Stockholding: from participation to location and to participation spillovers

This paper provides a joint analysis of household stockholding participation, stock location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers, using data from the US Survey of Consumer Finances. Our multivariate choice model matches observed participation rates, conditional and unconditional, and asset location patterns. Financial education and sophistication strongly affect direct stockholding and mutual fund participation, while social interactions affect stockholding through retirement accounts only. Household characteristics influence stockholding through retirement accounts conditional on owning retirement accounts, unlike what happens with stockholding through mutual funds. Although stockholding is more common among retirement account owners, this fact is mainly due to their characteristics that led them to buy retirement accounts in the first place rather than to any informational advantages gained through retirement account ownership itself. Finally, our results suggest that, taking stockholding as given, stock location is not arbitrary but crucially depends on investor characteristics. JEL Classification: G11, E21, D14, C3

Complementary or Conflictual? Formal Participation, Informal Participation, and Organizational Performance

Most studies of worker participation examine either formal participatory structures or informal participation. Yet, increasingly, works councils and other formal participatory bodies are operating in parallel with collective bargaining or are filling the void left by its decline. Moreover, these bodies are sprouting in workplaces in which workers have long held a modicum of influence, authority, and production- or service-related information. This study leverages a case from the healthcare sector to examine the interaction between formal and informal worker participation. Seeking to determine whether or not these two forces—each independently shown to benefit production or service delivery—complement or undermine one another, we find evidence for the latter. In the case of the 27 primary care departments that we study, formal structures appeared to help less participatory departments improve their performance. However, these same structures also appeared to impede those departments with previously high levels of informal participation. While we remain cautious with respect to generalizability, the case serves as a warning to those seeking to institute participation in an environment in which some workers have long felt they had the requisite authority, influence, and information necessary to perform their jobs effectively

Widening Participation in Golf: Barriers to Participation and GolfMark

This research was commissioned by the EGU and R&A in 2010. The aims of the research project were threefold: 1) To review the academic literature on barriers to participation in sport, especially golf; 2) To survey clubs, members and nomadic golfers to describe their perceptions of GolfMark and the issues it intends to address; 3) To gather in-depth data from a range of golf clubs to help understand how different club cultures may lead to the exclusion of underrepresented demographic groups

From participation to dropout

The academic e-learning practice has to deal with various participation patterns and types of online learners with different support needs. The online instructors are challenged to recognize these and react accordingly. Among the participation patterns, special attention is requested by dropouts, which can perturbate online collaboration. Therefore we are in search of a method of early identification of participation patterns and prediction of dropouts. To do this, we use a quantitative view of participation that takes into account only observable variables. On this background we identify in a field study the participation indicators that are relevant for the course completion, i.e. produce significant differences between the completion and dropout sub-groups. Further we identify through cluster analysis four participation patterns with different support needs. One of them is the dropout cluster that could be predicted with an accuracy of nearly 80%. As a practical consequence, this study recommends a simple, easy-to-implement prediction method for dropouts, which can improve online teaching. As a theoretical consequence, we underline the role of the course didactics for the definition of participation, and call for refining previous attrition models

EDITORIAL: Aesthetics and participation …

Does it ever happen that a theoretical perspective is articulated, accepted and then sealed from further debate? There is a process of development, application, critique and assessment. Among other things, scholarly journals offer their communities of readers and writers a space for continuing debate about the implications of concepts and conversations

The role of participation and empowerment in income and poverty dynamics in Indonesia 1993-2000

The objective of this study is to assess whether living in a community that has a more democratic decision making system or in a society with a higher degree of participation and cooperation has any effect on household income changes and poverty reduction in Indonesia. Constructing an empowerment index and a participation index, we find that a household would have had a two percentage point higher income growth from 1993 to 2000 if it had been in a society with a high degree of cooperation compared to a society with the lowest degree of cooperation, if our results imply causality. This is substantial, since the average household per capita real income growth between 1993 and 2000 was 11 %. The participation index was found to be insignificant.Household income Poverty reduction Indonesia

“Fairy rings” of participation: the invisible network influencing participation in online communities

Individuals participate in many different ways in online communities. There is an extensive body of research describing participation as a key metaphor in communities of practice and stressing that participatory mobility is influenced by underground multidirectional activities, directed away from the notion of periphery to the centre practices and taking the shape of expansive swarming and multidirectional pulsations. This article describes an ongoing observational study proposing a model that attempts to determine how users participate in online communities and what influences them to alter the way in which they participate. We performed daily observations on user participatory behaviour in 50 online communities using public domain – anonymous data available in the communities. The specific communities were selected because they are related to learning and support learning activities within their networks. The data observations collected were analysed using Compendium, a hypermedia knowledge mapping and sense-making tool, to represent and structure the data, make complex cross data queries, test hypotheses and build representation of real examples to support our claims. Initial findings indicate that users connect, participate, contribute and collaborate on a shared objective, transferring information and pooling knowledge within and between communities in four different modes. During their online journey, users switched between modes of participation or even remained in one specific mode, implying that the way in which users participate in an online community is not just related to the mode of participation and the level of engagement with the community but it is also due to hidden reasons or motivations, an invisible network of interactions of elements that affect the willingness of the user to participate. This layer is not immediately evident in the user actions but can be inferred by analysing user reactions. It is argued that user participation in online communities occurs in two layers; the “visible” layer of participation with the different modes; and the “invisible” layer of element interactions, similar to formations observed in nature when a radically spreading underground network of fungi activity results in a ring or arc formation of mushrooms, also known as a “fairy ring”. These underground multidirectional activities influence participation and participatory mobility. Following an open scientific inquiry approach and an open research paradigm we plan to share these observations with a wider audience of practitioners, researchers and theorists for all to test or contest our arguments, and to enrich, question, or support our model

Stockholding: From Participation to Location and to Participation Spillovers

This paper provides a joint analysis of household stockholding participation, stock location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers, using data from the US Survey of Consumer Finances. Our multivariate choice model matches observed participation rates, conditional and unconditional, and asset location patterns. Financial education and sophistication strongly affect direct stockholding and mutual fund participation, while social interactions affect stockholding through retirement accounts only. Household characteristics influence stockholding through retirement accounts conditional on owning retirement accounts, unlike what happens with stockholding through mutual funds. Although stockholding is more common among retirement account owners, this fact is mainly due to their characteristics that led them to buy retirement accounts in the first place rather than to any informational advantages gained through retirement account ownership itself. Finally, our results suggest that, taking stockholding as given, stock location is not arbitrary but crucially depends on investor characteristics.Stockholding, Asset Location, Retirement Accounts, Household Finance, Multivariate Probit, Simulated Maximum Likelihood.