Mass media presentation of news stories more closely resembles entertainment than enlightenment. What effect does this have on: 1) the general public’s ability to recall political information; 2) their attitudes towards political actors and issues; and, 3) their ability to think critically about politics? Psychological research on the effect of “seductive details” has indicated that presenting interesting, but ultimately unimportant details in hopes of stimulating attention may serve to reduce individuals’ ability to remember and use information. To test for similar effects in print and television news, an experimental research design is employed to manipulate news presentation. One set of subjects is presented with serious news stories, while another is exposed to serious stories accompanied by frivolous stories. A number of techniques are employed to measure the effects of news as entertainment on recall, critical thinking, and political attitudes. Given that political information is acquired almost exclusively from the mass media, this dissertation raises important empirical and normative issues about the contribution of mass media to the general public’s information level and level of political sophistication. / text

This thesis investigates whether the financial and non-financial performance of organizations is influenced bye-business strategy planning. Four strategic planning parameters of Formality, Participation, Sophistication and Thoroughness are examined when applied to e-business strategy planning. We try to establish if relationships exist between these parameters and Financial and Non-Financial Performance, and if so we examine the directions of these relationships. A conceptual model has been constructed and quantitative research methods are used to test the four hypotheses. The model was tested in two EU countries, the United Kingdom and Greece. The conclusions of this research study, including numerical results and statistical analysis, show that in both countries Participation has a positive relationship with Financial Performance. Furthermore, Formality has a positive relationship with Non-Financial Performance. In Greece, all of the independent variables of Formality, Participation, Sophistication and Thoroughness were found to have a positive relationship with Financial and Non-Financial Performance. In the UK, Participation had a positive relationship with Financial Performance and Formality had a positive relationship with Non-Financial PerfOlmance. This research study brings together elements of e-business strategy planning, strategy planning and performance management. It demonstrates . how strategy planning components have a positive relationship with e-business strategy management and performance. It is also shown that this model is extendable and valid in countries other than the UK, thus being able to be easily adapted to and used in other national environments.

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The fate of undocumented youth recently overwhelmed political dialogue on immigration and its effect on those individuals remains largely unstudied. This paper extends the scope of political information analyses from potential voters to undocumented childhood arrivals. Quantitative observations come from in-depth qualitative interviews in Los Angeles County, California and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. It finds important regional differences in the ability of immigration status to motivate cognitive engagement of politics. It questions the threat hypothesis, as highly politically knowledgeable DREAMers appear to reside in supportive environments. Such places help equip them with the ability to attribute blame and channel anger or enthusiasm. Findings suggest profound dissimilarities in the potential for political participation if and when DREAMer Latinos gain access to citizenship. / text

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This study investigates whether market learning explains the absence of the accrual anomaly in recent years by examining three conditions associated with the presence of the anomaly in prior research: (i) a differential relation between future earnings and cash flows versus accruals, (ii) incorrect weighting of cash flows and accruals by investors when predicting earnings, and (iii) association of earnings forecast errors with returns. All of these conditions are widely documented in the anomaly period. In the no-anomaly period, I continue to find a differential relation of cash flows and accruals with future earnings. However, investors appear to correctly weight accruals and cash flows in their earnings predictions implicit in beginning-of-year security prices, consistent with learning. This study also investigates whether improvements in analyst forecasts contribute to investor learning and the absence of the anomaly. The association between analyst optimism and accruals is weaker in the no-anomaly period, but is still statistically significant. Furthermore, the anomaly ended simultaneously for firms followed by analysts and for non-followed firms, suggesting that improvements in analyst forecasts alone cannot account for improved market efficiency with respect to accruals. The results suggest that the anomaly was similar for firms held by institutional investors and for firms with no institutional holdings before the discovery of the anomaly while the anomaly ended sooner for held firms than for non-held firms after the discovery of the anomaly, consistent with the conjecture that arbitrage by institutional investors reduce the anomaly. Overall, the findings are consistent with market learning and suggest that improvement in investors' interpretation of accruals after the discovery of the anomaly explains the end of the anomaly. This improvement in investor learning is not due to changes in analysts' forecasting behavior, however.

It is generally accepted that the association between leading indicators and stock prices is evidence that the market efficiently prices the contribution of the leading indicators to future earnings. In this study, I examine whether investors incorporate the implications of one leading indicator, order backlog, in an efficient manner when determining stock prices and earnings forecasts. Furthermore, I investigate whether there is a difference between how the sophisticated and unsophisticated investor values order backlog given the fact that consensus analysts’ forecasts correctly incorporate the information in backlog for future earnings. I find that the market is more efficient in pricing the implications of order backlog with regards to firms with a high percentage of sophisticated investors compared to those with a low percentage of sophisticated investors. Moreover my results imply that unsophisticated investors overly-fixate on order backlog information.

Contracts and trust are two of the most important concepts impacting exchange relationships. Although there is a substantial amount of organizational literature scrutinizing contracts and trust as mechanisms of cooperation, very little of this scholarship has been empirical and, thus, our understanding is very limited. The two constructs have been cast as substitutes by some scholars and complements by others, but this body of research has largely ignored the potential for an interactive effect. One such effect has been postulated by select organizational scholars, entitled the “contract contrarian perspective” by this research, who tout that the introduction of written contracts has a negative effect on trust between the parties. The apex objective of this study was to examine how contracts affect the existence and development of trust between bargaining partners. This inquiry tested the contract contrarian perspective to determine if the introduction of a written contract into a negotiation damages trust or retards trust-building. In addition, this research offered an alternative explanation for the contract contrarian perspective and posited that any negative effect on trust that may occur during the contracting process might not be the result the introduction of a written contract but, rather, of the disparity in the parties’ relative bargaining power or the asymmetry of their legal sophistication. As trust is a complex construct, the present disquisition separated trust into two dependent variables: goodwill trust and competence trust. This allowed us to examine how the introduction of a contract affects different aspects of trust, thus, allowing for more precise indication of the effects. Consistent with the contract contrarian perspective, it was hypothesized that the introduction of a written contract into a negotiation would produce a negative effect on trust levels. It was also hypothesized that both bargaining power and legal sophistication would moderate the potential negative effect of introducing a contract into a negotiation. The study employed a vignette experimental design methodology and utilized a sample of 220 participants from a contracted data collection service and the data were analyzed with ANOVA and MANOVA. The results did not support the contract contrarian perspective’s claim and did not support the hypotheses regarding moderation; however, this study did find that both bargaining power and of legal sophistication had significant impacts on goodwill trust and competence trust.

When filing for personal bankruptcy, an individual can, in almost all cases, claim an exemption for retirement assets.  Using the Survey of Consumer Finances from 2007 and 2010, we test the theory that highly educated or financially sophisticated households allocate more resources to retirement assets under conditions of higher probability of filing for personal bankruptcy.  This hypothesis stems from the concept of asset sheltering, in which an individual will demonstrate a preference for assets that are exempt from a particular risk. To address our hypothesis, we run a Heckman model on the Survey of Consumer Finances data.  Our results provide evidence to match our theory for only highly educated or financially sophisticated individuals, conditional on owning retirement assets.  That is, we observe highly educated and financially sophisticated households allocate more resources to retirement accounts when they are at higher risk for bankruptcy.  Other characteristic groups do not demonstrate a similarly strong relationship between the probability of filing for bankruptcy and the level of retirement assets. / Master of Science