Self-serving attributions,managerial cognition,and company performance

Past research using managers' attributions for good and poor performance in annual reports has repeatedly demonstrated that management takes credit for good outcomes. However, there is disagreement about whether this pattern of attributions reflects attempts to manage impressions in stakeholders or biased perceptions on the part of management, and whether it is associated with increases or decreases in future performance. In this study, attributions in letters to shareholders in the annual reports of public utilities were analyzed. The results showed the same general pattern of attributions as was found in previous studies. However, the relationship between this pattern of attributions and performance (earnings per share growth) was generally negative. Implications of these results for future research are discussed.     

Salesmen's personality characteristics and sample bias

A major issue in marketing concerns potential bias from nonreturns in survey research. This study was designed to examine if their are personality characteristics that differentiate the respondents from nonrespondents in a mailed questionnaire. Five hundred and eight salesmen of a national marketing firm participated in the study. Nine of the twenty variables studied had a significant difference between respondents and nonrespondents. Practical and theoretical considerations suggests that a respondent population may be an even more select group than previously considered.     

Taxation and the urban poor in developing countries

Empirical evidence indicated that the poor, and particularly the urban poor, in developing countries pay a substantial part of their income as taxes. This paper examines critically the procedures employed in measuring the incidence of taxation in LDCs, with a particular emphasis on evidence concerning the tax burdens of the urban poor, and presents a summary of some empirical work in this area. It then provides a review and analysis of fiscal policies which at the margin can assist in improving the position of the urban poor by reducing the regressivity, and increasing the progressivity, of existing or potential revenue instruments, including public service prices, and by improving the fiscal position of the poor through expenditure programmes.     

Buyer information sources in the capital equipment industry

To maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of industrial marketing communications, industrial marketers should provide product and/or service information to their customers via the communications channel considered most important by industrial buyers. This study attempts to determine if industrial marketers and industrial buyers attach equal importance to five channels of communication. The findings raise some important questions regarding traditional practices in industrial marketing communications.