Creating a Bigger Bath Using the Deferred Tax Valuation Allowance

Abstract:  The provisions of SFAS No. 109 allow US companies to make an earnings big bath even bigger through the establishment of a deferred tax valuation allowance. At the time a firm recognizes a non-cash charge, it also recognizes a deferred tax asset to represent the future tax benefits of the charge. Recognition of the deferred tax asset partially mitigates the negative earnings impact of the special charge. However, if the firm does not expect to have sufficient future taxable income to utilize the future tax benefits of the charge, SFAS No. 109 requires the firm to establish a deferred tax valuation allowance, effectively eliminating the recognized deferred tax asset. Thus, the establishment of the valuation allowance amplifies the negative earnings impact of the non-cash charge. We use a valuation allowance prediction model to identify firms that create a larger-than-expected valuation allowance; these firms may be creating a large valuation allowance as a reserve to be used to manage earnings in a subsequent period. We find that the vast majority of these larger-than-expected valuation allowances apparently reflect informed management pessimism about the future in that these firms actually do have poorer operating performance in subsequent periods. We do not find any evidence that subsequent reversals of valuation allowances are used to turn a loss into a profit. However, we do find a very small number of firms that appear to have used a valuation allowance reversal to meet or beat the mean analyst forecast.     

The Management of Creative Vision and the Economics of Creative Cycles

This paper proposes a new theory of variability in innovation performance in managerial firms that contract ‘creative vision’. We argue that such firms are prone to ‘creative cycles’ that arise from uncertainty‐induced systemic overshooting that can threaten the firm's financial viability, requiring managers to shift control back to risk‐averse financial controllers. But this creates opportunities for competing firms to engage in bold creative visions, threatening the firm's market viability and inducing control to shift back to newly contracted suppliers of ‘creative vision’. We discuss how this ‘principal‐agent‐agent’ mechanism plays out, the types of uncertainty that drive it, and consider the industry‐level externalities it induces. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors associated with price reactions and analysts’ forecast revisions around SEC filings

We investigate the extent to which rapid accessibility of financial reports filed electronically through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system has affected the ability of investors and security analysts to use accounting data in pricing decisions and forecasting. Consistent with prior research, we find evidence confirming that stock price reactions to SEC filings are significant in the EDGAR period but not the pre-EDGAR period. We also find significant revisions in analysts’ one-quarter-ahead earnings forecasts around SEC filings dates in both the pre-EDGAR and EDGAR periods. The price and forecast revision evidence indicates that financial analysts have used SEC filings all along. However, it is the advent of EDGAR that has allowed individual investors to also use 10-K and 10-Q filings. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that in the EDGAR period, trading volume around the preceding earnings announcements may influence individual investors to react to SEC filings. In contrast, variables such as the earnings surprise and the level of total accruals attract the attention of financial analysts. Interestingly, analysts appear to have been less likely in the pre-EDGAR period to bear the cost of searching out each SEC filing to identify those with large total accruals, which are known only after examining the SEC filing itself.     

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)'s Impact on B to B Sales Professionals' Collaboration and Sales Performance

Purpose: Sales literature has traditionally considered technology adoption from acceptance and diffusion perspectives. This article examines the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) technology on business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals' ability to collaborate with internal stakeholders and also assesses the relationship between CRM utilization and sales performance. The study moves from assuming that CRM utilization positively impacts salesperson effectiveness and performance to assessing this outcome from the perspective of the salesperson.

Methodology: A survey that was comprised of four scales was sent to 115 B2B sales professionals and usable surveys were received from 70 respondents. The data were analyzed using partial least squares regression to test the hypothesized paths. Partial least squares regression has been shown to work for small sample sizes.

Findings: There is empirical evidence that CRM adoption and utilization positively impacts sales performance, sales effectiveness, and collaboration. As a partial mediator, collaboration positively influenced CRM utilization's effect on sales performance. However, collaboration did not positively influence sales process effectiveness. Explanations of the findings are offered.

Managerial Implications: Sales managers can use CRM technology to make their sales team more effective and efficient. Second, increased collaboration across the firm positively mediates sales performance. Lastly, to increase collaboration, sales managers should stress that CRM leads to higher performance for both the sales team and the entire firm.     

Rules of origin and gains from trade

Free trade areas (FTAs) involve unharmonized tariffs and rules of origin that have prevented proving the formal general equilibrium existence of a welfare-enhancing FTA. This paper identifies the most restrictive limit that rules of origin can enforce and still continue to guarantee gains from trade for FTA formation. We note that many commonly used rules of origin exceed this condition in practice. We apply the identified welfare-supporting rules of origin and prove the existence of a FTA general equilibrium involving only within-FTA transfers that is at least as satisfactory for every consumer as an arbitrary original world trade allocation. The analysis also helps to explain why hub-and-spoke extensions of FTAs cannot be expected to guarantee gains from trade for all participants in general.     

What's Wrong with Computer-Generated Images of Perfection in Advertising?

Advertisers often use computers to create fantastic images. Generally, these are perfectly harmless images that are used for comic or dramatic effect. Sometimes, however, they are problematic human images that I call computer-generated images of perfection. Advertisers create these images by using computer technology to remove unwanted traits from models or to generate entire human bodies. They are images that portray ideal human beauty, bodies, or looks. In this paper, I argue that the use of such images is unethical. I begin by explaining the common objections against advertising and by demonstrating how critics might argue that those objections apply to computer-generated images of perfection. Along the way, I demonstrate an ethically significant difference between computer-generated images of perfection and the images in ordinary ads. I argue that although critics might use this fact to apply the common objections to the use of computer-generated images of perfection, the objections fail. Finally, I argue that despite surviving the common objections, the use of computer-generated images of perfection is subject to an ethical objection that is based on aesthetic considerations. Advertisers are ethically obligated to avoid certain aesthetic results that are produced by computer-generated images of perfection.     

Consequences of Price Discrimination in Health Care

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

Impediments to sales force automation

Sales force automation (SFA) occurs when firms adopt technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of sales-related activities. Research has shown, however, that 55-75% of SFA projects fail. This paper first identifies and explains impediments that exist in three SFA areas: planning, communication, and evaluation. The high failure rate of SFA can also be explained by gaps that exist, between the sales force and management, in SFA perceptions and goals. Finally, after discussing each of these areas, study implications are provided to sales managers and suggestions are offered for future research.     

Business ethics and job-related constructs: A cross-cultural comparison of automotive salespeople

Although a number of articles have addressed ethical perceptions and behaviors, few studies have examined ethics across cultures. This research focuses on measuring the job satisfaction, customer orientation, ethics, and ethical training of automotive salespersons in the U.S. and Taiwan. The relationships of these variables to salesperson performance were also investigated. Ethics training was found to be negatively related to perceived levels of ethicalness and performance. High performance U.S. salespeople reported high ethical behavior, while the opposite was true in Taiwan. Customer orientation in both countries was influenced by ethics training. Managers should evaluate current ethics training programs to insure correct ethical behavior is taught and rewarded.Earl D. Honeycutt, Jr. is Associate Professor of Marketing at Old Dominion University. He has published inBusiness Horizons, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Industrial Management, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and numerous other national and international publications.Judy A. Siguaw is Assistant Professor of Marketing at UNC-Wilmington. Her articles have appeared inJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Industrial Management, Marketing Education Review, and numerous international and national proceedings.Tammy G. Hunt is Associate Professor of Management at UNC-Wilmington. Her articles have been published inSimulation & Gaming, Journal of Business Education, Journal of Voluntary Action Research, and numerous national and regional proceedings.