Purchasing Competence: A Stakeholder‐Based Framework for Chief Purchasing Officers

A specific research stream within the purchasing and supply management literature focuses on the development of purchasing competence frameworks. We apply stakeholder theory and multiple methods of data collection to develop and confirm a hierarchy‐specific purchasing competence management framework for Chief Purchasing Officers and validate it using confirmatory factor analysis on empirical data from 124 multinational companies. The results reveal a significant relationship between Chief Purchasing Officers purchasing management competence and different purchasing performance measures confirming the appropriateness of stakeholder theory for such a competence framework.     

Candidate gene studies and the quest for the entrepreneurial gene

Candidate gene studies of human behavior are gaining interest in economics and entrepreneurship research. Performing and interpreting these studies is not straightforward because the selection of candidates influences the interpretation of the results. As an example, Nicolaou et al. (Small Bus Econ 36:151?C155, 2011) report a significant association between a common genetic variant in the DRD3 gene and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. We fail to replicate this finding using a much larger, independent dataset. In addition, we discuss the candidate gene approach and give suggestions to avoid the publication of false positives.     

Offshoring: Dimensions and diffusion of a new business concept

In order to leverage global cost differentials, companies are increasingly turning to offshoring. Nevertheless, discussions in research and practice on offshoring are characterized by the lack of a common definition as well as a theoretically grounded explanation for this phenomenon. This article presents an explicit definition in order to provide a stringent understanding of the term offshoring along the dimensions of contractual/legal arrangement and geographic location. Further, the driving forces of offshoring are analysed on the environmental and company levels. The article closes with a discussion of managerial implications and an outlook on aspects for further research.     

Enhancing Stock Market Return with New Product Preannouncements: The Role of Information Quality and Innovativeness

To advance development and application of signaling theory in the new product preannouncement literature while seeking to resolve ambiguity regarding the influence of innovativeness on stock market return, the role of information quality is examined. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of innovativeness across low and high levels of information quality. The results, ascertained using event study methodology on a sample of 243 new product preannouncements collected over a nine‐year period, indicate that higher information quality increases the strength of the positive relationship between innovativeness and stock market return. The findings offer managers insight into what role information quality plays in new product preannouncements that can help their firms generate higher stock market return.     

Rater Bias and Incentive Provision

The tendency of supervisors to judge an employee as either good or bad and then to seek out evidence supporting that earlier established opinion is regarded as one of the major problems of performance appraisal. We investigate the implications of this rater bias in a dynamic moral hazard model with a wealth‐constrained agent. Although rater bias weakens the agent's incentives to exert effort in late periods, at the same time it strengthens implicit incentives in early periods. Under the optimal contract, as long as rater bias is not overly strong, its adverse effect on late‐period incentives is fully offset by exploitation of stronger early‐period incentives and thereby leaves the principal's profits unchanged.     

Still unanswered quibbles with fractional reserve free banking

Anthony Evans and Steven Horwitz readily admit that their own understanding of monetary theory is imperfect, and do not even “attempt a rebuttal of [our] claims.” George Selgin accepts that some of the arguments we put forward in Bagus and Howden (2010) make for “interesting theory”. He fails to rebuff our claim that precautionary reserves are unable to constrain credit creation in a fractional reserve free banking system. While calling for us to provide historical evidence to validate the quibbles we put forward, Selgin himself overstates the evidence. He also claims that we have distorted what he has written, and that we use incorrect monetary theory. These allegations are false.     

One for all and all for one: privatization and Universal Service provision in the postal sector

Universal Service provision has a special role for the public utilities sector in many Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. These public utilities have largely been subject to privatization during the last 3 decades. Efficiency effects of privatization are widely documented while the impacts on the quality and accessibility of the Universal Service are not much examined. By using a unique dataset on privatization for 21 countries over the period 1980–2007 for the postal sector, we are able to show that privatization, in particular formal privatization, has led to a decrease in the quality of the Universal Service.