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Discretion
Kinds of Discretion Selected AbstractsEmployee Stock Option Fair-Value Estimates: Do Managerial Discretion and Incentives Explain Accuracy?,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006Leslie Hodder Abstract We examine the determinants of managers' use of discretion over employee stock option (ESO) valuation-model inputs that determine ESO fair values. We also explore the consequences of such discretion. Firms exercise considerable discretion over all model inputs, and this discretion results in material differences in ESO fair-value estimates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that a large proportion of firms exercise value-increasing discretion. Importantly, we find that using discretion improves predictive accuracy for about half of our sample firms. Moreover, we find that both opportunistic and informational managerial incentives together explain the accuracy of firms' ESO fair-value estimates. Partitioning on the direction of discretion improves our understanding of managerial incentives. Our analysis confirms that financial statement readers can use mandated contextual disclosures to construct powerful ex ante predictions of ex post accuracy. [source] The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary PolicyECONOMETRICA, Issue 5 2005Susan Athey How much discretion should the monetary authority have in setting its policy? This question is analyzed in an economy with an agreed-upon social welfare function that depends on the economy's randomly fluctuating state. The monetary authority has private information about that state. Well designed rules trade off society's desire to give the monetary authority discretion to react to its private information against society's need to prevent that authority from giving in to the temptation to stimulate the economy with unexpected inflation, the time inconsistency problem. Although this dynamic mechanism design problem seems complex, its solution is simple: legislate an inflation cap. The optimal degree of monetary policy discretion turns out to shrink as the severity of the time inconsistency problem increases relative to the importance of private information. In an economy with a severe time inconsistency problem and unimportant private information, the optimal degree of discretion is none. [source] Discretion in Tax EnforcementECONOMICA, Issue 283 2004Luigi Alberto Franzoni This paper deals with the issue of whether the Revenue Service (RS) should be allowed, or even encouraged, to negotiate settlement agreements with taxpayers subject to examination. We consider the case in which the RS enjoys discretion at the settlement stage, its stance being guided by officers' professional judgment. We show that discretionary settlements serve a desirable function, as they allow the RS to better exploit taxpayer-specific information and to take advantage of the bargaining power it can wield at the negotiation stage. [source] Incomplete Contracting, Commission Discretion and the Origins of EU Merger Control,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 3 2009THOMAS DOLEYS Council Regulation 4064/89 on the Control of Concentration between Undertakings, more commonly known as the Merger Regulation , was a watershed development in the evolution of the EU's competition policy regime. In this article we seek to cast new analytical light on what, in many respects, is an established narrative. To do this we draw on insights from the new institutional economics (NIE). Specifically, we draw on the complementary concepts of incomplete contracting and delegation. We demonstrate how the Commission utilized the discretion attendant to its delegated authority to interpret and apply the indeterminate language of treaty competition articles so as to alter the economic, political and legal environment as it pertained to merger activity. It did so to such an extent that Member States, long resistant to Commission proposals for a merger control regulation, came to regard legislative action as preferable to the uncertainty represented by the evolving status quo. [source] Accounting Discretion in Fair Value Estimates: An Examination of SFAS 142 Goodwill ImpairmentsJOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2006ANNE BEATTY ABSTRACT This study examines Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 142 adoption decisions, focusing on the trade-off between recording certain current goodwill impairment charges below the line and uncertain future impairment charges included in income from continuing operations. We examine several potentially important economic incentives that firms face when making this accounting choice. We find evidence suggesting that firms' equity market concerns affect their preference for above-the-line vs. below-the-line accounting treatment, and firms' debt contracting, bonus, turnover, and exchange delisting incentives affect their decisions to accelerate or delay expense recognition. Our study contributes to the accounting choice literature by examining managers' use of discretion when adopting a mandatory accounting change and by developing and testing explicit cross-sectional hypotheses of the determinants of firms' preferences for immediate below-the-line versus delayed above-the-line expense recognition. [source] Discussion of Accounting Discretion in Fair Value Estimates: An Examination of SFAS 142 Goodwill ImpairmentsJOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2006DANIEL A. BENS ABSTRACT Beatty and Weber examine an accounting choice that managers made upon adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 142: whether to record a goodwill asset impairment as a cumulative effect of an accounting change at the time of adoption or delay the recognition of such an impairment to the future (perhaps indefinitely) when they would be recorded as expenses in earnings from continuing operations. The authors consider several factors that might influence management's reporting of transition effects, including contracting, equity market incentives, and regulatory forces. Participants at the 2005 Journal of Accounting Research Conference questioned whether such a complex accounting decision can be captured with simple linear models and noisy proxy variables, while also speculating upon whether the results would generalize to other settings. In this discussion, I summarize Beatty and Weber's research, highlight its contribution to the accounting literature, and provide a record of the main issues raised by the conference participants. [source] Incentives, Discretion, and Asset Valuation in Closed,End Mutual FundsJOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2002Nandini Chandar This paper studies earnings management using 363 closed,end mutual fund firm,years of data. Closed,end fund assets consist of unrestricted and restricted securities, and realized and unrealized income. While unrestricted securities are not subject to earnings management, restricted security values are largely discretionary. Managerial valuation of restricted securities is modeled as contingent on unrestricted returns relative to a performance benchmark. Four unrestricted performance regions are identified. Known multi,period compensation incentives become the basis for hypothesizing earnings management behaviors in the regions in the form of restricted security valuation. Across several benchmarks, the results are consistent with multi,period maximization rather than simpler single,period compensation maximization or income smoothing. Funds with extreme unrestricted performance show relatively larger income,decreasing earnings management, and funds with slightly,below benchmark returns show relatively larger income,increasing earnings management than those slightly above. These results clarify the relationship between complex earnings management behavior and managerial incentives. [source] Prosecuting ,Gross' Medical Negligence: Manslaughter, Discretion, and the Crown Prosecution ServiceJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2006Oliver Quick This article examines prosecutions of health care professionals for gross negligence manslaughter following fatal errors committed in the course of their work. Unease has long surrounded the use of ,gross negligence' as a form of criminal liability, and particularly as it applies to health care professions operating in high-risk settings. The recent dramatic rise of such prosecutions calls for a closer understanding of the processes by which important prosecutorial decisions are made. In particular, this calls for an investigation into the exercise of discretion by prosecutors in interpreting the loosely defined and contested concept of gross negligence. This article analyses data obtained from a statistical analysis of ,medical manslaughter' cases and also from interviews with crown prosecutors. Discussion of the main findings leads to the conclusion that the offence of gross negligence manslaughter is incapable of any objective and fair measurement and ought to be abolished. [source] Political Restraints and Bureaucratic Discretion: The Case of State Government Rule MakingPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2002Dennis O. Grady State government agencies have increased their role and responsibilities in recent years under the national policy of devolution, and as these agencies have produced more rules and regulations to carry out these expanded duties, elected leaders across the states have increased the restraints placed on them. The typical means for doing so is through the State Administrative Procedure Act. This research examines the means by which states provide access channels to groups and individuals during the rulemaking process and the formal controls in place in the mid 1990s to restrict the discretion of state administrative entities during rulemaking. The work relies on information provided by the actors involved in rules review and oversight across the country during that time. After developing indices that compare the states on citizen access and institutional control, we attempt to explain why some states were more restrictive than others over rulemaking. The primary finding is that the shift of partisan control of at least one chamber in the state legislature following the 1994 elections best explains increased restrictiveness across the states. [source] Executive Clemency or Bureaucratic Discretion?PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2007Two Models of the Pardons Process This article examines the use of the president's pardon power from 1953 to 2000. Two different models are used to describe the pardons process: a presidential model and an agency model. The presidential model takes a top-down approach to the pardons process by viewing the pardon power as a resource that the president can use to advance specific policy goals. In contrast, the agency model views the pardons process as a bottom-up process, with the preferences of officials within the Department of Justice as the key determinant of the number of pardons issued. This article empirically tests both of these models and finds that the president's control over the pardons process is limited by officials within the Justice Department and the actions of past presidents. This is illustrated by an in-depth case study of President Bill Clinton's controversial use of the pardon power. [source] The Use of Discretion in a Rule-Bound Service: Housing Benefit Administration and the Introduction of Discretionary Housing Payments in Great BritainPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2005Bruce Walker This paper is concerned with how administrators in the Housing Benefit (HB) service in Great Britain have reacted to the discretionary powers given to local authorities as a result of the introduction of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). DHPs can be awarded to HB claimants deemed to require additional assistance with their housing costs. The paper first argues that the HB service can be categorized as ,rule-bound' before outlining the DHP regime and the nature of the discretion that it affords HB administrators. A brief review of the literature on discretionary decision making in public service organizations suggests four propositions in respect of DHP decision making. The paper then seeks to test these propositions. It concludes that in general HB administrators do not appear to have experienced the difficulties associated with discretionary decision making in rule-bound services that might have been expected on the basis of previous work in this field. [source] The Administrative State, the Exercise of Discretion, and the ConstitutionPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2007Steven Cann No abstract is available for this article. [source] Forensic Science, Wrongful Convictions, and American Prosecutor DiscretionTHE HOWARD JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Issue 1 2008DENNIS J. STEVENS This exploratory research will show that neither forensics or its fictionalised (CSI Effect) accounts, nor substantial evidence secured by police investigators, shape prosecutor decisions to charge a suspect with a crime, which can often result in freeing guilty suspects and convicting innocent individuals. In the summer of 2006, 444 American prosecutors responded to a survey. The findings reveal that judges, juries, and defence lawyers are influenced more by prime-time American drama forensic accounts than by the substantial documented evidence of a case. It was also discovered that regardless of the dangerous apprehension of violent criminals by the police, some suspects are never charged because of faulty prosecutor behaviour. One implication of these findings is that police officer alienation from the legal system is at an all-time high, and that prosecutors lack professional supervision and personal motivation to represent the ,people', giving rise to vast human and legal rights violations of suspects and defendants. [source] Down that Wrong Road: Discretion in Decisions to Detain Asylum Seekers Arriving at UK PortsTHE HOWARD JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Issue 3 2003Leanne Weber The discretionary power to detain asylum seekers on arrival in the UK has been described by one human rights organisation as ,extraordinary and largely unrestrained' (Amnesty International 1996). Although decisions made by immigration officers can lead to long periods in prison or in prison-like conditions, these actions are considered to be administrative and are therefore not subject to the legal constraints that apply to criminal justice agencies. This article traces the many sources of discretion in the use of Immigration Act detention, using an analytical framework developed by Schneider (1992). Discretion is found to originate from the vague and permissive nature of detention guidelines (rule-failure discretion), the priority given to operational considerations at ports (rule-binding discretion) and the failure to resolve conflicts between policy objectives (rule-compromise discretion). [source] Contractual Discretion and Administrative Discretion: A Unified AnalysisTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 4 2005Article first published online: 1 JUL 200, Terence Daintith While judicial control of discretionary power is at the centre of administrative law, it is a topic which has received little attention in contract. By tracing the development of the relevant case law in administrative law judicial review and in contract, the paper seeks to show how review in both contexts has converged upon a single core technique of control through decisional standards. The paper further argues that the consequent identity of method in public and private law review of discretion does not in itself weaken basic public/private law distinctions. While the territories of legislation and contract may overlap, they present basic differences as contexts for the exercise of judicial control of discretion, and these differences of context may weigh more heavily than identity of approach in determining the outcomes of litigation.1 [source] Leeway for the Loyal: A Model of Employee DiscretionBRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2008Francis Green This article examines the factors underlying task discretion from an economist's perspective. It argues that the key axis for understanding discretion is the trade-off between the positive effects of discretion on potential output per employee and the negative effects of greater leeway on work effort. In empirical analysis using matched employer,employee data, it is shown that discretion is strongly affected by the level of employee commitment. In addition, discretion is generally greater in high-skilled jobs, although not without exceptions, and lower where employees are under-skilled. Homeworking and flexitime policies raise employee discretion. The impact of teamworking is mixed. In about half of cases team members do not jointly decide about work matters, and the net effect of teams on task discretion in these cases is negative. In other cases, where team members do decide matters jointly, the impact is found to be neutral according to employees' perceptions, or positive according to managers' perceptions. There are also significant and substantial unobserved establishment-level factors which affect task discretion. [source] Discretion unbound: Reconciling the Charter and soft lawCANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION/ADMINISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA, Issue 4 2002Lorne Sossin This study explores the relationship between discretion and the Charter and argues for a broader, more contextual approach to remedying the source of unconstitutional discretion. Guidance as to how to exercise broad discretionary authority comes in the form of "soft law," which encompasses a variety of non-legislative instruments such as policy guidelines and training materials, and which, more informally, extends to administrative culture. Administrative discretion involves choices and judgements usually shaped by a range of legal, bureaucratic, social and personal factors. Under present jurisprudence, the less precise a statutory discretion and the greater the reliance on non-legislative guidelines, the more difficult that discretion will be to subject to constitutional scrutiny. This article challenges this logic and concludes that respect for governmental accountability and the rule of law require bringing soft law out of the constitutional shadows. The first part of the analysis examines the regulation of discretion generally and soft law specifically outside the Charter. The second part analyses the leading case law on the regulation of discretion under the Charter. The third section explores the intersection of discretion, soft law and the Charter. Finally, the fourth section considers the problem of remedying unconstitutional exercises of discretionary authority. Alternative principles are suggested for the development and application of soft law, which envisions a central role for the Charter in rendering the discretionary decision-making process more accountable and just. A version of this paper was first presented at a workshop for the Twenty Years Under the Charter Conference, Association of Canadian Studies, Ottawa, 19 April 2002. The author is associate professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. He is grateful to those who participated in that workshop for their suggestions and comments, as well as to Robert Chamey, David Dyzenhaus, Ian Greene, Nicholas Lambert, Ian Morrison and David Mullan, who commented on an earlier version of this paper. He is also indebted to his colleagues Sujit Choudhry and Kent Roach, who have shared their work on related themes. He would like to thank Laura Pottie and Aaron Delaney for their superb research assistance. He wishes to acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and the Connaught Foundation for their generous financial support of this research. Finally, he acknowledges the Journal's anonymous reviewers for their comments. [source] Employee Stock Option Fair-Value Estimates: Do Managerial Discretion and Incentives Explain Accuracy?,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006Leslie Hodder Abstract We examine the determinants of managers' use of discretion over employee stock option (ESO) valuation-model inputs that determine ESO fair values. We also explore the consequences of such discretion. Firms exercise considerable discretion over all model inputs, and this discretion results in material differences in ESO fair-value estimates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that a large proportion of firms exercise value-increasing discretion. Importantly, we find that using discretion improves predictive accuracy for about half of our sample firms. Moreover, we find that both opportunistic and informational managerial incentives together explain the accuracy of firms' ESO fair-value estimates. Partitioning on the direction of discretion improves our understanding of managerial incentives. Our analysis confirms that financial statement readers can use mandated contextual disclosures to construct powerful ex ante predictions of ex post accuracy. [source] The achievability of sustainable reporting practices in agricultureCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2009Belinda R. Williams Abstract This research investigates the process of change in moving from a domestic accounting standard, AASB 1037, relating to self-generating and regenerating assets (SGARAs) to an international standard, AASB 141. It focuses on the achievement (or nonachievement as it may be) of sustainable reporting practices for these agricultural assets. This paper finds that the transition to AASB 141 has allowed firms the discretion to change how they value their agricultural assets in comparison to the domestic standard. Consistency may have been achieved to a limited extent with the introduction of this financial accounting standard but comparability appears not to have been. Further, there is very limited understanding of the reporting of these assets from a user's perspective. It is concluded that this lack of consistency, comparability and understandability will not help achieve sustainability in the reporting practices of agricultural assets. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Homicide, psychopathology, prosecutorial and jury discretion and the death penaltyCRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 4 2000Chief, Division of Forensic Psychiatry, Richard M. Yarvis MD MPH Professor of Clinical Psychiatry Introduction The American preoccupation with the death penalty persists and, in fact, shows no sign of abatement. This is demonstrated not only by attitudinal measures but also by the quickening pace of executions. In California, homicide convictions can result in either 25-year-to-life, life-with-no-possibility-of-parole, or death sentences. The ultimate outcome in any given case is determined by a complex interaction of prosecutorial and jury decisions. Three vignettes illustrate how heinous crimes have been handled quite variably. Method A data set comprising 115 homicide cases was examined. To determine how murderers who qualify for the death penalty differed, if at all, from those who did not so qualify, 52 defendants who met the criteria for a death sentence were compared with 63 who did not. Criteria utilized and ignored by prosecutors in seeking the death penalty were analysed by comparing 39 cases in which death sentences could have been and were sought with 13 cases in which prosecutors chose to seek a lesser penalty instead. Finally, criteria utilized and ignored by juries to reach sentencing decisions were analysed by comparing 25 cases in which juries chose not to hand down death sentences with 14 cases in which they did render death verdicts. Results Special circumstance murderers did not differ significantly on personal variables from ordinary murderers. (1) Special circumstances were invariably charged when more than one criterion for this was present. Robbery and sexual assault usually provoked a special circumstances charge. Mitigating factors did not deter prosecutors from charging a special circumstance. (2) There was no excess of aggravating factors in individuals sentenced to death by juries, indeed there was a trend for the opposite to be the case, but there was a trend for mitigating factors to be commoner in those excused the death penalty. Conclusion It is not clear that the death penalty process in California carries out the legislature's intent but the US Supreme Court's 1976 mandate that mitigating and aggravating factors should provide discretion may be having a modest impact. Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of CIO Strategic Decision-Making Authority: An Empirical Study,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 4 2008David S. Preston ABSTRACT Despite the strategic importance of information technology (IT) to contemporary firms, chief information officers (CIO) often still have varying degrees of strategic decision-making authority. In this study, we apply the theory of managerial discretion to define CIO strategic decision-making authority and argue that the CIO's level of strategic decision-making authority directly influences IT's contribution to organization performance. We also draw on the power and politics perspective in the strategic decision-making literature to identify the direct antecedents to the CIO's strategic decision-making authority. A theoretical model is presented and empirically tested using survey data collected from a cross-industry sample of 174 matched pairs of CIOs and top business executives through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that organizational climate, organizational support for IT, the CIO's structural power, the CIO's level of strategic effectiveness, and a strong partnership between the CIO and top management team directly influence the CIO's level of strategic decision-making authority within the organization. The results also suggest that the CIO's strategic decision-making authority in the organization directly influences the contribution of IT to firm performance and that effective CIOs have a greater influence on IT's contribution when provided with strategic decision-making authority. [source] Maximizing the use of Project Bioshield contracting opportunitiesDRUG DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, Issue 4 2009Dana B. Pashkoff Abstract This article explores the often complicated relationship between agency policymakers and the contracting officers that are charged with executing agency procurements. In particular, the article explores the role of the contracting officer in maximizing the use of streamlined contracting practices under the Project BioShield Act of 2004 (Public Law 108,276). Project BioShield, which is implemented through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), is designed to encourage procurement activity that protects Americans against a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack. To do so, the Act permits the use of special streamlined contracting authorities, many of which are often unused or ignored by the contracting officers engaged in executing and administering Project BioShield procurements. This article argues that these contracting officers are bound to conduct their duties within the confines of overall agency policy, and they cannot use their contracting discretion to circumvent that policy. As a result, DHHS contracting officers are required to use the Project BioShield streamlined contracting methods. In order to assist the agency in encouraging the use of these procedures, this article also recommends techniques that BARDA can apply in order to encourage contracting officers to take advantage of these contracting opportunities and advance agency's policy with respect to Project BioShield. Drug Dev Res 70:234,238, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary PolicyECONOMETRICA, Issue 5 2005Susan Athey How much discretion should the monetary authority have in setting its policy? This question is analyzed in an economy with an agreed-upon social welfare function that depends on the economy's randomly fluctuating state. The monetary authority has private information about that state. Well designed rules trade off society's desire to give the monetary authority discretion to react to its private information against society's need to prevent that authority from giving in to the temptation to stimulate the economy with unexpected inflation, the time inconsistency problem. Although this dynamic mechanism design problem seems complex, its solution is simple: legislate an inflation cap. The optimal degree of monetary policy discretion turns out to shrink as the severity of the time inconsistency problem increases relative to the importance of private information. In an economy with a severe time inconsistency problem and unimportant private information, the optimal degree of discretion is none. [source] Targeting Inflation with a Role for MoneyECONOMICA, Issue 288 2005Ulf Söderström This paper demonstrates how a target for money growth can be beneficial for an inflation-targeting central bank acting under discretion. Because the growth rate of money is closely related to the change in the interest rate and the growth of real output, delegating a money growth target to the central bank makes discretionary policy more inertial, leading to better social outcomes. This delegation scheme is also compared with other schemes suggested in the literature. The results indicate that stabilizing money growth around a target can be a sensible strategy for monetary policy, although other delegation schemes are often more efficient. [source] Discretion in Tax EnforcementECONOMICA, Issue 283 2004Luigi Alberto Franzoni This paper deals with the issue of whether the Revenue Service (RS) should be allowed, or even encouraged, to negotiate settlement agreements with taxpayers subject to examination. We consider the case in which the RS enjoys discretion at the settlement stage, its stance being guided by officers' professional judgment. We show that discretionary settlements serve a desirable function, as they allow the RS to better exploit taxpayer-specific information and to take advantage of the bargaining power it can wield at the negotiation stage. [source] The Dependence of Growth-Model Results on Proficiency Cut ScoresEDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT: ISSUES AND PRACTICE, Issue 4 2009Andrew D. Ho States participating in the Growth Model Pilot Program reference individual student growth against "proficiency" cut scores that conform with the original No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Although achievement results from conventional NCLB models are also cut-score dependent, the functional relationships between cut-score location and growth results are more complex and are not currently well described. We apply cut-score scenarios to longitudinal data to demonstrate the dependence of state- and school-level growth results on cut-score choice. This dependence is examined along three dimensions: 1) rigor, as states set cut scores largely at their discretion, 2) across-grade articulation, as the rigor of proficiency standards may vary across grades, and 3) the time horizon chosen for growth to proficiency. Results show that the selection of plausible alternative cut scores within a growth model can change the percentage of students "on track to proficiency" by more than 20 percentage points and reverse accountability decisions for more than 40% of schools. We contribute a framework for predicting these dependencies, and we argue that the cut-score dependence of large-scale growth statistics must be made transparent, particularly for comparisons of growth results across states. [source] The readiness is all The degree level qualifications and preparedness of initial teacher trainees in EnglishENGLISH IN EDUCATION, Issue 2 2010Julie Blake Abstract This article is the first of two reporting research concerned with the profile of degree level qualifications of initial teacher trainees who start Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) Secondary English courses. In a context where there is no existing database of such information, the researchers sought to establish the patterns in this profile and collate a summary of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) tutors' perceptions about the level of subject knowledge preparedness of students with different degree level qualifications. Following from this, the enquiry was also interested in the ways that PGCE institutions support students with different subject knowledge development needs. The article that follows below treats the issue of degree qualifications and the PGCE selection process in the context of recent changes to subject English. The evidence suggests patterned but divergent practices with an overall trend of preference for prior qualifications in English Literature despite significant alterations in the study of English since 1980. PGCE courses surveyed attract many more applicants than there were places and tutors exercise considerable discretion in admissions practices which are not always made transparent by published policies and rationales, including those made available to prospective applicants. The review of the literature showed little published discourse on this topic to date. [source] Why Do Some Family Businesses Out-Compete?ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE, Issue 6 2006Governance, Long-Term Orientations, Sustainable Capability This article seeks to link the domains of corporate governance, investment policies, competitive asymmetries, and sustainable capabilities. Conditions such as concentrated ownership, lengthy tenures, and profound business expertise give some family-controlled business (FCB) owners the discretion, incentive, knowledge, and ultimately, the resources to invest deeply in the future of the firm. These long-term investments accrue from particular governance conditions and engender competitive asymmetries,organizational qualities that are hard for other firms to copy, and thus, if tied to the value chain, create capabilities that are sustainable. Investments in staff and training, e.g., create tacit knowledge and preserve it within the firm. Investments in enduring relationships with partners enhance access to resources and free firms to focus on core competencies. And devotion to a compelling mission dedicates most of these investments to a core competency. When such investments are farsighted, orchestrated, and ongoing, capabilities will tend to evolve in a cumulative trajectory, making them doubly hard to imitate and thereby extending competitive advantage. Arguments are supported by making reference to the literature on corporate governance and agency theory and to emerging research on FCBs. [source] A Randomized Controlled Trial of Mist in the Acute Treatment of Moderate CroupACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 9 2002Gina M. Neto MD Abstract Objective: To determine whether the use of mist improves clinical symptoms in children presenting to the emergency department (ED) with moderate croup. Methods: Children 3 months to 6 years of age were eligible for the study if they presented to the ED with moderate croup. Moderate croup was defined as a croup score of 2-7. The patients were randomly assigned to receive either mist (humidified oxygen) via mist stick or no mist. The patients had croup scores measured at baseline and every 30 minutes for up to two hours. At these intervals the following parameters were also measured: heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, and patient comfort score. The patients were treated until the croup score was less than 2 or until two hours had elapsed. All patients initially received a dose of oral dexamethasone (0.6 mg/kg). Other treatments, such as racemic epinephrine or inhaled budesonide, were given at the discretion of the treating physician. The research assistants were unaware of the assigned treatments. Results: There were 71 patients enrolled in the study; 35 received mist and 36 received no mist. The two treatment groups had similar characteristics at baseline. The median baseline croup score was 4 in both groups. The outcomes were measured as the change from baseline at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes. The change in the croup score from baseline in the mist group was not statistically different from the croup score change in the group that did not receive mist (p = 0.39). There was also no significant difference in improvement of oxygen saturation, heart rate, or respiratory rate at any of the assessment times. There was no adverse effect from the mist therapy. Conclusions: Mist therapy is not effective in improving clinical symptoms in children presenting to the ED with moderate croup. [source] In Search of Better Quality of EU Regulations for Prompt Transposition: The Brussels PerspectiveEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 5 2008Michael Kaeding The quality of EU regulation is crucial to ensuring that Community law is promptly transposed into national law within the prescribed deadlines. But good quality transposition (clear, simple, and effective) goes beyond pre-legislative consultation processes and more frequent use of impact assessments as agreed in the 2003 Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Lawmaking. Presenting new data that covers the full population of all EU transport directives from 1995 to 2004,including the national implementing instruments of France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK,this study shows that elements of the EU directives delay transposition. The binding time limit for transposition, the EU directive's level of discretion, its level of detail, its nature and further characteristics of the directive's policy-making process are all factors. These determining factors are crucial to explaining why Member States miss deadlines when transposing EU Internal Market directives. Brussels' efforts to simplify and improve the regulatory environment have to go beyond more preventive action to strengthen the enforcement of EU legislation at the member-state level if they want to address the Internal Market constraining effects of Member States' non-compliance. This study argues that far-reaching decisions made in the European Commission's drafting and EU policy-making phase have the greatest effect on the European regulatory framework in which businesses operate and the free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital is at stake. Implementation should be part of the design. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||