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A discipline is bound by some combination of a shared subject matter, shared theory, and shared technique. Yet modern economics is seemingly without limit to its domain. As a discipline without a shared subject matter, what is the binding force of economics today? The authors combine topic modeling and text analysis to analyze different approaches to inquiry within the discipline of economics. The authors find that the importance of theory has declined as economics has increasingly become defined by its empirical techniques. The authors question whether this trajectory is stable in the long run as the binding force of the discipline.

Much progress has been made in public opinion regarding drug prohibition. The policy has been an utter failure, very expensive, and increasingly disliked by people around the world. As a result, several states have passed drug reform legislation that reduces penalties for the production, distribution, and consumption of previously prohibited substances such as narcotics and marijuana. Other states have placed more resources in drug treatment programs (demand reduction) instead of drug interdiction efforts (supply reduction). In North America, several states in the US and Canada have passed medical marijuana legislation to take advantage of the well-known medical benefits of marijuana (Piper, Matthew, Katherine, & Rebecca, 2003).

Surveys, from an American perspective, the existing literature on economic explanations of the behaviour of universities and scholars. The modern literature is put in historical perspective introduced by a brief discussion of the positions of two of the earliest and most distinguished contributors to the literature: Adam Smith and Max Weber. Discusses the human capital and implicit contracts literatures of the behaviour of scholars, the latter elaborated in terms of the issue of tenure. The most common theoretical economic analysis of the university is the view that it is best thought of as a non‐profit organization. Discusses variants of this view, with special attention to the literature on rent‐seeking in academe. Goes on to the empirical literature on the economics of academe in the areas of academic institutions, academic earnings functions, the earnings and status of minority scholars and academic production functions. Briefly considers the relevance of the current literature to the Althoff system, suggesting that Althoff′s able, trusted advisers, and his system of institutes, may have allowed him to avoid several inefficiences that have been identified by economists as present in other academic institutions. Although the centralization of decision making in the hands of one decision maker may be efficient if the decision maker is exceptionally able, more commonly the most efficient system will be a decentralized system that allows for greater diversity and competition. Concludes with a discussion of how hypotheses on the efficiency (and fairness) of various aspects of the Althoff system could, in principle, be tested.

Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being. Missing from this discussion is how – from a human resources management (HRM) perspective – organizations and managers can directly and positively shape the well-being of their employees. The authors use this review to paint a picture of what organizations could be like if they valued people holistically and embraced the full experience of employees’ lives to promote well-being at work. In so doing, the authors tackle five challenges that managers may have to help their employees navigate, but to date have received more limited empirical and theoretical attention from an HRM perspective: (1) recovery at work; (2) women’s health; (3) concealable stigmas; (4) caregiving; and (5) coping with socio-environmental jolts. In each section, the authors highlight how past research has treated managerial or organizational support on these topics, and pave the way for where research needs to advance from an HRM perspective. The authors conclude with ideas for tackling these issues methodologically and analytically, highlighting ways to recruit and support more vulnerable samples that are encapsulated within these topics, as well as analytic approaches to study employee experiences more holistically. In sum, this review represents a call for organizations to now – more than ever – build thriving organizations.

This research paper examines the information content and managerial incentives for labour cost voluntary disclosures for a sample of United States publicly traded companies. We focus on labour productivity and managerial efficiency in labour usage and argue that these human capital indicators could provide valuable information to capital market participants seeking human resource‐type of performance measures and signals. Labour productivity and efficiency indicators are estimated following a production function approach and are included in logistic regressions to help explain and predict labour cost voluntary disclosure decisions. We find that labour productivity and managerial efficiency in labour use indicators are generally different between disclosing and non‐disclosing firms, and that proprietary information costs and political cost proxies are significantly related to labour costs voluntary disclosure, consistent with previous literature. These empirical results corroborate the ‘proprietary information’ hypothesis of voluntary disclosure where the strategic costs of disclosure outweigh the signaling benefit from disclosing human capital information.

Although work has a fundamental role in the individual’s psychological well-being, the vast majority of mental health service users are not in employment. This is the result of various barriers that impede their work re-integration process despite their desire to work. Apart from the illness’ symptoms, these barriers are strongly associated with the negative effects of long-term unemployment, the negative stereotypes and attitudes towards mental health service users and the fear of losing disability benefits. There are several occupational intervention models aiming at vocational rehabilitation of mental health service users. Arguably, the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment has proved to be more effective compared to other models. This chapter presents an innovative career counselling approach that combines elements from the IPS model and from the newly emerged career theories that have been developed to address today’s world of work challenges. This model was developed by the Pan-Hellenic Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Work Integration (PEPSAEE) in Greece during the recent major economic crisis. Further implications of the model’s implementation regarding vocational rehabilitation of mental health users as means for social inclusion are discussed.

Outlines the problem of emancipation (not only of married women) as a problem of economic order, and the historical setting of family and government. Discusses economics of the family, economic order and public finance. Concludes, with special reference to The Netherlands, that incremental improvement in individual freedom is only brought about within the so‐called capitalist system.

This chapter analyzes markets with an “infinite variety” of goods, such as large parts of the service economy and creative industries such as the book, film, and music market. I argue that the infinite variety of supply that characterizes such markets does not lead to discoordination, because of the emergence of cognitive institutions in the form of market categories, reference points such as exemplary goods, and instruments of interpretation which facilitate the (quality) coordination process. These cognitive institutions function as an extended mind of market participants and enable what is termed interpretative rationality, as distinct from calculative rationality. This interpretative rationality consists of the ability to recognize relevant differences and similarities between goods. These cognitive institutions, like the price system, are an emergent order which can be analyzed through the lens of Austrian economics. This chapter further demonstrates the potential convergence between particular strands of economic sociology and Austrian economics.