Combining data and text mining techniques for analysing financial reports

There is a vast amount of financial information on companies' financial performance available to investors in electronic form today. While automatic analysis of financial figures is common, it has been difficult to extract meaning from the textual parts of financial reports automatically. The textual part of an annual report contains richer information than the financial ratios. In this paper, we combine data and text mining methods for analysing quantitative and qualitative data from financial reports, in order to see if the textual part of the report contains some indications about future financial performance. The quantitative analysis has been performed using self‐organizing maps, and the qualitative analysis using prototype‐matching text clustering. The analysis is performed on the quarterly reports of three leading companies in the telecommunications sector. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

External technology acquisition in large multi-technology corporations

Based on different contractual forms and their associated degrees of organizational integration, a typology of strategies for technology acquisition (sourcing) is constructed. Based on a sample of corporations in Europe, Japan and US, it is shown that external acquisition of technology through various strategies increases in importance in general. Product case studies further show that external acquisition of technology is associated with technology diversification into increasingly costly new technologies. As a result corporations become multi-technological ('multech'). At the same time quasi-integrated corporate systems of innovation arise in which in-house R&D is managed together with a mix of strategies for external acquisition of technology, using various contractual forms. This presents new challenges to traditional in-house R&D management. Technology diversification is moreover shown to be associated with growth of sales as well as with growth of R&D expenditures. A high level of external technology acquisition presents risks that ought to lead companies to consider technology based product diversification.     

Consumer Self-Control Strategies: An Empirical Study of Their Structure and Determinants

People use self-control strategies to overcome time-inconsistent preferences. In the present study one aim was to test a two-factor model of consumer self-control strategies that divides them into desire-reducing and willpower strategies. Another aim was to explore what may determine the use of such strategies. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses gave support for the two-factor model of self-control. A positive attitude toward risk taking as well as the intention to reduce consumption in response to economic impairment predicted a decrease in the use of both strategies. Financial situation, age, and sex were found to influence the use of desire reduction and willpower in different directions. Income was not a predictor of the use of self-control strategies.     

Small firms,business dynamics and differential development of economic well-being

In recent years a growing stream of research has examined the relationships between structural characteristics of regions and their levels of new firm formation. This empirical study aims at supplementing such findings with analyses that include other forms of business dynamics, and also the possible well-being effects of such dynamics. From a unique and comprehensive data set that tracks all births, deaths, expansions, and contractions of commercial business establishments in Sweden 1985–89, six groups of regions with different patterns of dynamics are extracted by means of cluster analysis. The clusters' structural characteristics and their development of economic well-being are also compared. The results suggesta) that the patterns of business dynamics are contingent on the structural characteristics of regions,b) that high formation and turnover of establishments are associated with a relative increase in economic well-being, andc) that small, autonomous firms have a vital role in this process.     

Health and development∗

The linkage between development and health is clearly spelt out in the definition of primary health care by the World Health Organisation. There is a widespread and growing disillusionment with the traditional Western approach to health care which fails to meet the real demands of the Third World situation.

This paper looks briefly at conditions in the developing world and the strategy proposed by the W H O to attempt to meet the objective of health for all by the year 2000 and refers to the South African situation.     

Cost effectiveness of benralizumab for severe,uncontrolled oral corticosteroid–dependent asthma in Sweden

Abstract

Aim: We investigated cost effectiveness of benralizumab vs. standard of care (SOC) plus oral corticosteroids (OCS) for patients with severe, eosinophilic OCS-dependent asthma in Sweden.

Materials and methods: A three-state, cohort-based Markov model of data from three Phase III benralizumab clinical trials (ZONDA [NCT02075255], SIROCCO [NCT01928771], and CALIMA [NCT01914757]) was used to assess the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of benralizumab vs. SOC plus OCS. Health outcomes were estimated in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). The model included costs and disutilities associated with extrapolated OCS-related adverse events. Patients with severe asthma were defined as those receiving OCS ≥5?mg/day.

Results: Benralizumab demonstrated a cost-effectiveness ratio vs. SOC plus OCS of 2018 Swedish Kronor (SEK) 366,855 (€34,127) per QALY gained, based on increases of 1.33 QALYs and SEK 488,742 (€45,344) per patient. Benralizumab treatment costs contributed most to incremental costs. The probability of benralizumab’s being cost-effective with willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds between SEK 429,972 (€40,000) and SEK 752,452 (€70,000) ranged from 75% to 99%.

Limitations: Potential limitations of these analyses include the use of combined data from three different clinical trials, a one-way sensitivity analysis that did not include mortality and transition estimates, and Observational & Pragmatic Research Institute (OPRI) data from the UK as a proxy of the Swedish health care system.

Conclusions: The results of these analyses demonstrate that benralizumab has a high probability of being cost-effective compared with SOC plus OCS for a subgroup of patients with severe, eosinophilic asthma receiving regular OCS treatment and may support clinicians, payers and patients in making treatment decisions.     

Technology Sharing in Manufacturing Business Groups

Technology represents the primordial force for companies and organizations in securing long‐term competitiveness. In the intensive search to access new technology, organizations are more and more looking beyond the borders of the focal firm and becoming involved in various networks with suppliers, consultants, partners, and others. However, the distinction between the focal firm, on the one hand, and networks, on the other, is in this paper argued to be too extensive without intermediating nuances. Less focus is given to an in‐between perspective configured by business groups or concerns here defined as parent corporations with subsidiary companies. It is this perspective of business groups with characteristics between individual firms and open networks that is of interest in this paper. The focus is on manufacturing business groups in which the companies will typically have individual as well as common technologies. The research aim is to develop a framework to be used as an analytical tool for understanding and organizing technology sharing in manufacturing business groups. The research approach was to study technology sharing in a natural setting combining multiple in‐depth sources of evidence in a clinical research setting. A prestudy identified key dimensions in classifying cases leading to four clusters of typified cases. Data were gathered from meetings with 24 managers from various research and development (R&D) units who met regularly every other week during seven months, in‐depth interviews, internal documents and protocols, and workshops. Following the clinical field‐study approach, findings are theoretically validated in relation to literature. The analysis identifies and depicts four different types of technology‐sharing scenarios in manufacturing business groups. Each type has particular characteristics of its own. The four scenarios together provide a synthesized portfolio with different types of dimensions. A first dimension makes a distinction between sharing new technology development versus existing technology. Another distinguishes between technologies aimed at the whole business group and those aimed at specific segments. The two dimensions together comprise four different types of technology‐sharing alternatives. Each one of them can be used at the focal firm, and together, they are applicable from a business group perspective comprising technology‐sharing portfolios of manufacturing business groups.     

Editorial

Small Business Economics -     

Effects of commitment on intentional loyalty at the person-to-person and person-to-firm levels

This study explores how customers’ affective commitment and calculative commitment to the personal adviser and bank, respectively, affect their intentional loyalty to the personal adviser and bank. Data were collected using a web survey of mass affluent customers of a major Swedish bank. Responses were measured and analysed using factor, correlation, and regression analyses. The results reveal that the person-to-person and person-to-firm loyalty categories are influenced by affective and calculative commitment to the personal advisor and by affective commitment to the bank, but not by calculative commitment to the bank. Moreover, there is a strong relationship between customer loyalty to the personal adviser and to the bank. It can be concluded that affective commitment has a stronger overall impact on customer loyalty than does calculative commitment, indicating the importance of creating affective ties with customers, and that personal advisers are central to bank – customer relationships. The importance of financial issues to mass affluent customers implies that both affective commitment and calculative commitment to the personal adviser are important in building customer loyalty to a bank or brand.     

Introduction to Institutions,Entrepreneurship and Firm Growth: From Sweden to the OECD

Small Business Economics -