Assessment of India's research literature

The structure and infrastructure of the Indian research literature were determined. A representative database of technical articles was extracted from the Science Citation Index/Social Science Citation Index (SCI/SSCI) [SCI. Certain data included herein are derived from the Science Citation Index/Social Science Citation Index prepared by the THOMSON SCIENTIFIC®, Inc. (Thomson®), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: ©Copyright THOMSON SCIENTIFIC® 2006. All rights reserved. [1]] for 2005, with each article containing at least one author with an India address. Document clustering was used to identify the main technical themes (core competencies) of Indian research. Aggregate India bibliometrics were also performed, emphasizing the value of collaborative research to India. A unique mapping approach was used to identify networks of organizations that published together, networks of organizations with common technical interests, and especially those organizations with common technical interests that did not co-publish extensively. Finally, trend analyses were performed using other year data from the SCI/SSCI to place the 2005 results in their proper historical context.     

Voluntary Listing Requirements and Corporate Performance: The Case of the Dey Report and Canadian Firms

We investigate the determinants and consequences of compliance with the Dey Committee recommendations encouraging greater board independence in Canada. Companies that acted on this recommendation appear to have done so to improve their performance and not for cosmetic purposes. Poorly performing firms that modified their boards experienced a greater increase in performance compared to those that did not. Overall, it appears that the primary function of the Dey Report was to refocus firms' attention on the quality of board monitoring, particularly those with poor relative performance.     

The effect of accounting question response formats on student performance

The purpose of the research is to examine the effect of different response formats on student performance on introductory accounting exam questions. The study analyzes 1104 accounting students’ responses to quantitative questions presented in two formats: multiple-choice and fill-in. Findings indicate that response format impacts student performance on most of the questions, in favor of the multiple-choice. A second goal is to discover how effectively wrong-answer options in multiple-choice questions capture students’ actual incorrect thinking. Analyses of the fill-in questions showed students wrote in a wide array of incorrect answers, many of which would not have been offered as multiple-choice distracters. Answers filled in were often based on misguided logic that test question authors might never have anticipated. Students’ incorrect reasoning on quantitative fill-in questions can inform instructors on how to proactively address student misconceptions and write more effective multiple-choice items.     

Public or Private Orientation of Pension Systems in the Light of the Recent Financial Crisis

This paper studies the appropriateness of a public or private orientation of pension systems in the light of the recent financial crisis, which has underscored the difficulties and contradictions associated with each system. The different institutional arrangements, in which public or private pension systems are embedded, are key components when assessing their responses to the crisis. Particularly, private pension systems are intertwined with financial markets, while social insurance-based pension systems are linked to the labour market mechanisms. This paper compares the British and French pension systems, as “archetypes” of private-oriented and public-oriented systems, respectively, the first relying on the market and private pension schemes, and the second on mandatory social insurance. This paper shows that the crisis has upheld the founding principles of the public (French) and private (British) pension systems to maintain the existing institutional configurations. At the same time, both systems have strengthened the role played by means-tested benefits and minimum pensions for low-income groups to offset the weaknesses of one or the other system, as emphasised by the crisis.     

Developing the service template process: From measurement to agendas for improvement

Traditional survey-based measures of service quality are argued to be problematic when reflecting individual services and turning measurement into action. This paper reviews developments to an alternative measurement approach, the Service Template Process, and offers an extension to it. The extended process appears able to measure service users' and deliverers' perceptions of service quality independently. It also enables participants to jointly agree an agenda for quality improvement. The extended process is evaluated in four service situations. The paper concludes with an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the process in comparison with more traditional approaches to measuring service quality.     

Firm Accrual Quality Following Restatements: A Signaling View

We consider whether and how firms improve their financial reporting credibility following a restatement by comparing two alternative views. The compliance view predicts that firms simply correct errors to comply with regulations; the signaling view predicts that improvements are broader to allow firms to signal higher reporting quality and thereby reduce information uncertainty. We find that accrual quality improves significantly following the restatement and that this improvement is observed for both earnings and non‐earnings error restatements. We also find that the extent of real earnings’ management decreases significantly. Further, we find that improvements in accrual quality are higher for firms with CEO turnover and higher incentives to improve, but lower for firms switching to an auditor of lower quality. Collectively, our findings suggest that firms signal improved reporting credibility following a restatement through higher accruals quality and lower real earnings management.     

Can Weak Substitution be Rehabilitated?

This paper develops a graphical analysis and an analytical model that demonstrate how weak substitution can be used for non-market valuation. Weak complementarity and weak substitution represent preference restrictions that allow us to develop equivalent price changes to describe quantity or quality changes in non-market goods. The price changes are Hicksian equivalents in that they yield the same utility changes as would the quantity or quality changes. After discussion of several potential applications of weak substitution, the paper develops the parallel between the restriction and recent strategies from modeling differentiated goods.