[Social choice lottery rules are analyzed for two-candidate elections with voters who may be uncertain about whom they prefer. A voter's uncertainty is reflected by a nonobservable choice probability of voting for candidate A rather than candidate B, given that he votes. Lottery rules are based on the votes for A and B; they are to be monotonic and symmetric in voters and in candidates. Given n voters, all lottery rules are convex combinations of about n/2 basic rules ranging from the coin-flip rule to simple majority. Candidate A's win probability and two measures of expected voter satisfaction are examined as functions of the individuals' choice probabilities and the lottery rules. Comparisons are made between simple majority and the proportional lottery rule which assigns social choice probability of j/n to A when A gets j of n votes. Each of simple majority and the proportional lottery rule satisfies attractive properties that are not satisfied by the other rule.]

A participant observation methodology is employed in this paper to investigate the management strategy of a large public accounting firm. The author directly observed partners and managers of an audit practice office going about their daily tasks over a 3-month period. A descriptive model of the management strategy was developed from the observed matrix of daily interactions. The results indicate that there are three components to the management strategy: Doing, Representing and Being. Doing is defined as those activities which the firm undertakes to maintain and improve its relationship with its clients. Representing is defined as those activities which the firm undertakes to maintain and improve its relationships with outside parties other than clients. Being is defined as the image of the firm. The three components work together to manage the environment in which the public accounting firm operates.

Working mainly from the literature of modern organization theory, it was possible to develop a model of organizational performance for internal subunits. The model hypothesizes three major contingencies which affect subunit performance: (1) factors internal to the subunit (internal factors); (2) interrelationships with other subunits (interdependency factors); and (3) interactions external to the firm (environmental factors). The contingencies operate differentially across organizational subunits. Three propositions derived from the model were examined empirically in a field study of large manufacturing organizations. Strong support for two of the propositions was found, along with indications of support for the third, by using the analytical methodology of path analysis. The final section of the paper explores the implications of the study approach and results for managerial accounting theory and practice.

R. C. Stapleton, M. G. Subrahmanyam, Market Imperfections, Capital Market Equilibrium and Corporation Finance, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 32, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Finance Association, Atlantic City, New Jersey, September 16-18, 1976 (May, 1977), pp. 307-319