Development of crash frequency models for safety promotion of urban collector streets

The merits for development and application of crash frequency prediction models for safety promotion on any road type, with a focus on urban collector streets, are presented in this article. The city of Yazd, a medium-sized city in the middle of Iran, was selected as a case study and the data required for modelling crash frequencies along five collector streets comprising 31 street sections were collected. Six models including Poisson and negative binomial models and their deviations along with a hybrid artificial neural networks (ANN) model were developed to predict crash frequency along each street section. The overfitting problem was addressed using appropriate sensitivity analysis methods which were also used to identify the input variables with significant impact on the model performance. The results indicated that the developed hybrid ANN model provided the best performance in terms of accuracy and the number of input variables. The application of hybrid ANN model to evaluate the safety impacts of four different strategies, each resembled by one of the input variables of this model, indicated that these models can successfully be used for this purpose.     

Consumer Bankruptcy Stigma: Understanding Relationships with Familiarity and Perceived Control

Bankruptcy stigma is commonly thought to influence debtors' bankruptcy filing decisions. Despite its importance, researchers have not collected direct quantitative measures of bankruptcy stigma, either in terms of attitudes toward bankruptcy or evaluations of filers. Across two empirical studies, we find that (1) attitudes toward bankruptcy and bankruptcy filers are less negative among those with firsthand bankruptcy experience; (2) bankruptcy stigma is a multidimensional construct that includes morality‐, warmth‐, and competence‐related elements; and (3) consistent with psychological models of blame, filers who are perceived to have more control over the circumstances leading to their bankruptcy are more highly stigmatized. By directly investigating bankruptcy stigma, this research can be used to inform models of consumer decisions about bankruptcy filings and bankruptcy policy.     

Religion and ratio analysis: Towards an Islamic corporate liquidity measure

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on the effect of religion on corporate decision making and financial reporting. Financial statement analytical tools could violate several commands of Islamic law. Specifically, traditional liquidity ratios imply undervaluation, uncertainty, and interest bearing aspects that are strictly prohibited in Islamic law. We propose an Islamic-compliant measure of corporate liquidity. In order to validate our proposed ratio as a measure of corporate liquidity, we incorporate it in the traditional corporate bankruptcy prediction models. Our measure significantly improves the accuracy of the corporate bankruptcy prediction models of Altman (1968) Z-score and Ohlson (1980).     

Error management culture and turnover intent among food and beverage employees in deluxe hotels: the mediating effect of job satisfaction

This study aimed to investigate interrelationships among organizational error management culture (EMC), job satisfaction, and turnover intent among food and beverage in a deluxe hotel. This study also investigated the mediating effects of employees’ job satisfaction on the relationships between organizational EMC and turnover intent. A total of 321 food and beverage employees in South Korea participated in the study using a self-administered questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to examine the hypothesized relationships between the constructs. The results showed a positive relationship between organizational EMC and employee job satisfaction. An employees’ job satisfaction reduces his or her turnover intent. Another important finding of this study was that job satisfaction appears to play a mediating role between organizational EMC and turnover intent. These findings have important implications for controlling and facilitating EMC in the hotel industry. This study implies that active EMC can be an important variable that can effectively manage turnover intent. It is important to build a system that can facilitate communication in the case of error occurrence and prevent the recurrence of the same error by sharing experience of and knowledge about errors. Moreover, a system that can instantly respond to and analyze an error situation should be developed and implemented. It is important to systematically manage errors as part of a firm’s culture through the appropriate use of EMC. Thus, it might be useful to identify and prioritize EMC specifically in the hotel industry, which could lead to higher job satisfaction, lower turnover intent, and higher profitability.     

Intimacy,rites of passage and social support: symbolic meaning from lifetime shopping experiences

In this study expectations and prediction errors are introduced in the context of retail price setting. A new model and a new data set are used to examine whether prediction errors influence retail price setting, whether prediction errors cause only limited price changes to maintain price stability and whether there are differences in influences according to whether prediction errors are positive or negative. The model is an extended version of a full costs pricing model and the averaged data are for a large number of shop types in German retailing for a long series of successive years.     

Three perspectives of Chapter 11 bankruptcy: Legal,managerial and moral

With cach successive generation of management, managers have been faced with different goals dictated by that current society's needs and mores. For example, in the early 1900's, industrial growth was essential to society's needs; at the same time, such growth would not be hampered by social costs that were perceived as unimportant. Those social costs viewed as unimportant have not been properly factored into the cost of goods produced. Therefore, the products sold were underpriced, failing to reflect their true social costs. Additionally, this miscalculation or misappropriation of such costs caused a misallocation of resources, such as the manufacturing of asbestos without regard to future health costs. Finally, the payment for the miscalculation of these social costs is due: present day management is now forced to provide a viable solution for payment of debts incurred by previous management. The most notable examples of such misappropriation are provided in the Manville, A. H. Robins and Continental cases. Unfortunately, the choice is often limited to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.This article views the solution of Chapter 11 bankruptcy from three perspectives: legal, managerial, and moral. The legal review consists of the law and the current jurisprudence. Particularly emphasized are cases dealing with the discharge of executory contracts, tort claims and debts both secured and unsecured. Additionally, an examination of implementing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan from the viewpoint of current management is made. Closely associated with both the legal and managerial aspects of this issue is the moral facet of using bankruptcy as a management tool. The broad question is: how prevalent and how reasonable is it for management to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy to manipulate the corporation's creditors, employees, and stockholders to achieve management's desired end.Professor Hogg currently teaches Managerial Perspectives and Business Law at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. In addition, he is an adjunct faculty member at the Joseph A. Butt, S. J. College of Business Administration, Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana, where he teaches courses on Business Ethics and the Legal and Regulatory Environment of Business. Also, he has received several awards for excellence in teaching. His primary research is in the field of Business Ethics.Dinah Payne is licensed to practice law in the state of Louisiana. She has given a number of presentations, including a recent Continuing Legal Education Program on the use of bankruptcy as a management tool. Dr. Payne has also published articles in a number of journals, includingJournal of Business Ethics, Labor Law Journal, Managerial Accounting, andAccounting Today. She has been teaching at UNO since 1988.     

Social Efficiency of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 With Regard to Personal Bankruptcy

A socially efficient bankruptcy law is one that would have the effect of minimizing the present value of social costs stemming from bankruptcy while permitting debtors to make a “fresh start.” Analysis of a sample of petitions for personal nonbusiness bankruptcy filed under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 shows that about 30 percent of petitions for Chapter 7 and about 25 percent of petitions for Chapter 13 were cases where social costs were not minimized as would be required under socially efficient bankruptcy legislation. The social costs of Chapter 7 may be reduced under proposed reform [S. 445 and H. R. 1800] as the judge would be provided with information concerning estimates of debts repayable under both chapters and would disallow those Chapter 7 cases which represented a substantial abuse of bankruptcy law. The study data suggest that guidelines for acceptance of Chapter 13 cases should also be scrutinized. In particular, petitioners should be discouraged from providing “token” debt repayment plans while maintaining ownership of large accumulations of assets.     

Exploring the boundaries of the framing effect: The moderating roles of disparate expected values and perceived costs of judgmental errors

Framing effects on retail store choice decisions were investigated in four experiments. Subjects preferred the store that guaranteed (a sure option) good prices (experiment 1), product availability (experiment 2), or a rebate (experiment 3) when consequences were framed in terms of gains; subjects preferred the risky option when consequences were framed in terms of losses. Consistent with fuzzy-trace theory, framing effects were reduced when the expected values of options were disparate in a direction that disfavored sure gain or probabilistic loss options (experiment 2) and when the perceived costs of committing a judgmental error were high (experiment 3). Experiment 4 shows that the moderating effects of disparate expected values and costs of judgment errors generalize to within-subject designs.     

Firm exit after distress: differentiating between bankruptcy, voluntary liquidation and M&A

This paper examines firm-level determinants of mature firm exits after economic distress. Using nested logit models and a sample of 6,118 distress-related exits in Belgium, we analyze the type of exit that distressed firms experience. We show that 41% of the firms in our sample exit through a court driven exit procedure (mainly bankruptcy), 44% are voluntarily liquidated and 14% are acquired, merged or split (hereafter M&A). Distressed firm exit follows two distinct stages. First, a firm either decides to exit voluntarily or is forced into bankruptcy, which is the least efficient exit strategy. Compared to bankruptcy, the probability of a voluntary exit increases with higher levels of cash, lower leverage, holding no secured debt and being embedded in a group. If a firm exits voluntarily, it enters a second stage and decides either to exit through voluntary liquidation or through a M&A. Conditional on not going bankrupt, the likelihood of voluntary liquidation compared to M&A increases with higher levels of cash or secured debt, with smaller size and with an absence of group relations. We contribute to the firm exit literature by jointly analyzing three exit types and showing that bankruptcy and voluntary liquidation are fundamentally different exit routes. While voluntary liquidation is an important exit route for distressed firms, most previous studies have failed to distinguish between bankruptcy and liquidation. We hence contribute to the exit literature by showing that bankruptcy, voluntary liquidation and M&A are fundamentally distinct exit routes for distressed firms, driven by different firm level characteristics and following a two-stage process.     

Nonbusiness Bankruptcies and the Law: Some Empirical Results

A model of risk reduction is used to analyze personal bankruptcy rates. The model shows how state and federal laws can affect the quantity of resources that lenders devote to reducing the risk of making bad loans. Unanticipated events cause changes in bankruptcy rates because they alter the costs and benefits of bankruptcy to both creditors and debtors. Results of other studies are shown to be consistent with this model. Data for 1980 are then used to test the model. Asset exemption laws have a significant impact on bankruptcy rates that is consistent with the model. Unanticipated economic events are also found to have significant effects on bankruptcy rates.     

Consumer learning, switching costs, and heterogeneity: A structural examination

This paper develops and estimates a model of forward-looking consumer learning with switching costs using household level scanner data from a frequently purchased product category. This is novel because current models of consumer purchase behavior assume that only one of these types of dynamics is present, not both at the same time. My model estimates support the presence of both learning and switching costs in this product category. The estimates show that before consuming new products, consumers are unsure of their tastes for them, and subsequently learn their tastes by purchase and consumption of new products. Switching costs are large, comprising roughly 30 percent of the cost of a medium sized package of the product. Additionally, the model incorporates very rich individual level unobserved heterogeneity in price sensitivities, tastes, and switching costs, and the amount by which consumers learn. To show that my model produces different implications than a model with learning or switching costs only, I estimate two more specifications, one without each type of dynamics, and simulate counterfactuals that are of interest to managers and policymakers. I find that intertemporal elasticities are underestimated when either type of dynamics is left out, by as much as 90%. Informative advertising is also affected by the presence of switching costs, although the direction of the bias is not signed. Leaving out dynamics also has a large impact on long-term elasticities, which are used by antitrust policymakers to evaluate the impact of mergers. When learning is ignored, cross elasticities are underestimated by as much as 45%. When switching costs are ignored, both own and cross elasticities are underestimated.     

Equipment leasing in the U.S. lodging industry what,why, and how much

Equipment leasing in the United States expanded dramatically in 1999, generating some $226 billion in revenue. Despite leasing's popularity, however, there is little research available on leasing in the hospitality industry. The first objective of the current study, conducted in 2000, was simply to collect statistical data on the magnitude of leasing in the hotel industry and, second, to find out the reasons that led hotel operators to decide to lease (or not). The third objective was to find out what circumstances lead to the capitalization of leases in the hotel industry (versus simply expensing those costs). The results indicated that protection against obsolescence, ensuring uniform cash outflows, and using the tax advantages of leasing were the most-cited reasons for hotels' leasing equipment. The most common item leased was photocopiers, by 43 of the 77 respondents. The lengths of those leases varied from less than a year to ten years, and the majority of hotel operators also purchased maintenance contracts. Other popular leased items included vehicles, telecommunications equipment, and computers. The transfer of ownership and taking advantage of a bargain-purchase option were the two most-cited reasons for capitalizing leases. A majority of the respondents also indicated that they expect leasing to either stay at the same level or marginally increase from the current levels.     

THE IMPACT OF POINT‐OF‐SALE DATA INACCURACY AND INVENTORY RECORD DATA ERRORS

The presence or absence of error in point‐of‐sale (POS) data and inventory system records directly affects retailer performance. This study identifies various error sources in retail supply chains and studies the influence of inventory and POS (demand) errors in a simulated retail outlet according to fill rate and average inventory. Other things being equal, we find that inventory record error reduces fill rate more than demand error. This study adds further evidence to other studies that suggest the costs caused by errors in POS systems may be overstated.     

International capital mobility and comparative advantage: The two-country,two-factor case

This paper develop a coherent view of the nature and determinants of comparative advantage in the presence of international capital mobility. The principal conclusions reached for this case are (i) that comparative advantage is essentially Ricardian in nature and may be analyzed either in terms of relative product costs or in terms of relative labour costs, and (ii) that a number of specific propositions may be advanced to explain comparative advantage and that prominent among these are several results involving the relative productivity and efficiency of labour. The related work of Chipman, Jones, Uekawa and faussing is extended, integrated and clarified.     

Religion,social capital and business bankruptcy in the United States, 1921–1932

We consider the value of social capital that derives from membership in a church. American states with larger churchgoing populations had lower business bankruptcy rates from 1921 to 1932, and states in which the churchgoing population was concentrated in few churches had business bankruptcy rates that were lower still. Both voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy were lower in states with higher church membership. The evidence suggests that church membership acted on bankruptcy through a safety net mechanism and not solely through indicating a preference for honouring commitment.     

Using an ensemble classifier based on sequential floating forward selection for financial distress prediction problem

Financial distress prediction (FDP) is a significant issue investigated by researchers, credit institutions and banks. Although extensive research has been conducted in this area, applications of combined feature selection (FS) methods and classification models are subjects that have been addressed intensely in recent years. One of the most important issues in the FDP problem is to employ an effective FS algorithm, leading to an acceptable level of performance accuracy in the implementation stage. Hence, this study primarily attempted to introduce a precise FS model and compared the obtained results with those of other conventional models tackling FDP in terms of accuracy. The proposed method involved the sequential floating forward selection (SFFS) algorithm applied as a wrapper FS technique to determine the best subset of features. At the classification stage, the support vector machine (SVM), owing to its good performance, demonstrated in numerous studies, in solving classification problems, was deployed. The performance of the proposed method was compared with those of other current well-known FS methods including artificial bee colony (ABC), genetic algorithm (GA) and sequential forward selection (SFS) (all of which are categorized under wrapper methods), and principal component analysis (PCA), relief and information gain (IG) (best known as filter techniques) for our given datasets. The results indicated that a combined model of SVM based on the SFFS approach can yield greater accuracy than the other methods applied for our defined domestic and foreign datasets. Therefore, the SFFS-SVM ensemble classifier can be considered a promising addition to existent models when confronting the FDP issue.     

采用混合核支持向量机的DOA估计

人工神经网络（ANN）进行建模时通常需要准备大量的数据样本,同时网络结构一般都比较复杂;而采用支持向量机（SVM)进行建模时,不同核函数有不同的效果,各有利弊,且选取SVM模型参数的理论支撑尚不完整。为了解决这些问题,提出了一种基于混合核函数的支持向量机来改善来波到达角（DOA）的估计性能,并结合二进制粒子群算法（PSO）来对混合核函数进行参数寻优。该混合核函数由全局核函数和局部核函数构成,提高了SVM的泛化能力和学习能力。首先通过拟合多项式函数,验证了该混合核SVM的有效性。将该方法用于DOA估计建模,在不同信噪比和快拍数下,通过与径向基函数（RBF）神经网络、基于各单一核函数的SVM和MUSIC算法预测结果对比,混合核SVM均方差有所降低,提高了DOA估计的精度且有更好的稳定性。     

Firm diversification and equilibrium risk pooling: The Korean financial crisis as a natural experiment

We use the Korean Financial Crisis as a natural laboratory for examining interactions among firm diversification, equilibrium capital structure and tail probability events. When the crisis hit in 1997, several major firms, including a large number of highly leveraged conglomerates (Chaebols), experienced bankruptcies. We show how diversified Chaebols obtain higher equilibrium leverage than non-Chaebols (a “cosigner effect”). In the event of a low probability macro-economic shock, the model predicts a systematic change in relative bankruptcy risks of Chaebol firms. To examine this implication, we introduce an empirical methodology that decomposes equilibrium debt into demand, supply and Chaebol-specific factors, for use in a bankruptcy prediction model. We find that the primary cause of Chaebol firm bankruptcies was not idiosyncratic leverage, but leverage systematically related to greater equilibrium access to debt during normal times.     

Can error management culture increase work engagement in hotels? The moderating role of gender

This study examines (1) the influence of error management culture on employees’ work engagement; (2) how gender affects the proposed relationship; and (3) the mediating effect of work engagement between error management culture and organizational citizenship behaviors. Data were collected from frontline hotel employees in China (Study 1) and hotel managers in the United States (Study 2). The results support the overall moderated mediation model. Results indicated that organizational error management culture has a stronger effect on work engagement for the male group and that increased work engagement resulted in increased organizational citizenship behaviors.     

Influences on the behaviour of black and minority ethnic (BME) communities towards debt and bankruptcy

This article sets out to examine the attitudes towards debt, bankruptcy and the bankruptcy process of black and minority ethnic (BME) entrepreneurs and individuals who are experiencing bankruptcy; and to assess the extent to which their attitudes towards debt and bankruptcy have been influenced by various external factors, including their cultural and religious practices. The paper uses a qualitative methodology that involves in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews and direct observation, where possible. The findings suggest that in many ethnic minority communities, there are strong cultural and religious imperatives to settle debts, and this can lead to a strong desire to resist at all costs the bankruptcy process. The main finding of this study is that there is a high level of ignorance and a lack of understanding of the actions that can be taken when they find themselves in financial difficulties. The main implication of this study is that education, which fosters financial literacy and pre‐bankruptcy counselling, can empower consumers and enhance responsible financial decision making. There is very little research work in this area, and the paper is based on qualitative research that captures for the first time why the attitudes and behaviour of BME groups towards debt and bankruptcy differ from those of the white population.