Dynamic managerial capabilities: Scale development and validation

Studies on dynamic managerial capabilities still have a rather theoretical nature, and there is great difficulty in finding a valid, reliable instrument to measure this construct. The present study contributes to solving this problem: It aims to develop and validate a scale to measure dynamic managerial capabilities. In this investigation, we develop a scale for three factors related to dynamic managerial capabilities: human capital, managerial cognition (already described in the literature), and relationship networks. The prominent finding in this research is the factor that is referred to here as relationship networks.     

Unfolding Patterns of Unpaid Household Work in Latin America

Although Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay show similar empirical patterns in terms of time women devote to unpaid work, they also present important variations in how unpaid work is distributed between men and women. Using time-use surveys for the 2007–10 period, this study finds a uniform pattern across the four countries regarding the main individual-level variables related to the allocation of unpaid work. When decomposing the gender gap in hours devoted to unpaid work, most of the difference cannot be attributed to variations in observable characteristics of men and women: the unexplained part of the gap is the dominant part. Results suggest that both the strength of traditional gender roles and existing welfare architecture are relevant factors in understanding variations in how unpaid work is distributed between men and women in these four countries. The results reaffirm that powerful interventions are needed to shift gender norms about unpaid work.     

Do interventions in foreign exchange markets modify investors' expectations? The experience of Japan between 1992 and 2004

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Bank of Japan's official interventions on the JPY/USD parity during the period 1992–2004. The novelty of our approach is to combine two recent advances of the empirical literature on foreign exchange interventions: (i) drawing on over-the-counter option prices to characterize more precisely the distribution of market expectations; (ii) redefining interventions in terms of events as they tend to come in clusters. Moreover, in order to deal with the features of the data (small sample size, non-standard distribution), we use bootstrap tests.We show that interventions have a significant impact on the mean expectation (the forward rate). The results are more ambiguous for variance. Additionally, we find that the effect of interventions on skewness is significant, robust to different definitions of skewness, and consistent with the direction of interventions. On the contrary, our results clearly show that kurtosis is not affected by interventions. We finally show that: (i) coordination increases effectiveness of interventions; (ii) results are not altered when controlling for other economic and political news.     

A theoretical framework to evaluate different margin‐setting methodologies

The margin system is the first line of defense against the default risk of a clearinghouse. From the perspectives of a clearinghouse, the utmost concern is to have a prudential system to control the default exposure. Once the level of prudentiality is set, the next concern will be the opportunity cost of the investors, because high opportunity cost discourages people from hedging futures, and thus defeats the function of a futures market. In this article, we first develop different measures of prudentiality and opportunity cost. We then formulate a statistical framework to evaluate different margin‐setting methodologies, all of which strike a balance between prudentiality and opportunity cost. Three margin‐setting methodologies, namely, (1) using simple moving averages; (2) using exponentially weighted moving averages; (3) using a GARCH approach, are applied to the Hang Seng Index futures. Keeping the same prudentiality level, it is shown that the one using a GARCH approach by and large gives the lowest average overcharge. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:117–145, 2004     

The index futures markets: Is screen trading more efficient?

This article uses a nonparametric test based on the arc‐sine law (see, e.g., Feller, 1965 ), which involves comparing the theoretical distribution implied by an intraday random walk with the empirical frequency distribution of the daily high/low times, in order to address the question of whether the abandonment of pit trading has been associated with greater market efficiency. If market inefficiencies result from flaws in the market microstructure of pit trading, they ought to have been eliminated by the introduction of screen trading. If, on the other hand, the inefficiencies are a reflection of investor psychology, they are likely to have survived, unaffected by the changeover. We focus here on four cases. Both the FTSE‐100 and CAC‐40 index futures contracts were originally traded by open outcry and have moved over to electronic trading in recent years, so that we are able to compare pricing behavior before and after the changeover. The equivalent contracts in Germany and Korea, on the other hand, have been traded electronically ever since their inception. Our results overwhelmingly reject the random‐walk hypothesis both for open‐outcry and electronic‐trading data sets, suggesting there has been no increase in efficiency as a result of the introduction of screen trading. One possible explanation consistent with our results would be that the index futures market is characterized by intraday overreaction. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:337–357, 2004     

Uncertainty reduction mechanisms in cross-sector alliances in Latin America

The present study explores three uncertainty reduction mechanisms that arise in the context of business alliance formation to assess whether these same mechanisms also operate in the development of alliances between non-profits and businesses. Secondary data from field-based case studies of Latin American cross-sector alliances are the focus of this analysis. The findings show that the same mechanisms operate to reduce uncertainty in cross-sector alliance formation and that alliance experience appears to determine the presence of some mechanisms.     

Confucian Business Ethics and the Economy

Confucian ethics as applied to the study of business ethics often relate to the micro consideration of personal ethics and the character of a virtuous person. Actually, Confucius and his school have much to say about the morals of the public administration and the market institutions in a more macro level. While Weber emphasizes the role of culture on the development of the economy, and Marx the determining influence of the material base on ideology, we see an interaction between culture – specifically Confucian business ethics – and the economy. In this paper, we are going to study this interaction in several crucial stages of development of Confucianism. The paper concludes by postulating the relevance of Confucian business ethics to the global knowledge economy.     

Generalizations of Ho–Lee’s binomial interest rate model I: from one- to multi-factor

In this paper a multi-factor generalization of Ho–Lee model is proposed. In sharp contrast to the classical Ho–Lee, this generalization allows for those movements other than parallel shifts, while it still is described by a recombining tree, and is a process with stationary independent increments to be compatible with principal component analysis. Based on the model, generalizations of duration-based hedging are proposed. A continuous-time limit of the model is also discussed. This research was supported by Open Research Center Project for Private Universities: matching fund subsidy from MEXT, 2004–2008 and also by Grants-in-Aids for Scientific Research (No. 18540146) from the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences.     

Optimising a Probabilistic Model of the Development of Play in Soccer

We present a probabilistic model based on the one developed by Hernández Mendo and Anguera (Revista de Psicologíca Social, 16(1), 71–93, 2001). Here we have tried to break down the interaction contexts that the opposing teams are able to generate and transform during the game. We are aware that a given player or team does not produce consistent behaviour in similar situations. However, a degree of uncertainty is assumed to exist regarding whether the results obtained are a specific function of the analysis used. In order to carry out this research a category system which optimized that used in the previous model was developed. This system should enable the interaction between teams to be observed within the actual play of a soccer game. A lag sequential analysis was performed on the basis of a coding of the behavioural flow. After describing the behavioural patterns obtained a probabilistic model of the development of play in soccer is proposed.     

Playing the synthesizer with Canadian data: Adding polls to a structural forecasting model

Election forecasting has become a fixture of election campaigns in a number of democracies. Structural modeling, the major approach to forecasting election results, relies on ‘fundamental’ economic and political variables to predict the incumbent’s vote share usually a few months in advance. Some political scientists contend that adding vote intention polls to these models—i.e., synthesizing ‘fundamental’ variables and polling information—can lead to important accuracy gains. In this paper, we look at the efficiency of different model specifications in predicting the Canadian federal elections from 1953 to 2015. We find that vote intention polls only allow modest accuracy gains late in the campaign. With this backdrop in mind, we then use different model specifications to make ex ante forecasts of the 2019 federal election. Our findings have a number of important implications for the forecasting discipline in Canada as they address the benefits of combining polls and ‘fundamental’ variables to predict election results; the efficiency of varying lag structures; and the issue of translating votes into seats.