The influence of voice and explanation on performance in a participative budgeting setting

This paper examines the relationship between the use of a fair budgeting process and subordinate performance. Organizational justice theory is used to define a fair budgeting process as having two components: the subordinate’s involvement in the budgeting process, voice; and the communication of a rationale for the subordinate’s lack of influence over the final budget target the superior sets, explanation. Results indicate significant performance improvements when voice and explanation are combined as compared to voice alone.     

Alternative work arrangements and perceived career success: Current evidence from the big four firms in the US

This study examines the influences of alternative work arrangements (AWAs), subordinate gender, and supervisor attitudes and beliefs regarding AWAs on performance evaluation judgments in public accounting. One hundred and forty-two experienced professionals from two US Big Four firms evaluated a hypothetical subordinate’s performance in an experimental setting. Results indicated that subordinate gender and AWA participation were significantly related to supervisors’ perceptions of the subordinate’s career success. We also found that individual differences in supervisors’ attitudes and beliefs regarding AWAs were systematically related to their performance evaluation judgments, and indicate that cultural support for AWAs is not uniform among experienced Big Four professionals. Further, the association between these attitudes and beliefs and performance evaluation judgments are consistent with an organizational justice interpretation of AWA use. Implications of these results for the Big Four’s work-life balance initiatives in the US are discussed.     

How formal performance evaluation affects trust between superior and subordinate managers

An important question in the control literature concerns the role of interpersonal trust in the design and functioning of formal control systems for collaborative settings. In this paper, we argue that subordinate’s trust in the superior depends on the formality of the performance evaluation procedure and that this relationship is mediated by managerial perceptions of justice and feedback. The findings confirm our predictions. Furthermore, we find that formality matters more for trust formation for those managers that are in functions with less contractible outputs.     

Dealer financial conditions and lender-of-last-resort facilities

We examine the financial conditions of dealers that participated in two of the Federal Reserve's lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities—the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF)—that provided liquidity against a range of assets during 2008–2009. Dealers with lower equity returns and greater leverage prior to borrowing from the facilities were more likely to participate in the programs, borrow more, and, in the case of the TSLF, at higher bidding rates. Dealers with less liquid collateral on their balance sheets before the facilities were introduced also tended to borrow more. The results suggest that both financial performance and balance sheet liquidity play a role in LOLR utilization.     

The effect of performance feedback on prior budgetary participative research using survey methodology: An empirical study

Prior research examining the relation between budgetary participation and job performance explicitly or implicitly posits budgetary participation and intervening variables such as role ambiguity, motivation, job satisfaction, and job-relevant information as independent variables; job performance as the dependent variable. However, these studies are often based on correlated data in which the direction of causation is unknown. This paper uses attribution theory to examine whether job performance affects perceptions of budgetary participation and/or intervening variables (e.g. role ambiguity). Using a laboratory experiment and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), the findings of this study show that knowledge of performance, obtained through performance evaluations and/or external cues, affects individuals’ perceptions regarding budgetary participation, job satisfaction, role ambiguity, motivation, and job-relevant information. The results of the study may undermine correlations between self-reported data on individual characteristics (e.g. motivation) and performance data, as well as correlations between self-reported data on organizational variables (e.g. budgetary participation) and performance data. The study provides suggestions how researchers could overcome problems associated with causal directions in future budget participation studies that link self-reported individual and organizational characteristics to job performance.     

Voluntary Causal Disclosures: Tendencies and Capital Market Reaction

In this study, we provide empirical evidence on whether voluntarily disclosed causal attributions made in management earnings forecasts are credible by investigating the conditions under which such attributions are made and the extent to which security price responses are associated with attribution existence. We find that causal attributions are more likely to be made when forecast news is bad (relative to good), and that the type of attribution made is more likely to be external (internal) for bad (good) forecast news. Incorporating the existence and type of attribution into models that explain announcement period three-day cumulative abnormal returns yields significant effects for attribution incidence and type after controlling for unexpected earnings and forecast type (e.g., point, range, etc.). Consistent with the idea that attributions enhance the credibility or precision of management forecasts, attribution disclosure enhances price reactions per dollar of unexpected earnings conveyed in a management forecast.     

业绩归因的自利性披露及市场反应研究——汇率单边升值情境下的纺织业表现

本文以人民币持续单边升值为研究背景,考察不利环境中纺织业企业的业绩归因信息披露质量。我们试图研究递进的两个问题。一是,上市公司在非财务信息披露过程中,是否存在对业绩归因的自利性操纵行为?二是,自利性业绩归因信息披露之后,投资者决策是否被误导,股价是否能够向着公司所期望的方向改变?     

Convertible calls and security returns

The study examines the impact of convertible security calls on securityholder's wealth. On average common stock values fall by approximately two percent at the announcements of convertible debt calls, but common stockholder's wealth is unaffected by convertible preferred stock calls. These findings are consistent with a corporate tax effect. A small average decrease in firm value is also found at the announcements of convertible debt calls. The study raises, but leaves unanswered, the interesting question of what motivates managers to make capital structure decisions that reduce stockholder wealth and firm value.     

An attribution theory analysis of tax evasion related judgments

Traditional economic theory often has been utilized to explain tax evasion behavior. However, while economic consequences are important factors in the understanding of tax evasion behavior, they alone do not appear adequate to describe and predict the phenomenon [Lewis, The Psychology of Taxation (New York: St Martin's Press, 1982)]. This paper reports the results of two studies of tax evasion related judgments which builds upon tenants of attribution theory. Specifically, we examined the association between subjects' causal attributions for other's evasion behavior and their own behavioral intentions to evade. A significant association was found. The implications for tax evasion are discussed.     

The economic determinants of the market reaction to proposed mandatory accounting changes in the oil and gas industry: A cross-sectional analysis

This paper examines the economic reasons for the observed negative abnormal common stock performance of firms whose reported earnings and stockholders' equity were negatively affected by the proposed elimination of full cost accounting in the oil and gas industry. Four explanations of the market effects of this mandatory accounting change are examined: (1) naive investor theory, (2) modified naive investor theory, (3) contracting cost theory, and (4) estimation risk theory. These hypotheses are developed in detail and used to generate variables for a cross-sectional model which explains observed return behavior. The effect of the accounting change on total stockholder's equity, the existence of financial contracts denominated in terms of accounting numbers and, to a lesser extent, firm size are shown to be important explanatory variables. The importance of these variables is consistent with both the contracting cost and estimation risk theories.     

The econometrics of Phillips-curve estimation: A note on the Laidler-Rasche debate

In the light of Rasche's methodological criticism of Laidler's Phillips-curve estimation for six countries we re-estimated these employing an alternative method of estimation. The empirical results prove that Rasche's reservations are justified. The estimations for three of the six countries differ considerably from those reported by Laidler.     

Analysis of business failures in France

In the present economic situation, business failures are a matter of major concern to government and business alike. The current period of slow growth in France, and the rigidity of its productive system make it more important than ever to act to insure the survival of its industrial fabric. This necessity has found recognition in the fact that the French Parliament is now discussing a Government bill designed to head off business failures by means of a series of early-warning signals. Under this bill, the company auditors' obligation is widened to include the duty to report to the company any factor liable to compromise the continued operation of that firm. The context within which the Banque de France's ‘Centrale de Bilans’¹ is currently pursuing its work favors the development of a discriminant function capable of detecting symptoms of business failure at the earliest possible opportunity. This work has been facilitated, and usefully guided, by Altman's pioneering research in this field since 1968, as well as by the work of Blum, Deakin, Edmister and Taffler, to rite just a few names from the Anglo-Saxon world. In France, the most recent research has been initiated by the CESA [Altman et al. (1974)] and pursued by Collongues, Sulzer, Conan and Holder, as well as by certain banks. But in this last case applications have remained strictly limited.     

Scenario development for corporate planning

The term “scenario” is familiar to those involved in forecasting, but too few people are aware of what exactly a scenario is, or how it can best be developed and applied. The author describes a method developed over several years in response to a need which most forecasting efforts have left unfulfilled. The method enables quantitative and qualitative forecasts to be combined in a manner which can be directly related to an organisation's planning and decision-making processes, and which permits the evaluation of a company's objectives and performance in the light of those forecasts. The analysis of an organisation's likely performance in given scenarios can, in turn, provide a basis for contingency planning.     

On the inherent stability of rationally adaptive expectations

This paper analyzes Cagan's model of hyperinflation under the assumption that the stochastic process generating the behavior of the money supply is such as to make adaptive expectations ‘rational,’ in the sense of Muth. The paper shows that when the coefficient of adjustment of expectations has the value implied by the assumption of adjustment of ‘rationality,’ the stability condition of Cagan's model is necessarily satisfied.     

The impact of foreign board membership on firm value

This study examines the effect of foreign (Anglo-American) board membership on corporate performance measured in terms of firm value (Tobin’s Q). Using a sample of firms with headquarters in Norway or Sweden the study indicates a significantly higher value for firms that have outsider Anglo-American board member(s), after a variety of firm-specific and corporate governance related factors have been controlled for. We argue that this superior performance reflects the fact that these companies have successfully broken away from a partly segmented domestic capital market by “importing” an Anglo-American corporate governance system. Such an “import” signals a willingness on the part of the firm to expose itself to improved corporate governance and enhances its reputation in the financial market.     

The CBO's policy analysis: An unquestionable misuse of a questionable theory

The analyses of fiscal and monetary policies that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provides Congress tend to be biased, encouraging the use of activist stabilization policies. The CBO's virtual neglect of economic uncertainties and its emphasis on very short time horizons make active policies appear much more attractive than its own model implies. Moreover, the CBO 's adoption of the macroeconometric approach fundamentally biases its analyses. Macroeconometric models do not remain invariant to changes in policy rules and are mute on the implications of alternative policies for efficiency and income distribution. The rational expectations equilibrium approach overcomes these difficulties and implies that less activist and less inflationary policies are desirable.     

A case study of Federal Reserve policymaking: Regulation Q in 1966

This paper evaluates the Federal Reserve's efficiency by seeing if in 1966, when it decided to make the Regulation Q ceiling much more binding, it took account of the factors that economic theory suggests are relevant, such as the stimulus provided to non-price competition. The sources used are confidential Minutes of the Board of Governors and internal memos. They show that the Fed's analysis was seriously deficient. Some probable reasons are suggested.     

Long-term metals forecasting: The track record: 1910–1964

In 90 forecasts published in journals, about 70% of the individual predictions proved correct; partly because they were fairly vague. However, two major reports dealing with long-term metals forecasting were much less accurate. Unexpectedly high rates of economic growth and technological change (since 1952) contributed to the Paley Commission's inaccuracy; whereas the failure of expected developments to occur (after 1964) upset the predictions of Resources in America's Future.     

Accounting in organized anarchies: Understanding and designing accounting systems in ambiguous situations

This paper explores the relationship between organizations in ambiguous situations, the technology of choice and the uses of internal accounting systems (systems of cost accumulation, performance evaluation and budgetary control). Accounting systems are examined in terms of the two elements of March's technology of foolishness (Civilokonomen, May 1971, pp. 7–12). Relaxation of traditional prohibitions in choice behaviour against imitation, coercion and rationalization suggest that accounting systems might be understood both in terms of their impact on sustaining and influencing an organization's culture and language and in terms of their ideological and legitimizing influence in maintaining systems of power and control in organizations. Allowing playfulness in the choice process suggests that accounting systems might be designed to facilitate creativity and innovation in organizations, insofar as these characteristics are appropriate in contributing to organizational effectiveness.