This dissertation looks at models in which agents make decisions under various economic frictions, and examines the role of their preferences. The first two chapters analytically characterize an infinite-horizon open economy under the friction of a stock collateral constraint, whereby borrowing is limited by the value of capital assets available. The model that is considered allows for general subjective discounting of households and fully variable productivity. The third chapter looks at a model of an ambiguity-averse benevolent mediator tasked with choosing a price contract at which a risk neutral buyer and seller transact an indivisible good under the friction of unquantifiable uncertainty of their reservation values. The first chapter establishes that it is possible for households to enjoy the allocation they would obtain absent a stock collateral constraint under a condition that relates to their patience; this condition requires a long-run depression when agents are impatient relative to the market, and allows for an economic expansion when agents are more patient relative to the market. When this condition is not met, households are tightly constrained at least once and experience debt deleveraging in all periods and deflation of asset prices in periods preceding the constrained period relative to their unconstrained allocation. Households also ration their consumption more when they expect to be more tightly constrained in the future. The second chapter is a sequel to the first chapter and shows that under constant output, agents who are impatient relative to the market can face two and three-period cycles in consumption, debt, and asset prices. Further, large initial debt can lead to multiple equilibria. The third chapter considers a mediator who plays a Stackelberg game against Nature to maximize the distributionally worst-case expected weighted Nash product subject to known mean and boundary constraints on buyer and seller reservation values. We study the role of bargaining power and show that relative to what the buyer and seller themselves would choose when equipped with the mediator's information, the mediator's price contract has a shallow dependency on bargaining power, which is only exacerbated by the possibility of dependent buyer and seller values. Comparative statics results are obtained.

Many cultural and social psychological studies have been conducted at the societal level and at the individual level and generalised for all members in that society. This ignores the fact that there are many distinctive subgroups with their own subgroup cultures within a society. These subgroup cultures also have an influence on individuals, and need to be explored at an individual level. A survey in both English and Chinese was posted to 1,869 Chinese private equity professionals in the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong and resulted in 376 responses. The survey measured the core values and beliefs of individualism, collectivism, power distance, social axioms, Machiavellianism, Confucianism, and preferred negotiation style for those who have had overseas exposure in Anglo-Saxon countries and those who have not. The theories employed in the study were institutional theory, the resource-based view, and social psychological theories. A partial least squares structural equation model was used to determine relationships. Significant differences between Chinese private equity professionals who have worked or studied in Anglo-Saxon countries and those who had not were found for individualism, vertical collectivism, Machiavellian control and status, three aspects of Confucianism, and also the controlling negotiation style. The model devised can be adapted for other societal subgroups to measure, not just preferred negotiation styles, but other important organizational relationship-dependent factors such as leadership style, decision-making, and trust. The model can be employed to further understand many types of organisations and industries anywhere in the world.

This qualitative study explores male nurses’ negotiation of masculine gender identities in the nontraditional work of registered nursing. Few registered nurses in the United States are men, and men leave the profession within the first four years after graduation at twice the rate of women. This study builds on previous work by seeking to understand why male nursing graduates of an institution formerly for women only, made the decision to become nurses, how they decided to attend a women’s college over a more gender balanced campus experience, and in what ways they negotiate gender identities in the configuration of nursing practice careers. Though others have cautioned that active recruitment of men into nursing could be detrimental to women nurses’ careers, the current nursing shortage has changed the terrain in health care creating a structural need for both women and men. In contrast to previous studies, which focused on elucidating mechanisms in the workplace that encouraged men nurses’ rapid ascendancy in the profession, this study explores socialization processes encountered in both educational and workplace settings to gain understanding of the meaning these experiences hold for male nurses in the negotiation of masculinity in a predominantly women’s profession. By uncovering the salient meaning that socialization into the professional culture of nursing has for male nurses, an understanding can be gained of how best to recruit and retain men in the profession. Gender theory provides the lens with which structures of gendered educational and work relations among participants in this study were examined. Data were collected from thirty participants using multiple methods, and analyzed using an emergent themes approach. Participants identified themselves as competent, compassionate caregivers. Although relationships with female nursing colleagues were undergirded by horizontal reciprocity, tensions arose when male physicians communicated greater trust with male nurses. Interactions with nursing managers were regarded with caution. The male nurses in this study perceived that they were expected to respond with stoicism in crises, work excessive overtime, and were assigned the most complicated cases. They did not feel they could voice reservations about accepting complicated case assignments as did their female colleagues.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.