Diagnostic Screener for Compulsive Buying: Applications to the USA and South Korea

Compulsive behavior is an important topic for social scientists. One form of this behavior is compulsive buying. Using data sets from two countries, the USA and South Korea, the Diagnostic Screener for Compulsive Buying (DSCB) (Faber and O'Guinn 1992) is tested with specific emphasis on the scale's cross‐cultural transferability. We find evidence that the DSCB is unidimensional in the USA and bi‐dimensional in South Korea, suggesting a lack of transferability. Potential cultural reasons for the findings are discussed in detail as well as the implications for public policy and future research.     

Income Smoothing and Discretionary R&D Expenditures of Japanese Firms*

During the recent recession (1991 to present), Japanese firms decreased their spending on R&D for the first time since World War II. The decreases have raised concerns that Japanese managers may be making suboptimal allocations to R&D. We test whether Japanese managers adjust R&D based on short‐term performance. Our results show that Japanese firms in several industries adjust their R&D budgets to smooth profits. Interestingly, adjustments to R&D are larger in expansion years. These results, similar to those documented with U.S. managers, point to myopic decision making by Japanese managers.     

DEVELOPING A BUSINESS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEM: AN ANALYTIC HIERARCHICAL MODEL

A good business performance measurement system is a very effective tool to motivate and monitor employees of a company. Although interest in creating performance measurement models is widespread, a well-designed system is rare. To be successful in today's competitive environment, a good performance measurement systems should incorporate strategic success factors. The model proposed in this study uses a three-level hierarchical schema to combine financial and nonfinancial performance measures and emphasizes external as well as internal business performance measures. In comparison with previous methods, such a method is more likely to cover a broader set of measures that include operational as well as strategic control. A prototype based on the analytic hierarchical model can be applied to other business situations.     

Do Japanese Analysts Overreact or Underreact to Earnings Announcements?

Several recent studies have used U.S. analysts' forecasts to test for underreaction or overreaction to information in earnings announcements. These tests have provided mixed results. Evidence in Mendenhall (1991) is that analysts underreact. By contrast. results in De Bondt and Thaler (1990) show overreaction by U.S. financial analysts to earnings announcements. The current study contributes to this topic by examining over/underreaction by Japanese financial analysts. Test results show that Japanese analysts do not overreact to earnings announcements, market to book ratios and sales growth. Instead. there is strong evidence that Japanese analysts underreact to earnings announcements and that their underreaction is more pronounced for firms with mostly permanent earnings. Our results also show that Japanese analysts display larger forecast biases for earnings reported under U.S. GAAP as opposed to Japanese GAAP. Finally, we find that US. analysts discount information in earnings announcements to a larger degree (relying to a greater extent on information in past prices instead) when compared to their Japanese counterparts. Further, in contrast to their Japanese counterparts, these analysts display no optimistic bias. The results above suggest that the impact of each country's unique culture and capital norms will have to be taken into account by policy makers in evaluating the feasibility of harmonization of accounting standards.