Raleigh building products: A teaching case that highlights the differences between IFRS and US GAAP

Within 5 years, the United States will join the rest of the world’s industrialized countries and many emerging economies in adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). However, many educational programs have not yet developed full curricula or integrated case studies in existing programs to compare and contrast how US GAAP and IFRS would record and present major accounting transactions.Based on events that reflect real world scenarios, this study presents a series of three Raleigh Building Products cases as an instrument to fill the current IFRS education void. The first case in the series discusses US GAAP acquisition and consolidation activities, the second case examines asset and intangible impairment under US GAAP and IFRS, and the last case adds components that differ significantly between US GAAP and IFRS. The series of cases can be used stand alone or build upon each other throughout the semester. The combined cases focus on the following key concepts: (1) calculating acquisition price; (2) preparing combination financial statements including deleting LIFO reserves; (3) measuring goodwill and other intangibles; (4) determining the impairment of goodwill due to economic declines; and (5) comparing fundamental differences between US GAAP to IFRS. The attached teaching notes detail these matters and discuss the statements of cash flows under US GAAP and IFRS.Results from classroom use indicate that this case will benefit accounting students and practitioners as IFRSs become effective in the US.     

Consumers’ evaluations of the efficiency of actions to improve environmental quality: A comparative study between Brazil and China

There is a gap in our knowledge about environmentally conscious consumers in industrialized economies and the desire to achieve sustainable economies. Given that most aspects of consumer behaviour are culture bound, this paper contributes by comparing consumers’ evaluations of the efficiency of actions to improve environmental quality in two of the most promising industrializing consumer societies: Brazil and China. The proposed conceptual framework includes environmental concerns, perceived consumer effectiveness, green attitudes, green behaviours and external motivators as constructs to explain the perception of efficient environmental support. Field research was conducted in Brazil with 1,149 respondents, and in China with 632 respondents to test the model. The results suggested that the belief that environmental quality can be improved is directly associated with consumers’ internal and external motivators. However, cultural traits drove important differences in the evaluation of the efficiency of such improvements. Specifically, Chinese people tended to rely on collective leadership to create the conditions necessary for improving environmental quality, while they remained concerned with the current status. In contrast, Brazilians accepted more personal responsibility for the results, although they face important constraints, such as the availability of products.     

Risk Judgments in Climbers: The Role of Difficulty,Meteorological Conditions,Confidence and Appropriate Tools

Risk perception among climbers is a factor that can contribute to injury prevention. The purpose of this study was to analyze how expert climbers make judgments about potential risks to their safety. Specifically, we studied how climbers combine the available information on environmental conditions and personal resources in order to arrive at risk judgments. Sixteen distinct scenarios were presented to 134 climbers, and their risk perception related to each situation was recorded. Findings revealed that all variables were highly relevant for determining risk perception. When all variables were present at the same time, confidence was found to minimize the perception of risks caused by environmental conditions, such as difficult climbing. We conclude that an understanding of how expert climbers combine relevant information in order to judge risk can offer ways for them to take more effective preventive measures against injuries, specifically to identify hazards and their combined effects.     

Gross capital flows: Dynamics and crises

This paper analyzes the behavior of international capital flows by foreign and domestic agents, dubbed gross capital flows, over the business cycle and during financial crises. We show that gross capital flows are very large and volatile, especially relative to net capital flows. When foreigners invest in a country, domestic agents invest abroad, and vice versa. Gross capital flows are also pro-cyclical. During expansions, foreigners invest more domestically and domestic agents invest more abroad. During crises, total gross flows collapse and there is a retrenchment in both inflows by foreigners and outflows by domestic agents. These patterns hold for different types of capital flows and crises. This evidence sheds light on the sources of fluctuations driving capital flows and helps discriminate among existing theories. Our findings seem consistent with crises affecting domestic and foreign agents asymmetrically, as would be the case under the presence of sovereign risk or asymmetric information.     

Influence of Information on the Acceptance and Purchase Intention of an Irradiated Food: A Study With Brazilian Consumers

This study investigated the effect of information on the acceptability and purchase intention of an irradiated watercress salad and its non-irradiated counterpart among Brazilian consumers (N = 236). Both the irradiated and the non-irradiated products were fairly accepted (ratings about 6.0–7.0 in the hedonic scale). Significant effects (p ≤ 0.05) of gender, education, and age were also observed: acceptance and purchase intention was lower among male participants who received both information and an identified irradiated product, and higher among female participants who received only information about the process. Adults (30–39 years old) were more critical, and the higher the educational level, the lower the acceptability and purchase intention ratings. Brazil is one of the major irradiators in the world, but there is still a lack of consumer studies focusing the acceptability of irradiated foods. So the findings presented herein would favor Brazilian producers and regulators to develop effective communication strategies and to promote the irradiation technology.     

Strategy Development for a Food Company Based on Patterns of Consumer Behavior

This research reveals connections between company strategies and consumer behavior patterns within the proposed method of developing a set of optimal strategies (a multi-component strategy) for a food company under the rapidly changing conditions intrinsic in the polycyclic business environment. This method is a strategic tool providing for efficient adaptation of a food company to current and potential environmental variability based on the polycyclic concept of environmental dynamics and on the suggested definition of strategy as a long-term interactive and proactive response to the influences of the business environment.     

The anatomy of returns from moving average trading rules in the Russian stock market

This paper examines the profitability of index trading strategies that are based on dual moving average crossover (DMAC) rules in the Russian stock market over the 2003–2012 period. It contributes to the existing technical analysis (TA) literature by comparing for the first time in emerging markets the relative performance of individual stocks’ trading portfolios with that of trading strategies for the index that consists of the same stocks (i.e., the most liquid stocks of the Moscow Exchange). The results show that the best trading strategies of the in-sample period can outperform buy-and-hold strategy during the subsequent out-of-sample period, although with low statistical significance. In addition, we document the benefits of using DMAC combinations that are much longer than those employed in previous TA literature. Moreover, the decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performances shows that the outperformance of the best past index trading strategies over is mostly attributable to the fact that they managed to stay mostly out of the stock market during a dramatic crash caused by the global financial crisis.     

The moderating effect of bilateral investment treaty stringency on the relationship between political instability and subsidiary ownership choice

We investigate whether the degree to which a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) protects against expropriation (i.e., its “stringency”) influences the international strategy of multinational enterprises (MNEs) as they invest in countries with varying levels of political instability. We draw on institutional logic and insights from political economics to hypothesize that BIT stringency will moderate the established positive relationship between host country political instability and minority ownership. Analysis of a sample of 289 foreign investments made by AEX-listed Dutch MNEs in 34 countries between 2004 and 2013 provides support: a more stringent BIT will encourage the MNE to choose a majority stake as political instability rises. Robustness tests provide further support for our argument. The results have both managerial and policy implications relating to the role that BIT stringency plays in determining MNE strategy.     

Foreign direct investment and governance quality in Russia

This paper studies the effect of poor governance quality on foreign direct investment in Russia. Using a survey of businesses across forty administrative districts, we find that higher frequency of using illegal payments and higher pressure from regulatory agencies, enforcement authorities, and criminals, negatively affect foreign direct investment. Our identification strategy builds on the exogenous cross-regional variation in worker strikes during 1895–1914, the period before the October Revolution. We find that moving from the average to the top governance quality across Russian regions more than doubles the FDI stock.