Reconsidering Relativism and Intentionalism in Interpretation : Donald Davidson, Hermeneutics, and Pragmatism

This study focuses on two philosophical issues related to the interpretation of art. Firstly, it considers the role of authorial intentions in interpretation. Secondly, the study raises the issue of relativism in interpretation through a discussion of the relativistic tendencies apparent in the views of three major figures of contemporary philosophy: Joseph Margolis, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Richard Rorty. The major goal of the thesis is to develop a theory of interpretation supporting the role of authorial intentions in interpretation on the basis of Donald Davidson s late philosophy of language and the holistic account of interpretation that underlies different parts of his philosophy. It is my belief that an intentionalist view of interpretation built on Davidsonian elements manages to form the most convincing defense of that interpretive position against the skepticism present in the views of Margolis, Gadamer, and Rorty. The theoretical issues addressed in the thesis are illuminated by discussions of case-examples, most importantly Richard Wagner s The Valkyrie, Thomas Adés America: A Prophecy, and some symphonies by Dimitri Shostakovich. In chapter one, I present a critical discussion of Margolis robust relativism. While finding Margolis criticism of the self-refutive argument plausible, I, nevertheless, argue that the relativistic logic Margolis offers should not be favored in interpretation. The first parts of chapter two outline Davidsonian intentionalism by presenting a reading of Davidson s later work in philosophy of language and mind, and by indicating its relationship to Davidson s views of literature. Then, I shall compare Davidson s ideas with some recent modest forms of intentionalism found in analytic aesthetics, and argue that Davidsonian intentionalism is in many respects more satisfactory compared to them. Chapter three engages Gadamer s hermeneutics by defending E.D. Hirsch s criticism of Gadamer. Uncovering the shortcomings in the replies of Gadamer s followers to Hirsch s criticism serves as a basis for the defense of intentionalism in interpretation carried out in the chapter. That defense is then extended with a discussion of some recent hermeneutic readings of Davidson s views. Chapter four deals with the standing of intentionalism through Rorty s pragmatist approach to literature. By indicating the position of pragmatist notions of aesthetic experience and imagination in Davidsonian intentionalism, it is shown that an intentionalist approach need not be as impoverished with regard to the value Rorty attributes to literature as he assumes. The concluding chapter outlines some ways in which one can be a pluralist with regard to art and interpretation without falling into relativism.

Paranormal, superstitious, magical, and religious beliefs

A lack of conceptual clarity and multivariate studies has impeded research on paranormal, superstitious, and magical beliefs. In this series of studies a new conceptual framework of these beliefs was presented. A general belief in the paranormal was shown to lead to specific paranormal, superstitious, and magical beliefs. The beliefs were defined equally as category mistakes where the core attributes of psychological, physical, and biological phenomena are confused with each other. This definition was supported by an empirical examination: Paranormal believers confused more core knowledge than skeptics. A multivariate study revealed that the best predictors of paranormal beliefs were intuitive thinking and a humanistic world view, while low analytical thinking was a less important predictor. Another study showed that women s greater belief in the paranormal compared to men was partially explained by women s higher intuitive and lower analytical thinking. Additionally, it was shown that university students were originally more skeptical than vocational school students, but university studies did not increase skepticism. The finding that paranormal beliefs mainly arise from an intuitive system, instead of a malfunctioning analytical system, explains why the beliefs do not vanish with the increase of education, scientific knowledge, and rational thinking. Religious and paranormal beliefs share important qualities and generally, they were positively related. The most religious people, however, abandoned paranormal beliefs. Religious people and paranormal believers differed from the skeptics similarly by being more intuitive, having experienced more mystical phenomena, and having peers and parents with more positive attitudes toward the supernatural. Religious people had, however, higher conservation and benevolence values than paranormal believers. The new conceptual framework presented in this series of studies integrates research on paranormal, superstitious, magical, and religious beliefs. Hopefully it will enable researchers to develop more elaborated hypotheses and theoretical statements about paranormal beliefs in the future.

Käsityön sukupuolirajat ja rajojen rikkojat

Gender-specific division of crafts is significant in Finnish culture. The aim of craft education in comprehensive schools has been to unify education for both girls and boys during the thirty years of modern comprehensive education, but in reality crafts has diverged into two different subjects for girls and boys. Craft education has taught different things: girls have been taught things that are feminine and included in private life, while the boys’ education has been mostly directed at public and working life. At the same time girls and boys have been educated and socialized towards a certain womanhood and manhood. Craft as a hobby is also very gender divided but there are some clues that tell of the changing positions on the border areas. The starting point of this study has been the assumption that gender structures within crafts can be transformed. But it is important to know the background that creates and maintains these constructions and the expedients for dismantling the structures. The main purpose of this study is to find out how the gender-specific crafts are changing and how they are still maintained. My study analyses why men and woman have chosen untypical hobbies and through that I shall discuss how gendered structures can be dismantled. In the autumn of 2008 I interviewed borderline breakers within crafts: men who had an interest in textile crafts and women who had an interest in technical work. Informants of this study were 20-31 years old and they studied behavioural sciences. The data was collected in 12 theme interviews and document analysis was used to study the results. The dismantling of the gender divide in crafts is slow, but new borders are drawn all the time. The informants have started textile and technical handicrafts soon after comprehensive school or during their studies at university. A main motivation for the new hobby has been the possibility to study for a teacher’s degree with technology or textile studies as a main or a secondary subject. Gender-specific division of crafts is constructed early in childhood as different skills are taught to girls and boys. School teaches gender specific skills and the different skills of girls and boys have not been taken into account. Instead, it has been assumed through comprehensive school that both girls and boys share certain basic skills, and attention has not been paid to the differences between genders. At university the same assumption has still thrived. Skill levels between men and women are substantial and that may have hindered a move by women to technical studies and by men to textile studies. Hence an assumption of naturally gendered crafts has been developed.

The Significance of Gender in the Prevalence, Forms and Perceptions of Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying has been shown to have severe negative consequences for both the victims and organisations concerned. Thus, the aim of this paper is to further understanding of workplace bullying by in particular exploring the significance of gender in this phenomenon. The focus is on the prevalence, forms and perceptions of bullying, and the extent to which these interactions and perceptions can be understood as gendered. The aim of the paper is twofold: firstly, to describe gender differences in bullying in the male-dominated business world, and, secondly, to explain these differences by discussing how gender is linked to bullying and victimisation. It is argued that the higher prevalence rates reported by women can be seen as the result of an interaction between higher actual exposure rates to negative behaviours, lower perceived possibilities to defend themselves, and less reluctance to classify negative experiences as bullying, which all are mediated by perceptions of power.

Essays on Earnings Management (summary section only)

There is much literature developing theories when and where earnings management occurs. Among the several possible motives driving earnings management behaviour in firms, this thesis focuses on motives that aim to influence the valuation of the firm. Earnings management that makes the firm look better than it really is may result in disappointment for the single investor and potentially leads to a welfare loss in society when the resource allocation is distorted. A more specific knowledge of the occurrence of earnings management supposedly increases the awareness of the investor and thus leads to better investments and increased welfare. This thesis contributes to the literature by increasing the knowledge as to where and when earnings management is likely to occur. More specifically, essay 1 adds to existing research connecting earnings management to IPOs and increases the knowledge in arguing that the tendency to manage earnings differs between the IPOs. Evidence is found that entrepreneur owned IPOs are more likely to be earnings managers than the institutionally owned ones. Essay 2 considers the reliability of quarterly earnings reports that precedes insider selling binges. The essay contributes by suggesting that earnings management is likely to occur before high insider selling. Essay 3 examines the widely studied phenomenon of income smoothing and investigates if income smoothing can be explained with proxies for information asymmetry. The essay argues that smoothing is more pervasive in private and smaller firms.

Essays on Stock Option Compensation and the Role of Incentives and Risk (summary section only)

Managerial pay-for-performance sensitivity has increased rapidly around the world. Early empirical research showed that pay-for-performance sensitivity resulting from stock ownership and stock options appeared to be quite low during the 1970s and early 1980s in the U.S. However, recent empirical research from the U.S. shows an enormous increase in pay-for-performance sensitivity. The global trend has also reached Finland, where stock options have become a major ingredient of executive compensation. The fact that stock options seem to be an appealing form of remuneration from a theoretical point of view combined with the observation that the use of this compensation form has increased significantly during the recent years, implies that research on the dynamics of stock option compensation is highly relevant for the academic community, as well as for practitioners and regulators. The research questions of the thesis are analyzed in four separate essays. The first essay examines whether stock option compensation practices of Finnish firms are consistent with predictions from principal-agent theory. The second essay explores one of the major puzzles in the compensation literature by studying determinants of stock option contract design. In theory, optimal contract design should vary according to firm characteristics. However, in the U.S., variation in contract design seems to be surprisingly low, a phenomenon generally attributed to tax and accounting considerations. In Finland, however, firms are not subject to stringent contracting restrictions, and the variation in contract design tends, in fact, to be quite substantial. The third essay studies the impact of price- and risk incentives arising from stock option compensation on firm investment. In addition, the essay explores one of the most debated questions in the literature, in particular, the relation between incentives and firm performance. Finally, several strands of literature in both economics and corporate finance hypothesize that economic uncertainty is related to corporate decision-making. Previous research has shown that risk tends to slow down firm investment. In the fourth essay, it is hypothesized that firm risk slows down growth from a more universal perspective. Consistent with this view, it is shown that risk not only tends to slow down firm investment, but also employment growth. Moreover, the essay explores whether the nature of firms’ compensation policies, in particular, whether firms make use of stock option compensation, affects the relation between risk and firm growth. In summary, the four essays contribute to the current understanding of stock options as a form of equity incentives, and how incentives and risk affect corporate decision-making. By this, the thesis promotes the knowledge related to the modern theory of the firm.

Essays on Corporate Governance and the Quality of Disclosed Earnings: Across Transitional Europe

A growing body of empirical research examines the structure and effectiveness of corporate governance systems around the world. An important insight from this literature is that corporate governance mechanisms address the excessive use of managerial discretionary powers to get private benefits by expropriating the value of shareholders. One possible way of expropriation is to reduce the quality of disclosed earnings by manipulating the financial statements. This lower quality of earnings should then be reflected by the stock price of firm according to value relevance theorem. Hence, instead of testing the direct effect of corporate governance on the firm’s market value, it is important to understand the causes of the lower quality of accounting earnings. This thesis contributes to the literature by increasing knowledge about the extent of the earnings management – measured as the extent of discretionary accruals in total disclosed earnings - and its determinants across the Transitional European countries. The thesis comprises of three essays of empirical analysis of which first two utilize the data of Russian listed firms whereas the third essay uses data from 10 European economies. More specifically, the first essay adds to existing research connecting earnings management to corporate governance. It testifies the impact of the Russian corporate governance reforms of 2002 on the quality of disclosed earnings in all publicly listed firms. This essay provides empirical evidence of the fact that the desired impact of reforms is not fully substantiated in Russia without proper enforcement. Instead, firm-level factors such as long-term capital investments and compliance with International financial reporting standards (IFRS) determine the quality of the earnings. The result presented in the essay support the notion proposed by Leuz et al. (2003) that the reforms aimed to bring transparency do not correspond to desired results in economies where investor protection is lower and legal enforcement is weak. The second essay focuses on the relationship between the internal-control mechanism such as the types and levels of ownership and the quality of disclosed earnings in Russia. The empirical analysis shows that the controlling shareholders in Russia use their powers to manipulate the reported performance in order to get private benefits of control. Comparatively, firms owned by the State have significantly better quality of disclosed earnings than other controllers such as oligarchs and foreign corporations. Interestingly, market performance of firms controlled by either State or oligarchs is better than widely held firms. The third essay provides useful evidence on the fact that both ownership structures and economic characteristics are important factors in determining the quality of disclosed earnings in three groups of countries in Europe. Evidence suggests that ownership structure is a more important determinant in developed and transparent countries, while economic determinants are important determinants in developing and transitional countries.

Perceived Value of Mobile Service Use and its Consequences

The thesis is positioned in the services marketing field. Previous mobile service research has identified perceived value or relative advantage as a stable predictor of use of services. However, a more detailed view of what customers value in mobile services is needed for marketing diverse types of mobile content and attracting committed customers. The direct relationships between multidimensional value and loyalty constructs have received limited attention in the previous literature, although a multidimensional view is needed for differentiating services. This thesis studies how perceived value of mobile service use affects customer commitment, repurchase intentions, word-of-mouth and willingness to pay. The doctoral thesis consists of three journal articles and one working paper. The four papers have different sub-aims and comprise individual empirical studies. Mixed methods including both personal interviews and survey data collected from end-users of different types of mobile content services are used. The conceptual mobile perceived value model that results from the first explorative empirical study supports a six- dimensional value view. The six dimensions are further categorized into two higher order constructs: content-related perceived value (emotional, social, convenience and monetary value) and context-related (epistemic and conditional value) perceived value. Structural equation modeling is used in the other three studies to validate this framework by analyzing the relationships between context- and content-related value, and how the individual perceived value dimensions affect commitment and behavioral outcomes. Analyzing the direct relationships revealed differences in the effect of perceived value dimensions between information and entertainment mobile service user groups, between effects on commitment, repurchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions, as well as between effects on commitment to the provider and to the mobile channel as such. This thesis contributes to earlier perceived value literature by structuring the value dimensions into two groups. Most importantly, the thesis contributes to the value and loyalty literature by increasing understanding of how the different dimensions of perceived value directly affect commitment and post-purchase intentions. The results have implications for further theory development in the electronic services field using multidimensional latent constructs, and practical implications for enhancing commitment to content provider and for differentiated marketing strategies in the mobile field. The general conclusion of this thesis is that differentiated value-based marketing of mobile services is essential for attracting committed customers who will use the same providers’ content also in the future. Minna Pihlström is associated with the Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management (CERS) at Hanken.

Customer Value in E-Service: Conceptual Foundation and Empirical Evidence

Customer value has been identified as “the reason” for customers to patronize a firm, and as one of the fundamental blocks that market exchanges build upon. Despite the importance of customer value, it is often poorly defined, or seems to refer to different phenomena. This dissertation contributes to current marketing literature by subjecting the value concept to a critical investigation, and by clarifying its conceptual foundation. Based on the literature review, it is proposed that customer value can be divided into two separate, but interrelated aspects: value creation processes, and value outcome determination. This means that on one hand, it is possible to examine those activities through which value is created, and on the other hand, investigate how customers determine the value outcomes they receive. The results further show that customers may determine value in four different ways: value as a benefit/sacrifice ratio, as experience outcomes, as means-end chains, and value as phenomenological. In value as benefit/sacrifice ratio, customers are expected to calculate the ratio between service benefits (e.g. ease of use) and sacrifices (e.g. price). In value as experience outcomes, customers are suggested to experience multiple value components, such as functional, emotional, or social value. Customer value as means-ends chains in turn models value in terms of the relationships between service characteristics, use value, and desirable ends (e.g. social acceptance). Finally, value as phenomenological proposes that value emerges from lived, holistic experiences. The empirical papers investigate customer value in e-services, including online health care and mobile services, and show how value in e-service stems from the process and content quality, use context, and the service combination that a customer uses. In conclusion, marketers should understand that different value definitions generate different types of understanding of customer value. In addition, it is clear that studying value from several perspectives is useful, as it enables a richer understanding of value for the different actors. Finally, the interconnectedness between value creation and determination is surprisingly little researched, and this dissertation proposes initial steps towards understanding the relationship between the two.

Information Sharing in Banking: A Collusive Device?

We show that information sharing among banks may serve as a collusive device. An informational sharing agreement is an a-priori commitment to reduce informational asymmetries between banks in future lending. Hence, information sharing tends to increase the intensity of competition in future periods and, thus, reduces the value of informational rents in current competition. We contribute to the existing literature by emphasizing that a reduction in informational rents will also reduce the intensity of competition in the current period, thereby reducing competitive pressure in current credit markets. We provide a large class of economic environments, where a ban on information sharing would be strictly welfare-enhancing.

Factors Driving Stock Option Grants - Empirical Evidence from Finland

This study contributes to the executive stock option literature by looking at factors driving the introduction of such a compensation form on a firm level. Using a discrete decision model I test the explanatory power of several agency theory based variables and find strong support for predictability of the form of executive compensation. Ownership concentration and liquidity are found to have a significant negative effect on the probability of stock option adoption. Furtermore, I find evidence of CEO ownership, institutional ownership, investment intensity, and historical market return having a significant and a positive relationship to the likelihood of adopting a executive stock option program.

On the Importance of Mutual Fund Families in Emerging Markets

This study contributes to the mutual fund literature by looking at performance persistence on a fund family level, allowing for individual equity, bond and balanced funds to be included under single family umbrellas. The study is conducted on the emerging Finnish mutual fund market, an environment in which the importance of superior fund family teams is likely to be accentuated. Using both non–parametric and parametric tests we find robust evidence of performance persistence for the fund families. Persistence is particularly strong in the first half of the investigation period, which highlights the importance of fund families at early stages of market development.

Cross-Border Competence Management in Emerging Markets: Voices from China and Russia

This book is on cross-border competence management in Russia and China. Corporations are facing a number of problems and challenges in their international operations, to which there typically are no simple solutions. For instance, they need to understand and respond to cultural and institutional diversity and ascertain that their foreign units are integrated with the rest of the corporation. Throughout this report we will discuss a range of challenges confronting firms as they seek to develop their capabilities to operate internationally. Some of the challenges are clearly case specific, and although this book aims to offer research-based advice to practicing managers there is a potential danger in applying lessons from other companies to the own firm. Our hope is that our analyses of the challenges facing Finnish corporations in China and Russia reported together with extensive quotes from our interviews and insights from other recent studies will help readers draw their own conclusions as to how to deal with issues related to competence management across borders. With this book we also aspire to contribute to the academic literature by providing new insights into cross-border competence management in general and the operations of Finnish corporations in Russia and China in particular.

Analysts' Accuracy of Estimation and the Relative Trading Volume

This study contributes to the neglect effect literature by looking at the relative trading volume in terms of value. The results for the Swedish market show a significant positive relationship between the accuracy of estimation and the relative trading volume. Market capitalisation and analyst coverage have in prior studies been used as proxies for neglect. These measures however, do not take into account the effort analysts put in when estimating corporate pre-tax profits. I also find evidence that the industry of the firm influence the accuracy of estimation. In addition, supporting earlier findings, loss making firms are associated with larger forecasting errors. Further, I find that the average forecast error increased in the year 2000 – in Sweden.

Stock Option Compensation in Finland: An Analysis of Economic Determinants, Contracting Frequency, and Design

This paper addresses several questions in the compensation literature by examining stock option compensation practices of Finnish firms. First, the results indicate that principal-agent theory succeeds quite well in predicting the use of stock options. Proxies for monitoring costs, growth opportunities, ownership structure, and risk are found to determine the use of incentives consistent with theory. Furthermore, the paper examines whether determinants of stock options targeted to top management differ from determinants of broad-based stock option plans. Some evidence is found that factors driving these two types of incentives differ. Second, the results reveal that systematic risk significantly increases the likelihood that firms adopt stock option plans, whereas total firm risk and unsystematic risk do not seem to affect this decision. Third, the results show that growth opportunities are related to time-dimensional contracting frequency, consistent with the argument that incentive levels deviate more rapidly from optimum in firms with high growth opportunities. Finally, the results suggest that vesting schedules are decreasing in financial leverage, and that contract maturity is decreasing in firm focus. In addition, both vesting schedules and contract maturity tend to be longer in firms involving state ownership.