When does advice impact startup performance?

Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms whose founders received in-person advice from other entrepreneurs who varied in their managerial style. We find that entrepreneurs who received advice from peers with a formal approach to managing people—instituting regular meetings, setting goals consistently, and providing frequent feedback to employees—grew 28% larger and were 10 percentage points less likely to fail than those who got advice from peers with an informal approach to managing people, 2 years after our intervention. Entrepreneurs with MBAs or accelerator experience did not respond to this intervention, suggesting that formal training can limit the spread of peer advice.     

Incorporation and Company Formation in Australasia, 1790–1860

Nearly 260 companies were founded in and for the Australasian colonies between 1790 and 1860. A quantitative survey suggests that the patterns of incorporation mainly reflected ‘functionalist’ economic factors rather than ‘autonomous’ legal conditions, though the changing nature of company law did influence the various forms that incorporation took. In some sectors, outside factors and even historical accidents also pushed patterns of incorporation along distinct lines. The result was a tradition of adapting legal powers of incorporation to local needs which persisted beyond the introduction of modern company acts to the region in the 1860s and therefore shaped the subsequent evolution of the company in Australia and New Zealand.     

Here comes Generation Z: Millennials as managers

As the workplace continues to change, a new generational cohort—Generation Z, sometimes referred to as iGen—is beginning to enter the workforce. At the same time, millennials are now progressing in their careers and will be challenged with managing these incoming workers. The purpose of this article is to provide a contextual overview that identifies and illuminates some of the defining work-related characteristics of these two youngest generations in the workplace to increase understanding of the potential intergenerational conflict between these cohorts and develop leadership strategies that can be utilized to increase employee morale and productivity. This article analyzes the millennial supervisor-Gen Z subordinate relationship based on generational cohort theory, leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, and the work values framework.     

The Benefit of Mean Auditors: The Influence of Social Interaction and the Dark Triad on Unjustified Auditor Trust

Regulators and researchers have expressed concerns that social interaction leads auditors to unjustifiably trust managers, constituting a lack of sufficient professional skepticism. Using both an abstract laboratory experiment and a contextually rich experiment with practicing auditors we predict and find that higher Dark Triad auditors (those with higher levels of the shared core between psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) are relatively more resistant to lapses in professional skepticism due to the effects of social interaction. This is likely driven by higher Dark Triad auditors' callousness, lack of empathy, and lack of response to social stimuli. In contrast, while higher social interaction initially increases lower Dark Triad auditors' unjustified trust in managers, this effect reverses in subsequent interactions when lower Dark Triad auditors observe evidence suggesting managers have reported aggressively. These findings add to research on the effect of auditor personality traits, audit-client social interaction, and the interaction of these two variables, and suggest that practitioners and researchers account for the interplay of Dark Triad traits and social interaction and their effect on professional skepticism.     

Measuring the persistence of deviations from purchasing power parity with a fractionally integrated STAR model

Empirically, elements of both fractional long memory and threshold non-linearity are present in the real exchange rates of the G-7 countries against the US, notably in the EU countries. Estimated half lives of deviations from PPP using median unbiased corrections to conventional linear autoregressive models corroborate existing evidence related to the PPP paradox as half lives range from at least four years to an infinite number of years. In contrast, for each EU country, accounting for threshold non-linearity results in estimated half lives that can be less than three years even with the allowance for fractional long memory.     

Tourists' perceptions of heritage tourism development in Danish‐Osu,Ghana

This paper examines the tourist perceptions at Danish, Osu‐Ghana within the dark tourism or slavery heritage contexts. Using Cohen's (1979) typology of tourist experience, we differentiate between tourist knowledge of a heritage site relative to socio‐demographic indices. The results indicate that tourists' perception of Danish‐Osu reflect their knowledge of the site in relation to its cultural heritage attributes. In addition, it was found that tourists have dual experiences of the site: those that relate to recreational pursuits of heritage sites and those that ascribe meanings based on their background. The contemporary nature and use of Transatlantic Slave Trade relics for tourism development makes the case of the Danish‐Osu more delicate considering the ethical implications of interpreting the community's past to tourists as the borderlines are unclear. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HEALTH INSURANCE,FERTILITY, AND THE WANTEDNESS OF PREGNANCIES: EVIDENCE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

Health insurance reform in Massachusetts lowered the cost of both pregnancy (by increased coverage of pregnancy‐related medical events) and pregnancy prevention (by increasing access to reliable contraception). We empirically examine fertility responses and find no overall effect from increased coverage due to the Massachusetts reform. This finding, however, masks substantial heterogeneity. For married women aged 20 to 34—with high latent fertility and pregnancy wantedness—fertility increased by approximately 1%. For unmarried women in the same age range—for whom pregnancies are typically unwanted—fertility declined by 8%. (JEL I13, I18, J13)     

Material Offshoring: Alternate Measures

Industry measures of offshoring of material inputs are often generated using the proportionality assumption applied to aggregate import data—that the import share of each commodity used in the production process for a particular industry is similar to the import share of a commodity for the total economy. This note compares estimates of offshoring for the Canadian manufacturing sector derived using this assumption to four alternatives: two measures that use direct measures of firm‐based imports, and two hybrid measures that use both input and import information. These indirect measures are compared to survey estimates that directly assess import intensity in the production process in an effort to evaluate which indirect method yields more reasonable offshoring measures.