The spatial effects of information technology: Some literature

The conclusion emerging from comparing many studies is that information technologies can indeed encourage and also substitute for the physical movement of goods and people, with consequences for centralisation and decentralisation. Which of the two effects will appear in any given case appears to depend more on factors other than the choice of technology.     

The impact of perceived environmental uncertainty and individual differences on management information requirements: A research note

In this study it is hypothesised that as perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) increases, internals on the Locus of Control (LOC) scale will perceive information that has wider scope and is timely to be more useful than do externals on the LOC scale. Results indicate a significant effect but in a direction opposite to that expected. Externals, not internals, found information more useful when faced with higher uncertainty. It is suggested that the source rather than the relevance of the information, as was predicted, may have contributed to this result. The study is significant because it supports the need to consider personality and environmental factors together.     

The impact of undergraduate personal finance education on individual financial literacy,attitudes and intentions

Financial literacy education features prominently among the policy options available to improve personal financial decision‐making. Notwithstanding calls to expand delivery of financial literacy units at university level, such offerings are relatively rare with little evaluation. We provide an evaluation of the impact on financial literacy, financial attitudes and financial behaviour intentions of a semester unit in personal finance delivered to undergraduates at an Australian university, carefully controlling for confounding effects in the analysis. We report increases in objective and subjective financial literacy and an additional gender effect. Contrary to previous speculation, we do not find overconfidence as an associated outcome.     

Discriminating between wealth and information effects in event studies in accounting and finance research

This article examines the power of tests of given size to detect and distinguish between wealth (i.e., mean) and information (i.e., variance) effects in event studies. We find that an Estimated Generalized Least Squares (EGLS) mean-effects test is consistently more powerful than the test based upon the average standardized residual and is as powerful as a nonparametric rank test. Unlike the test based upon the average standardized residual and the rank test, the EGLS test is well specified even when the event affects the variances of the prediction errors. We also find that conventional parametric tests to detect changes in the variance of the event-day average abnormal return are misspecified when the null of no change is true. We analyze the reasons this occurs and suggest a rank procedure that produces tests of the correct size under the null. Our evidence suggests that the critical factors allowing researchers to distinguish between wealth and information effects are an estimation procedure incorporating the heteroskedasticity inherent in market model prediction errors and an explicit test for event-day variance changes.     

Market ambiguity and individual investor information demand

We examine whether ambiguity in the market leads to an increase in information demand by individual investors. Drawing on the asset-pricing model proposed by Mele and Sangiorgi (2015), which incorporates market ambiguity, we measure individual information demand using daily Google searches and measure market ambiguity using a metric based on the market trades of institutional investors. We find that individual investors increase their information demand during periods of greater market ambiguity. We also provide evidence that information demand from individual investors spikes around earnings announcement days primarily when market uncertainty is driven by net-selling activity. Overall, these results suggest that the disagreement among institutional investors either represents uncertainty or contributes to the uncertainty related to a stock, leading to increased demand for information from individual investors.     

ESO compensation: The roles of default risk, employee sentiment, and insider information

This paper derives a pricing model for employee stock options (ESO) that includes default risk and considers employee sentiment. Using ESO data from 1992 to 2004, the study finds that the average executive's subjective value is about 55% of the Black-Scholes value. Only employees who over-estimate firm returns (or insiders who know that the firm is under-valued) by about 10% per annum will prefer ESOs over cash compensation. Our model also shows that work incentives offered by ESOs may be far lower than those implied by Black-Scholes but that ESOs may induce less risk-taking behavior, contrary to typical moral hazard arguments. Findings may impact relevant accounting regulations as well as compensation decisions.     

Firm-specific information,analysts' superiority and investment value

Using a sample of Chinese security analysts’recommendations from 2005 to2010,we examine the source of analysts’superiority and the investment value of their recommendations.Using a calendar-time portfolio approach,we find that,on average,analysts’recommendations are valuable and that analysts are better at analyzing and transferring firm-specific information than market-wide or industry-level information.In addition,we show that the investment value of recommendations increases as firm-specific information becomes more important in stock pricing.Our empirical results are useful in guiding investors and helping brokerage houses to evaluate the output of research departments.     

Venture capitalists, investment appraisal and accounting information: a comparative study of the USA, UK, France, Belgium and Holland

The differences between the information used for the pre‐investment valuation and the valuation methods used by venture capital investors in five countries (USA, UK, France, Belgium and Holland) are empirically studied. The analysis is based on postal questionnaire surveys of representative samples of senior venture capitalists in each country. Differences are found, which may be attributed to the dominant corporate governance mechanism or the level of development of the venture capital market. Between‐country differences persist even after taking into account between‐country differences in the relative importance of investment stages and venture capital types. Apparently similar systems and venture capital markets place varying emphases on different valuation methods, with theoretically 'correct' methods not always being preferred in practice. The findings of the study highlight the need for venture capital firms entering non‐domestic markets to invest considerable effort in understanding the operation of these markets if they are to exploit fully their perceived competitive advantages and minimize the likelihood of repeating the problems experienced by venture capital entrants into foreign markets in the late 1980s.     

Adverse selection, public information, and underpricing in IPOs

This paper generalizes the informational environment of the Rock model to address empirical evidence and conjectures that cannot be addressed within the standard model based on informed and uninformed investors such as underpricing being positively related to market returns observed prior to the IPO, the number of IPOs being positively related to market returns, underpricing being partly predictable based on public information, and the return to uninformed participation being negative overall but positively related to market returns observed prior to the IPO. Finally, the model suggests that a positive relation between market returns and underpricing need not represent an inefficiency in the pricing of IPOs.     

Capital budgeting, information timing, and the value of abandonment options

This paper investigates how an abandonment option influences the optimal timing of information in a sequential adverse selection capital budgeting model. While the divisional manager has imperfect private pre-contract information, headquarters can time whether the manager obtains perfect project information before (timely information) or after (delayed information) the contract is signed. In the absence of the abandonment option, headquarters favors timely (delayed) information if the investment costs are high (low). The presence of the abandonment option favors delayed information because under the timely information regime the value of the abandonment option is zero, whereas under the delayed information regime the value of the option is positive.     

How information systems influence user decisions: a research framework and literature review

Technology has created new information alternatives that may influence the way information system users make decisions. This paper proposes a research framework for examining how features of an information system affect the decision-making process. The framework is synthesized by merging frameworks from the accounting information systems (AIS) literature and the human information processing (HIP) literature. The framework is then used to organize a literature review of 15 journals from 1987 through mid-1999, which identified 57 decision-making studies. Findings indicate that a wide range of opportunities is available for information systems research on issues of contemporary importance. This discussion includes changes in the decision process initiated by implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, data warehouses, electronic commerce, virtual organizations, on-line financial reporting, and disaggregated financial statement information.     

Asymmetric information in securitization: An empirical assessment

Asymmetric information in securitization deals is analyzed based on a unique dataset comprising a million mortgages, both securitized and not, and using a methodology, previously applied to insurance data, that looks at the correlation between risk transfer and default probability. The main finding is that, for given observable characteristics, securitized mortgages have a lower default probability than non-securitized ones. We show that this finding is consistent with banks caring about their reputation for not selling lemons.     

信息对小额健康保险需求影响的实验经济学分析

本文通过实验经济学的研究方法检验了信息对于小额健康保险投保需求的影响。实验结果表明,在信息提供不充分的情况下,小额健康保险需求相对社会最优需求水平不足,信息的充分提供能使小额健康保险需求水平显著提高。其中得知准确的疾病发生概率可以显著地提高门诊和住院保险的需求,了解更广范围的出险与理赔信息可以显著地提高住院保险的需求,但是同时提供这两种信息的并不显著优于只提供准确的疾病发生概率的信息。     

Product life cycle cost analysis: the impact of customer profiling, competitive advantage, and quality of IS information

Life cycle cost analysis is considered in the literature to be of increasing importance to firms as international competition intensifies and technological change continues. The literature increasingly emphasizes that rapid technological change and shortened life cycles have made product life cycle cost analysis critical to organizations. Although significant benefits are attributed to life cycle cost analysis, there is little evidence regarding the extent of its application in organizational settings. Moreover, there is scant systematic evidence available with respect to the array of factors that may influence its use. However, a review of the literature suggests that customer profiling, competitive advantage, and quality of information system information are three factors potentially impacting the extent to which life cycle cost analysis is used in firms. The results of the study illustrate first, the degree to which product life cycle cost analysis is used across a random sample of organizations. Second, that all three independent variables play a positive role in affecting the extent to which product life cycle costing is used in firms.     

Information brokers and the use of budgetary and financial information by politicians: the case of Portugal

This paper analyses the intermediary role of the technical bodies that support the use of budgetary and financial information by central government politicians in Portugal. The main findings show that information brokers are playing a central role in preparing this information in a credible, simple and understandable way. However, even if not intentionally, the information they present can be biased. Politicians need to be aware that the information brokers they rely on may not be giving them ‘neutral’ information.     

Binomial basis for linear information dynamics: real options, dividends and the valuation of equity

Analytical research has confirmed that real options give rise to the kind of nonlinearities observed in practice between equity prices and the figures appearing on corporate financial statements. We develop these real option values in terms of a quasi 'supply-side' model of linear information dynamics based on simple discrete time binomial filtration processes. Our analysis shows that the linear models that pervade the empirical (and analytical) work of the area, will almost certainly suffer from an omitted variables problem. Parameter estimation will then be inconsistent and inefficient.     

高校图书馆信息素质教育功能的途径

信息素质是21世纪每个公民所必备的素质,不断进行信息素质的教育、培养和提高会终身受益。本文从信息素质的概念、重要性出发,分析了强化高校图书馆信息素质教育功能的途径。     

Accounting information systems research over the past decade: Past and future trends

This article reviews the extant accounting information systems (AIS) literature by conducting an analysis of AIS articles published in 18 leading accounting, management information systems, and computer science journals from 1999 to 2009 with a view to identifying whether or not the focus of AIS research has changed, and if so how it has changed, since the Poston and Grabski’s (2000) review of AIS research from 1982 to 1998. We also report our insights into where AIS research is likely to be heading in the future. We analyse each of the 395 articles identified as reporting AIS research to identify their underlying theory, research method and research topic. Our results confirm the continuing decline in analytical and model‐building research in AIS‐related research and this decline is associated with a similar decline in the use of computer science theory to motivate this research. We also find that two theoretical platforms, in particular, now account for almost half (48 per cent) of all AIS research: cognitive psychology and economics. Experimental research methods and archival studies continue to grow as the preferred methods for testing the AIS‐related theories derived from these theory domains.     

Waste Is Our Business,Inc.: The importance of non-financial information in the audit planning process

The objectives of this case are: (a) to alert students to the importance of non-financial information in the audit process; (b) to develop students’ ability to search for relevant financial and non-financial information in the audit planning process; and (c) to emphasize the importance of resisting the natural tendency to over-rely on financial information when conducting the financial statement audit. Students are asked to consider both financial and non-financial information when evaluating a client’s account balances. The client is in the waste business where there are a number of market, regulatory, and political factors that may affect the valuation of different accounts. Students are also directed to consider the importance of non-financial information in the integrated audit mandated by PCAOB Standard 5 and in fraud detection. The case can help students learn to explicitly consider non-financial information and understand the significance of integrating such information with financial data. The case is suitable for use in undergraduate or graduate auditing and assurance courses.     

Intraindustry information transfer: An analysis of research methods and additional evidence

This study analyzes estimators used in information transfer research. It concludes that tests which use the announcing firm's abnormal return to proxy for the information signal generally overstate the significance of information transfer due to cross-covariation of regression disturbances. However, some related approaches may actually understate information transfer. Another approach, based on direct estimation of the signal, yields an estimator that is less sensitive to assumptions about regression disturbances. This study also tests hypotheses concerning the influence of industry structure on information transfer, since the econometric analysis suggests that prior results concerning this issue should be interpreted with caution. The evidence indicates that transfers are most pronounced in homogeneous and concentrated industries.