Accounting regulation, inertia and organisational self-perception: Double-entry adoption in a Spanish casa de comercio (1829-1852)

This paper analyses the influence exerted by compulsory mechanisms and cognitive and social factors on the adoption and implementation of double-entry bookkeeping. The study focuses on a small, commercial and family owned company located in Spain in the period 1829-1852. As our main conclusion we suggest that the adoption of double-entry bookkeeping in 1851 was influenced more by the managers' self-perception as traders, and the belief (internal and environmental) that the company must employ an accounting method appropriate to its new commercial status, than by State pressures derived from the enactment of a new accounting regulation in 1829.     

Quasi-structural estimation of a model of childcare choices and child cognitive ability production

This article evaluates the effects of maternal vs. alternative care providers’ time inputs on children’s cognitive development using the sample of single mothers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. To deal with the selection problem created by unobserved heterogeneity of mothers and children, we develop a model of mother’s employment and childcare decisions. We then obtain approximate decision rules for employment and childcare use, and estimate these jointly with the child’s cognitive ability production function. To help identify our selection model, we take advantage of the plausibly exogenous variation in employment and childcare choices of single mothers generated by the variation in welfare rules across states and over time created by the 1996 welfare reform legislation and earlier State waivers.     

THE EFFECT OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND CHILD CARE ON CHILDREN'S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT*

This article develops and estimates a dynamic model of employment and child care decisions of women after childbirth to evaluate the effects of these choices on children's cognitive ability. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate it. Results indicate that the effects of maternal employment and child care on children's ability are negative and sizable. Having a mother that works full‐time and uses child care during one year is associated with a reduction in ability test scores of approximately 1.8% (0.13 standard deviations). We assess the impact of policies related to parental leave and child care on children's outcomes.     

Product Placement Versus Conventional Advertising: The Impact on Brand Choice of Integrating Promotional Stimuli into Movies

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasingly favorable environment enjoyed by product placement, the question of whether this technique produces stronger behavioral effects than conventional advertising remains largely unexplored. Based on the transportation-imagery model, we hypothesized that, among users of well-established products, promotional stimuli produce stronger effects on brand choice when integrated into movies than when presented as independent ads, while among nonusers, no differences are expected. Our hypotheses were confirmed in a field experiment that compared the effects of a Coca-Cola placement within the movie Ways to Live Forever with the same Coca-Cola stimulus shown as a usual commercial.     

Monitoring, reputation and accountability in issuing banks in mid-nineteenth-century Spain

This paper analyses the determinants of issuing banks' disclosure in the mid-nineteenth century in Spain. Our theses are that the State was the main promoter of accountability because of the public interest in the financial sector, and that banks used disclosure to gain and maintain reputation among their stakeholders in order to facilitate the circulation of their notes. This led to a high level of compliance with regulation, except in the crisis period of 1866–68, and to an increase in voluntary disclosure in bigger banks and in those that received security deposits, which were considered at this time to be a sign of reputation.     

Multifactor productivity and its determinants: an empirical analysis for Mexican manufacturing

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we estimate production functions for the Mexican manufacturing sector and for 14 comprehensive groups, allowing us to construct various measures of multifactor productivity. Second, we analyse some of the determinants of productivity growth. We find that, on the one hand, there is a positive relationship between market concentration and technology adoption; on the other hand, both technology adoption and human capital promote productivity, whilst market concentration exerts a negative influence on it. Our results suggest that, once controlling for the effect on technology adoption, more concentration impacts negatively productivity growth.     

Announcements,financial operations or both? Generalizing central banks’ FX reaction functions

This paper generalizes the reaction functions of central banks’ FX interventions to include oral interventions alongside actual ones. Using Japanese data for the 1991–2004 period, we estimate an ordered-probit model explaining the occurrence of each type of intervention and evaluating the extent to which oral and actual interventions are substitutes or complements. In addition, the effectiveness of interventions is examined using an event-study approach. Our results indicate that the Japanese authorities tended to adopt progressively stronger measures as the exchange rate was found to behave in an increasingly unfavorable way. This suggests that words and deeds were only coordinated (i.e. used in a complementary way) in extreme cases. Overall, interventions are found to be moderately successful in correcting unwanted exchange-rate developments, especially volatility.     

Ethical Stewardship – Implications for Leadership and Trust

Great leaders are ethical stewards who generate high levels of commitment from followers. In this paper, we propose that perceptions about the trustworthiness of leader behaviors enable those leaders to be perceived as ethical stewards. We define ethical stewardship as the honoring of duties owed to employees, stakeholders, and society in the pursuit of long-term wealth creation. Our model of relationship between leadership behaviors, perceptions of trustworthiness, and the nature of ethical stewardship reinforces the importance of ethical governance in dealing with employees and in creating organizational systems that are congruent with espoused organizational values. Cam Caldwell is Assistant Professor of Management in the School of Business at Weber State University. His research is primarily in the areas of organizational governance, ethical leadership and trust. He received his Ph.D from Washington State University where he was Thomas S. Foley Graduate Fellow. He has worked as a City manager, Human Resource Director, and Management Consultants for 30 years. Linda A. Hayes is Assistant Professor and Director of Program Assessment in the School of Business Administration of the University of Houston – Victoria. She received a B.S.M.E. from Clarkson University, an M.B.A from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D from University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Hayes has 15 years of industry experience. Her research interests include decision-making, stakeholder behavior, business strategy. Dr. Hayes was a 1996 NASA Faculty Fellow. Recently, she has published in the Journal of Management Development, Journal of International Marketing, Business Horizons and International Journal of Mobile Communications. Ranjan Karri is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He received his Ph.D from Washington State University. His research interests are in the areas of entrepreneurship, ethics and strategy. Patricia Martinez is a cum laude graduate of the University of Houston – Victoria School of Business and works for the Learning Education Achieve Dreams program at that University to help young people in the Victoria, Texas Community set and achieve personal and educational goals.     

Observing bailout expectations during a total eclipse of the sun

The literature has not reached a consensus yet regarding the existence of sovereign creditor moral hazard. Exploiting an exceptional historical example, this paper proposes an original method to address this issue. As the corona which is observable only during a total eclipse of the sun, market-specific prices of repudiated bonds are observable only when extreme conditions segment the markets. Such very rare events allow for isolating pure country-specific bailout expectations. The paper shows that bailouts do create creditor moral hazard. Based on an impulse response analysis, the econometric results further emphasize the influence of bailout expectations in sovereign bonds valuation.     

Gifts as conduits in choice overload environments

This study investigates competing for theoretical stances (i.e., choice overload vs. choice cornucopia) and explores how increases in spending occur in high and low choice conditions following receiving promotional gift offers in a service consumption setting. This study includes a nonobtrusive field experiment (n = 200) that includes measured and manipulated variables: purchase versus nonpurchase conditions and size of expenditures. The study's context tests the use of two versus five promotional gift options and two levels of gift value (6 vs. €20). Findings using symmetrical (analysis of variance [ANOVA]) and asymmetrical (fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis [fsQCA]) methods of analysis support the choice overload hypothesis in this unobtrusive field experiment. Also, spending in the high versus low choice condition increased when hotel guests were offered a high‐value gift for using room service. Given the nature of the nonobtrusive field experiment, this study provides valuable information for marketers and consumers regarding the moderating effects of promotional gifts in many option environments. While prior studies explore the conditions of choice cornucopia versus choice overload, to date few or possibly no attempts to identify practical ways of reducing the negative effects of choice overload.