An experimental investigation of accounting information’s influence on the individual giving process

In this study, we experimentally investigate accounting information’s role in the individual donation process. Specifically, we manipulate the presence of service efforts and accomplishments (SEA) information in conjunction with a typical fundraising request. We then investigate whether donors obtain comparative financial accounting information for the purpose of maximizing donation efficiency.In our experiment, potential donors felt that fundraising requests containing SEA disclosures were more informative than typical fundraising pleas. In addition, supplementing a standard fundraising request with summary SEA information significantly increased (1) the quality perception of the requesting charitable organization and (2) the percentage of potential donors who claimed they would donate to the requesting organization in the future. However, SEA information did not translate into increased actual giving in our study.Our experiment next offered actual donors the opportunity to obtain comparative financial information for the purpose of verifying efficient giving (i.e., donors could compare the soliciting organization to a similar organization). Although the majority of actual donors were unwilling to obtain this information, the vast majority of those viewing financial accounting information donated to the organization with the highest program-spending ratio. As such, our results support two seemingly opposed contentions: (1) only a minority of individual donors request and use financial information, however, (2) there is a need for increased accuracy of not-for-profit expense classification.     

Financial literacy and consumer credit portfolios

We use survey data from a sample of UK households to analyse the relationship between financial literacy and consumer credit portfolios. We show that individuals who borrow on consumer credit exhibit worse financial literacy than those who do not. Borrowers with poor financial literacy hold higher shares of high cost credit (such as home collected credit, mail order catalogue debt and payday loans) than those with higher literacy. We also show that individuals with poor financial literacy are more likely to lack confidence when interpreting credit terms, and to exhibit confusion over financial concepts. They are also less likely to engage in behaviour which might help them to improve their awareness of the credit market.     

Interest and reaction time analysis of credit card offers: Managerial implications of high level research procedures

This paper presents a new approach to the optimisation of direct mail offers. Conjoint measurement will be used to identify two aspects of an offer: the degree of interest; and the speed at which an individual processes the information. The approach allows the marketer to create offers that are simultaneously attractive to customers and easy to understand. The approach is illustrated by a credit card case study.     

An Experimental Examination of US Individual Donors’ Information Needs and Use

This paper adopts an internet‐based experiment to investigate whether and how individual donors use nonprofit organizations’ financial and nonfinancial information when making their donation decisions. Using undergraduate students in the United States (US) to proxy for individual donors, our results indicate that individual donors are more likely to acquire nonfinancial information, such as nonprofit organizations’ goals, outcomes, programs and missions, than financial information. Donors integrate nonfinancial information into their decisions as their actual donations are significantly correlated with such information. Our results also indicate that while individual donors acquire financial efficiency measures, including the program expense ratio and fundraising expense ratio, they do not seem to integrate such information into their decisions as their actual donations are not significantly correlated with the efficiency information. This study contributes to the nonprofit literature and research domain focusing on charitable giving and donor preferences.     

The Benefit of Frequent Corporate Philanthropy

Applying behavioural economic theory, we argue that the frequency of philanthropic activity is important in determining corporate philanthropy's economic outcome. Using Chinese data from 2003 to 2016, we find that firms with more frequent philanthropic activities obtain more government subsidies than firms that only engage in one-off charitable donations. Firms with better corporate governance, such as higher management ownership and more independent directors, are more likely to adopt a strategy of frequent donation. Furthermore, firms are more likely to be frequent donors when management or local government officers have a long tenure. Our findings provide insight into the giving process and suggest that firms can maximize the benefit of corporate philanthropy if they strategically consider the donation frequency and donation amount simultaneously.     

个人捐赠何以可为:慈善信息与组织信任的作用机制研究

捐赠作为慈善事业发展的基石,对社会发展和社会的良性运行具有重要意义。本文在实证调查基础上,运用OLS回归方法分析了慈善信息、组织信任与个人捐赠行为三者之间的关系。研究发现:慈善信息的获取对捐赠行为具有积极影响,其中通过新兴媒介获取慈善信息的影响远远大于通过传统媒介获取信息的影响;慈善信息的获取不仅直接影响个人的捐赠行为,而且可以通过慈善组织信任度这个中介变量间接影响个人捐赠行为。     

‘Someone else’s blood’: directed blood donation for neonatal transfusion and parental perceptions of risk

In Canada, parents can give blood exclusively for their child’s transfusion, a process known as directed donation. This qualitative study aimed to understand parents’ perceptions in seeking to provide blood for their newborn. Ten parents whose preterm children were cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of one Canadian hospital were interviewed. The beliefs and experiences of parents with regard to directed donation were analyzed with reference to their understanding of the risks and benefits of this form of transfusion. Interview data revealed that parents had little knowledge or understanding of the medical benefits and risks of directed donation and based their decision to seek this type of transfusion largely on emotional grounds. In addition, despite their preference for directed donation, most infants whose parents were interviewed in this study, for practical reasons could not be given this type of transfusion. This may have magnified risk perceptions of non‐directed transfusions. Parents need to be better informed about the medical risks and benefits of directed donation and the actual likelihood that their child will be able to receive this type of transfusion.     

非公有制企业党组织与企业捐赠

与公有制企业党组织受到较多关注不同,非公有制企业党组织是否真正发挥影响力是同样重要但却被学术界忽略的待研究问题。本文基于手工收集的民营上市公司党组织的相关数据,从社会捐赠这一视角研究党组织影响力对其履行社会责任的影响。结果发现:民营上市公司党组织的影响力越大,企业的社会捐赠力度越大,且显著高于同行业和同地区的平均捐赠水平;这种影响力的促进作用在民营上市公司党组织基础更加稳固的企业、管理层对党组织重视程度更高的企业和党代会时期更加明显。上述结果在控制了可能的内生性问题后依然稳健。本文的发现意味着非公有制企业党组织有助于促进其履行社会责任,这有助于评估和促进非公有制企业党组织的建设及其作用的发挥。     

Order preferencing, adverse-selection costs, and the probability of information-based trading

Although prior studies offer various conjectures on the causes and consequences of order preferencing, there is only limited empirical evidence. In this study, we show that the extent of order preferencing is significantly and negatively related to both the adverse-selection component of the spread and the probability of information-based trading. This result is consistent with the prediction of the clientele-pricing hypothesis that dealers (brokers) selectively purchase (internalize) orders based on information content. Our results suggest that order preferencing may not be as harmful as some researchers have suggested and offer some rationale for its prevalence in securities markets with heterogeneously informed traders. JEL Classification G18 · G19     

Accounting for accounting: Towards the development of a dialectical view

This paper questions the adequacy of current approaches to accounting research. Following a re-examination of the progress made by the interpretive perspective in correcting for many of the shortcomings in the traditional framework, a catalogue of unresolved problems and silences is constructed. It is argued that central to this is the persistent failure adequately to contextualize accounting whilst at the same time treating it as a fully social practice. The second part of the paper is accordingly devoted to the development and illustration of an alternative, fuller, perspective. This, it is claimed, contains the potential to allow a deeper understanding of the linkages between routinized practices and conflicts and the socio-economic contexts in which they are located.     

Back where we belong

If you were the CEO of Pitney Bowes, the postage meter maker, how would you envision the future of the business? The company has an undeniable core competence in the solutions it provides to high-volume postal service users. But with snail mail on the decline, some would say that core has about as much future as the buggy whip. In this article, Pitney Bowes chairman and CEO Michael Critelli gives us a glimpse of how he leads his company's strategy development--and how that development has supported a counterintuitive return to the company's core after decades of diversification. He and others in the company begin the process by tapping into deeply knowledgeable people and organizations to understand key trends in the business and the rate at which change is occurring. Then, it's a question of the firm reshaping the environment in which it does business, whether through R&D investments or work with regulators and policy makers who influence market forces; this is especially important in emerging markets. Focusing on a core business area enables a company to find adjacent high-margin opportunities and to offer comprehensive solutions to customers. What stands out most sharply in this account, however, is the importance of having a strategist's mind-set. Whether Critelli is reading the day's news, visiting a key account, or spending an hour with his own people working in the context of a customer mail room, he is constantly extrapolating possible long-term competitive implications from the immediate facts. Often inspired by strategic thinkers, Critelli believes that the greatest thing he can do for his organization is to shift the terms of the debate. "Rarely am I credited with sterling words or bold, symbolic actions", he writes. "Instead, I help people to see the business we are in differently and to reach a shared vision as to where we want to end up. And, little by little, things move in the right direction".     

捐赠纠纷的法律思考

在我们的生活中，出现了越来越多的基于扶贫救灾等社会公益和道德义务性质的捐赠行为，尤其是在突如其来的SARS病毒日子里，来自各地的捐赠义举使身处SARS病毒环境的人们感受着这个社会充满着爱。但是，爱心捐赠行为在给人们带来爱的同时，也引发了法律的纠纷。爱心捐赠遭遇尴尬引起人们一系列的思考：如何认定捐赠行为的性质?是否应该制定一部专门的社会捐赠法，在道德和法律的冲突中，我们用什么来规范这一行为，使捐赠行为不再遭遇尴尬。这是我们迫切需要解决的问题。     

Differences in strategy, quality management practices and performance reporting systems between ISO accredited and non-ISO accredited companies

In recent years, an increasing number of organizations are obtaining accreditation offered by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Although ISO accreditation may reflect an organization's pursuit of a quality-focused business strategy and a commitment to quality management practices, ISO accreditation may merely be a response to external (customers') demands for quality certification. This study investigates whether ISO accredited companies differ from non-ISO accredited companies in business strategy and in their implementation of quality management practices. It also investigates differences between ISO accredited and non-ISO accredited companies in their reporting of quality in physical and financial terms and traditional performance measures. Based on a mail questionnaire sent to a sample of ISO and non-ISO accredited New Zealand manufacturing companies, the results showed a significant difference in the business strategy pursued by the two groups, with ISO accredited companies regarding quality as more important than cost efficiencies. However, there was no significant difference in the quality management practices of ISO accredited and non-ISO accredited companies, except in the areas of process improvement and quality measurement. There was also little evidence of differences in performance reporting systems between ISO accredited and non-ISO accredited companies.     

Rationierung im bestehenden Gesundheitssystem

The immediate as well as the oblique limitation considering the offer of health performances often entail major misincentives. The deficiency from both methods of rationing as well as the dangers connected in breaking the constitutional law forces one to go a different way to maintain the health care system. The more efficient alternatives are a higher co-payment on the one hand and a reduction of the performance catalogue on the other. There is no basic right considering health when one looks at the constitutional law. However, every rule introducing co-payment or a reduction of the performance must be subject to statutory law. This law, in particular, must respect the basic rights of the insured and the principle of equality.     

Impact of stakeholder characteristics on voluntary dissemination of interim information and communication of its level of assurance

Equity of access to information for listed entities is a key principle in an efficient and effective market. Direct mailing is a mechanism for achieving this. This study examines equity of access by identifying the half‐yearly financial information, if any, voluntarily mailed out by Australian listed entities and associated stakeholder characteristics. We find that certain stakeholder characteristics (presence of audit committee and shareholder dispersion) are associated with voluntary mail‐out of half‐yearly financial information, along with certain control variables (size of entity, industry and audit opinion). This study further identifies that there are very few instances of the higher level of assurance (audit) being chosen, and where half‐year information is disseminated there are very few instances of the level of assurance on this information being communicated to shareholders.     

The role of the PBM in total health management strategies for individuals with chronic conditions

In this article, we examine the multiple data sources and outcomes surrounding the management of both pharmacy and medical cost spending for chronic health care in one pharmacy benefit manager (PBM). We offer examples of how the complex relationship between interventions and spending is utilized in order to bring value to PBMs' clients above and beyond the scope of traditional pharmacy trend analytics. Additionally, we demonstrate how the implementation of disease management programs can effectively impact the largest component of total health care costs.     

Performance comparison between exchange-traded funds and closed-end country funds

The objective of this study is to compare the risk and return performance of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available for foreign markets and closed-end country funds. We utilize 29 closed-end country funds (CEFs) for 14 countries over the sample period from April 1996 to December 2001. The performance proxies are mean returns and risk-adjusted returns. Results indicate that ETFs exhibit higher mean returns and higher Sharpe ratios than foreign closed-end funds, while CEFs exhibit negative alphas. This indicates that a passive investment strategy utilizing ETFs may be superior to an active investment strategy using CEFs. The findings reported here offer some insight on the relative advantages of each type of investment. Specifically, there may be some potential for additional types of ETFs that offer higher risk-adjusted returns than closed-end funds. Such ETFs may be able to offer higher risk-adjusted returns as part of an internationally diversified portfolio.     

Die Akzeptanz von Versicherungsdienstleistungen im Internet

There is not much known about the factors that determine online demand for insurances. This current study is a first attempt to locate the variables that affect the acceptance of online-purchase of an insurance policy from existing research and empirically verify them. Results show that good terms coupled with online purchase-experience is the most important cause for acceptance. Additionally, convenience (i.e., easy access to information through internet sites of insurance companies and easy and fast contracting), perceived barriers when transferring from a traditional insurance contract to an ?online contract“, information quality of the internet offer, perceived personal risk as well as perceived transaction risk are significant factors driving online demand for insurances.