Dr. George Adu: A valedictory remembrance

No Abstrac

Laboratory Cultures

Cet essai se sert des cultures visuelles et matérielles de deux laboratoires afin d'engager une discussion historiographique sur ce que signifie écrire l’histoire de la science et de la technologie au Canada. Il emploie un sujet potentiellement familier, la conception et la construction du satellite Alouette, pour illustrer la façon dont la discipline pourrait se défaire de sa préoccupation consciente pour les découvertes et les innovations et se concentrer plutôt sur une exploration révisée de la question : qu’y a-t-il de canadien dans la technologie et la science canadiennes ?This essay uses the visual and material cultures of two laboratories as a way of initiating an historiographical discussion about what it means to write the history of science and technology in Canada. It uses a potentially familiar topic—the conception and construction of the Alouette satellite—to illustrate how the discipline might shed its self-conscious preoccupation with discoveries and innovations, and instead focus its attention on a revised exploration of the question: what is Canadian about Canadian science and technology

Sound and Vision

Over the last two decades, Science Studies has produced a fascinating body of literature on visual representation. A crucial part of that literature has explored the materiality of visual representation, primarily the “rendering practices” that make visual representations possible and embody epistemic virtues attached to the scientific self. This essay explores the practices and capacities that support visual representation, but it looks to a seemingly unlikely place for inspiration—the growing literature on the uses of sound in science. My interest here is to see how that literature points us to a view of sound as an epistemic resource that supports the visual. If there is a visual emphasis in modern science, it is made possible by a set of material practices that are only partly visual. As such, this essay suggests how the history of visual representations in science might be bound up with a history of scientific aurality

When Spotting the Glass Cliff Matters for Women: A Qualitative Study Focusing on Gender Inequalities in Corporate South Africa

Trends of women accessing senior manager roles in corporate South Africa have made considerable gains, and although some women have managed to crack the glass ceiling which has hindered their full participation in economic life, true gender equality is yet to be achieved. Sometimes, what seems like a wonderful opportunity to climb up the corporate ladder is an ascent that leads you to the top and pushes you over the edge. But what happens when women do manage to get to the top? The study investigates the concept of the glass cliff by interrogating its existence and looking further into the implications of the phenomenon. A qualitative research methodology was employed, and data collected through semi-structured interviews from a total of 15 participants. The research suggests that for women managers it is important to understand when, why, and how glass cliff appointments are likely to occur and elaborates on strategies for eliminating the glass cliff. The study goes further to make suggestions to policy makers about the importance of understanding the impact of the choices made by women seeking management positions and provides insights regarding how women feel about taking these precarious manager roles. This chapter aims at contributing to this under-researched area from a South African perspective

Re-examination of risk-return dynamics in international equity markets and the role of policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk and VIX: Evidence using Markov-switching copulas.

This study re-examines the empirical relationship between risk and return from 1994m12 to 2020m08 in fifteen international equity markets employing the novel time-varying Markov switching copula models. We provide first-time insightful evidence of time-varying Markov tail dependence structure and dynamics between risk and return in international equity markets. Results show that the dependence structure is positive for USA, UK, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Australia, Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, Japan, France and South Africa and negative for Singapore, India, Japan and China. Finally, we document the effects of policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk and VIX conditional on different markets states.post-print433 K

What does corporate social advocacy signal? Evidence from boycott participation decisions

PURPOSE – This paper explores how a firm’s public stand on a social-political issue can be a salient signal of the firm’s values, identity and reputation. In particular, it investigates how boycott participation–conceptualized as a cue of a corporation’s stand on important social-political issues–may affect the stock market valuation of that corporation, as well as how corporations legitimise their stand on the issues. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH – The authors employ a mixed-methods design that uses both qualitative techniques (content analysis) and quantitative methods (event study methodology) to examine a sample of US firms who participated in a boycott campaign that sought to call attention to issues of hate speech, misinformation and discriminatory content on social media platform Facebook. FINDINGS – Findings from the qualitative content analysis of company statements show that firms legitimise their stand on, and participation in, the boycott by expressing altruistic values and suggesting to stakeholders that their stand aligns not only with organizational values/convictions but also with the greater social good. Importantly, the event study results show that firms who publicly announced their intention to participate in the boycott, on average, earn a statistically significant positive abnormal stock return of 2.68% in the four days immediately after their announcements. Research limitations/implications – Findings relate to a specific case of a boycott campaign. Also, the sample size is limited and restricted to US stocks. The signalling value of corporate social advocacy actions may vary across countries due to institutional and cultural differences. Market reaction may also be different for issues that are more charged than the ones examined in this study. Therefore, future research might investigate other markets, use larger sample sizes and consider a broader range of social-political issues. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS – The presence of significant stock price changes for firms that publicly announced their decision to side with activists on the issue of hate propaganda and misinformation offers potentially valuable insights on the timing of trades for investors and arbitrageurs. Insights from the study also provide a practical resource that can be used to inform organizations’ decision-making about such issues. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS – Taking the lead to push on social-political issues, such as hate propaganda, discrimination, among others, and communicating their stands in a way that speaks to their values and identity, could be rewarding for companies. ORIGINALITY/VALUE – This study provides novel evidence on the impact that corporate stances on important social-political issues can have on stock market valuation of firms and therefore extends the existing related research which until now has focused on the impact on consumer purchasing intent and brand loyalty.https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-4774.htmam2022Economic