Three Questions About the Economics of Relative Position: A Response to Frank and Sunstein

For the original paper by Frank and Sunstein, see 'Cost Benefit Analysis and Relative Position.' Cost-benefit analyses typically ignore the importance of relative position. That is, they do not take into account the possibility that people value particular goods, services, or other determinants of well-being through comparisons with others. Robert Frank and Cass Sunstein have recently concluded that taking into account positional issues implies that the benefits of health and safety regulations may be twice as large as the levels commonly found in cost-benefit analyses. However, the effects of positional externalities on the valuation of safety and health regulations, and hence the correct modifications to cost-benefit analyses, are theoretically ambiguous. Frank and Sunstein assume that people like others to become worse off and that the incomes of others are more important for comparison than their health and safety on the job. Because different assumptions can lead to opposite conclusions about the value of additional regulations, this response addresses whether the evidence supports Frank and Sunstein's assumptions. The nature of relative position can be described as answers to three questions. First, what is the relevant group to which people compare themselves? Second, which characteristics of the comparison group matter? Third, how strongly do these comparisons affect people? This paper evaluates Frank and Sunstein's evidence on all three questions. People inclined to favor the model of positional externalities espoused by Frank and Sunstein may find their evidence convincing, but there are appealing alternative explanations. There is also direct evidence that only a minority of people act in the way they assume. They estimate that people should be willing to spend $6,000 of a$10,000 raise to prevent their coworkers from getting the same raise. Though some people might pay to reduce the salaries of their coworkers, others would surely pay to raise them. That many people display altruistic behavior in many situations is completely ignored by Frank and Sunstein. Particularly because of the variation in preferences across individuals, the evidence is at present too limited to permit the precise characterization necessary to evaluate the effects of policy. Under some plausible models, the policies suggested by Frank and Sunstein make people worse off; in others, better off. Though it is premature to incorporate positional externalities in policy analysis, such issues undoubtedly will become a formal part of policy analysis as our understanding improves.

Hedonic and Transcendent Conceptions of Value

In this paper we introduce a conceptual distinction between a hedonic and transcendent conception of value. We posit three linguistic earmarks by which one can distinguish these conceptions of value. We seek validation for the conceptual distinctions by examining the language contained in reviews of cars and reviews of paintings. In undertaking the empirical examination, we draw on the work of M.A.K. Halliday to identify clauses as fundamental units of meaning and to specify process types that can be mapped onto theoretical distinctions between the two conceptions of value. Extensions of this research are discussed

The Journey from Data to Qualitative Inductive Paper: Who Helps and How?

How do qualitative inductive researchers move from raw data to publishable paper? Existing scholarly resources focus on how to analyze data more deeply and write it up to make a compelling contribution. Much less discussed but also critical is how researchers enlist others in the journey from data to paper – even when they are single authors of their work. Our chapter uncovers qualitative researchers’ helpers and the types of help they provide. Drawing on data from detailed accounts of single authored qualitative, inductive studies, we explain the role of qualitative and quantitative scholars, peers and hired professionals, field informants and journal editors. We talk about help with theorizing, paper structure, emotional support, efficiency enhancement, and process guidance, and we offer practical tips for seeking these different forms of help throughout the research journey

Managing Social-Business Tensions: A Review and Research Agenda for Social Enterprise

In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise between social missions and business ventures, emphasizing their prevalence and variety. We then explore how four different organizational theories offer insight into these tensions, and we develop an agenda for future research. We end by arguing that a focus on social-business tensions not only expands insight into social enterprises, but also provides an opportunity for research on social enterprises to inform traditional organizational theories. Taken together, our analysis of tensions in social enterprises integrates and seeks to energize research on this expanding phenomeno

Before the Best Interests of the Child

This book has been hard to criticize for one who, like this reviewer, agrees with its basic premises: (1) that the weakness of child protective capability requires a policy of minimum state intervention into family life, and (2) that when intervention occurs,it should be much more decisive. Yet, application of the rules that the authors suggest would be at great cost, not only to the endangered children whom they exclude from protection, but also to our own view of ourselves. Society cannot turn its back on the real and present suffering of children and still retain its sense of humanity,and society cannot deny workers and judges the discretion to make intervention fit the needs of the children and families involved without losing its sense of justice.Many people will brush aside this book\u27s excesses because of their deep concern about the need to curtail governmental intervention into family life. Certainly, it helps to have this message reiterated by three such prominent persons. Unfortunately, the authors\u27 simplistic approach and the criticism that it has already begun to generate will obscure the child protection system\u27s true deficiencies and the urgent need to remedy them

Internal representation and factional faultlines as antecedents for board performance in social enterprises

There is an increasing scholarly interest in how social enterprises manage their hybrid nature. As hybrid organizational forms, social enterprises combine mission-driven social goals and revenue generating activities in a variety of organizational constellations and in diverse institutional contexts. Acknowledging the potentially conflicting demands that institutional environments impose on social enterprises there is an increasing research interest in the existence and proliferation of these conflicting demands at the organizational level. Some researchers have pointed to the importance of particular management practices and governance characteristics – such as authority relations and internal representation – as mechanisms to deal with the conflicting demands at the organizational level. This paper adds to this stream of literature by taking into account the organizational level dynamics of internal representation and the proliferation of factional groups in the boards of directors of hybrid organizational forms and their impact on board performance, ultimately influencing the organizational performance