The Faculty of Business Administration's next session of its Brown Bag Research Series will feature presentations from Dr. Dianne Ford, Dr. Ian Glew and Ms. Nikki Norine.

Contingent Workers: Training and Job-related Attitudes

Dr. Dianne Ford, Associate Professor, Organizational Behaviour and Management Information Systems

Abstract: An exploratory study examined whether training is associated with employee attitudes (i.e., organizational commitment, job satisfaction and job engagement) for contingent workers as it is for permanent workers. This survey study indicates that the amount of training does not appear to impact these attitudes; however, the needs and managerial support of training are.

Tax Legislation, a Blunt Instrument: The Case of Income Trusts in Canada

Dr. Ian Glew, Assistant Professor, Finance

Abstract: The Canadian Income Trust was a tax innovation that allowed funds to flow through to investors, avoiding corporate level taxation. The companies that availed of the structure were mid-sized, mature, stable, 'cash cows' that could afford to pay steady distributions of income. The 2006 Tax Fairness legislation removed any advantage of such organizations by directly taxing 'non-portfolio earnings' of newly defined specified investment flow-through (SIFT) organizations. Market values of affected trusts dropped 20 per cent immediately, resulting in a loss of $27 billion dollars. Private purchases totaling $16 billion followed in 2007-2008. Remaining trusts converted to corporations by the end of 2010, but only a fraction of the expected taxes were recovered, as management reorganized operations to adjust taxable cash flows. This paper describes the outcomes of the policy decision.

Strange Bedfellows: How Collaboration with Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Impacts Firms’ Framing of the Climate Change Issue

Nikki Norine, PhD student, Faculty of Business Administration

Abstract: In this paper we examine how the level of engagement with external stakeholders, specifically environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), affects how firms frame the climate change issue. Using a multiple-case study approach, we study four oil and gas companies: two that engage in collaborative initiatives with ENGOs and two that do not, and examine how their framing of climate change differs. Our findings indicate that companies that engage in collaborative initiatives with ENGOs tend to frame the climate change issue in a broad way while those that do not engage in collaborative efforts tend to frame the climate change issue in a narrow way. We discuss the implications of this broad and narrow framing for research on environmental issue framing and on stakeholder engagement.