The Textual Contents of Media Reports of Information Security Breaches and Profitable Short-Term Investment Opportunities

Information security-related incidents continue to make headlines. Interestingly, researchers have found mixed results when attempting to associate reports of information security breaches with changes in the affected firm's stock price. This research delves further into this puzzle by investigating the association between the textual contents of information security breach media reports and the stock price, as well as the trading volume reactions of the affected firm(s) around the breach announcement day. Our findings suggest that when the textual contents of breach reports provide more detailed information regarding the incidents, a more consistent belief is formed by the market about the negative impact of the reported security incident on the firm's business value. However, when there is a lack of specific information regarding the reported breach, the market does not seem to reach consensus on the impact of reported security incidents. We further demonstrate that different perceptions exist among general and sophisticated investors regarding the impact of reported information security incidents on a firm's future performance as demonstrated by changes in trading volume. By exploiting the different perceptions among investors, we form a trading strategy to demonstrate that, on average, one can make about 300% annual profit around the breach announcement day.     

Influence of Social Acceptability and Attitudes in Restaurant Beef Consumption

ABSTRACT

The competition for meeting consumer preferences for beef steak in the casual dining restaurant is increasing. In order to better understand these preferences researchers employed Sapp's expanded rational expectations intention model, a depiction of Ajzen and Fishbein's theory of reasoned action, to investigate consumers' intentions to consume beef steak in the casual dining restaurant. The expanded model added the social acceptability construct to Ajzen and Fishbein's rational expectations model. Social acceptability had significant causal path estimates for attitude, intention, and subjective norm. Additionally, researchers looked at possible gender differences in the social acceptability, attitude, and behavioral intention constructs. The path estimate between social acceptability and behavioral intention was significant for females but not for males. The attitude to behavioral intention causal path was the strongest path for both males and females; however, neither gender differed in the amount of weight placed on this causal path. The results of this study may assist the beef and restaurant industry to more effectively compete for market share by meeting consumer preferences for beef steak in the casual dining environment.     

The effects of need for cognition and trait anxiety on price acceptability

This research explored the effects of two personality variables, the need for cognition and trait anxiety, on consumers' price acceptability. The study used 124 subjects to determine support for the predicted relationships between the two personality variables and price acceptability. The results showed that the low need for cognition individuals had significantly lower price acceptability than the high need for cognition individuals. On the other hand, price acceptability showed a U‐shaped relationship with trait anxiety. Price acceptability for both high‐ and low‐anxiety individuals was higher than that for individuals with moderate levels of anxiety. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Does an (in)congruent corporate social responsibility strategy affect employees' turnover intention? A configurational analysis in an emerging country

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives toward internal and external stakeholders can independently contribute to employee attitudes and behaviors. However, little is known about the joint effects of (in)congruent internal-external CSR strategies on employee outcomes. Drawing from social exchange theory, we argue that when employees perceive that their organizations excessively favor CSR efforts to external rather than internal stakeholders, it can trigger a psychological contract breach, resulting in increased employees' turnover intention. We utilized a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method and the data of 511 employee from various industries in the Philippines to investigate the interaction effects. The results revealed that a congruent CSR strategy with high internal and external CSR perceptions is critical in fulfilling employees' psychological contracts and retaining employees. However, for employees with low perceived internal CSR, a high incongruent CSR perception led to a psychological contract breach and ultimately to high turnover intention. Psychological contract breach weakened the negative joint effect of high perceived internal and external CSR on turnover intention and strengthened the positive effect of high perceived incongruent CSR on turnover intention. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

商业合同附随义务根本违约之判断标准

当事人在商业合同中构成附随义务根本违约的判断标准包括:当事人之间须存在有效的合同关系,当事人一方或双方实施了违反附随义务的行为以及违约后果严重致使非违约方合同目的落空。但是,不是只要一方当事人的违约致使他方合同目的落空就必然构成根本违约,基础目的、单方目的、直接目的、初始目的、单一目的的落空必然构成根本违约;而效果目的、嗣后目的的违反不能构成根本违约;间接目的、双方目的和混合目的的违反只有危及合同的根基时才能构成根本违约。     

Influence of Information on the Acceptance and Purchase Intention of an Irradiated Food: A Study With Brazilian Consumers

This study investigated the effect of information on the acceptability and purchase intention of an irradiated watercress salad and its non-irradiated counterpart among Brazilian consumers (N = 236). Both the irradiated and the non-irradiated products were fairly accepted (ratings about 6.0–7.0 in the hedonic scale). Significant effects (p ≤ 0.05) of gender, education, and age were also observed: acceptance and purchase intention was lower among male participants who received both information and an identified irradiated product, and higher among female participants who received only information about the process. Adults (30–39 years old) were more critical, and the higher the educational level, the lower the acceptability and purchase intention ratings. Brazil is one of the major irradiators in the world, but there is still a lack of consumer studies focusing the acceptability of irradiated foods. So the findings presented herein would favor Brazilian producers and regulators to develop effective communication strategies and to promote the irradiation technology.     

Preserving your revenue-management system as a trade secret

A hotel's or airline's revenue-management system is (1) quite valuable and (2) a trade secret. Trade secrets involve special proprietary information and processes, including publicly available information that is assembled in a special manner by the trade secret's owner. Establishing that a process is a trade secret involves demonstrating that it is, in fact, a secret, that information about the process is restricted to employees and licensess, and that the owner makes a specific effort to shield the information. Hotels' revenue-management systems are particularly at risk for either general disclosure or corporate espionage because of the relatively rapid turnover of employees and the fact that those employees often go to work for competitors. Thus, a wise hotelier will take the following steps to protect the company's revenue-management system: (1) maintain the information's physical security by restricting access, (2) place restrictive legends on the information stating that it is in fact confidential, (3) state in employee handbooks that the revenue-management information is a trade secret and will be shared only in confidence, (4) require revenue-management employees to sign confidentiality agreements, (5) train employees and remind them regularly of the confidentiality of the revenue-management information, and (6) ask exiting employees to reaffirm their agreement not to share the confidential trade secrets. The former employer may also consider sending an advisory letter to a departing employee's new employer stating that the revenue-management information is confidential, but that letter-writing step involves other issues that require legal counsel.     

美国法上惩罚性赔偿在违约中的适用

惩罚性赔偿是美国一个特殊的制度。传统规则上,它一般适用在侵权之诉中,只有在构成独立的侵权的情况下,违反合同才可以被判予惩罚性赔偿。在20世纪70、80年代,惩罚性赔偿在合同领域内适用得到扩展,但后来随着预期违约理论得到普遍承认,惩罚性赔偿在违约中的适用又有所倒退。因此,在美国法上其适用范围经历了一个从扩展到收缩的过程。     

Religion and Marketing

Only 35 articles on religion and marketin have been published in the ma'or marketing journals and proceedngs in the past 30 years. This r' ow level o f research activity appears ~nconsis- tent with chan es in the actual marketing practices o f religious or'ga- nizations, an f the current acceptability o f "marketing" to the clergy. The existing literature is rcviewed, and opportunities for new research are discussed.     

Why you should care about the Target data breach

Data breaches are becoming more frequent and more damaging to the bottom line of many businesses. The Target data breach marked the beginning of increased scrutiny of cybersecurity practices. In the past, data breaches were seen as a cost of doing business, but Target's negligence and the scale of the data loss forced businesses and the courts to reevaluate current practices and regulatory frameworks. Businesses must make strategic use of their chief information officers, adopt cybersecurity best practices, and effectively train their employees to respond to growing security threats. They must also shape the cybersecurity narrative to influence regulatory responses to these threats.     

Confidentiality decisions: The reasoning process of CPAS in resolving ethical dilemmas

As in other professions, such as law and medicine, accounting has a Code of Professional Conduct (Code) that members are expected to abide by. In today's legalistic society, however, the question of “what is the right thing to do,” is often confused with “what is legal?” In many instances, this may present a conflict between adhering to the Code and doing what some may perceive as proper ethical behavior. This paper examines (1) the reasoning process that CPAs use in resolving ethical issues related to confidentiality; and, (2) whether or not there is a perceived conflict in adhering to the Code and the moral values of some CPAs. The results indicate that although most CPAs sampled resolve ethical issues in accordance with the Code, such decisions do not always reflect their belief of what is morally right. Although the results are useful in understanding how some CPAs reason in making moral choices involving confidentiality decisions, care should be exercised in drawing further inferences from this study due to the limited sample size.     

Corporate Ethics Codes: A Practical Application of Liability Prevention

With the great increase in litigation, insurance costs, and consumer prices, both managers and businesses should take a proactive position in avoiding liability. Legal liability may attach when a duty has been breached; many actions falling into this category are also considered unethical. Since much of business liability is caused by a breach of a duty by a business to either an individual, another business, or to society, this article asserts that the practice of liability prevention is a practical business application of ethics. In today's highly litigious environment, it is appropriate for the concept of general liability prevention to be included in corporate codes of ethics.     

When Organizations Break Their Promises: Employee Reactions to Unfair Processes and Treatment

Research has shown that the strongest reactions to organizational injustice occur when an employee perceives both unfair outcomes (distributive injustice) and unfair and unethical procedures and treatment. Utilizing the Referent Cognitions Theory (RCT) framework, this study investigates how a form of distributive injustice, psychological contract breach, along with procedural and interactional injustice influences employees' negative attitudes and behaviors. More specifically, the interactional effects of these forms of injustices should be notably greater than those exhibited when an employee of the organization, following a contract breach, perceives both fair and ethical processes and treatment. Three hundred and twenty-two employees from a variety of organizational settings completed measures of contract breach, procedural injustice, interactional injustice, and negative affect toward the organization. Their respective supervisors completed a measure of deviant work behaviors. Results revealed a three-way interaction between contract breach, procedural injustice, and interactional injustice on negative affect and deviant work behavior. The nature of the interaction was further investigated through simple slope analyses. Consistent with the study's propositions, deviant work behavior was higher following a contract breach when both procedural and interactional injustice were high. However, the association between negative affect and breach was high when both forms of injustices were high and when only interactional injustice was high. Study contributions and limitations as well as theoretical and ethical implications are discussed.     

Critical innovation characteristics influencing the acceptability of a new pharmaceutical product format

This paper investigates the Critical innovation characteristics that influence the acceptability of a new pharmaceutical product format as perceived by medical service providers. Professional service providers act as "surrogate adopters" as they decide about the adoption of a product intended for their clients' use. We employ a qualitative research approach to explore which product related characteristics physicians evaluate when assessing the acceptability of a new product format in the pharmaceutical market. The main results concern (1) the distinct nature of a distributed adoption decision-making, (2) the refinement of relevant innovation attributes in a medical service context, and (3) the contextuality of innovation adoption. The research results show that innovation characteristics cannot be feasibly studied without taking into account the adoption context, here the medical service encounter and its institutional environment. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

浅析根本违约制度

将违约形态划分为根本违约与非根本违约有着十分重要的意义,如果构成根本违约,受害方就拥有解除合同的选择权,权益将受到更好的保护。     

Ethical turnarounds and transformational leadership: A global imperative for corporate social responsibility

A company's social responsibility grounded in appropriate ethical values. Accountability for this foundation lies with the corporate leadership, which is responsible for establishing organizational values and culture. When a breach occurs in this leadership process, or when a transition‐economy organization is entering the global arena, an ethical turnaround is generally needed. We created this term to describe the leadership process needed to regain, or initially establish, corporate credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders. These leadership requirements go beyond those needed in a strategic turnaround since they must help resuscitate an organization's cusses transformational leadership during ethical turnarounds in developed economies (focusing on Tyco) and in transition economies (focusing on Troika Dialog in Russia). We conclude with implications for business leaders in both economic settings. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Online Privacy Policies and Diffusion Theory Perspectives

ABSTRACT

The use of the Internet and related technologies in data sharing and new product development, which essentially serves as a foundation for the management of data flows for strategic IT, are rapidly expanding. The innovation clusters and frameworks to characterize recent e-commerce sites' privacy policies to ensure confidentiality of personal information have been under increasing academic inquiries. An application of Rogers' (1995) diffusion of innovation or technology concepts as applied to the Internet is used to develop several models of e-commerce related security and privacy concerns. One possible solution discussed is the strategic leveraging of a consortium model, providing for governmental assurances of privacy and security. Unfortunately, the current e-commerce model has no governing body to represent the consumer and e-tailer in terms of privacy and security issues so critical to the continued growth and success of the Internet.     

管理理念对心理契约破裂的影响:国有企业和民营企业的比较

通过对1022名国有企业和民营企业员工的问卷调查,探讨不同所有制企业雇员的管理理念对心理契约破裂的影响.结果表明:国有企业员工的心理契约破裂程度显著高于民营企业;市场竞争理念对心理契约破裂有显著的负向影响,在国有企业中其影响更强;雇员价值理念对心理契约破裂有显著的正向影响,在民营企业中其影响更强.为降低心理契约破裂对员工和组织的影响,国有企业应营造有利于市场竞争的组织氛围,而民营企业应更好地满足员工的需求.     

A monitoring and feedback service as a way to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of consumption

This paper explores and assesses the acceptability of an Internet‐based greenhouse gas emission monitoring and feedback service and its possibilities for motivating households to voluntary change their consumption behaviour towards a more climate‐friendly direction. We studied consumers' experiences and assessments of the acceptability of such a service and its potential to promote the desired behaviour in a Finnish Climate Bonus research project wherein a demonstration version of the service was developed and tested. In total, 35 pre‐selected consumers tried out and evaluated the service in day‐to‐day life for a period of 4 weeks. Online questionnaires, focus groups and an online discussion forum were used to collect their feedback. The results indicated that the service was well received among the participating consumers. Above all, the consumers regarded the service interesting and useful because it offered concrete feedback on the emissions caused by their own household consumption. All in all, the study indicated that a well‐designed, easy‐to‐use and consumer‐empowering monitoring and feedback service might be a potential tool to motivate people to reduce their consumption‐based emissions voluntarily.     

Isolation in Cloud Computing and Privacy-Enhancing Technologies

Cloud Computing lifts the borders between the access control domain of individuals’ and companies’ IT systems by processing their data within the application frameworks and virtualized runtime environments of Cloud service providers. A deployment of traditional security policies for enforcing confidentiality of Cloud users’ data would lead to a conflict with the availability of the Cloud’s software services: confidentiality of data would be assured but Cloud services would not be available for every user of a Cloud. This state-of-the-art contribution shows the analogy of the confidentiality of external data processing by Cloud services with mechanisms known and applied in privacy. Sustainability in Cloud is a matter of privacy, which in Cloud is called “isolation”.