Antitakeover provisions in corporate spin-offs

We analyze the relation between antitakeover provisions (ATPs) and the performance of spin-off firms. We find that firms protected by more ATPs before spin-offs have higher abnormal announcement returns and greater improvements in post-spin-off operating performance than firms with fewer ATPs. Further, firms that reduce the number of ATPs after spin-offs have greater improvements in operating performance than firms that do not reduce the number of ATPs. Finally, CEOs of pre-spin-off firms tend to retain more ATPs in parent firms and assign fewer ATPs to the spun-off units if they remain as the CEOs of the parents but not the spun-off units. Overall, our results indicate a positive relation between ATPs and the value gains to spin-offs.     

Virtue and Vice Attributions in the Business Context: An Experimental Investigation

Recent findings in experimental philosophy have revealed that people attribute intentionality, belief, desire, knowledge, and blame asymmetrically to side-effects depending on whether the agent who produces the side-effect violates or adheres to a norm. Although the original (and still common) test for this effect involved a chairman helping or harming the environment, hardly any of these findings have been applied to business ethics. We review what little exploration of the implications for business ethics has been done. Then, we present new experimental results that expand the attribution asymmetry to virtue and vice. We also examine whether it matters to people that an effect was produced as a primary or side-effect, as well as how consumer habits might be affected by this phenomenon. These results lead to the conclusion that it appears to be in a businessperson’s self-interest to be virtuous.     

Charts and demand: Empirical generalizations on social influence

Social influence on consumer behavior has long been a subject of academic research in various scientific fields. According to research by Salganik, Dodds, and Watts (2006), music demand is a function of social influence between consumers. Market concentration tends to increase when information on demand becomes publicly available. In addition, stochastic agglomeration caused by social influence decreases the predictability of market success. These heavily cited findings challenge traditional market research and provide important insights on the impact of social media and sales charts. We test the stability of their results by replicating the study on music demand in a slightly different setting. We further investigate the generalizability of findings by probing other product categories and different phases of purchase decisions, i.e., interest, consideration, and actual demand. Across all categories and across all dependent variables, we are able to replicate the direction of the effects. We do, however, consistently obtain smaller effect sizes than reported in the original paper.     

Approach and Avoidance Motivation: Investigating Hedonic Consumption in a Retail Setting

Retail shopping studies often conclude that desirable shopper behaviors, such as spending more money, indicate underlying approach motivation, while undesirable behaviors, such as leaving the store, indicate underlying avoidance motivation. However, hedonic consumption would seem to provide an opportunity not only for approaching fun and excitement but also for avoiding problems and stress in everyday life. This study investigates approach and avoidance motivations in a hedonic consumption context. Results show that both approach and avoidance motivation lead to heightened hedonic motivations for shopping and to more positive shopper evaluations. Additional investigation reveals several differences by gender and across four shopping contexts. Several theoretical and managerial implications are offered.     

“It's not Easy Being Green”: Exploring Green Creeds,Green Deeds,and Internal Environmental Locus of Control

The authors report on the development of a novel construct, internal environmental locus of control (INELOC), which captures consumers’ multifaceted attitudes pertaining to personal responsibility towards and ability to affect environmental outcomes. Using data gathered from a sample of consumers, the linkages between INELOC and a wide array of environmental behaviors were investigated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed four first‐order dimensions (“green consumer,” “activism,” “advocate,” and “recycling attitudes”) embedded within a second‐order INELOC factor. Structural equations modeling techniques showed that INELOC was a strong positive predictor of many behaviors. However, the nature of the attitude–behavior relationship varied considerably across behavioral contexts, implying that people do not consistently behave in a proenvironmental manner. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Consequences of concern: ethics,social responsibility,and well‐being

Prior research has studied the antecedents of beliefs regarding ethics and social responsibility (ESR). However, few studies have examined how individual well‐being may be related to such beliefs. In this exploratory study, we assessed the relationship between perceived importance of ESR – both individually and of one's company – and indicators of physical and psychological well‐being. Results demonstrated that perceived importance of ESR was associated with three aspects of well‐being: exuberance for life, sleep problems, and job stress. The results are discussed in terms of future directions for research, and the need for a conceptual framework connecting individual and organizational perceptions of ESR and outcomes of well‐being.     

The moderating roles of shopper experience and store type on the relationship between perceived merchandise value and willingness to pay a higher price

In the retail domain, we consider the moderating influence of shopper experience (high versus low experience) and store type (high- versus low-priced stores) on a model that identifies three distinct routes (economic, affective and informational) from perceived merchandise value to willingness to pay a higher price. Each route accounts for a different outcome arising from merchandise value and leading to willingness to pay a higher price. Analyses of data obtained from a sample of 600 shoppers at four grocery stores provide results for specific hypotheses related to each moderator and each distinct route. The results of multiple sample analyses show that the economic route is stronger for high experience shoppers as well as for high-priced stores. Findings pertaining to hypotheses for moderation of both the affective and informational routes are mixed. We discuss the importance of these findings for retail managers as well as for future research.     

Optimal route decision with a geometric ground-airborne hybrid model under weather uncertainty

Adverse weather is the dominant cause of delays in the National Airspace System (NAS). Since the future weather condition is only predictable with a certain degree of accuracy, managing traffic in the weather-affected airspace is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a geometric model to generate an optimal combination of ground delay and route choice to hedge against weather risk. The geometric recourse model (GRM) is a strategic Probabilistic Air Traffic Management (PATM) model that generates optimal route choice, incorporating route hedging and en-route recourse to respond to weather change: hedged routes are routes other than the nominal or the detour one, and recourse occurs when the weather restricted airspace becomes flyable and aircraft are re-routed to fly direct to the destination. Among several variations of the GRM, we focus on the hybrid Dual Recourse Model (DRM), which allows ground delay as well as route hedging and recourses, when the weather clearance time follows a uniform distribution. The formulation of the hybrid DRM involves two decision variables - ground delay and route choice - and four parameters: storm location, storm size, maximum storm duration time, and ground-airborne cost ratio. The objective function has two components: expected total ground delay cost and expected total airborne cost. We propose a solution algorithm that guarantees to find the global optimum of the hybrid-DRM. Based on the numerical analysis, we find that ground-holding is effective only when combined with the nominal route. Otherwise, it is optimal to fly on the route determined by the DRM without ground delay. We also find the formula of the threshold ground-airborne cost ratio, which we call the Critical Cost Ratio (CCR), that determines the efficacy of ground delay: the higher the CCR, the more effective the strategies involving ground delay. We conclude that both ground delay and route hedging should be considered together to produce the best ATM decisions.