Cooperative goals and team agreeableness composition for constructive controversy in China

Studies have shown that constructive controversy, which is the open-minded discussion of diverse views, contributes to team effectiveness. However, there are few studies on the conditions that facilitate constructive controversy. This study explores the antecedents of constructive controversy from both team interdependence (cooperative goals) and team personality composition perspectives. Sixty customer service teams from a call center of a large mobile communication service provider in China participated in the study. Results further document that cooperative goals predict to constructive controversy. Agreeableness diversity was also found to be an antecedent of constructive controversy, and this effect was moderated by team agreeableness level: The higher the team average agreeableness, the stronger the positive association between agreeableness diversity and constructive controversy. Results were interpreted as suggesting that both cooperative goals and team agreeableness composition can develop constructive controversy in work teams in China and possibly in other cultures.     

Efficient Intertemporal Utility Pricing under Uncertainty

Electric utilities today face increasing competition from substitutes for utility-generated power. As a result, utilities are being forced to reevaluate their pricing policies to address competition from other fuels and potential customer ‘bypass’ of the utility. This paper extends the analysis of second-best utility pricing to explicitly account for both the short- and long-run price responses of customers with competitive alternatives to utility-generated power. The presence of long-run substitution opportunities reduces the optimal percentage mark-up of price over marginal cost for noncore customers. Uncertainty concerning the substitution response of noncore electricity customers also tends to reduce the optimal price mark-up. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skills, Schooling, and Household Income in Ghana

This article examines the impact of cognitive skills on theincome of households in Ghana. It uses scores on mathematicsand English tests to measure cognitive skills and estimatesthe returns to these skills based on farm profit, off-farm income,and total income. The article uses Powell's censored least absolutedeviations and symmetrically trimmed least squares estimatorsto estimate farm and off-farm income. In contrast to Heckman'stwo-step or the Tobit estimator, Powell's estimators are consistentin the presence of heteroscedasticity and are robust to otherviolations of normality. The results show that cognitive skillshave a positive effect on total and off-farm income but do nothave a statistically significant effect on farm income.     

Arbitrage-Free Valuation of Exhaustible Resource Firms

We provide an arbitrage-free valuation of exhaustible resource firms through extending the Gibson and Schwartz (1990) model and also the Jamshidian and Fein (1990) solution to valuing an entire petroleum firm based on quoted oil futures. Our solutions are compared to accounting, traditional finance and to stockmarket valuations on a daily basis. An alternative expression of the valuations relative to stockmarket prices is in terms of the time varying implied 'market price' of convenience yield risk. Initial illustrations show that the implied convenience yield risk is not necessarily consistent between stockmarket and derivative market participants. Finally, we calculate the sensitivities of petroleum firm values to changes in oil prices, the convenience yield observable on NYMEX, and oil price volatilities. These partial derivatives show some of the complexities in the dynamic hedging process of using the contingent claims approach to valuing (and hedging) real assets.     

Money and Price Dispersion

We relax restrictions on the storage technology in a prototypical monetary search model to study price dispersion. In this case, buyers and sellers enter matches with potentially different willingness to trade. Across the distribution of possible bilateral matches, prices generally will differ even though agents have identical preferences and technologies. We provide existence conditions for a particularly simple equilibrium pattern of exchange. We prove that in the limiting case where search frictions are eliminated, equilibrium prices are uniform. We also show that a higher initial money stock can raise the average price level and increase price dispersion.     

UK Fixed Rate Repayment Mortgage and Mortgage Indemnity Valuation

We use a mean-reverting interest rate model and a lognormal house price diffusion model to evaluate British fixed rate repayment mortgage contracts with (embedded) default and prepayment options. The model also provides values for capped mortgage indemnity guarantees and the corresponding (residual) lender's coinsurance. Since the partial differential equation incorporating the general features of these mortgage contracts does not have a closed-form solution, an explicit finite difference method is used for the valuation (and sensitivity) results, with solution improvements to deal with error bounds. Then we provide graphical representations of each mortgage component as a function of house prices and interest rate levels, along with interpretations of the analysis. We calculate precisely the lender's (residual) exposure to house price risk, given the borrower's options, house and interest rate uncertainty, and customary mortgage indemnity insurance for high loan/collateral ratio mortgages.     

Spatial Organization of Marketing Facilities in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Oilseeds in Sudan

Little attention has been devoted to the study of spatial organization of marketing facilities in developing countries, even though such studies would be most useful for a wide range of marketing problems. The results of such studies could be valuable to private and public decision-makers in developing countries whose policies and decisions determine the number, size and location of marketing facilities. The spatial organization model developed in this paper for application to the oilseeds industry in Sudan demonstrates the relevance of this research technique for developing country studies of marketing facilities. A linear programming transshipment model is utilized to determine the optimal spatial organization of oilseeds in Sudan when the costs of oilseed assembly, processing and distribution of oil and cake to final destinations are considered simultaneously. The optimal spatial organization of oilseed processing plants was determined for six alternative solutions. Model results indicate that the optimal organization of processing plants would be obtained with fewer and larger plants, resulting in lower transportation costs.     

Marketing utilities: A new look

Utility, it is usually agreed among marketers, is not just that which makes an item physically more useful; it is also that which makes a customer conceive of an item as being more useful. This usefulness is generally reflected in a customer's willingness to spend extra money to receive this service. Traditionally marketers have associated utility with time, place, possession, and form. While no one will disagree with these four categories, it may be that they are too narrow. This article expands these traditional four utilities to include other activities such as image creation, confidence building, and product customization which may lead to modifying the predisposition and perception of customers. It is with this expanded list that the marketer can better design his total product package so that customer utility can be maximized.     

Customs and Incentives in Contracts

This article examines contractual practices that are often assumed customary. In particular it examines discreteness in agricultural contracts, and focuses on the distinction between the use of simple discrete fraction terms in cropshare contracts and the nearly continuous payment terms used in cash rent contracts. We show that the pattern of shares is best explained as a response to moral hazard problems spread over large numbers of inputs. A contracting model explains the pattern of shares, the difference in flexibility with cash rent contracts, and the lower bound on shares. Empirical analysis using micro data on over 3,000 contracts are used to test implications of the model. A wide range of support is found for a model based on moral hazard and measurement costs.