Can consumer complaints reduce product reliability? Should we worry?

We analyze a monopolist's pricing and product reliability decision in a model where consumers are entitled to product replacement if the product fails, but have heterogeneous costs of exercising this right. Our main result shows that, under some conditions, a decrease in consumers expected to claim cost leads to a decrease in product reliability but an increase in profit and welfare. This result is robust to a number of extensions. Our results are in line with anecdotal evidence suggesting that changes in consumers’ claiming cost can be induced by both third parties (governments, consumers’ organizations, private enterprises, etc.) and firms. More precisely, since, under some conditions, profit and welfare align, public initiatives oriented to lower consumers’ claiming cost will be ultimately joined by firms that benefit from further increases in complaints.     

Natural resource rents and internal conflicts: Can decentralization lift the curse?

We study how natural resource rents affect the risk of internal conflict within countries and how the federal structure of countries influences this relationship. Natural resource abundance may induce excessive rent-seeking and thus increase the risk of internal conflict. Fiscal and political decentralization as an institutional arrangement for rent-sharing and political codetermination of regions within a country may limit the destructive effect of natural resource rents on internal stability. Using cross-country and panel data from more than 90 countries covering the period 1984–2004, we find evidence that natural resource rents indeed increase the risk of internal conflict, but this relationship is significantly mitigated by political decentralization.     

Can stable environmental protection officials’ tenure reduce illegal emissions?

Based on the day-night PM_2.5 difference of the nearest atmospheric monitoring points to measure whether there is illegal emission, this paper explores the impact of environmental protection officials' tenure (EPLT) on illegal emissions. The results show that there is a positive correlation between EPLT and illegal emissions. Stable EPLT can reduce illegal emissions by increasing environmental information disclosure and environmental subsidies. It can increase illegal emissions by weakening public pollution reporting and media supervision, environmental law enforcement and promoting corruption. In addition, EPLT can increase illegal emissions as EPLT is less than 3.55 years, while EPLT can increase illegal emissions as EPLT exceeds 6.21 years. Further, when mayor's tenure and EPLT are both stable, the promotion effect of EPLT on illegal emission is stronger. Stable company director's tenure can also aggravate the promotion effect of EPLT on illegal emissions.     

Can buyer “mobility” reduce aggregation failures in land-assembly?

In this paper we examine whether site-development competition can be used to facilitate land assembly, in the absence of contingent contracts. In particular, we attempt to determine (1) whether competition can be induced among prospective sellers, (2) whether or not competition increases aggregation rates, and (3) what effects competition has on the distribution of surplus among the bargaining parties. We also study the incidence with which a buyer (endogenously) chooses to deal with a single “large parcel” owner vs. multiple “small parcel” owners. To do so, we make use of a laboratory experiment where all the relevant information about the project is common knowledge and landowner valuations are private information. Our results show that competition more than doubles aggregation rates, with aggregation rates of approximately 40% in the baseline, and at least 84% in the competitive treatments. We also find that developers have a strong preference to make transactions with landowners who have consolidated land holdings, doing so in 24/27 successful aggregations, providing empirical evidence that there is a link between the transactions cost associated with land-assembly and suburbanization, as suggested by Miceli and Sirmans (2007).     

Are loyalty shares an effective antidote against short‐termism? Empirical evidence from Italy

Corporate short‐termism is arguably one of the main causes of economic, social, and environmental unsustainability. This paper studies the effectiveness of loyalty shares—shares granting extra dividends or voting rights to shareholders holding them for a specified period of time—in limiting short‐termism. Although there are arguments both supporting (antidote view) and opposing (poison view) loyalty shares' effectiveness, empirical evidence on the theme is scant. By employing earnings management as a proxy for corporate short‐termism and by relying on a hand‐collected database of Italian firms, we find that loyalty shares can serve as an effective antidote against short‐termism. This study contributes to academic literature on corporate governance and accounting and informs the debate among policymakers on loyalty shares' effectiveness.     

Female self-perception as barrier to international careers?

It is a matter of fact that women are underrepresented in international management. In most of the articles on female expatriates, the companies' reluctance to send women abroad is usually named as first justification why female managers are rare in the international arena. The reasons cited are manifold, ranging from stereotypical views of the personnel managers to the prejudices women are expected to face abroad. Some authors tried to find additional causes such as dual career couples, cultural factors or the general lack of women in top management. However, only little has been written about the women's own fault for not being selected. Literature on gender-based stereotypes, female self-perception or traditional role models is broad. Typical issues are a perceived lack of self-confidence, stereotypical behaviour or underestimation. But a relation to expatriation is rarely found. Therefore, the aim of this article is to answer if and how women themselves contribute to their under-representation in international management.     

Can incomplete information lead to better social outcomes?

We consider a supply chain where manufacturers can be differentiated along two dimensions—product quality and cost of social responsibility effort. There are two types of manufacturers: high and low. Under complete information, high-type manufacturers exert a greater level of social responsibility effort in comparison with the low-type manufacturers. We then show that under incomplete information, high-type manufacturers have an incentive to exert an even greater level of social responsibility effort. Surprisingly, the extent of effort put in by high-type firms cannot be lower and, in some cases, can be strictly higher under incomplete information.     

How Important are Earnings Announcements as an Information Source?

In a competitive information market, a single information source can only dominate other sources individually, not collectively. We explore whether earnings announcements constitute such a dominant source using Ball and Shivakumar's (2008) [How much new information is there in earnings?, Journal of Accounting Research, 2008, 46(5), pp. 975–1016] R ² metric: the proportion of the variation in annual returns explained by the four quarterly earnings announcement returns. We find that the earnings announcement days' R ² is 11% – higher than the corresponding R ² of days with dividend announcements, management forecasts, preannouncements, and 10-K and 10-Q filings and their amendments, and comparable to that of the four days with the largest realised absolute returns in a year. Additional analysis reveals that earnings announcements convey extreme bad news as often as management forecasts and preannouncements; for any other type of news, earnings announcements are much more frequent. We conclude that earnings announcements are an important source of new information in the equity market.     

Can digital innovations help reduce suffering? A crowd-based digital innovation framework of compassion venturing

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has been a devastating crisis affecting the physical, social, and financial well-being of people the world over. Unlike business-as-usual, crises create unique context conditions in which to study digital innovation. Crises can create widespread suffering. Crises can also trigger the creation of “compassionate ventures” started by emergent entrepreneurs, who, by being themselves victims of adversity, are driven to start ventures to alleviate people's suffering. In this essay, we appropriate the literature from management and entrepreneurship on compassionate venturing to suggest a framework for helping to clarify distinctions in the ways in which digital innovation may emerge during crises.     

Can beneficial antecedents to self‐employment be detrimental to entrepreneurial performance?

We hypothesize that risk aversion, plasticity, stability, and locus of control have different effects on a person's decision to enter entrepreneurship and the person's entrepreneurial performance. Empirical results reveal that plasticity and risk tolerance have positive effects on selection but negative effects on income derived in entrepreneurship. Stability, on the other hand, deters entry but has an inversely u‐shaped relation with income. Locus of control has a positive impact on the decision but an insignificant effect on entrepreneurial income. These new insights may guide policy makers on how to help aspiring entrepreneurs overcome the negative effects of their personality traits.     

Can inflation targeting reduce price information asymmetry and alleviate corruptive behavior? Evidence from developing countries

This paper examines the role of inflation targeting as a price signaling mechanism reducing price information asymmetry and potentially reducing incentives for corruptive actions through its direct control on the inflation rate, thus simultaneously increasing institutional quality. The obtained evidence suggests that adopting inflation targeting lowers corruption in a sample of 61 developing countries for the period between 1990 and 2018. Countries that have adopted inflation targeting experience lower corruption levels, as measured by the corruption perceptions (CP) index, controlling for other relevant determinants of corruption identified in the empirical literature, such as inflation, level of income, income distribution, trade openness and the rule of law. This result is sensitive to the type of inflation targeting adopted. Soft (unofficial) inflation targeting has no significant effect on the corruption level, giving support to the claim that strong institutional commitment, accompanied by transparency and constant communication with regards to inflation targets by the central bank, provides an adequate price signaling mechanism. In addition, the analysis provides evidence that an efficient rule of law reduces corruption levels significantly, although its effects are rather modest to support the claims that it can solely lessen corruptive behavior in the sample of developing countries.     

Can governments use their construction contracts to improve training outcomes?

This paper explores the likely efficacy of government agencies using their contracting relationships with private firms to affect training outcomes in the construction industry. Specifically, it reports on the results of a study of two training policies of the Western Australian government. Empirical data is drawn from the government's Tender Registration System between 1997 and 2006. The main finding of the quantitative analysis is that in the absence of strong industry commitment to policy objectives, the contracting approach is likely to result in high levels of avoidance activity and generate very few benefits. The results of a qualitative investigation also support these findings.     

Can consumers continue to lean against the real wage squeeze?

This has been no ‘normal’ consumer recovery. The emphasis on rising employment levels, rather than wage growth, to drive the improvement in real incomes means that while the collective spending power of UK households has strengthened, many individual households continue to feel squeezed. A tightening labour market and emerging skills shortages will improve workers' wage bargaining power, but progress will be gradual and, for many workers, limited by the impact of further strong growth in the labour supply. Therefore, with little scope for households to further reduce the share of income saved, consumer spending growth is likely to remain relatively subdued, lagging well behind the growth rates achieved over the decade prior to the financial crisis.     

How Creative Can Leaders Afford to be Without Losing Credibility?

Leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation are the life blood of their organization. New ideas can lead to programs that are superior to an organization's established or planned programs. Leadership is to engage the right people, at the right times, to the right degree, in creative work. Inspirational leaders will promote employee creativity. On the other hand, the ability of leaders to be creative is an essential quality of leadership. Done well, the change of course looks like a moment of courage. The leader went to the precipice and had the strength to say, Let's turn back. Done badly, the change of course looks like pure opportunism or lack of conviction, and the leader's leadership credibility is undermined. The line between the two is thin. Which side a leader ends up on depends essentially on how the leader takes into account essential strategic factors, and how hard the leader will work to keep others on their side when they make the move.     

Market orientation: an option for universities to adopt?

• The primary objectives of this exploratory paper are to test the concept of market orientation adapted from related literature in the education context and to examine the effects of market orientation as a second‐order factor on university student satisfaction. The revised scale, validated through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, constitutes a good fit. Specifically, the new scale is statistically and positively related with student satisfaction, indicating that market orientation is an important factor that leads to higher student satisfaction. The findings show that the degree to which students are satisfied with their choice of university depends significantly on how market oriented the university is. In other words, the effective application of market orientation strategy relates to student satisfaction and to the decisions they make when selecting a university. To that end, market orientation is an option for universities to adopt. The empirical results add to the meager and emerging literature on marketing and branding of universities and will be of interest of university administrators and marketing and branding managers of universities. The paper concludes by discussing conclusions, implications, limitations, and future research.

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