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The main objective of this study is to examine whether firms follow the financing hierarchy as suggested by the Pecking Order Theory (POT). The External Funds Needed (EFN) model offers a financing hierarchy that can be used for examining the POT. As far as the EFN considers growth of sales as a driver for changing capital structure, it follows that shall firms plan for a sustainable growth of sales, a sustainable financing can be reached and maintained. This study uses data about the firms listed in two indexes: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA30) and NASDAQ100. The data cover quarterly periods from June 30, 1999, to March 31, 2012. The methodology includes (a) cointegration analysis in order to test for model specification and (b) causality analysis in order to show the generic and mutual associations between the components of EFN. The results conclude that (a) in the majority of the cases, firms plan for an increase in growth sales but not necessarily to approach sustainable rate; (b) in cases of observed and sustainable growth of sales, firms reduce debt financing persistently; (c) firms use equity financing to finance sustainable growth of sales in the long run only, while in the short run, firms use internal financing, that is, retained earnings as a flexible source of financing; and (d) the EFN model is quite useful for examining the hierarchy of financing. This study contributes to the related literature in terms of utilizing the properties of the EFN model in order to examine the practical aspects of the POT. These practical considerations are extended to examine the use of the POT in cases of observed and sustainable growth rates. The findings contribute to the current literature that there is a need to offer an adjustment to the financing order suggested by the POT. Equity financing is the first source of financing current and sustainable growth of sales, followed by retained earnings, and debt financing is the last resort.

Purpose: In reality, financial decisions are made under conditions of asymmetric information that results in either favorable or adverse selection. As far as financial decisions affect growth of the firm, the latter must also be affected by either favorable or adverse selection. Therefore, the core objective of this chapter is to examine the determinants of each financial decision and the effects on growth of the firm under conditions of information asymmetry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This chapter uses data for the non-financial firms listed in S&P 500. The data cover quarterly periods from 1989 to 2014. The statistical tests include linearity, fixed, and random effects and normality. The generalized method of moments estimation method is employed in order to examine the relative significance and contribution of each financial decision on growth of the firm, respectively. Standard and proposed proxies of information asymmetry are discussed.

Findings: The results conclude that there is a variation in the impact of financial variables on growth of the firm at high and low levels of information asymmetry especially regarding investment and financing decisions. A similar picture emerges in the cases of firm size and industry effects. In addition, corporate dividen d policy has a similar effect on firm growth across all asymmetric levels. These findings prove that information asymmetry plays a vital role in the relationship between corporate financial decisions and growth of the firm. Finally, the results contribute to the vast literature on the estimation of information asymmetry by demonstrating that the classical and standard proxies for information asymmetry are not consistent in terms of the ability to differentiate between favorable or adverse selection (which corresponds to low and high level of information asymmetry).

Originality/Value: This chapter contributes to the related literature in two ways. First, this chapter offers updated empirical evidence on the way that financing, investment, and dividends decisions are made under conditions of favorable and adverse selection. Other related studies deal with each decision separately. Second, the study offers new proxies for measuring information asymmetry in order to reach robust estimates of the effects of financial decisions on growth of the firm under conditions of agency problems.

Purpose – We build a theoretical lens that draws on an emerging theory of positive work relationships to examine whether constructive emotional expressions in work relationships influence changes in individuals' affective commitment to their organization.

Design/methodology/approach – Using longitudinal data collected from full-time employees, we employed a latent-difference-score (LDS) approach to examine whether changes in emotional carrying capacity could account for changes in organizational commitment.

Findings – The findings support this hypothesis and suggest a new perspective on the ways in which a change in relationship capacity may create changes in people's commitment to an organization.

Research limitations – The main limitation concerns the use of self-report, albeit time-lagged, data.

Practical implications – Developing higher levels of employee affective commitment is a key challenge for many organizations. Our study can help managers in recognizing the importance of building a relational space in which employees are able to express emotions frequently and openly, as well as engaging with other employees in listening to their emotional experiences and responding in a constructive manner.

Originality/value – This study contributes to an emergent body of literature that adopts a positive psychology lens to the study of employee experiences at work, by investigating the capacity to express emotions in general and its influence on people's affective commitment to the organization.

In recent decades, it has become clear that the major economic, political, and social problems in the world require contemporary development research to examine intersections of race and class in the global economy. Theorists in the Black Radical Tradition (BRT) were the first to develop and advance a powerful research agenda that integrated race–class analyses of capitalist development. However, over time, progressive waves of research streams in development studies have successively stripped these concepts from their analyses. Post-1950s, class analyses of development overlapped with some important features of the BRT, but removed race. Post-1990s, ethnicity-based analyses of development excised both race and class. In this chapter, I discuss what we learn about capitalist development using the integrated race–class analyses of the BRT, and how jettisoning these concepts weakens our understanding of the political economy of development. To remedy our current knowledge gaps, I call for applying insights of the BRT to our analyses of the development trajectories of nations.

Purpose – In recent decades, some sociologists have turned to evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science to support, modify, and reconfigure existing social psychological theory. In this chapter, we build on this momentum by considering the relevance of current work in affective and cognitive neuroscience for understanding emotions and the self. Our principal aim is to enlarge the range of phenomena currently considered by sociologists who study emotion while showing how affective dynamics play an important role across most outcomes and processes of interest to social scientists.

Approach – We focus on the ways external social objects become essential to, and emotionally significant for, the self. To that end, we draw on ideas from phenomenology, pragmatism, classic symbolic interactionism, and dramaturgy. We show how basic affective systems graft on, build from, and extend current social psychological usages of emotions as well as the important sociological work being done on self, from both symbolic interactionist (SI) and identity theory (IT) perspectives. Finally, we turn to the promising directions in studying emotional biographies and various aspects related to embodiment.

Findings – Affective systems consist of brain networks whose connections deepen when activated, with interesting variations observable at the neural, individual, and social levels in which one or more system is more salient than others. Affective systems may come to saturate the construction and maintenance of an autobiography or collective biography, with consequences for self-projection, self-other attunement, and embodied action. In turning to embodiment, however, we consider aspects of cognitive neuroscience that can contribute to ongoing work in neurosociology building on symbolic interactionism.

Practical Implications – The focus on affective systems suggests new research agendas in leveraging emerging neurosociological methods in the laboratory, while pushing for novel, naturalistic observational strategies. The latter, in particular, may be key to deepening sociology's contributions to neuroscience, better positioned to bring the full disciplinary toolkit to bear on these questions.

Social Implications – In considering the embodied and projective aspects of the self, we show how work examining convergence and divergence between embodied and linguistic pathways opens up new insights into how the self develops or acquires behavioral repertoires. As such, this chapter points to the need for holistic approach to understanding the social actor and, thereby, how political, economic, historical, and cultural factors shape self as much as biogenetic and psychological.

Originality of the Chapter – Sociologists think of emotions as either dependent or intervening variables: (1) signaling identity or situational incongruence, (2) states to be managed, and (3) structural dimensions of superordinate–subordinate relationships. Our integration of the theory of affective systems emphasizes the causal primacy emotions have over other behavioral and cognitive functions, clarifying how they play into the construction and maintenance of self and social experience.