Analysts’ annual earnings forecasts and changes to the I/B/E/S database

Review of Accounting Studies - I/B/E/S is a common source of analyst earnings forecast data, and the reliability of these data is important for practice and academic research. Examining a common...     

An innovation to improve health outcomes in Amajuba district,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Systems’ thinking places high value on understanding the context. This study focused on the collection of disaggregated data in order to understand the context, to facilitate improvement of health outcomes. The aim of this article was to assess the implementation of municipal ward-based health data collection (disaggregated data) and health care workers’ perceptions of this data collection process. This cross-sectional study used mixed methods in Amajuba district. The participants were professional nurses at the Primary Health Care level. Of the 131 respondents, 123 (93.9%) collected municipal ward-based health data, and found it useful. Opportunities for improving data collection were identified. Disaggregation of the data at ward level contributes to a better understanding of the target population’s health, assists planning for health needs and enables provision of targeted interventions in order to improve health outcomes, to prevent financial regression and waste of health resources.     

Experience matters: The role of academic scientist mobility for industrial innovation

Research Summary: A learning‐by‐hiring approach is used to scrutinize scientists' mobility in relation to the recruiting firms' subsequent innovation output. Our starting point is that among firm hires, individuals with university research experience—hired from universities or firms—can be particularly valuable. However, conflicting institutional logics between academia and industry makes working with academic scientists challenging at times for firms. We suggest two solutions to this difficulty: hiring “ambidextrous” individuals with a mix of experience of university research and working for a technologically advanced firm, and a strong organizational research culture in the recruiting firm reflected by the presence of a scientist on the top management team. We track the mobility of R&D workers empirically using patent and linked employer‐employee data. Managerial Summary: An important way to make organizations more innovative is hiring individual researchers with the right types of skills and experience. We show that individuals with university research experience beyond their final degree are particularly likely to help boost firm‐level innovation output after hiring compared to R&D workers with other types of skills and experience. However, to obtain good returns to innovation from hiring such individuals, firms need a university research–friendly organizational culture when hiring individuals with university research experience, from either firms or academia.     

An Investigation of the Determinants of Profitability in a Short-Stay Accommodation Market

This paper examines the determinants of the profitability of short-stay accommodation providers in Tasmania, utilising a survey conducted from July 2007 to June 2008. The survey provides insight into a time when some firms had adopted the 'new' information technologies to make sales while others continued with traditional methods. We find the use of online sales is associated with higher profit. Further profit is higher during summer (high season), for firms with a high star rating and for firms who make a larger proportion of their sales directly to customers, and lower when owner operators are motivated by lifestyle considerations.     

Exploring alternative strategic management paradigms in high-growth ethnic and non-ethnic family firms

The primary research question examined in this paper is whether ethnic and non-ethnic family firms in the United Kingdom differ in their strategy-making. The paper uses the typology of strategic decision-making produced by Whittington [(1993). What is strategy: and does it matter? New York: Routledge] to derive contrasting predictions of strategy-making by ethnic versus non-ethnic firms. Drawing on a questionnaire study of 76 high-growth family firms, and subsequent in-depth fieldwork with 40 of these, the findings show that the ethnic origin of the controlling family has a significant influence in determining the dominance of a particular strategy paradigm. However, successful high-growth family firms are not associated with any particular school of strategy. The influence of family bonding on strategy-making was greater in ethnic family firms than non-ethnic family firms. The advent of the second generation of South Asians in family firms, and closer integration of immigrant and host communities, has not altered these apparent differences. The findings challenge researchers on family firms to adopt a multiple perspective approach to strategy-making.     

Wages and foreign ownership A comparative study of Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States

This paper explores the relationship between wages and foreign investment in Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. Despite very different economic conditions and levels of development, we find one fact that is robust across all three countries: higher levels of foreign investment are associated with higher wages. However, in Mexico and Venezuela, foreign investment is associated with higher wages only for foreign-owned firms — there is no evidence of wage spillovers leading to higher wages for domestic firms. The lack of spillovers in Mexico and Venezuela is consistent with significant wage differentials between foreign and domestic enterprises. In the United States, where the evidence suggests some wage spillovers from foreign to domestic enterprises, wage differentials are smaller.     

Teaching with Mission: Personal Development, Team Building, and Social Responsibility

An innovative gateway MBA course, Personal Development and Social Responsibility, is the focus of this paper. We describe the course and show how it is related intimately to the missions and traditions of our university and college; various themes are integrated; and our interactions as developers of and instructors for the course mirror some of the issues addressed in it. We include an evaluation of the efficacy of the course, based on student course and self evaluations. We do not write with the expectation that others will necessarily replicate what we have done but with the hope that they will (1) consider carefully the relationship between what and how they teach with the missions and traditions of their universities and colleges; (2) examine the integration of content and process; and (3) reflect on their collegial associations with one another.     

Perceptions of Business Ethics in a Multicultural Community: The Case of Malaysia

Leaders and managers of today's multinational corporations face a plethora of problems and issues directly attributable to the fact that they are operating in an international context. With work-sites, plants and/or customers based in another country, or even several countries, representing a vast spectrum of cultural differences, international trade and offshore operations, coupled with increased globalisation in respect to political, social and economic realities, contribute to new dilemmas that these leaders must deal with. Not the least of these being a Code of Ethics and ethical decision making.This paper examines the differences in culture between a group of managers from the United States and similar group from Croatia using Hofstede's theory of International Cultures. The study explores how these cultural dimensions may help in our understanding of the differences in reported whistleblowing. The authors then postulate four hypotheses regarding various aspects of whistleblowing. These Hypotheses were than tested using a survey administered to a sample of U.S.A. and Croatian managers. Finally, the paper discusses the findings and practical implications for contemporary managers in the international arena.     

Mark R. Wilson. The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865

In the otherwise voluminous literature of the Civil War, bookson the logistics of military supply are comparatively rare.Historians have largely overlooked the administrative arrangementsnecessary to outfit, feed, house, transport, supply, and communicatewith the enormous Civil War armies, emphasizing instead theUnion's superior resources, such as railroad mileage, or linkingthe logistics of supply to patronage, profiteering, and politicalcorruption. Mark R. Wilson's excellent The Business of CivilWar: Military Mobilization and