Means, motive and opportunity? Disentangling client influence on performance measurement appraisals

This paper investigates the extent to which clients were able to influence performance measurement appraisals during the downturn in commercial property markets that began in the UK during the second half of 2007. The sharp change in market sentiment produced speculation that different client categories were attempting to influence their appraisers in different ways. In particular, it was recognised that the requirement for open‐ended funds to meet redemptions gave them strong incentives to ensure that their asset values were marked down to market. Using data supplied by Investment Property Databank, we demonstrate that, indeed, unlisted open‐ended funds experienced sharper drops in capital values than other fund types in the last quarter of 2007, after the market turning point and at the time when redemptions were at their highest. These differences are statistically significant and cannot simply be explained by differences in portfolio composition. Client influence on appraisal forms one possible explanation of the results observed: the different pressures on fund managers resulting in different appraisal outcomes.

Means, motive and opportunity? Disentangling client influence on performance measurement appraisals

This paper investigates the extent to which clients were able to influence performance measurement appraisals during the downturn in commercial property markets that began in the UK during the second half of 2007. The sharp change in market sentiment produced speculation that different client categories were attempting to influence their appraisers in different ways. In particular, it was recognised that the requirement for open-ended funds to meet redemptions gave them strong incentives to ensure that their asset values were marked down to market. Using data supplied by Investment Property Databank, we demonstrate that, indeed, unlisted open ended funds experienced sharper drops in capital values than other fund types in the second half of 2007, after the market turning point. These differences are statistically significant and cannot simply be explained by differences in portfolio composition. Client influence on appraisal forms one possible explanation of the results observed: the different pressures on fund managers resulting in different appraisal outcomes.

Market timing as a motive for IPOs: evidence from IPOs of Japanese keiretsu firms

This paper examines the relevance of market timing as a motive for initial public offerings (IPOs) by comparing IPOs of firms that are members of Japanese keiretsu industrial groups with IPOs of independent Japanese firms. We argue that Japanese keiretsu-linked IPOs form a favorable sample to find evidence of the market timing motive. Instead, the data provide strong evidence for a restructuring motive and little evidence for market timing. We find that long run returns to keiretsu and independent IPOs are not negative, contrary to U.S. evidence, and are indistinguishable from each other; initial returns to keiretsu-linked IPOs are significantly higher than to independent firms; and a significant number of keiretsu IPO firms adjust their linkages with the group following the IPO, with both increases and decreases.

Praxiologia, representação social de menopausa e práticas educativas de enfermeiras na estratégia saúde da família

This research, whose theme is related to climacteric, aims to know the social representation of menopause developed by the nurses working for Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in João Pessoa PB, as well as identifying its structure and verifying the way it interferes with the assistance and educational practices to the climacterial user. In the theoretical level, it is based on a model that articulates the social representations theory, the central nucleus complementary theory and the central concepts of Pierre Bourdieu s praxiology: habitus, cultural capital, social field and symbolic power. A hundred and forty-seven female nurses who work for Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in João Pessoa (PB) took part in this research, and the data collection period was from February 2008 to March 2009. As to the methods and techniques, we used the method to determine the central nucleus based on the free association of words, a questionnaire to identify certain regularities that constitute the nurses habitus, and the semi-structured interview to explore opinions and attitudes when facing assistance situations and educational practices and to collect other relevant information. The data analysis was developed, when referring to the free associations, with the help of the EVOC software, which is a group of articulated programs which carry out the statistical analysis of the evocations and the identification of the possible elements of both the central nucleus and the peripheral system of the social representation. As to the questionnaire, we used the descriptive statistical analysis and the analysis of correlation between the variables. The interviews were submitted to a categorical analysis of the content. The EVOC result indicated that the cognition hormone was the only element of the central nucleus of the social representation of menopause. Due to its symbolic value and structuring power, this central nucleus ensures the strict and, at the same time, flexible character of the representational content. The analysis of the social advancement, of some fundamental features of the group habitus, as well as the analysis of its insertion in the health field and of the attitudinal opinions and dispositions concerning the assistance given to the climacterial user, and the analysis of the pedagogical dimension of this assistance, all these analyses lead to the conclusion that the nurses who took part in this research share a social representation of the menopause resulting from the association of different technical and scientific knowledge. These derive from the biomedical pattern as well as from hegemonic values which disqualify old age and overvalue youth, from pedagogical conceptions arising from patterns that are presently regarded as authoritative and old-fashioned and from cultural references (responsible for the semantic variations concerning the central nucleus) which are specific to the subgroups the nurses belong to. This research enables the creation of opportunities for discussion between active nurses working for Estratégia Saúde da Família, and the nurses who are teachers at institutions of higher education, aiming at linking theory to practice, so that they can find ways of thinking about the climacteric and working, in a more comprehensive way, with users who are experiencing this stage of life

Praxiologia e representação social sobre formação de professores nas licenciaturas da UFPI

At this investigation it was analyzed the content and the organization of the social representation on the object teachers education, built by teachers of degree courses from Universidade Federal do Piauí(Ufpi), understanding such representation articulated to the teaching habitus of these educators of teachers, what takes under consideration the position that they hold in the structure of the national field and in the subfield of teachers education. For that, it is searched: a) to emphasize the properties of the place in which the trainers act Ufpi as the office of those field and subfield; b) to understand who are the trainers, that is, to grasp the teaching habitus of the trainers with a view of its origin, social trajectory and the specifics of their position in the analyzed field and the subfield and c) to know what they think about their work object, that is, identify and articulate the content and the organization of the social representation analyzed with their properties of field and subfield agents. The research includes the specific degree courses of the Campus Ministro Petrônio Portella , from Teresina(PI), and it was applied to 134 professors of degree courses from this Campus. The data collect joined to the participants happened on the second period of 2008 and on the first semester of 2009. The starting point of the study is the corroboration that the reform of Ufpi degree courses, determined by the legislation and stablished at this Institution in 2005, altered a little the previous situation. It is comprehended that Ufpi and its structures of teachers education as a trainer institution, is limited by the national academic field and by the subfield of teachers education. From this last one, it was listed some of its properties, to show that it is about an academic subfield in construction process. It is emphasized division of the subfield, that separates the trainers into two subgroups the ones who dedicate themselves to the specific education on the contents and those ones who are specialized on pedagogical education placed in antagonistic position and competing by the symbolic power of imposing the meaning and the sense of the teachers education in the degree courses. To understand the comprehension of the problem, it is searched for the models that are in the root of the construction of the University and its project of teachers education in the degree courses, to clarify the matrixes in which the social representation searched is stablished. The theoretical referential articulates the contributions of Moscovici, the theory of social representations, and of Bourdieu, with the concepts that compose its praxeology, as habitus, social field, capital, symbolic power and others, as well as their interpreters and continuators, as Domingos Sobrinho. From the literature about the university and teachers education, it was used Dermeval Saviani, Luiz Antônio Cunha, Maria Isabel da Cunha and Mirian Jorge Warde, besides others. Plurimethodological procedures were adopted, combining associative techniques adjusted to the access to the social representations, and a classic technique, a questionnaire about teaching habitus. The condition is that the teachers build different social representation of the object teachers education because of the distinct positions that they occupy in the structure of the academic field and the subfield of the teachers education. The reached positions in the field and subfield are due to the differences in the origin and social trajectory of these agents, who, therefore, have different teaching habitus from which they build their social representation about their work object. It is highlighted that the teaching habitus and the social representation of two subfields, identified by the belongings to different dimensions of the teachers education in the degree courses, they have similarities and, also, differences. These ones permit to support that the subjects are holders of distinct teaching habitus that conceive different practices, struggles, tensions and conflicts around the sense of teachers education

The motive ideas behind three industrialization processes

Includes bibliography

Esthetic dental anomalies as motive for bullying in schoolchildren

Facial esthetics, including oral esthetics, can severely affect children's quality-of-life, causing physical, social and psychological impairment. Children and adolescents with esthetic-related dental malformations are potential targets for bullies. This study was aimed to present and discuss patients who suffered from bullying at school and family environment due to esthetic-related teeth anomalies. Providing an adequate esthetic dental treatment is an important step in their rehabilitation when the lack of esthetic is the main source of bullying. After dental treatment, we noted significant improvement in self-esteem, self-confidence, socialization and academic performance of all patients and improvement in parental satisfaction regarding the appearance of their children. It is imperative that both family and school care providers be constantly alert about bullying in order to prevent or interrupt aggressive and discriminatory practices against children and adolescents. Clearly, dental anomalies may be a motive for bullying.

Lo sviluppo nuovo prodotti nel settore auto motive: analisi dei processi organizzativi attraverso lo studio di un caso

Mappatura dei processo organizzativi, della struttura organizzativa e dei sistemi informativi di supporto. analisi di alcune problematiche riscontrate