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The urban environment is perceived through multiple senses in parallel, which means that visual understanding of space is aided and complemented by auditory, basic-orienting, and haptic stimuli – although mainly unconsciously. Sensory conditions are inherent attributes of urban places, but are often overlooked in research. To include these aspects in any way in analysis of the urban landscape, they need to be understood as properties of urban space, to be translated from attributes of the perceiver to attributes of the perceived. Using the relation between a designed garden and its suburban context in Bad Oeynhausen (DE) as an example, I will explore an alternative analytical methodology that takes the first-hand perspective view of the subject moving through the city as the starting point. The human body explores space by moving through it; walking is the most direct way to access, study, and research the physical qualities of the (urban) landscape, involving not only visual experience but also sound, rhythm, kinaesthesia, balance, and so forth. A notation technique that discloses the interrelation between visual qualities and their perception over time is the technique of ‘scoring’. Scores are symbolisations of processes, which extend over time. They can objectively represent non-visual qualities of space, communicating the relation between such processes and their spatial context to others in other places and other moments. These representations of movement expose the qualities of the surroundings that change as one moves through them, thus communicating the experiential aspects of urban landscape.

This study provides evidence on the relationship between scale characteristics and participant responses for percentage-based scales (i.e., 101 points) in accounting research. A 4 × 1 between-subjects experiment examines how common labeling designs affect various statistical properties, including means, variance, normality of the distribution, and frequency of responses. The results indicate that labels on percentage-based scales have a significant impact on the distribution of participants' responses. Labeling only the endpoints is the lone condition that results in normally distributed data. Additional analyses suggest that labels on percentage-based scales influence participant responses in multiple ways. First, as the number of labels increases, participants may not adequately consider, and thus ultimately select, unlabeled points. Second, while participants seem to inherently interpret percentage-based scales in quartiles and deciles, labeling as such exacerbates this tendency. Finally, when more labels are present, participants seem to engage an anchoring heuristic when selecting their response. Taken as a whole, the results suggest that accounting researchers may benefit from labeling only the endpoints of percentage-based scales.

This study examines the association between the use of strategic management accounting (SMA) practices and competitive advantage and the moderating role of four aspects of organisational culture – teamwork orientation, outcome orientation, innovation orientation and attention to detail orientation – on this association. Online survey data were collected from 408 accountants in Australian business organisations, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. The results indicate a positive association between the use of SMA practices and competitive advantage with such an association positively moderated by one cultural dimension, teamwork orientation. Specifically, the findings indicate that the positive effect of SMA practices on competitive advantage is dependent upon the fit between the use of SMA practices and teamwork orientation with more (less) teamwork-oriented organisations exhibiting a stronger (weaker) association between the use of SMA practices and competitive advantage.

Pat Allatt is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Teesside, U.K.Tim Dant is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of East Anglia, U.K.Carolyn Dixon is a researcher and an independent artist.John Donnelly is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology and Criminology Division at the University of Northumbria, U.K.Alan Felstead is Professor of Employment Studies at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester, U.K.Barbara Harrison is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London, U.K.Rosalind Hurworth is Director of the Centre for Program Evaluation within the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia.Nick Jewson is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester, U.K.John Martin is Principal Lecturer in Economic and Social History at De Montfort University, U.K.Ruth Martin was the Research Assistant for the “Asian Leicester” project.Sarah Pink is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Loughborough, U.K.Christopher Pole is a Reader in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester, U.K.Andrea Raggl is a Research Assistant in the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.Michael Schratz is Professor of Education at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research of the University of Innsbruck, Austria.Matt Smith is a Lecturer in the Sociology and Criminology Division at the University of Northumbria, U.K.Sally Walters is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester, U.K.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The study of markets encompasses a number of disciplines – including anthropology, economics, history, and sociology – and a larger number of theoretical frameworks (see Plattner, 1989; Reddy, 1984; Smelser & Swedberg, 1994). Despite this disciplinary and theoretical diversity, scholarship on markets tends toward either realist or constructionist accounts (Dobbin, 1994; Dowd & Dobbin, forthcoming).¹ Realist accounts treat markets as extant arenas that mostly (or should) conform to a singular ideal-type. Realists thus take the existence of markets as given and examine factors that supposedly shape all markets in a similar fashion. When explaining market outcomes, they tout such factors as competition, demand, and technology; moreover, they can treat the impact of these factors as little influenced by context. Constructionist accounts treat markets as emergent arenas that result in a remarkable variety of types. They problematize the existence of markets and examine how contextual factors contribute to this variety. When explaining market outcomes, some show that social relations and/or cultural assumptions found in a particular setting can qualify the impact of competition (Uzzi, 1997), demand (Peiss, 1998), and technology (Fischer, 1992). Constructionists thus stress the contingent, rather than universal, processes that shape markets.