Building Financial and Health Literacy at Older Ages: The Role of Online Information

Improving financial and health literacy is an important step in reducing economic vulnerability in older age, yet the means by which individuals accumulate these types of human capital remains an open question. This article evaluates the impact of online search activities on the levels of financial and health literacy. We find that using the internet for such information increases literacy significantly: doing so frequently (versus not at all) increases financial literacy by 16%, and health literacy by 12%. Our results are robust to alternative measures of financial literacy. They are also robust to an instrumental variable approach using other web skills such as email use to proxy for how individuals use the internet.     

Medicaid and long‐term care: The effects of penalizing strategic asset transfers

Medicaid provides a critical source of insurance for long‐term care, and individuals may strategically offload assets (typically to children) to meet the means‐tested eligibility requirement. In this article, we quantify the extent of such behavior using variation in the penalty for improper parent‐to‐child transfers induced by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. We estimate difference‐in‐differences models based on the hypothesis that only individuals with high levels of nursing home risk (high risk) will alter transfers because of the Act. We find that over a 2‐year horizon, high‐risk individuals reduced transfers to children on the extensive margin by 11 percent and that the average total amount of transfers decreased by $4,860. The results hold only for coupled respondents. We also conduct a triple‐differences analysis to examine heterogeneity with financial literacy and find that even those with a low level of financial literacy responded to the penalty.     

The Impact of the London Bombings on the Well-Being of Adolescent Muslims*

We exploit the timing of the London bombings of July 2005, coinciding with a large-scale national survey of adolescents, to identify the impact of extremist Islamic terror attacks on the well-being of adolescent Muslims. Our analysis reveals interesting gender differences. We find evidence of a decline in the happiness of Muslim teenage girls after the bombings, which is also accompanied by a rise in expectations of facing discrimination in the labour market. These findings are robust to several falsification tests. However, we fail to uncover compelling evidence of any impact of the bombings on Muslim teenage boys.     

Cross‐cultural evaluation of factors driving intention to purchase new food products – Beijing,China and south‐east England

It has been reported that consumers in different countries have distinctive perceptions of, and attitudes to, products. This study investigated consumers’ thoughts on new food products in south‐east England (n = 222) and Beijing, China (n = 139), using a questionnaire‐based largely on the Theory of Reasoned Action. Results indicated that consumers in both countries believe it is necessary for the food industry in their respective countries to introduce new food products and they would like to try new products. There appears to be great interest in new products among the Beijing Chinese, with most interest in new healthy food products. The influences on choices suggest that a marketing focus on quality, utility and health benefits would be most fruitful, as personal beliefs were more important in intention to purchase than the influence of other people. Results point away from the expected result that the Chinese, as a collectivist culture, would place more emphasis on others’ opinions than their own beliefs. This may be linked to food not being an item of conspicuous consumption, or to a cultural shift among urban Chinese.     

Boards of directors in family firms: a generational perspective

The purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of boards of directors in family firms. Building on generational changes in family attributes, we argue that firms in a different generational phase have different governance needs and characteristics. With regard to board task needs, the empirical results indicate a convex generational evolution in the need for board advice, and a rise over the generations in the need for board control. With regard to board composition, we find that the likelihood of having an outside director on the board has a convex generational trend. This relationship seems to be fully mediated by the firm’s board task needs. Furthermore, the number of family directors seems to increase over the generations. This study demonstrates that it is important to consider the generational phase of the family firm in order to understand its governance system.

Customer-centric pricing: The surprising secret for profitability

Companies spend enormous amounts of energy and capital in creating value for customers, but less regard is given to actually capturing the value they have created. Segmentation based on buying behavior uncovers a tremendous differential in willingness to pay for subjective product attributes such as convenience, status, and quality. Purchase decisions are made through an assessment of a myriad of factors balancing perceptions of value components against price in a subtle, complex, and often sub-conscious decision matrix. Customer-centric pricing requires the simultaneous and continuous assessment of product attributes, customer perceptions, and the circumstances of time and place by listening to customers' actions. It is a means of assuring that companies assess the value they create for customers and extract that value from the marketplace.     

Environmental Reporting of Global Corporations: A Content Analysis based on Website Disclosures

Today, more corporations disclose information about their environmental performance in response to stakeholder demands of environmental responsibility and accountability. What information do corporations disclose on their websites? This paper investigates the environmental management policies and practices of the 200 largest corporations in the world. Based on a content analysis of the environmental reports of Fortune’s Global 200 companies, this research analyzes the content of corporate environmental disclosures with respect to the following seven areas: environmental planning considerations, top management support to the institutionalization of environmental concerns, environmental structures and organizing specifics, environmental leadership activities, environmental control, external validations or certifications of environmental programs, and forms of corporate environmental disclosures.     

Longevity challenges and leadership interventions: Strategy journeys of two Indian banks

This article studies the strategic journeys of two Indian banks in evolving socio-political and economic environments, spread across eight decades. It provides a holistic view of longevity challenges by exploring interdependencies between a firm’s internal dynamics, external environment, and its leaders. This article covers the growth of Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank in distinct phases of unrestricted, regulated, and centrally planned economic environment, and in changing socio-political scenarios. It uses within-case and across-case analysis, contextualised in these conditions, to provide rich insights about measures adopted by firms for their long-term survival and sustenance.     

Investigating the immediate and long-term effects of job stressors on frontline service employees

Two studies investigate the immediate and long-term effects of job stressors on frontline service employees (FSEs). Using cognitive appraisal theory, we develop and test a conceptual model of two job stressors (crowding and emotional labor) that affect coping strategies and job outcomes. Study 1, which is a field experiment, investigates the immediate effects of crowding in a single firm. Study 2 extends the findings of Study 1 and investigates the long-term effects of emotional labor and crowding on FSEs across multiple firms. The results show that crowding has a negative impact on coping strategies and job-related outcomes. In addition, emotional labor can lead to long-term negative outcomes, such as emotional exhaustion and decreased job retention, for some FSEs. Consequently, service organizations should consider strategies or tactics that prevent high levels of customer crowding and help FSEs deal with emotional labor.