The role of electronic word of mouth,conventional media,and subjective norms on the intention to purchase <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sharia</Emphasis> insurance services

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and conventional media on subjective norms and intention to purchase Sharia insurance in Indonesian Muslim society. The research data consisted of 458 Muslim clients who were members of an online community and also policy holders of Sharia insurance in the three largest cities in Indonesia: Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya. This study used purposive sampling and structural equation modeling. The research showed that eWOM and conventional media can affect subjective norms. Additionally, subjective norms have a significant effect on the intention to purchase among Sharia insurance customers. This study validated the importance of the variables of eWOM and conventional media in influencing subjective norms and intention to purchase. For Sharia insurance company management, this study can serve as a very useful reference in drafting and formulating campaign strategies. This study also justifies the integrated relationship between eWOM and conventional media with subjective norms and intention to purchase Sharia insurance.     

Effects of perceived cost,service quality,and customer satisfaction on health insurance service continuance

This paper aims to contribute to the universal discourse on financial services continuance behavior by examining the impact of service cost on customers’ service-quality perception and service continuance intention. It presents the results of an empirical study that has explored the impacts of service cost, service quality, and customer satisfaction on health insurance customers’ behavioral intention toward continuing or discontinuing with their service providers. Very few studies had examined the impact of service cost on service-quality perception. Our study attempts to fill that gap. A sample of 820 customers was surveyed, and 624 usable responses were analyzed with ANOVA, standard multiple regression, and logistic regression. Our findings indicate that, although highly satisfied health insurance customers will most likely retain their current service providers, customer dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to discontinuance. Our results also provide some operational implications for health insurance managers, with strategies for reducing attrition and improving customer retention.     

Not everybody wants to save the world

A consumer lens is used to examine investing behavior in this study. The study focuses on the importance given by investors to their economic and social investing goals (SIG). This approach redirects managerial attention from the investment to the investor and investing goals. The study finds that differences in environmental attitude, social investing efficacy, materialism, religiosity and protected values can explain disparities in investing goals. The findings suggest a segmentation approach based on differences in antecedent effects and economic and SIG.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Shariah</Emphasis>-compliant equities: Empirical evaluation of performance in the European market during credit crunch

Islamic finance is based on the Islamic Jurisprudence as prescribed by the Shariah, and has witnessed significant growth and development in the recent decades. During the period of economic slowdown and following the financial crisis during FY 2007–2009, it was claimed that Islamic financial system seemed to be better in coping with economic slowdowns than conventional financial systems. The article analyses whether the same holds true for Shariah-compliant equities in the market, that is, whether Shariah-compliant equities perform better in the market as compared to the general market. Three portfolios are constructed based on the constituents of S&P Europe 350 to represent the overall market, the market without the financial firms and the market of Shariah-compliant equities. It is found that the portfolio of Shariah-compliant equities outperforms the other two portfolios in all aspects of analysis. However, it slightly underperforms the market portfolio when there is an upward growth trend in the economy. The findings of this article are very relevant for policymakers, investors and fund managers to determine policy matters, deciding on investment and marketing strategy for Islamic capital market products.     

Öffentliche Güter mit Versicherungscharakter

Dikes as well as early warning systems against natural disasters are just two examples for pure public goods that serve as an insurance device. Dikes reduce the probability of a loss caused by flooding. Such public goods can be seen as public self-protection. By contrast, early warning systems do not reduce the probability of a loss, but the size of a loss. Hence, such public goods can be seen as public self-insurance. The present paper presents a model which takes these characteristics into account. Conditions for the efficient provision of such public goods are derived. Moreover, we analyze the consequences of a change in income and risk aversion towards the efficient provision level as well as the interaction with private market insurance.     

Testing the risk as feeling and risk as analysis perspective for insurance: the antecedents of purchasing unit-linked life insurance products

Risk and uncertainty are critical to human decision-making. Yet our understanding of the underlying traits that present the foundation of decision-making remains limited. The work develops a causal model of the antecedents of consumers’ purchase behavior in the context of unit-linked life insurance products. Our experimental approach (n?=?929) builds on the risk as analysis and risk as feeling perspective, which entails huge theoretical and practical contributions. Risk avoidance and uncertainty avoidance are identified to strongly influence the product perceptions. We complement our findings by investigating the conditions that favor the influence of both traits by investigating moderating effects.     

Erklärung der privaten Krankenversicherungsnachfrage anhand ökonomischer und psychologischer Einflussfaktoren

To be able to plan measures insales planning successfully, informations are necessary about the expected trend of demand in the future. In this respecttheoretical funded andempirical relevant correlations between exogenous influencing factors and the process of demand must be systematically explored. Consequently for the private health insurance aglobal model was developed, which is the basis for presenting exemplarily an approach of explanation for the health cost insurance. Via this approach theshort-term fluctuations in the trend of demand, which were noticed in the past, can be traced satisfactorily. In this context besideseconomical alsopsychological influences like attitudes and expectations must be explicitly integrated in the approach of explanation. Naturally also the effects ofsociopolitical events, which are relevant to demand, were included in the analysis, especially as the process of demand for private health insurance is substantially marked by sociopolitical legislation.     

An analysis of working capital efficiency and shareholder return

Since 1997, CFO Magazine has published a ranking of 1000 companies in its “Working Capital Scorecard.” Our research explores the question as to whether working capital management practices based on the accounting metrics used by CFO Magazine serve as a basis for investor-based strategies for superior return generation. We examine the stock performance of top ranked companies from 1997 to 2012 against benchmark portfolios. Controlling for market, market capitalization, book to market, momentum factors, liquidity factors, and corporate governance; the higher ranked firms produce statistically higher excess returns than bottom ranked firms. In bull market periods, firms with superior working capital management outperformed their counterparts on a raw and risk-adjusted basis. These top ranked firms also provide statistically significant active returns regardless of market cycle. In sum, our results indicate that shareholders reward firms with superior working capital management strategies with higher raw and risk-adjusted performance over longer holding periods across the economic cycle especially in bear markets cycles.     

基于Logit模型对新型农业经营主体农业保险购买偏好的特征研究

新型农业经营主体对农业保险的购买偏好与传统小农户存在明显的区别.运用二分类Logit回归模型,以对8个省份的问卷调查为基础,实证分析新型农业经营主体农业保险的购买偏好特征.结果表明:对市场价格反映较为敏感;更愿意提高保额的同时提高保费,对保费支出意愿较强;更迫切需要高保障型产品,提高损失补偿度;对政府提高保费补贴意愿强;对收入保险需求更迫切;补偿或救助发挥着正向作用.     

Variables influencing the customer relationship management of banks

Banks are important role players to the economy of any country. However, to survive in a competitive business environment banks need to focus on building and maintaining client relationships and to identify how their employees influence these relationships. This study investigates the influence of variables, with regard to bank employees, on the customer relationship management (CRM) of banks. A literature study explains CRM, the banking industry and employees' involvement with banking clients. To assess the impact of the predetermined variables from literature on the CRM of banks, a number of hypotheses were constructed and tested empirically among a sample of banking clients. The findings reveal that the variables knowledgeability and attitude of bank employees have a statistically significant impact on the effectiveness of the CRM strategies of banks. Based on the findings of the empirical investigation, strategies are provided for banks to improve their employees' knowledgeability and attitude in order to ensure more effective CRM strategies.     

Does prevention as an investment strategy explain the intention to purchase guarantees for unit-linked life insurance?

The present paper examines the relationship between prevention as an investment strategy and the perceptions about unit-linked insurance on the intention to purchase interest rate guarantees for such products. We propose a framework in which the relationship between adopting prevention as an investment strategy, and the intention to purchase interest rate guarantees is moderated by the level of financial literacy of the individual and this interaction is mediated by the perceptions regarding unit-linked insurance. We find support for our conceptual model by testing it on a sample of 1017 financial decision makers in Germany using a moderated mediation analysis. The paper therefore offers insights into the decision-making process of financial consumers in Germany and presents practical implications for designing products for age-old provision.     

The impact of SEC investigations and accounting and auditing enforcement releases on firms’ cost of equity capital

I study the impact of an SEC investigation (as captured by accounting and auditing enforcement releases) on a firm’s cost of equity capital. AAERs are often used in accounting literature as a proxy for fraudulent financial reporting. Fraudulent financial reporting should lead to an increase in cost of equity capital as a firm’s future cash flows become less certain. Overall, this study provides evidence of changes in cost of equity capital for firms targeted by an SEC AAER on the date the investigation is first made public.     

Do equity-based <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sukuk</Emphasis> structures in Islamic capital markets manifest the objectives of Shariah??

The Islamic capital market is an important component of the overall Islamic financial system especially in providing an element of liquidity to the otherwise illiquid assets. Like its conventional counterpart, Islamic capital markets complement the investment role of the Islamic banking sector in raising funds for long-term investment. These long-term investments are facilitated through various Shariah contracts and instruments ensuring efficient mobilisation of resources and their optimal allocation. This article aims at reviewing equity-based Sukuk structure, which is one of the most popular instruments used in Islamic capital market today. This article argues that some innovations made in structuring Sukuk, which try to achieve the same economic outcome like conventional instruments, distort the vision of Islamic economics based on justice and equitability. These visions are deeply inscribed in the objectives of Shariah, also known as Maqasid al-Shariah. This distortion stems from the restricted view of understanding Shariah, by only focussing on the legal forms of a contract rather than the substance especially when structuring a financial product. The overemphasis on form over substance leads to potential abuse of Shariah principles in justifying certain contracts, which in fact are contradictory to the Shariah text and ultimately undermining the higher objectives of Shariah. In the final analysis, this article concludes that the substance of a contract that has greater implications to the realisation of Maqasid al-Shariah should be equally looked into. Otherwise, Islamic finance just appears as an exercise of semantics; the functions and operations are really no different from conventional banks, except in the use of euphemisms to disguise interest and circumvent the many Shariah prohibitions.     

Strong Increases in Downside Risk Aversion

A ranking of risk preferences is of economic interest insofar as it leads to unambiguous comparative statics predictions, and for this to be the case, the ranking must be a strict partial ordering. The ranking by greater risk aversion meets this demand at the second order, and yields a variety of well-known predictions concerning the effect of greater risk aversion on demands for insurance and risky assets, among many other applications. There has been less success at the third order, where ranking preferences by aversion to downside risk has not produced a strict partial ordering. The problem is that account has not been taken of the fact that an increase in downside risk aversion must induce changes in risk aversion as well. We propose a definition of stronger downside risk aversion that does yield a strict partial ordering by requiring a nested increase in both second- and third-order risk aversion, so that v is more strongly downside risk averse than u if v is more risk averse and more downside risk averse than u. We demonstrate that v being more strongly downside risk averse than u is characterized by v never liking any change in the probability distribution for y that induces a third-order stochastic dominance deterioration in the distribution for u(y). We apply the definition to obtain intuitive comparative statics predictions in the precautionary saving problem, and relate the definition to alternatives proposed in the literature.     

Effect of inherent innovativeness and consumer readiness on attitudes to mobile banking

Despite the strong evidence that many consumers relish their experience with mobile banking, others indicate that some segments may not be comfortable with these emerging digitized platforms due to certain inherent personal traits. Drawing insights from the socio-psychology and innovation/SSTs adoption literature, this paper tested a structural model with inherent innovativeness as an antecedent variable, and consumers’ attitude to M-banking, as a mediator to their future usage intention. The moderating effect of consumer readiness on the hypothesized relationship between consumers’ attitudes and intention to use mobile banking was also examined. The model was tested on survey data from 720 respondents from the United Kingdom (UK). Findings show that inherent innovativeness significantly explains attitudes to mobile banking. There were, however, mixed outcomes concerning the effects of three dimensions of consumer readiness on the link between attitudes and intention to use mobile banking. The results show that only ability exerts a positive and a significant effect on the examined relationship. The effects of motivation and role clarity seemed insignificant. The findings from this paper can help retail bank managers improve their channel and promotional decisions in order to enhance the service experience of relevant segments.     

General insurance marketing: A review and future research agenda

The financial services sector is a huge and diverse industry comprising many different forms of organisations and product offerings. Yet, a review of past papers in the Journal of Financial Services Marketing (JFSM) reveals a heavy bias towards articles on banking, to the neglect of other equally important financial services categories. The purpose of this article is to address this imbalance and to call for more research to be conducted in a wider range of financial services categories. In particular, general insurance is singled out as a category worthy of further research. Looking to the past, this article reviews research published to-date on general insurance in the JFSM to establish a benchmark and explore theoretical contributions. Attention is then turned to the future to identify a research agenda for the general insurance sector going forward. Five important themes are identified: trust, transparency and simplification, technology, HNW, and Takaful.     

Small-time ruin for a financial process modulated by a Harris recurrent Markov chain

We consider a nonstandard ruin problem where: (i) the increments of the process are heavy-tailed and Markov-dependent, modulated by a general Harris recurrent Markov chain; (ii) ruin occurs when a positive boundary is attained within a sufficiently small time. Our main result provides sharp asymptotics for the small-time probability of ruin, viz., P(sup? _{n≤δ u} S _n ≥u), where {S _n } denotes the discrete partial sums of the process and δ∈(0,1/μ), where μ is the mean drift. We apply our results to obtain risk estimates which quantify, e.g., repetitive operational risk losses or the extremal behavior for a GARCH(1,1) process.     

The efficiency of IPO issuing mechanisms and market conditions: evidence in China

This study conducts a comparison analysis on the efficiency of bookbuilding and secondary market proportional offering (hereafter, SMP offering) in the China stock market. SMP offering as described in this paper is not a follow-on offering, but an initial offering applicable to investors in the secondary market. Specifically, as a unique type of fixed price offering, SMP offering only allows the existing investors who are holding shares (of any listed firms) in the secondary market to subscribe to IPO shares. The amount of IPO shares available to be subscribed by the existing investors is proportional to market value of shares held by them in the secondary market. We find some interesting evidence showing that, compared with bookbuilding, SMP offering is more efficient for pricing IPOs, particularly, in a volatile market. SMP offering leads to lower underpricing and lower cross-sectional variation of short-run returns of IPOs. Also, SMP offering is better able to counteract adverse market conditions in the form of low market return and/or high market volatility. Our results are robust to various alternative tests, e.g., the Heckman (Econometrica 47:153–161, 1979) two-stage procedure and an out-of-sample test, after controlling for the problem of endogeneity and for the influence of the exchange of listing, respectively.     

The benefits of specific risk-factor disclosures

Practitioners have long criticized risk-factor disclosures in the 10-K as generic and boilerplate. In response, regulators emphasize the importance of being specific. By using a computing algorithm, this paper establishes a new measure (Specificity) to quantify the level of specificity of firms’ qualitative risk-factor disclosures. We first examine determinants of variations in Specificity, and document that firms with high proprietary costs provide less specific risk-factor disclosures. More importantly, we find that, controlling for numerous determinants, the market reaction to the 10-K filing is positively and significantly associated with Specificity. In addition, our results suggest that analysts are better able to assess fundamental risk when firms’ risk-factor disclosures are more specific. Together, these findings suggest that more specific risk-factor disclosures benefit users of financial statements.     

Risk Aversion,Downside Risk Aversion and Paying for Stochastic Improvements

This paper considers the relationship between risk preferences and the willingness to pay for stochastic improvements. We show that if the stochastic improvement satisfies a double-crossing condition, then a decision maker with utility v is willing to pay more than a decision maker with utility u, if v is both more risk averse and less downside risk averse than u. As the condition always holds in the case of self-protection, the result implies novel characterizations of individuals’ willingness to pay to reduce the probability of loss. By establishing a general result on the correspondence between an individual's willingness to pay, and his optimal purchase of stochastic improvement when there is a given relationship between stochastic improvements and the amount paid for them, we further show that all results on the willingness to pay can be applied directly to characterize the conditions under which a more risk averse individual will optimally choose to buy more stochastic improvement. Generalizations of existing results on optimal choice of self-protection can be obtained as corollaries.