Warnings are intended to improve safety (decreasing injury, illness and loss) by communicating the presence and nature of a potential hazard and encouraging behaviour that will minimise or avoid a negative outcome. Warnings can be seen as representations of risk, therefore it is likely that an individual’s attitude towards risk, their risk-taking propensity, may affect the way they perceive warnings. Establishing this relationship has important practical implications. If high risk-taking propensity can predict non-compliance, then attempts may be made to increase compliance within high risk-takers by tailoring warnings to such individuals. This thesis aims to explore empirically the relationship between measures of risk-taking propensity and warnings, with potential application to the prevention of hazardous behaviours. Study One investigated the potential relationship between risk-taking propensity and warning perception using an exploratory approach. The results confirmed that various measures of risk-taking propensity predicted warning perceptions, in particular on intentions to comply with the warnings. Studies Two and Three revealed that the relationship between risk-taking and warning perception is domain specific to a certain extent and that it is stronger when contextual information about a hazard is provided. Study Four explored potential underlying mechanisms and revealed that while the mental simulation of positive outcomes of non-compliance was found to be influential, anticipated regret significantly mediated the relationship between risk-taking propensity and intended compliance. Study Five attempted to minimise the discrepancy between high and low risk-takers through warning design manipulation. Despite a strong effect of sensation seeking on intended compliance the warning manipulations implemented had no effect on warning perceptions. This thesis offers a significant contribution to the literature, by establishing empirically the effect of risk propensity on warnings perception and by providing insight into the theoretical underpinnings of this relationship.

This study addresses the effects of altruism and intention for succession on family firm's risk-taking behaviors. Results show that higher levels of familial altruism in family firms with succession plans lead to lower levels of R&D investment, but have no significant impacts on their earnings management. Also, altruism in these family firms decreases their cost of debt. / May 2016

Since the inception of the Internet there has been immense growth in the number of internet users worldwide, and the integration of social media in our daily lives has become commonplace for many. Yet, alongside the many benefits of this global connectivity come numerous risks. Research shows that individuals of all ages are exposed to, and engage in, risky activities online, despite numerous campaigns to highlight the perils of risky online behaviour. Although the rates of victimisation increase year-on-year, surprisingly little is known about the psychological mechanisms underlying online risk-taking. The work in this thesis aimed to address this gap in the psychological literature by conducting empirical research focussing on online risky behaviour and decision making across the lifespan. Four studies, conducted with individuals ranging in age from 13- to 79-years-old, investigated two online risk-taking behaviours, personal information disclosure and friending strangers, within the framework of Fuzzy Trace Theory. A further study investigated the posting of risky and inappropriate content online in British and Italian students, examining the role of self-monitoring and impulsivity. The work in this thesis reveals that Fuzzy Trace Theory is able to predict risk-taking and risk-averse behavioural intentions, and that the retrieval of gist-based, intuitive beliefs and values about online risk reduces risk-taking behaviour and intentions, whereas representing risk in a quantitative-based, verbatim manner leads to increased risk-taking intentions. The ability to reason using gist representations increases with age. Additionally, high self-monitoring was found to predict risky posting behaviour across different cultures. These findings offer a novel and important contribution to our theoretical and practical knowledge about risky online behaviour, and have the potential to inform the development of more effective online safety intervention programmes.

Risk has become a key concept in social theory and has had a significant impact across academic disciplines including criminology. On the one hand, several criminologists argue that the rise of risk has fundamentally reconfigured the operations of courts, corrections, and policing. Many claim that, over the last few decades, crime control has moved away from the old rehabilitative and retributive approaches of the past and towards more actuarial approaches based on risk management – crime has become a risk to be managed in aggregate terms rather than a moral transgression in need of rectification. On the other hand, while risk-based approaches to governing crime have grown significantly, cultural criminologists and sociologists of sport have noted a heightened emphasis on risk-taking by urban graffiti writers, illegal street racers, extreme sports enthusiasts, and illicit drug users. For these people, the risk-averse logic of actuarial governance – risk as potential harm to be avoided – is inverted such that risk is positively embraced for the excitement it affords. What is particularly characteristic about the present, then, is that a politics of risk management is colliding with a culture of risk-taking. In attempts to make sense of this puzzling paradox, in this thesis I offer a primarily theoretical investigation of the dominant approaches used in the study of risk management (chp. I) and risk taking (chp. II & III) in sociology and criminology. After exploring how the rise of risk has reconfigured crime control over the last quarter century in Chapter one, in Chapter two I develop the argument that orthodox criminology provides two dominant images of criminal risk-taking. While dispositional theories explain criminal risk-taking as the pathological behaviour of individuals with particular body types, low-self control, or of lower-class origin, situational theories conceive of criminal risk-taking as the (ir)rational decisions of necessarily risk-averse actors. Despite differences between dispositional and situational theories, both leave no room for risk-taking that is controlled and intentional. In Chapter three I enlist the work of Jack Katz on the seductions of crime and of Stephen Lyng on the sociology of risk-taking to develop a third, cultural approach to risk-taking that is voluntary and cross-class. I illustrate how, for Katz’s and Lyng’s actors, risk is approached as a challenge rather than seen as a deterrent. Lastly, I add to the historicity of the cultural approach to risk-taking by tracing its roots in a romantic worldview that arose out of 19th century disenchantment with the bureaucratic rationalism and alienation of capitalist modernity. In conclusion, I summarize the main argument of the thesis and outline some potential avenues for future research.

The dramatic increase in the masculine practice of tattooing among girls in Western societies is an area of interest for feminist researchers and visual culture educators. Girls’ tattoos are perceived as diverse practices of conformity, resistance, reclamation, and empowerment, and/or as contemporary markers of femininity, sexuality, and desire. Eleven adolescent girls with tattoos from the Central Okanagan region of British Columbia were interviewed during a 12 month period in 2007/2008. Discourse analysis was employed as a method to interpret and deconstruct girls’ narratives with respect to understanding why girls have adopted traditional Western male practices of tattooing as expressions of individuality or identity. Secondly, responses were examined with respect to girls’ knowledge of potential risks involved with tattooing. The majority of participants had strong attachments to their relatives and their tattoos signified a desire to maintain that close family relationship. Research findings indicated girls’ mothers were influential in their daughters’ decisions to get tattooed and in the type of image tattooed. Girls were adamant that popular media figures with tattoos and advertisements of models with tattoos could influence or encourage girls to engage in body art. Knowledge of potential risks was learned primarily from tattoo artists and relatives, with infection indicated as the main associated risk. Participants suggested the distribution of pamphlets in school counseling centres could inform students of potential risks and provide information related to safe body art practices. Participants believed societal norms respecting girls’ behaviors and practices were different than those experienced by their mothers. However size, placement, and image of their tattoos, their own biases, and their experiences with older relatives including grandmothers and some fathers indicate that traditional Western attitudes regarding femininity and the female body continue. In spite of this, girls believe that they have the freedom to choose how they enact femininity and assert their individuality, and they believe “if guys can do it, so can girls”. As visual culture educators we need to listen to and respect the voices of girls to achieve a greater understanding of how girls experience and perform gender through their everyday practices within the popular visual culture.

The capital, material resources, equipments, organizational employees, and technological resources are the key points for a business to maintain competitive. Amongst these, ¡§human resources¡¨ are the main body for allocating the resources; and within the human resource system, environmental factors such as the organizational climate and sense of inspiration are the most significant causes of the employees¡¦ behaviors. Moreover, apart from the market competitiveness and beneficial abilities, the unity amongst the employees and their working attitudes are also main factors depending on which the business would succeed or not. Whether the employees are willing to work hard and grow with the company would be depending on how the company treats its employees. The personal needs and preferred risk differ from person to person; some work for money, whilst some work for work; thus, for some people, an inspirational measure might be very important, for it would inspire them to work hard, whilst for others, the measure might be of no inspirational effect at all. As for the organization, to effectively meet this goal, the business executives would need to understand associated topics of inspiration, and design effective and strategic inspirational combinations focusing on the needs and expectations of the employees, so as to attract and keep excellent human talents, inspire the potentials of the employees, and consequently elevate the organizational promises and the work achievements. The developing staffs, business sales persons and the administrative staffs of listed companies in Taiwan were used as the study population in the present research, with the risk preference as the independent variable, the organizational promise as the dependent variable, and the awareness of the organizational climate as the moderator variable; the associations and influences between the variables were studied. Moreover, the inspirational factor was further included as the confounding variable for studying its confounding effects on the other variables. A total of 1,322 surveys were sent out, and 269 of which were completed and returned. Through differential analysis, correlational analysis, and multiple regression analysis, the empirical findings of the present study are as the following: 1.Risk preference, awareness of the organizational climate, inspirational factor, and organizational promises differed depending on the different individual attributes. 2.Risk preferences and organizational climate were correlated with the promises the employees made for the organization. 3.the employees¡¦ awareness of the organizational climate had influences on risk preference and the promises for the organization 4.The relationship between risk preferences and the awareness of the organizational climate and the relationship between organizational climate and organizational promise are confounded by the inspirational factor.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on December 29, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Bruce D. Bartholow. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2000. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-72). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ67735

Adolescents engage in more risky behavior when they are with peers and show heightened susceptibility to peer influence relative to children and adults. Recent experimental studies suggest that peer influence on adolescent risk-taking may be mediated by activity in reward-related regions of the brain (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005; Chein et al., 2011). Because reward-related regions are modified by the hormonal changes of puberty, it is possible that the heightened influence of peers on adolescent risk-taking is more closely linked to pubertal development than chronological age. The current study examined whether the effect of peers on risk-taking was moderated by pubertal status. Participants (62 youth, ages 11-16) completed a performance-based measure of risky decision-making, once alone and once in the presence of two peers. Pubertal timing was assessed using self-report. Adolescents made riskier decisions in the presence of peers, and more advanced pubertal development predicted greater risky decision-making, controlling for chronological age. However, the relationship between pubertal timing and risk-taking was only apparent when adolescents completed the task alone. The effect of peer presence on risky decision-making was attenuated for adolescents with more advanced pubertal development. These findings suggest that the presence of peers may override biologically-based individual differences in propensity for risk-taking. / text