Direct Evidence on Sticky Information from the Revision Behavior of Professional Forecasters

We provide evidence on the sticky‐information model of Mankiw and Reis ( 2002 ) by examining how often individual professional forecasters revise their forecasts. We draw interest rate and unemployment rate forecasts from the monthly Wall Street Journal surveys. We find evidence that forecasters frequently leave forecasts unchanged but revise more often the larger the changes in the information set; additionally, the information sensitivity of revision frequencies increased after 2007. We also find that, on average, forecasters in our sample revise more frequently than found in previous research but that revised forecasts are not consistently more accurate.     

Effects of Construal Level on Omission Detection and Multiattribute Evaluation

Research has demonstrated that consumers are commonly insensitive to missing information and that this insensitivity can lead them to form strong beliefs and evaluations on the basis of weak evidence. A growing body of research has shown that sensitivity to omissions can be heightened and that this increased sensitivity results in more appropriate evaluations. Expanding on this, the current research finds that the level of abstraction by which a situation is construed can influence the likelihood of omission detection and the resulting evaluative judgments. A series of studies reveal that people are more likely to spontaneously detect omissions in near vs. distant judgments, in concrete vs. abstract mindsets, and when they are inherently more likely to interpret actions in concrete vs. abstract terms. Further, although prior findings suggest that people may have differential sensitivity to primary and secondary missing features at different levels of construal, the current research finds no such difference. The results of this study indicate that people are more sensitive to all types of missing information when construal levels are low, and that this sensitivity leads to more moderate and appropriate judgments.     

Financial reporting,tax, and real decisions: toward a unifying framework

This paper provides a first step toward joint evaluation of taxation and financial reporting in the standard economic analyses of corporate behavior. It develops a framework that formalizes the idea that the attractiveness of some investment decisions is enhanced because they provide managers with discretion over the timing of taxable income and/or book income. It then examines from this perspective several current examples of tax and accounting issues.     

What do dividends tell us about earnings quality?

Over the past 30 years, there have been significant changes in the distribution of earnings—cross-sectional variation has increased, with increasing left skewness—as well as in corporate payout policy, with many fewer firms paying dividends and the emergence of stock repurchases. We investigate whether the informativeness of payout policy with respect to earnings quality changes over this period. We find that the reported earnings of dividend-paying firms are more persistent than those of other firms and that this relation is remarkably stable over time. We also find that dividend payers are less likely to report losses and those losses that they do report tend to be transitory losses driven by special items. These results do not hold as strongly for stock repurchases, consistent with them representing less of a commitment than dividends.     

When caring stops, staffing doesn't matter: part II

Response to a column on caring and staffing struck a cord with Nursing Economic$ readers worldwide. Measuring caring is complicated and a healthy debate exists over how exactly to do it. The extraordinary work of Dr. Jean Watson is an excellent resource for understanding how to measure and monitor caring. Beneath the instruments for measuring caring sits foundational work that can help us clarify and understand the topic of caring and just where it sits in our philosophies, intentions, patient care models, and care delivery systems.     

Hot spots regulation and environmental justice

This paper analyzes whether regulating “hot spots” of toxic air pollution by increasing the spatial resolution of regulation could address environmental justice (EJ) concerns. To examine this question, this paper develops a decision model of a regulator choosing emission controls within a net cost minimizing framework. An empirical application of the model using air toxic emission data for Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties in Florida estimates the emission standards and spatial distribution of risks at a coarse and a finer spatial resolutions. Implications for EJ are analyzed by combining the simulated spatial risk distributions at the two resolutions with the demographic data. Results indicate that different measures of EJ point to different conclusions regarding the question of whether finer resolution regulation alleviates EJ concerns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for EJ policy.     

Leveraging firm-level marketing capabilities with marketing employee development

Using the theoretical foundations of the resource-based view of the firm, this study develops and measures marketing employee development capabilities and investigates how it moderates the relationships between brand and customer relationship management capabilities and firm performance outcomes. Based on a random sample survey of chief marketing executives from selected industries, combined with objective firm performance indicators and controls, results demonstrate that marketing employee development capabilities can leverage the relationships between firm-level marketing capabilities and customer satisfaction, market effectiveness, and objective financial performance. Further, these results show that such capabilities can be complementary and, in some cases, even substitute for each other, which improves organizational performance. Implications for researchers and marketing managers are discussed.     

Constraints to consumption of South Africa's national parks among the emerging domestic tourism market

Tourism plays a recognised role in the South African economy, even though it is faced with a number of challenges including levels of seasonality, geographic spread and differing levels of travel and tourism culture within population groups. Literature speaks to the role that domestic tourism can play in addressing these challenges. Within the South African context, emerging markets are population groups entering the market in increasing numbers as domestic tourists, especially those previously neglected during the years of segregation through apartheid. The focus of this exploratory study was to identify the constraints that deter the South African emerging black domestic market from visiting national parks, and more specifically the Kruger National Park. A survey of 350 individuals support existing literature, but highlight the importance of time, distance and affordability as constraints to this market. The study identifies areas in which products could be adapted, as well as aspects that could be considered when formulating marketing messages aimed at this market.     

Product quality alignment and business unit performance

Over the past decade, new strategic approaches to the management of product quality have become prime drivers of product and process innovation and change in many firms. However, many firm's product quality improvement efforts have failed to deliver anticipated business performance benefits. Implementation problems are generally viewed as significant factors in explaining such failures. Further, the literature suggests that firms' views of product quality are often very different from those of their customers. However, to date this issue has received little empirical attention. The objective of this research was to examine the causes and performance outcomes of product quality alignment ‐ differences between firms' views of the product quality they deliver and customer views of the product quality delivered to them. We conducted exploratory interviews with quality and marketing managers aimed at developing a grounded understanding of the nature, antecedents and consequences of product quality alignment. These fieldwork insights were combined with the existing literature to delineate the central product quality alignment construct and develop specific hypotheses concerning the antecedents and performance consequences of product quality alignment at the SBU‐level. Using data from a mail survey of multiple key informants (general managers, quality managers and marketing managers), we tested hypothesized relationships using a structural equation model methodology. Our quantitative findings provide empirical evidence that product quality alignment positively affects business unit performance. Our data also suggest that the degree to which quality goals spanning customer‐focused and internally‐oriented criteria influence decision‐making and actions taken is positively associated with product quality alignment. Further, our data indicate that while the use of marketing tools in developing and executing product quality improvement efforts is positively associated with product quality alignment, no such association is observed with more commonly recommended TQM tools. Our results also suggest that effective interfunctlonal interactions between quality and marketing functions (higher levels of interfunctional connectedness and lower levels of interfunctional conflict) are positively associated with product quality alignment. Overall, our results suggest that product quality alignment is an important concept in understanding product quality improvement‐performance linkages at the SBU level and that minimizing mis‐alignment may be an appropriate focus for management attention.