哈佛商学院公司治理面临三大新挑战

近年来，董事会在各方面的作为都有所改善，但其进步的速度还远远赶不上解决问题的需求。人们以为金融危机会带来破坏性的影响，而这种担忧正随着经济的逐步回暖而渐渐消退，然而其问暴露出的种种制度问题与结构缺陷，我们不得不深入思考，引以为戒。面对21世纪新型的公司治理要求，我们必须重新思考改善治理结构的根本途径。其中，有三项重要内容值得关注：     

Context-general and Context-specific Determinants of Online Satisfaction and Loyalty for Commerce and Content Sites

We use the context-general and context-specific factor approach to examine the generalizability of satisfaction and loyalty models across two disparate online contexts—online retailing and content site browsing. Our conceptual models include the moderating effects of user-characteristic Web expertise, besides main effects of Web site factors and Web expertise. Results indicate that satisfaction and loyalty judgments are sensitive to both context-general and context-specific determinants, as well as to some interactions between them. Among context-general determinants, ease of use and customer service are positively related to satisfaction, Web community to loyalty, and Web expertise to both satisfaction and loyalty. Flow, a context-specific determinant, has a significant positive effect on satisfaction alone; security affects loyalty alone; and fulfillment/reliability and information quality are significant predictors of both satisfaction and loyalty. The results show that Web expertise moderates the effect of ease of use on satisfaction. The study contributes to marketing theory and practice by identifying satisfaction and loyalty mechanisms that are potentially generalizable across the two online contexts and providing a guiding framework for simultaneous consideration of context-specific and context-general factors in future research.     

Infrastructure and productivity: An extension to private infrastructure and it productivity

This paper incorporates both public and private infrastructure within the framework of a nonlinear production function. The theoretical model specifies a technological growth rate as a nonlinear function of government infrastructure and private infrastructure generated by the information sector of the economy—cable, wireless stations, satellites, internet facilities, broadcasting, etc. The time trend is included to capture the effect of all other variables. The empirical estimates generated by the model imply increasing returns to scale for the US economy in the last few years. The evaluation of the growth accounting equation implies that information technology was the largest contributing component to growth during the expansion of the 1990s.     

An Emotion-Based Model of Salesperson Ethical Behaviors

Academic research studies examining the ethical attitudes and behaviors of salespeople have produced several frameworks that explore the ethical decision-making processes to which salespeople adhere when faced with ethical dilemmas. Past literature enriches our understanding; however, a critical review of the relevant literature suggests that an emotional route to salesperson ethical decision-making has yet to be explored. Given the fact that individuals?? emotional capacities play an important role in decision-making when faced with an ethical dilemma, there is a need for empirical research in this area. We address this issue by outlining and testing an emotion-based model to study the ethical attitudes and behaviors of salespeople in a relational selling context. Building on the cognitive-affective model proposed by Gaudine and Thorne (J Bus Ethics 31:175?C187, 2001), we outline a framework that incorporates higher order prosocial emotions: capacity for concern and capacity for guilt. We include salesperson??s role clarity within the organization as a moderator to examine person?Csituation interaction.     

Variation in ex day dividend pricing: Myth or reality?

Recent price discreteness based reinterpretation of ex day price adjustments motivates our analysis of dividend pricing around the elimination of fixed commissions in May 1975 and the tax reform acts of 1984 and 1986. Our results are consistent with short-term, tax-neutral traders (arbitrageurs) being the marginal price setters on ex dividend days. In a regression framework, the proportional price drop varies one-for-one with the rounded down dividend scaled by price, and the intercept captures bid-ask spread effects. We document evidence of necessary and sufficient conditions against taxclienteles. We also reconcile some prior conflicting results in the literature. (JEL G12, G35) This paper has benefitted from the comments of the referees, the editor (Joachim Zietz), siminar participants at Adelphi University, Baruch College, Long Island University (Brooklyn) and the FMA 2002 meetings in San Antonio.