Stakeholder Orientation vs. Shareholder Value—A Matter of Contractual Failures

This article analyzes the conflict of interests between shareholders and other stakeholders, including when such conflicts of interests may arise. It is argued that shareholder value cannot be justified simply by referring to any prerogative property rights of the shareholders. Instead, shareholder value coincides with the efficient hypothetical perfect contract. However, due to contractual failures in certain bargaining situations, management may be unable to internalize the firms externalities. This means that in these situations there is a tradeoff between a broad duty of loyalty for management in listed firms and other traditional remedies. The theoretical insights are applied on a case from the Danish Supreme Court (Louis Poulsen A/S) where the interests of the stakeholders were decisive. It is shown that the verdict may instead harm the relevant stakeholders illustrating how cautious the legal system should use a doctrine based on the company's interests. In addition, the notion of a firm's social responsibility is critically evaluated together with the associated pitfalls of accepting this concept.     

Participation in local politics in Norway: Some do,some don't; some will,some won't

Using data from two national surveys conducted in 1990 and 1993, this article investigates seven modes of sociopolitical behavior and one form of potential political participation in the context of Norwegian local government. Results indicate that factors associated with alternative modes of activity vary; different types of people tend to choose different channels of involvement. The most pronounced difference is found between activities directed toward influencing public opinion and those intended to influence political decision making more directly. Whereas the former mode is more typically chosen by younger, well-educated single women living in urban areas, the latter is more characteristic of married, better educated men living in smaller municipalities. Findings are characterized by a high degree of stability over the period considered. Only in the case of voting is there a suggestion of some possible change. After decades in which socioeconomic status variables have been of little significance for voting in Norway (a situation explained by the mobilizing effects of organizations), an effect of education was found in the 1993 survey. Also noteworthy is the distribution of participation among the population: rather than being cumulative, different forms of political involvement are relatively widespread.     

Peer Social Structure and Risk-Taking Behaviors Among African American Early Adolescents

This study investigated associations between peer status, peer group social influences, and risk-taking behaviors in an urban sample of 647 African American seventh-grade students. The highest rates of problem behaviors were seen in the controversial peer status group, or those youth who were both highly liked and highly disliked by other youth. Findings also revealed contrasting patterns of peer group leadership. The more conventional, positive leadership style predicted lower rates, and the less mainstream, unconventional style predicted higher rates of involvement in problem behaviors. Conventional leaders were most likely to be popular status youth, while unconventional leaders were mostly to be both controversial and popular status youth. Controversial status youth were also more likely to be involved in deviant peer groups. Results highlight the importance of controversial status students as key influence agents during early adolescence. We discuss the implications of these results for preventive interventions to reduce adolescent problem behaviors.     

Note on a Training Program for Brief Decision Making for Frontline Police Officers

Purpose

The present paper describes the theoretical basis for a brief decision-making training program for frontline police officers as well as an outline of the training program, officers’ evaluation of perceived relevance and perceived learning effects.

Design

A between group design was used in order to test for differences in evaluation between officers at different training levels.

Results

High scores were obtained on all four items related to the evaluation (>84% scored in the highest category). When separating the subjects into groups based on their previous training (regular police response personnel vs. SWAT-type personnel), regular police response personnel obtained higher scores on perceived learning. However, both groups showed high scores on perceived learning. Both groups scored high on their evaluation of perceived relevance of the training program and no difference was found between the two groups.

Practical implications

The brief decision making training program that expands ordinary tactical training was highly appreciated by police officers and was seen as complementary to ordinary training.

     

Retention Practices for Engineering and Technical Professionals in an Australian Public Agency

Retaining employees with core business skills is a key human resources (HR) activity. This article examines retention of engineering and technical (E&T) professionals in an Australian public service agency by collecting data from 670 E&T professionals to compare attraction, retention and turnover intention by age and occupation. It was hypothesised that the influencers would vary by age, in line with the research on generational differences and employment patterns ( Chaminade 2005 ; Kyles 2005 ). This hypothesis was largely supported. It has also been suggested that intention to leave is influenced by job opportunity ( Hwang and Kuo 2006 ) and we thus sought to examine the influencers for turnover intention for the differing occupations in the E&T group surveyed. There were no significant differences by occupation, except for location, although this may be because occupational groups were aggregated due to the small numbers in some occupations. The current findings address the call for evidence‐based data on the influencers for attraction, retention and turnover intention ( Allen, Bryant and Vardaman 2010 ), and suggests that retention strategies need to take into account generational differences.