Contracting and Reporting Conservatism around a Change in Fiduciary Duties*

We exploit an influential 1991 Delaware court ruling to examine simultaneously two types of conservatism that play important roles in resolving creditor–owner agency conflicts: contracting conservatism and reporting conservatism. The ruling expanded managerial fiduciary duties in favor of creditors for Delaware-incorporated firms in the vicinity of insolvency. In those firms, following the ruling, debt contracts are less likely to include conservative adjustments to accounting numbers used for covenant compliance (i.e., contracting conservatism decreases), while public financial reporting becomes more conservative (i.e., reporting conservatism increases). The decrease in contracting conservatism is concentrated in firms that exhibit a greater increase in reporting conservatism, suggesting that reporting conservatism is more cost-effective in resolving agency conflicts. In addition, the substitution effect is more pronounced in firms facing greater business uncertainty and firms with greater board independence.     

A Google–Wikipedia–Twitter Model as a Leading Indicator of the Numbers of Coronavirus Deaths

Forecasting the number of cases and the number of deaths in a pandemic provides critical information to governments and health officials, as seen in the management of the coronavirus outbreak. But things change. Thus, there is a constant search for real‐time and leading indicator variables that can provide insights into disease propagation models. Researchers have found that information about social media and search engine use can provide insights into the diffusion of flu and other diseases. Consistent with this finding, we found that a model with the number of Google searches, Twitter tweets, and Wikipedia page views provides a leading indicator model of the number of people in the USA who will become infected and die from the coronavirus. Although we focus on the current coronavirus pandemic, other recent viruses have threatened pandemics (e.g. severe acute respiratory syndrome). Since future and existing diseases are likely to follow a similar search for information, our insights may prove fruitful in dealing with the coronavirus and other such diseases, particularly in the early phases of the disease. Subject terms : coronavirus, COVID‐19, unintentional crowd, Google searches, Wikipedia page views, Twitter tweets, models of disease diffusion.     

Some issues in blockchain for accounting and the supply chain,with an application of distributed databases to virtual organizations

This paper reviews some recent blockchain‐based applications for information capture, distribution and preservation. As part of that review, this paper examines two key concerns with current blockchain designs for accounting and supply chain transactions: data independence and multiple semantic models for the same information distribution problem. Blockchain applications typically integrate database, application and presentation tiers all in the same ledger. This results in a general inability to query information in the ledger and other concerns. Further, since most applications appear to be private blockchain applications, there is a concern of agents needing to accommodate multiple blockchains depending on who their trading partners are and what they request. Finally, this paper uses a distributed database to design a ‘blockchain‐like’ system for virtual organizations.     

Altruism and egoism in investment decisions

We provide survey evidence that personal values have an impact on individual investment decisions, in particular preferences for socially responsible investing. Our findings show that there is a positive link between altruistic values and the relative importance of social responsibility. This effect is stronger when individuals believe that they can make a positive social or environmental impact with their investments, or when they feel morally obliged to invest responsibly. If altruistic individuals associate responsible investments with higher returns, it decreases their motivation to invest responsibly. Egoistic values are negatively associated with the decision to invest responsibly, unless individuals associate responsible investing with higher returns.     

Cross‐Functional Integration: Concept Clarification and Scale Development

The centrality of cross‐functional integration (CFI) to supply chain theory and practice has long been recognized. Yet researchers continue to struggle with consistently defining or measuring the CFI construct, thus limiting the utility of CFI research. This research develops (1) a comprehensive definition of CFI that synthesizes previous supply chain research and (2) a valid set of scale items that measure the conceptual domain outlined by this definition. The goal is to build a common foundation for extending knowledge on CFI's antecedents and consequences, and ultimately to improve scholars’ ability to guide a broader practitioner community still struggling to achieve integration in their organizations.     

Unemployment and econometric learning

We apply well-known results of the econometric learning literature to the Mortensen and Pissarides real business cycle model. Agents can always learn the unique rational expectations equilibrium (REE), for all possible well-defined sets of parameter values, by using the minimum-state-variable solution to the model and decreasing gain learning. From this perspective the assumption of rational expectations in the model could be seen as reasonable. But using a parametrisation with UK data, simulations show that the speed of convergence to the REE is slow. This type of learning dampens the cyclical response of unemployment to small structural shocks.     

Myopia and saliency in renewable resource management

An important challenge in managing renewable resources is to understand why owners and managers sometimes make decisions that deplete resources and future earnings, such as when graziers allow pastures and land condition to be degraded. In this paper, we test two potential reasons for unsustainable management practices, myopia and salience, with each explaining why resource managers may exhibit impatience in harvest decisions. Myopia is associated with decision makers placing lower weight on future outcomes than would be implied by their pure time preference. Salience is associated with overweighting of consumption ‘now’, implying inconsistency in time preferences. To test for these effects on renewable resource management, an incentivised, dynamic field experiment was carried out with rangeland grazing enterprise owners in north‐eastern Australia that related management choices with uncertain rainfall events to both profits and land condition over time. Results demonstrate that respondents exhibiting myopia/salience in their choices tended to achieve lower cumulative scores in the experiment, as well as lower land conditions on their properties as measured with remote sensing data. Our results explain why there may be persistent optimisation failures by resource owners that reduce both profits and environmental outcomes.     

From private label to co-branded credit card: an assessment of the impact of a change in value proposition over customer value perception and company value capture

Journal of Financial Services Marketing - Purpose: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the success of a value proposition over time, considering two aspects: customer’s perceived value and...