Earnings Management Using Asset Sales: An International Study of Countries Allowing Noncurrent Asset Revaluation

Bartov (1993) demonstrates that US firms time asset sales to smooth income and affect debt/equity relationships. This study examines earnings management behavior through asset sales in countries that allow asset revaluation: Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) and the United Kingdom (UK). Earnings management behavior differs across these two country groups when their accounting rules differed prior to 1993, but is similar during the 1993–95 period when the UK implemented FRS 3 . The results also find that revaluer companies do not use asset sales to smooth income in ANZ nor in the UK after FRS 3 was implemented in 1993. UK revaluers (prior to FRS 3 ) and both countries' non-revaluers sell assets consistent with income smoothing.     

Unit (non)response in Web‐based access panel surveys: An extended planned‐behavior approach

The decision process when requested to participate in a Web survey is understood most appropriately by applying a psychological theory of human action. Consequently, this study utilized an extended version of Ajzen's theory of planned behavior to predict and explain the number of participations in a five‐wave Web‐based panel study. Based on this model, the determinants of unit nonresponse in Web‐based surveys are one's attitude toward participating in Web surveys, internalized social pressure, perceived behavioral control, and extent of moral obligation toward participating. The results indicate a satisfactory predictive power of the model. Perceived behavioral control and attitude toward participation predict the intention to participate best, followed by internalized social pressure and moral obligation. The theoretical perspective pursued proved to be valuable in terms of its predictive and explanative power as well as its practical value for Web‐based survey research. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Benchmarking sales staffing efficiency in dealerships using extended data envelopment analysis

This study presents an approach to benchmark dealer performance in a business-to-business setting through a rigorous efficiency analysis of sales staff allocation. Using a series of basic and extended data envelopment analysis (DEA) models on data collected from a survey of self-reported financial and statistical information, this research assesses dealer efficiency and compares the efficiency scores to traditional financial benchmarking. Findings support the minimization of outsourcing services that are customer interactive and highly specific to a transaction to differentiate the dealer from its competition. Integrating the results from DEA models, manufacturers obtain a comprehensive view of allocating sales staff to increase dealer efficiency and generating a complementary approach to traditional financial ratio benchmarking in determining best practices to other dealers.     

Social versus psychological brand community: The role of psychological sense of brand community

In the quest for building long-term successful brands, many marketers have become increasingly interested in how to create and foster successful communities of brand users. The appeal of such an approach to relationship marketing lies in the recognition that members of brand communities tend to exhibit favorable brand-related behaviors and intentions. Research examining the social influence and creation of such social relationships among admirers of a brand has revealed substantial insights about the social processes that underlie customers' involvement in brand communities. Curiously, the psychological underpinnings of a customer's perception of community with other users of the brand remain unexplored. We offer the perspective that the observable, core components of brand community outlined in previous research may represent markers of social brand communities, while psychological brand communities may be characterized by an unobservable, psychological sense of community that could precede, or even work in lieu of, social interaction.     

The Relationship Between General Ethical Judgments and Copying Behavior at Work

Electronic technologies, in general, and computer-oriented technologies specifically have had a tremendous impact on all aspects of business. One area of increased concern is the protection of intellectual properties -- notably copyrights -- within the boundaries of the broadly defined technology industry. While the ability to share copyrighted information has always existed at the most basic levels, the advent of the information age has allowed the sharing of this information to take place in potentially greater quantities and without a loss of quality. As such, copying creates a major threat to industries dealing in the production and distribution of copyrightable creations. The focus of this paper is to better understand how the ethical judgments of employees regarding the opportunities to recreate copyrighted works via traditional and newer technologies impact assessments of copying behavior in the workplace.     

Broiler production in South Africa: Is there space for smallholders in the commercial chicken coup?

It is agreed that agriculture provides avenues for impoverished households to produce and trade their way out of poverty. However, this requires market access and value chain integration of small-scale farmers. This paper explores the possibilities for integration of small-scale farmers into the mainstream commercial broiler value chain in South Africa. Production costs of small-scale producers are evaluated within the context of their commercial counterparts, with a case study approach. It revealed that small-scale producers pay more for inputs but also receive a substantial premium for sales of live birds in the informal market. This results in attractive gross margins for small-scale producers. There is, however, a production ceiling, due to demand and production considerations, associated with small-scale broiler production. This ultimately results in a dualistic industry with an informal (live sale) value chain at the one end of the spectrum and a sophisticated large-scale commercial value chain at the other. Given the salient production features and investment requirements associated with large-scale broiler production, organic growth from the small-scale value chain into the commercial value chain seems improbable. The dual nature of this industry should therefore be considered when developing policy geared towards development, poverty alleviation and value chain integration.     

Evolve and integrate: a new imperative for ambulatory care

A highly evolved ambulatory care delivery system possesses four key attributes: high-quality care, exceptional levels of access, outstanding patient and staff satisfaction, and cost-effective delivery of care. Such a system seeks to ease management of the patient care continuum by delivering as many services as possible under one umbrella. High-quality, cost-effective care is achieved through improved care coordination and cost management, resulting from a tight connection between physicians and hospitals and between inpatient and outpatient settings. Improved access is an important means to improving patient satisfaction.     

Employee communications and health care reform

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has made health care reform a reality. Although many of PPACA's details are still unclear to many employers, and most of the act's major reforms will take effect over the next several years, companies have reason to begin preparing for change and enough information to begin a communications effort with employees. The authors describe a number of immediate actions that employers should take to make the most of their own understanding of PPACA as it develops, as well as help their employee benefits leaders make the most informed decisions about when and how to communicate with employees about the law and its impact on their group health plan coverage.     

Do corporate governance characteristics influence tax management?

This paper investigates how corporate governance plays a role in long-run tax management and contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, we add insight into the horizon problems related to executive and director compensation and show that incentive compensation provides long-term incentives to improve performance by establishing a link between higher pay-performance sensitivity and lower taxes. Second, this is one of the first papers, to our knowledge, to empirically examine the role of governance in corporate tax management from a long-term perspective in order to better understand the lasting effects of governance. We find that incentive compensation drives managers to make investments into longer-horizon pay outs such as tax management. Furthermore, we find that this investment into tax management benefits shareholders; better tax management is positively related to higher returns to shareholders. We also address the endogeneity issues of corporate governance and performance measures. Finally, our paper is unique in examining which type of tax management strategy (domestic or foreign) different firms focus on. Our results shed light into how governance can improve firm performance and increase shareholder value in the long run.