The Impact of Automated Reminders on Credit Outcomes: Results from an Experimental Pilot Program

This study evaluates the impact of an automated reminder program designed to help credit counseling consumers manage their payment obligations and financial goals. Credit counseling consumers were randomly assigned to receive reminders linked to their financial goals and payment obligations for one year after an initial credit counseling session. We find that consumers offered reminders were 21% less likely than the control to experience severe (60+ day) payment delinquencies and were 12% less likely to experience a 30+ day delinquency. At the same time, these consumers saw a 10.5 point increase in credit scores relative to the control group. There were no significant impacts on total credit card balances or installment debt levels. This analysis provides promising evidence that automated reminders can provide an important complement to traditional credit counseling when it comes to improving consumers' credit profiles and does so at a fairly low cost.     

Crisis leadership in economic recession: A three-barrier approach to offset external constraints

An economic recession is a type of crisis originated from external factors that may imperil an organization’s survival depending on the intensity and duration of the crisis. In peripheral European countries, such as Portugal, the recent financial crisis had devastating effects on various business activities. As a result, Portugal represents an important case study in examining how some corporate leaders have handled the economic recession successfully. I interviewed 20 corporate managers to capture their perceptions of the leadership traits and behaviors exhibited by their CEOs in guiding their companies through the recession. In economic recessions, negative constraints do not affect the most effective leaders, who instead erect barriers against the high-pressure conditions to create a supportive, positive work environment. In order to achieve maximum effectiveness, leaders must act as blocking agents against the negative social impacts of the economic crisis, including the fragility of trust in organizational life (i.e., a barrier against distrust), uncertainty of the future (i.e., a barrier against uncertainty), and toxic emotions (i.e., a barrier against toxic emotions).     

Gamified interactions: whether,when, and how games facilitate self–brand connections

Firms increasingly use games to interact with their customers. Yet, surprisingly little is known about whether, when, and how such “gamified” interactions engage consumers with a firm’s brand, thereby facilitating self–brand connections. Building on flow theory, we show that gamified interactions that are highly interactive and optimally challenging facilitate self–brand connections, because such games lead to emotional and cognitive brand engagement. A field study and three experiments across various product domains and game designs support our theory. We also identify conditions under which consumers do not become engaged with a brand, namely when firms restrict their decisional control either to voluntarily participate in the game (i.e., compulsory play) or to spend as much time as desired playing the game (i.e., time pressure). Our findings advance existing knowledge about the use of games in marketing and provide important implications for how marketers can harness their potential to build self–brand connections.     

Khat-chewing in liminal leisure spaces: British-Somali youth on the margins

Khat-chewing, a controversial leisure activity within the Somali diaspora in Britain, has received little attention within the academic field of Leisure Studies. This paper reports on ethnographic research to provide insights into the unique locations where young British-Somali men chew khat, exposing the liminal qualities of such localities. The paper begins with an overview of the contentious position khat-chewing occupies within Somali communities in Britain, highlighting reasons why young British-Somali men hide their association with the leisure practice. The discussion that follows considers how young male khat users conceptualise spatial environments, exposing how these locations temporarily produce a dual sense of privacy and sociality. The ambiences of such temporary leisure spaces remain open to the prospect of discovery, resulting in the use of discretionary tactics to maintain a sense of secrecy. In this context, we discuss how khat-chewing offers a sense of cultural identity and belongingness while also marking young British-Somali men as outsiders – even within their own communities.     

Monitoring the foreign exchange rate benchmark fix

ABSTRACT

We develop a Manipulation Index (ManIx) that captures the potential manipulation intention of dealers during the World Markets/Reuters (WMR) benchmark (London Close) period at 4 pm London time through a unique algorithm and simulation. The application of this model (using a dataset with dealers’ identities) can identify banks that are prone to potential manipulative behavior. The results concerning the identified banks are validated by the regulatory investigations. Implementation of this algorithm allows regulators better direct their limited resources towards more targeted in-depth investigation.     

PITFALLS IN CROSS‐SECTION STUDIES WITH INTEGRATED REGRESSORS: A SURVEY AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS

In cross‐section studies, if the dependent variable is I(0) but the regressor is I(1), the true slope must be zero in the resulting “unbalanced regression.” A spuriously significant relationship may be found in large cross‐sections, however, if the integrated regressor is related to a stationary variable that enters the DGP but is omitted from the regression. The solution is to search for the related stationary variable, in some cases the first difference of the integrated regressor, in other cases, a categorical variable that can take on limited number of values which depend on the integrated variable. We present an extensive survey, new developments, and applications particularly in finance.     

The impact of purchasing strategy-structure (mis)fit on purchasing cost and innovation performance

The organizational design literature strongly supports the notion of “structure follows strategy”, and suggests that a misfit between the two has a negative effect on performance. Building on this line of argument, we examine to what extent the (mis)fit between purchasing strategy and purchasing structure impacts purchasing performance. We focus on cost and innovation purchase category strategies, and examine how the deviation from an ideal purchasing structure defined along three dimensions (centralization, formalization, and cross-functionality) impacts purchasing performance. Analysing data collected from 469 firms in ten countries, we demonstrate that a strategy-structure misfit negatively impacts purchasing performance in both cost and innovation strategies. We also find that purchasing proficiency is a mediator in this relationship between misfit and performance. Our findings aid managerial decision making by empirically validating the necessity of having the right purchasing structure for successfully executing different purchasing strategies.     

The Role of Ideas in Understanding Industrial Relations Policy Change in Liberal Market Economies

This paper analyzes the uneven processes underpinning industrial relations policy liberalization in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Ireland. Drawing upon 140 elite interviews and building upon ideational comparative political theories, the paper highlights the role of ideas in the policy change process. It identifies how particular ideas can be used to construct policy problems, how these ideas can gain legitimacy through battles with competing ideas, and how policy legacies can influence whether ideas take root. The findings from the comparative case analysis expose a critical difference between “positive legacies” and “negative legacies” to account for different liberalization trajectories.     

Shareholder Activism and Voluntary Disclosure Initiation: The Case of Political Spending

Demand for disclosures on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues has increased dramatically. Using corporate political spending disclosures as our setting, we conduct a detailed inquiry of 541 political spending‐related shareholder proposals from 2004 to 2012 to highlight the role of shareholder activism as a mechanism to motivate ESG disclosure. Unlike earlier studies, we examine both proposals that went to a vote and proposals that were withdrawn by the activist, allowing us to assess more comprehensively the success of shareholder activism. We find that 20 percent of firms targeted by disclosure proposals begin disclosing in the subsequent year, although implementation rates vary by proposal type—8 percent for proposals subject to a vote versus 56 percent for proposals withdrawn. The sponsor is also important: unions and public pension funds are less likely than other activists to target firms with agency problems and are less successful in having proposals withdrawn, and the implementations they obtain are viewed more negatively by the broader investor base. Our findings highlight shareholder proposals as one mechanism through which investors can successfully express their preferences for corporate disclosure policies. Given activists' long‐standing interest in environmental and social disclosure policies, we believe our findings generalize to a broader set of ESG disclosures.