Ambiguity Acceptance as a Function of Project Management: A New Critical Success Factor

This research examines the relationship between ambiguity acceptance and customer and organizational outcomes within the Six Sigma improvement project context. Results find a curvilinear relationship between open communication and customer outcomes for project leaders. Results of multiple regression find a significant positive relationship between open communication and organization outcomes, as well as a significant positive relationship between ambiguity acceptance and customer and organizational outcomes for team leaders, while there is a significant positive relationship between ambiguity acceptance and customer and organizational outcomes for team members. Theoretical and practical implications are examined.     

The effect of merger anticipation on bidder and target firm announcement period returns

This paper examines investors' anticipation of bidder and target merger candidacy and if investor anticipations about candidacy affect the distribution of value between bidder and target firm shareholders. We find that bidder firms can be predicted more accurately than target firms. To investigate how merger announcement period returns are distributed among bidder and target shareholders, we control for different degrees of predictability in bidder and target selection and find that the difference between bidder and target firm three-day cumulative abnormal returns around a merger announcement decreases significantly. Thus, the evidence supports the hypothesis that the asymmetry in investor anticipations about merger candidacy causes disparity in bidder and target firm announcement period abnormal returns.     

Corporate governance and earnings management at large U.S. bank holding companies

This paper examines whether corporate governance mechanisms affect earnings and earnings management at the largest publicly traded bank holding companies in the United States. We first find that performance, earnings management, and corporate governance are endogenously determined. Thus, OLS estimation can lead to biased coefficients and a simultaneous equations approach is used. We find that CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS), board independence, and capital are positively related to earnings and that earnings, board independence, and capital are negatively related to earnings management. We also find that PPS is positively related to earnings management. Finally, PPS and board independence are positively related and the relationship is bidirectional. While both PPS and board independence are associated with higher earnings, our results indicate that more independent boards appear to constrain the earnings management that greater PPS compels.     

Importing accounting: the case of Trinidad and Tobago

In the period immediately following its achieving independence, Trinidad and Tobago switched from a pattern of importing British professional accountants to one of importing British professional qualifications. It was also in this period that the first professional accounting association appeared: that is, eighty years after such bodies emerged in Britain and her settler colonies. This paper seeks to explain why the achievement of political independence in Trinidad and Tobago (and perhaps in some other British non-settler colonies) signified a critical turning point in the development of a local accounting profession. The paper also explores how the history of importing accounting impacted on the contemporary organization of the profession in Trinidad and Tobago.     

The Impact of Social Norms on Suboptimal Food Consumption: A Solution for Food Waste

Abstract

Consumers seem to have a reduced preference to buy fruits and vegetables with unusual appearance, products with damaged package and close to the expiration date, usually called suboptimal food products. However, this pattern of behavior is an important contributor to food waste levels. Interventions aimed at encouraging the purchase of suboptimal food are scarce, however, needed. Across two studies, we investigated the effect of social norms in driving suboptimal food consumption. Additionally, it was tested if food waste problem awareness is the underlying mechanism in the relationship between social norms and intention to buy suboptimal food. Results show that appeals employing social norms positively affect purchases intentions toward the products. Moreover, food waste problem awareness mediates the effect of social norms on intentions to purchase the product with an unusual appearance. We discuss how social norms can be used to tackle food waste and implications for marketing and policy actions.     

Employers' pay practices and potential responses to “comparable worth” litigation an identification of research issues

Comparable worth is a controversial compensation strategy. In this paper, research issues that arise when employers perform point-based job evaluations, but deviate from them because of market factors, are discussed. Greater research attention to the actual operation of markets and to the consequences of conflicts in equity perceptions is encouraged. Marcia P. Miceli is Associate Professor of Management and Human Resources at Ohio State University. Her research interests are in the areas of compensation administration, professional dissent and whistle-blowing, and employee selection and recruitment. Her previous works in these areas have been published in Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Business Ethics. John D. Blackburn is Associate Professor at the College of Business at Ohio State University. He has won the Best Article Award — American Business Law Journal. He is the co-author (with Julius Getman) of Labor Relations: Law, Practice and Policy. Stephen L. Mangum is Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resources at Ohio State University. His research has been in the areas of economic development, employment and training programs, pay equity, and military manpower and has appeared in such journals as Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector, Armed Forces and Society and Challenge. He is author (with Dr. C. Y. Hsieh) of A Search for Synthesis in Economic Theory (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1986).An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Academy of Management. The authors thank Jerry Greenberg and Arnon Reichers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.     

Voting rights and shareholder wealth the issuance of limited voting common stock

This paper investigates the shareholder wealth consequences of the public announcements of the proposed issuance of multiple classes of common stock with disparate voting rights. The evidence suggests that, for our sample of 70 firms which proposed dual-class recapitalizations over the period 1962–86, the creafion of dual classes of common stock, on average, leads to abnormal stock price increases. The data do not lend support to the hypothesis that the concentration of voting power with incumbent management is detrimental to shareholder interests.     

Job satisfaction and employee perception of the learning environment in the health care management industry

This study examines the relationship between job satisfaction and perception of the learning environment of administrative employees and differences in job satisfaction in terms of age, education, ethnicity, gender, location, marital status, position classification, and years of service. A total of 261 administrative employees of a national health care management organization participated in the survey. Major findings of this study revealed significant differences in some subcategories of job satisfaction and perceptions of learning environment in the respondents' ethnicity, age, and office location. Significant relationships were also found between job satisfaction, the perceived learning environment, and facets of the learning environment.     

Technical Development and the Innovation Process

Independent and small-business inventors face enormous difficulties as they attempt to commercialize new technologies. Harold Livesay, Marcia Rorke and David Lux share a number of their useful insights based on their experience. They find that many inventors wish to focus only on certain aspects of their emerging programs. In fact, these inventors resist the need to develop a balanced program involving not only technical development but also marketing and the creation of sustaining business structures. This article provides a systematic elaboration of these difficulties, suggests a more balanced approach and thus describes a process of education and communication that may increase overall effectiveness.     

Important Elements of Hotel-Meeting Planner Contracts: An Exploratory Study

Contracts between meeting planners and hotels are getting longer and more complex to protect the interests of both parties. Unlike many other industries, there is no standard contract for use between meeting planners and hotels. This study was undertaken to try to ascertain (a) what elements the literature suggests should be contained in all contracts between meeting planners and hotels, and (b) what actually appears in real life contracts. The result was development of a 9-item checklist and comparison of real contracts with this list. It was found that although the bids were for an identical event there was significant variation in the elements included in the contracts as well as the operationalization of each element. However, this study found that none of the hotels in this sample included all nine elements in their contract, which provides educators and practitioners with the opportunity to provide assistance to hotel managers. Additional discussion addresses the accepted practices exchange (APEX) development of recommendations for contract clauses. Thus, the results of the extant study make a contribution to the discipline and are of interest to academics and practitioners alike.