Market Reactions to Corporate Restructurings

This article examines the stock price reactions to restructuring announcements by the DJIA 30 corporations over the period 1988–1995 by employing the event study methodology and cross-sectional regression analyses. Corporate restructurings, historically regarded as highly unusual accounting events, became increasingly common after 1987. One probable cause is the discretionary power managers enjoy due to the flexibility allowed by the Accounting Principles and Financial Accounting Standards Boards. Our general findings are that, contrary to contemporary press comments, restructurings, especially those impose a charge against the firm's earnings, are typically associated with negative excess returns. This evidence seems to be consistent with the notion that restructurings reveal unfavorable information of the firm's future performance. Furthermore, the larger the size of the restructuring amount announced in the Wall Street Journal, the more negative the stock price reaction is.     

Supply chain variability,organizational structure,and performance: The moderating effect of demand unpredictability

Supply chain process variability is the level of inconsistency, or volatility, in the flow of goods into, through, and out of a firm. The research investigates the links among organizational structure (formalization and integration), supply chain process variability, and performance as moderated by environmental uncertainty. We found that in a predictable demand environment, only formal control affects supply chain process variability, leading to improved financial results; but in an unpredictable demand environment, only cross-functional integration affects supply chain process variability, leading to improved financial performance. We also examined whether supply chain process variability is a complete or partial mediator of the relationship between organizational structure and performance, and found that: (1) in a predictable demand environment, supply chain process variability completely mediates the relationship between formal control and performance and (2) in an unpredictable demand environment, supply chain process variability partially mediates the relationship between integration and performance. Supply chain process variability has an inverse relationship with financial performance, regardless of the demand environment; and organizational structure provides managers with the mechanisms to mitigate this variability's detrimental impact on financial performance.     

Employers’ Perspectives on the Canadian National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace

Mental illness is the leading cause of disability in Canada, with costs estimated at 51 billion dollars annually in addition to significant social costs. The Canadian National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Standard), recently released by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, aims to promote psychological health and safety in Canadian workplaces. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of Canadian employers on the National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. Ten employers from large, medium, and small workplaces participated in qualitative semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and thematic analysis was used to identify themes. Employers are concerned with workplace mental health and see value in the Standard, but are relatively uninformed about it. Employers identified leadership as a critical ingredient for effective Standard implementation, and believed that benefits of the Standard can be far reaching. Roger’s (2003) Diffusion of Innovations model is applied to conceptualize the uptake of this important social change. Employers’ perspectives and foundational knowledge about the Standard provides a starting point for collaborations between human resource professionals, workplace consultants, and workplace leaders to move the implementation of the Standard forward and create psychologically healthy work environments.     

The Bridge to Practice Model: a collaborative program designed for clinical experiences in baccalaureate nursing

The Bridge to Practice Model provides undergraduate nursing students with continuity in medical-surgical education through placement in the same hospital for all medical-surgical clinical rotations. Hospitals that participate in the bridge model provide senior clinical nurse preceptors whose time is paid for by the university. The university provides an on-site nurse faculty member who works with nursing education to coordinate all clinical groups. Institutional continuity and university/hospital collaboration result in less orientation time for students and faculty, more involvement with clinical support services and care management, and more informed employment choices by senior students. Challenges include recruitment of interested senior clinical nurses, retention of clinical liaison faculty, and management of the trade-off between institutional stability offered by clinical site continuity and the variety of experiences offered by rotation across several clinical settings.     

New evidence on the origins of corporate crime

The intuition that poorly performing corporations are more likely to engage in crime is found throughout the contemporary literature on the economics and law and economics of corporate misconduct. Yet little evidence of such a relationship exists. This paper presents new evidence on the relationship between prior performance and corporate crime, using panel data on public corporations, 1975–92. When prior performance is measured in terms of earnings, only very weak evidence of a relationship is found. However, we find that a low rate of sales or employment growth by the firm tends to be a good predictor of environmental crime, and that environmental crime tends to occur in industries that have had relatively high rates of growth, as measured by employment or sales. This suggests that it is the performance of the firm rather than or relative to that of the industry that matters. Support for this finding is robust. The data provide weaker support for the notion that prior performance affects the occurrence of other types of corporate crime, particularly fraud. This may reflect the presence of mechanisms through which potential fraud victims, unlike potential environmental crime victims, can and do respond to events that would increase their chances of becoming crime victims by taking steps to prevent it. Finally, larger firms are found significantly more likely to have engaged in crime than smaller firms, in contrast to recent suggestions in the literature.     

Towards a Framework of Reverse Knowledge Transfer by Emerging Economy Multinationals: Evidence from Chinese MNE Subsidiaries in the United States

This article extends the research on knowledge transfer by emerging‐economy multinationals (EEMs) by exploring the determinants of successful reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) in Chinese enterprises operating in the United States. Building upon organizational evolution and learning literature, we propose a model linking strategic asset‐seeking motivations, headquarters (HQ) control, and subsidiary age to RKT. The model is empirically tested in the context of Chinese enterprises in the United States and further justified by four cases of Chinese multinationals. Our exploratory study provides initial evidence that strategic asset‐seeking motivations and HQ control are significantly and positively related to RKT. Furthermore, our empirical evidence indicates a negative relationship between subsidiary age and RKT. We discuss the implications for theory development and practice for managing and organizing EEMs and their subsidiaries and suggest avenues for future research on this emerging phenomenon. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effect of functional status impairment on nursing home admission risk among patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Aims: To estimate the relationship between functional status (FS) impairment and nursing home admission (NHA) risk in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, and quantify the effect of advanced PD (APD) treatment on NHA risk relative to standard of care (SoC).

Materials and methods: PD patients were identified in the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) (1992–2010). A working definition based on the literature and clinical expert input determined APD status. A logit model estimated the relationship between FS impairment and NHA risk. The effect of levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) on NHA risk relative to SoC was simulated using clinical trial data (control: optimized oral levodopa-carbidopa IR, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00660387 and NCT0357994).

Results: Non-advanced PD and APD significantly increased NHA risk when controlling for demographics (p?<?0.01). APD status was no longer significant after controlling for FS limitations, implying that FS limitations explain the increased NHA risk in APD patients. Reduced impairment in FS in patients with APD treated with LCIG reduced risk of NHA by 13.5% relative to SoC.

Limitations: This study applies clinical trial results to real-world data. LCIG treatment might have a different effect on NHA risk for the nationally representative population than the effect measured in the trial. Both data sources employ different instruments to measure FS, instrument wording and study follow-up differed, which might bias our estimates. Finally, there lacks consensus on a definition of APD. The prevalence of APD in this study is high, perhaps due to the specific definition used.

Conclusions: Patients with APD experience a higher risk in NHA than those with non-advanced disease. This increased risk in NHA in patients with APD is explained by greater limitations in FS. The relative reduction in risk of NHA for the APD population treated with LCIG is quantitatively similar to doubling Medicaid home care services.     

Indigenisation of Corporate Strategies in Africa： Lessons From the African Ubuntu Philosophy

Within an African setting, the Ubuntu philosophy embodies a socio-cultural framework that applies to all individuals and institutions throughout the continent. The Ubuntu application is pervasive in almost all parts of the African continent. Hence, the Ubuntu philosophy is integrated into all aspects of day-to-day life throughout Africa and is a concept shared by all tribes in South, Central, West, and East Africa amongst people of Bantu origin. This paper presents a desk research that aims at reviewing and analysing literature on corporate lessons that can be realised from the African Ubuntu philosophy. The paper reviews the background and significance of the Ubuntu philosophy including successful cases of Africanising management systems. Finally the paper reviews major contributions that the Ubuntu philosophy can make towards global management systems. The literature reveals that there are a lot of corporate strategy lessons that can be realised out of the Ubuntu philosophy. These lessons include collectivism and teamwork, creation of synergies and competitive advantages, humanist leadership styles and maturity, consensus in decision-making systems, effective communication, and community-based corporate social responsibility. Therefore, there is a need for corporate strategy and management systems to be realigned with the local Ubuntu philosophy that defines the Africa＇s socio-cultural framework. To be successful, Africa-based organisations must be found on this Ubuntu philosophy.     

Vertical Contracts as Strategic Commitments: How are They Enforced?

This paper addresses the strategic commitment value of various price and nonprice vertical contracts. Assuming contract offers are sufficiently public to have strategic importance, we focus on commitment as a necessary and separable condition to be met. The analysis has two components. First, considering the relationship between a monopolist manufacturer and his imperfectly competing retailers, enforcement conditions necessary for alternative vertical contracts to have commitment value are identified in the static (reputation-free) context. It is shown that external help (i.e., enforcement by nonsignatories) is necessary for bilateral minimum resale price maintenance (price floors) and exclusive territory contracts to have commitment value, whereas maximum resale price maintenance (price ceilings) do not require such help (i.e., they are internally enforcing). Second, the paper provides an analysis of the U.S. case law and discusses the empirical validity of the "external enforcement" assumption that is shown to underlie recent proposals to make certain vertical restraints illegal.