Manufacturer–reseller e-business arrangements: The impact of inequity on relationship performance and the moderating role of dependence

Manufacturer–reseller e-business arrangements are changing the nature of channel relationships. When manufacturers supply e-business tools to their resellers, resellers may perceive that the benefits of technology are not shared equitably. This research explores this issue by examining two technology based antecedents of perceived inequity from the reseller perspective. We also examine the impact of perceived inequity on relationship performance, and the moderating role of reseller dependence on the proposed inequity–performance link. The results of the empirical test involving a sample of 224 resellers suggest that perceived inequity negatively impacts relationship performance, while reseller dependence plays a moderating role. Implications of these findings for researchers and managers are discussed.     

Supplier integration in new product development: Computer mediated communication,knowledge exchange and buyer performance

In new product development (NPD), the buyer–supplier relationship is changing. Suppliers are becoming an integral part of the design team. This study investigates the effectiveness of computer-mediated and face-to-face communication channels on knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier firms, and ultimately buyer NPD and market performance. Open innovation literature and media richness theory are used to develop hypotheses which are then empirically tested using data collected from 157 R&D project managers from U.S. manufacturing firms. To date, empirical studies on the link between supplier integration and buyer performance show conflicting results. Structural equation modeling found a significant positive link between knowledge exchange and NPD performance, measured both in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, and a significant positive link between effective and efficient NPD and market performance. A surprising finding is that contrary to media richness theory, email can perform like face-to-face communication transmitting rich information and having a positive relationship to knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier. It was also found that with face-to-face communication, knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with effective NPD while with email communication knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with efficient NPD. Video conferencing was found to have no significant effect on knowledge exchange and the effect of web-based tools was significant and negative. The implications of these findings in theory and practice are discussed.     

Capital Budgeting Practices for R&D: A Survey and Analysis of Business Week's R&D Scoreboard

This paper discusses results of a survey of U.S. Corporations regarding the extent of the utilization of standard capital budgeting measures of investment worth to evaluate R&D projects. This study analyzes responses by three types of R&D activity: Basic, Applied and Development research. The results indicate that discounted cash flow methods are widely utilized in the evaluation of Development projects, and the analysis of Development projects is as sophisticated as the evaluation of non-R&D projects. The use of discounted cash flow analysis techniques for Applied projects is considerably less widespread than for Development projects. However, the utilization of Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return increases with firm size. Basic research projects are much less likely to be subjected to a formal economic analysis and are generally thought of as being “strategic” investments. This research also indicates that post-audits of Applied and Development projects are based on economic measures, whereas Basic research projects focus on physical or operational goals. Lastly, this research indicates that most R&D projects are terminated because R&D priorities have changed rather than because they are not technically feasible.     

Stromspeicher für die „Energiewende“ – eine akteursbasierte Analyse der zusätzlichen Speicherkosten

Political targets for implementing the German “energy turnaround” aiming at the ambitious extension of renewable energies to generate electricity. However, a majority of the renewable supply is provided by intermittent sources, e.g. wind and solar power. For balancing the increasing supply fluctuations additional storage options are claimed beside of an enforced grid infrastructure and a more flexible demand side. Despite of the political guidelines the economics of additional flexibility measures has to be considered. For this paper we analyse the costs of large scale stationary battery storages to be operated in wholesale markets and transmission grid level. By deriving a key figure based on a life-cycle cost approach, we are able to evaluate the additional costs of electricity of selected battery technologies (lead-acid, lithium ion, sodium sulphur, redox-flow). Moreover, current and valid parameters of the cost analysis are received by scientific and industrial stakeholders of battery systems via online survey and face-to-face interviews. According to the stakeholder estimation a nationwide operation of stationary battery storages will be established at wholesale and transmission grid level until the year 2030. The life-cycle cost analysis, which also includes estimated future cost reductions, shows that lead-acid batteries remain the cost-efficient technology, assuming about 100 storage cycles p.a. In addition, a sensitivity analysis reveals the impact of increasing annual storage cycles as well as the achievable cost reduction by economies-of-scales of the power unit of the storage system.     

Lodging Managers' Perceptions of Work and Personal Life: Balanced or Imbalanced?

ABSTRACT

This study serves two main purposes: (1) to assess lodging managers' perceptions of difficulties and success in balancing their personal and work lives, and (2) to investigate if lodging managers' work interferes with or is enhanced by their personal lives, or vice versa. The results indicate that most lodging managers believe that they have struck a satisfactory balance between their work and personal lives. This study identifies the respective bidirectional effects of the interaction between work and personal life. Personal life boundaries are more permeable to work demands than work boundaries are to personal life demands.     

Hedging Equity-Linked Life Insurance Contracts

Abstract

This paper examines a portfolio of equity-linked life insurance contracts and determines risk-minimizing hedging strategies within a discrete-time setup. As a principal example, I consider the Cox-Ross-Rubinstein model and an equity-linked pure endowment contract under which the policyholder receives max(S_T , K) at time T if he or she is then alive, where S_T is the value of a stock index at the term T of the contract and K is a guarantee stipulated by the contract. In contrast to most of the existing literature, I view the contracts as contingent claims in an incomplete model and discuss the problem of choosing an optimality criterion for hedging strategies. The subsequent analysis leads to a comparison of the risk (measured by the variance of the insurer’s loss) inherent in equity-linked contracts in the two situations where the insurer applies the risk-minimizing strategy and the insurer does not hedge. The paper includes numerical results that can be used to quantify the effect of hedging and describe how this effect varies with the size of the insurance portfolio and assumptions concerning the mortality.     

The international co-movements of Finish stocks

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the international co-movements of Finnish stocks. The vector autoregression (VAR) approach indicates that US and especially Swedish stock markets lead Finnish stock market returns by approximately one or two months. The results based on international market models indicate that the returns of individual Finnish stocks are significantly positively related to those of Sweden, while the relation between Finnish and US returns is significantly lower. The relation seems to vary clearly between industries, some industries being related to US markets as well. Significant time-series instability is reported in the results, however.     

Corporate diversification and firm value: a survey of recent literature

We survey the recent literature on corporate diversification. How does corporate diversification influence firm value? Does it create or destroy value? Until the beginning of this century, the predominant thinking among researchers and practitioners was that corporate diversification leads to an average discount on firm value; however, several studies cast doubt on the diversification discount. In the last decade, there has been no clear consensus as to whether there is a discount or even a premium on firm value. Recent literature concludes that the effect on value differs from firm to firm and that corporate diversification alone does not drive the discount or premium; rather, the effect is heterogeneous across certain industry settings, economic conditions, and governance structures.     

Capital Market Development,Competition, Property Rights,and the Value of Insurer Product‐Line Diversification: A Cross‐Country Analysis

In this article, we show that the effect of product diversification on performance is not homogeneous across countries. Diversified insurance companies perform significantly worse than their focused competitors in countries with well‐developed capital markets, high levels of property rights protection, and high levels of competition. In addition, we find that the diversification–performance relationship for insurance companies depends on company size. For large insurers operating in countries with less developed capital markets, diversification significantly increases performance. Our results suggest that the optimal organizational structure may be different for insurers operating in emerging economies than for insurers operating in developed countries.     

Captives zur Absicherung von Extremrisiken? Eine Untersuchung am Beispiel der OIL Insurance Limited

The use of captive insurance companies (captives) is quite common among big and international companies. Generally, captives are used to insure against high frequency/low severity risks. However, we can find captives which have been founded to deal with extreme risks as well. An example is the OIL Insurance Limited (OIL Insurance). In this context, we examine from a theoretical perspective whether captives are suitable for insurance against catastrophe risks. We show that regarding actuarial aspects captives have advantages in comparison to internal self-insurance and disadvantages in comparison to external insurance. The foundation of industry captives through the association of several companies can solve some of the problems, but further criteria especially costs have to be considered. Based on the developed arguments, we analyse whether our case example OIL Insurance is an appropriate instrument to transfer extreme risks.