 40.85 per cent of the respondents. This study showed that a huge burden of MetS exists among the study population.

The cross-sectional design of this study limits inference regarding causality and effects. Also, there was no controlled case in the study.

There is the need for accurate knowledge of the MetS of the population to inform public health policy for mitigation.

MetS has been described as a global time bomb, with a quarter of the world’s adults estimated to be having the condition. It will place a burden on social services if a lot of working population are forced to retire early due to MetS.

The findings are pointers to the probable magnitude of the co-morbid factors of cardiovascular diseases as encapsulated in the MetS in our environment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of chief financial officers’ (CFOs’) gender in financial risk taking of 58 US companies along with the impact of having women board members.

Using a panel data of 58 selected S&P 500 companies during the period 2012-2016, this paper determines whether the gender of CFOs and having women board members play a role in risk-taking behavior of firms.

Firms led by female CFOs are smaller in size with lower net income and net revenue. The panel data analysis shows that the impact of female CFOs on firms’ financial risk is mixed, depending on risk measures used, whereas increasing female board members reduces that risk.

The data used is limited to 58 S&P 500 companies, and two of the three risk-taking measures used in the study, specifically investment in property, plant and equipment (PPE) and debt/equity ratio, may not be applicable to some industries.

The findings provide mixed evidence of risk aversion by females in executive and leadership positions, depending on the measures used and the management responsibilities they undertake (CFO versus board member) with support for the glass cliff phenomenon in which females may be leading financially precarious organizations.

Female CFOs are found to be leading relatively smaller and financially poor-performing firms compared with the male CFO-led firms, thereby giving support to the glass cliff arguments.

The paper examines the role of CFOs’ gender and board diversity in risk taking as measured by the investment in PPE, debt/equity ratio and stock return volatility.