System of crop intensification for more productive,resource-conserving,climate-resilient,and sustainable agriculture: experience with diverse crops in varying agroecologies

With continually increasing demand for food accompanied by the constraints of climate change and the availability and quality of soil and water, the world’s farmers are challenged to produce more food per hectare with less water, and with fewer agrochemical inputs if possible. The ideas and methods of the system of rice intensification which is improving irrigated rice production are now being extended/adapted to many other crops: wheat, maize, finger millet, sugarcane, tef, mustard, legumes, vegetables, and even spices. Promoting better root growth and enhancing the soil’s fertility with organic materials are being found effective means for raising the yields of many crop plants with less water, less fertilizer, reduced seeds, fewer agrochemicals, and greater climate resilience. In this article, we review what is becoming known about various farmer-centred innovations for agroecological crop management that can contribute to agricultural sustainability. These changes represent the emerging system of crop intensification, which is being increasingly applied in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. More research will be needed to verify the efficacy and impact of these innovations and to clarify their conditions and limits. But as no negative effects for human or environmental health have been identified, making these agronomic options more widely known should prompt more investigation and, to the extent justified by results, utilization of these methodologies.     

The consequences to managers for financial misrepresentation

We track the fortunes of all 2,206 individuals identified as responsible parties for all 788 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation from January 1, 1978 through September 30, 2006. Fully 93% lose their jobs by the end of the regulatory enforcement period. Most are explicitly fired. The likelihood of ouster increases with the cost of the misconduct to shareholders and the quality of the firm's governance. Culpable managers also bear substantial financial losses through restrictions on their future employment, their shareholdings in the firm, and SEC fines. A sizeable minority (28%) face criminal charges and penalties, including jail sentences that average 4.3 years. These results indicate that the individual perpetrators of financial misconduct face significant disciplinary action.     

Is there cyclical bias in bank holding company risk ratings?

This paper examines whether bank holding company (BHC) risk ratings are asymmetrically assigned or biased over business cycles from 1986 to 2003. In a model of ratings determination which accounts for bank characteristics, financial market conditions, past supervisory information, and aggregate macro-economic factors, we find that bank exam ratings exhibit inter-temporal characteristics. First, exam ratings exhibit some evidence of examiner bias for several periods analyzed. When the business cycle turns, examiners sometime depart from standards that they set during the previous phases of the cycle. However, this bias is not widespread or systematic. Second, exam ratings exhibit some inertia. Our results suggest that examiners rate on the side of not changing (rather than upgrading or downgrading) an institution’s exam rating. Third, we find robust evidence of a secular trend towards more stringent examination BHC ratings standards over time.     

Public re-release of going-concern opinions and market reaction

This paper examines the market reaction to the public announcement of going-concern (GC) opinions through the news media. In the early 2000s, NASDAQ and AMEX required firms listed on their exchanges to publicly announce previously disclosed information, such as the issuance of a GC opinion, through a press release or the news media. We examine the stock market reaction to the re-release of GC opinions. We find significant abnormal stock return volatility and trading volume at the re-release of this information. Further, based on an analysis of intraday transactions, we find higher abnormal trading activity in small trades around the re-release of the GC opinion, but largely no changes in large trades during the same period. In this respect, the investors that initiate the small trades act as if they are surprised by the information contained in the press release of GC opinions. Such an action, in turn, can be viewed as evidence of a delayed response to the information in GC opinions by a section of investors.     

The impact of forecasting on operational performance: Mediation effects through flexibility enablers

Literature has devoted increasing attention to the problem of supply and demand management in uncertain contexts. Only limited contributions, however, can be found regarding the interaction between forecasting and flexibility enablers to manage demand as well as regarding the flexibility enablers’ effect on company performance. We will discuss the impacts of flexibility and forecasting on dynamic interactions. The aim of this work is to study the mediation effect of forecasting through flexibility enablers on company performance, i.e., customer satisfaction and cost efficiency. Our results provide evidence that the relationship between forecasting and customer satisfaction is mainly due to process flow management, while the relationship with cost efficiency is mainly due to layout.     

Stakeholder Engagement: Keeping Business Legitimate in Austria’s Natural Mineral Water Bottling Industry

Stakeholder maneuvers such as Internet media attacks or consumer boycotts can have devastating effects on companies. By contrary, vital relationships between companies and their stakeholders can be highly beneficial. A review of the existing stakeholder-management literature suggests to engage stakeholders in business activities in a positive manner. However, the types of successful engagement activities differ across industries. The purposes of this article are to develop an explanatory framework based on the literature findings, to introduce stakeholder-engagement literature to a segment of the water sourcing industry, and to unfold industry’s stakeholder-engagement measures. Based on a content analysis of 11 cases, we investigate if and how companies in the natural mineral water bottling industry in Austria inform, communicate, and therefore engage with stakeholders. It became evident that fewer than three of eleven companies published information on sustainability or corporate social responsibility reports, open house days, workshops, or international community activities. Most companies maintained a website for their bottled natural mineral water or communicated quality consciousness. We conclude that most companies in the Austrian mineral water industry could increase their stakeholder-engagement activities to positively respond to challenging business environments.     

The Effect of Joint Auditor Pair Composition on Audit Quality: Evidence from Impairment Tests

Using a sample of firms from France, where the law requires the use of two auditors, we study the effect of auditor pair composition on audit quality by examining a specific account, goodwill impairment. We document that firms audited by a Big 4–non‐Big 4 auditor pair (BS) are more likely to book an impairment and book a larger impairment than firms audited by a Big 4–Big 4 auditor pair (BB) when low‐performance indicators suggest a greater likelihood of impairment. Moreover, firms audited by a BB pair reduce impairment disclosures when they book impairments, while firms audited by a BS pair do not, suggesting lower transparency for firms audited by a BB pair. Our results inform investors and firms in mandatory joint audit regimes, as well as regulators who are considering requiring joint audits.     

Using Local Cuisines when Promoting Small Caribbean Island Destinations

This study compares how four Caribbean small islands—Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Martinique—use their authentic cuisines to promote their destinations. Brochures, catalogs, websites, and other promotional materials for each destination were content analyzed. Although all four destinations seem to use their authentic cuisines for tourism promotion, key differences exist among these islands in their marketing and promotional strategies. Martinique appears to use its local cuisine most aggressively, using a combination of locally prepared foods, cocktails, rum, fruits, and vegetables to visually portray this aspect of the country's heritage. Jamaica, in contrast, uses mainly fruit and vegetable imagery. The study findings suggest a need for these four Caribbean island destinations to develop expertise in culinary tourism, followed by promotion through brochures, catalogs, websites, and other marketing materials.     

The representation of American options prices under stochastic volatility and jump-diffusion dynamics

This paper considers the problem of pricing American options when the dynamics of the underlying are driven by both stochastic volatility following a square-root process as used by Heston [Rev. Financial Stud., 1993, 6, 327–343], and by a Poisson jump process as introduced by Merton [J. Financial Econ., 1976, 3, 125–144]. Probability arguments are invoked to find a representation of the solution in terms of expectations over the joint distribution of the underlying process. A combination of Fourier transform in the log stock price and Laplace transform in the volatility is then applied to find the transition probability density function of the underlying process. It turns out that the price is given by an integral dependent upon the early exercise surface, for which a corresponding integral equation is obtained. The solution generalizes in an intuitive way the structure of the solution to the corresponding European option pricing problem obtained by Scott [Math. Finance, 1997, 7(4), 413–426], but here in the case of a call option and constant interest rates.