A Representative Committee by Approval Balloting

A new voting rule for electing committees is described. Specifically, we use approval balloting and propose a new voting procedure that guarantees that if there is a committee that represents (with a given proportion of representatives) all of the existing voters, then the selected committee has to represent all of voters in at least the same proportion. This property is a way of selecting a committee that represents completely all of voters when such a committee exists. The usual voting rules in this context do not satisfy this condition.     

Success factors in a CRM strategy: technology is not all

Organisations today need to create, maintain and reinforce relationships with customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) seems to have helped firms to better understand their relationships. However, past studies have looked at technology and customer orientations (COs) as key factors. This paper aims to analyse the simultaneous effect of Market Orientation (MO) (rather than CO), Knowledge Management (KM) and other organisational factors in order to explain how to implement a successful CRM. Findings suggest that MO and KM may influence CRM success. Data also suggest that particular organisational factors such as employees, leadership and specific know-how may be key factors in determining the success of CRM. For efficiency resource management, this paper recommends to focus not as much in technology, but on programmes for selection, training and motivation of employees which may enhance CRM objectives. Companies may also pursue a higher customer value by putting in place and reinforcing KM schemes in specific know-hows about CRM.     

Information and Investor Behavior Surrounding Earnings Announcements

The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact of annual earnings announcements on the market through the order flow data in addition to the usual transaction data. In this respect, examining order flow data can potentially reveal valuable information that is not available from transaction data. In fact, the data allow us to test hypotheses about asymmetric information and investor behavior and to test if the behavior varies with investor sophistication. In addition, the paper tries to identify the determinants of the impact on a firm's value using assumptions about investor behavior.     

Familiness,business strategy and stakeholder engagement: The internationalisation of Spanish olive oil mills

Based on social capital theory and the family-firm context, this paper studies familiness' composition and the result of the overlap of the family and firm systems, analysing their influence on the internationalisation strategies of family firms. In this relationship, the stakeholder engagement becomes at the same time an antecedent and a result when developing family businesses' strategies, being one of the most relevant the internationalisation strategies. Prior research focused on familiness as the result of proxy variables such as the percentage of ownership and management in family hands, or business size, instead of as psychological variables resulting from shared organisational culture and social interactions. Through a qualitative study based on 12 interviews of general managers and/or export managers of Spanish family olive oil mills, this study asserts that the level of familiness influences internationalisation strategies, the reasons underlying a business becoming international and its commitment to activities abroad being the role of stakeholders crucial in those interactions. The higher the level of familiness, the more likely the family business internationalisation and the higher their levels of international commitment. Additionally, the higher the concern about their stakeholders, the higher their levels of international commitment. The family businesses' concern for their stakeholders and their international commitment share a reciprocal relationship. The results regarding the relevance of familiness as social capital resources in sustaining competitive advantages support the decision to promote, develop and nurture social capital when a family business goes international.     

Economic modelling of costs associated with outcomes reported for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in the CANVAS and EMPA-REG cardiovascular outcomes trials

Aims: To model direct medical costs associated with reductions in cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in T2DM patients reported in the CANVAS and EMPA-REG trials, which assessed the cardiovascular safety of canagliflozin and empagliflozin, respectively.

Materials and methods: Costs were modeled from a US managed care organization (MCO) perspective for the CVD outcomes included in both trials: three-point major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE) and its components (cardiovascular-related death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke), as well as heart failure requiring hospitalization. The rate of CVD events averted (difference between study drug and placebo) was projected to the portion of an MCO T2DM population matching the respective trial’s inclusion criteria. A targeted literature search for paid amounts directly associated with each CVD event provided the unit costs, which were applied to the projected number of events averted, to calculate costs avoided per member per year (PMPY). One-way sensitivity analyses were performed on events averted, unit costs, and percentages of trial-applicable patients.

Results: Based on three-point MACE events averted, costs avoided PMPY of $6.17 (range: $1.27–$10.94) for CANVAS and $2.75 ($0.19–$4.83) for EMPA-REG were estimated. Costs avoided for individual components of MACE ranged from $0.77 to $3.84 PMPY for CANVAS and from -$0.97 (additional costs) to $1.54 for EMPA-REG. PMPY costs avoided for heart failure were $2.72 for CANVAS and $1.32 for EMPA-REG.

Limitations and conclusions: Models assumed independent, non-recurrent outcomes and were restricted to medical costs directly associated with the trial-reported events. The reductions in CVD events in T2DM patients reported for both CANVAS and EMPA-REG project to a positive cost avoidance for these events in an MCO population. The analysis did not include an assessment of the impact on total cost, as the costs associated with adverse events, drug utilization or other clinical outcomes were not examined.     

Monetary policy rules with PID control features: evidence from the UK,USA and EU

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the extent to which the monetary policy operations of three major central banks can be regarded as an application of Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control rules. The paper outlines the general PID framework and estimates a series of dynamic models to identify how interest rate policy adjustments are affected by the rate of inflation and the level of macroeconomic activity. The paper examines data for the UK, the USA and the Eurozone. The results suggest that the PID rules can provide a useful theoretical and empirical framework for estimating central bank responses to the inflation and macroeconomic activity variables by improving the explanatory power of the Taylor rule model and determining the effect of the parameters.     

Factors Influencing Organic and Fair Trade Coffee Growers Level of Engagement with Cooperatives: The Case of Coffee Farmers in Mexico

We study the factors influencing the percentage of organic and fair trade certified coffee sold through a cooperative by growers of five cooperatives in Mexico. The percentage of coffee sold through the cooperative was used as a proxy of growers’ engagement with a cooperative. Using factor analysis and a fractional probit regression, we evaluated the proposition that the level of engagement can be explained by transaction cost economics, social norms and connections, and farmer and farm business characteristics. We found that farm size, uncertainty regarding cooperative time of payment to the members and cooperative commitment on price to be paid negatively influence the level of engagement. In contrast, asset specificity, relational commitment, and price have a positive impact on engagement. Our results may help cooperatives and policy makers to build strategies aiming to increase this level of engagement. This is relevant because lower grower engagement has been found to be positively correlated with weak performing cooperatives.     

HOW DO RATING AGENCIES’ DECISIONS IMPACT STOCK MARKETS? A META‐ANALYSIS

The purpose of this study is to examine how credit rating agencies’ decisions impact the stock market using a systematic and quantitative review of existing empirical studies. Specifically, we employ a meta‐regression analysis (MRA) to investigate the extent and nature of the effect of rating agencies’ decisions on the stock market. We survey 62 studies published between 1978 and 2015. Our first finding is that the cumulative average abnormal returns calculated from this empirical literature are affected by publication bias. After controlling for publication bias, the main findings of our meta‐analysis indicate that negative rating decisions cause statistically significant negative abnormal returns. This evidence suggests an informational effect. Our results also indicate that positive rating decisions do not have a significant effect. Finally, the MRA results reveal the importance of several factors related to primary study design, as well as to the nature of the data.