Tightrope Walking: Navigating Competition in Multi-Company Cross-Sector Social Partnerships

Many challenges to economic and social well-being require close collaboration between business, government, and civil-society actors. In this context, the involvement of multiple companies (i.e., business partners) rather than a single company may enhance such cross-sector social partnerships’ (CSSPs) outcomes. However, extant literature cautions about the tensions arising from companies’ competitive interests and the detrimental effects on the CSSP’s social outcome. Similarly, studies analyzing simultaneous collaboration and competition (i.e., coopetition) suggest shielding off competitive elements from the collaboration. Based on insights into two multi-company CSSPs, we conversely find that government and NGO partnership managers deliberately leveraged competition through the CSSP design. They used similar segmentation mechanisms to enhance CSSP contributions, but differed in the way they integrated collaborative and competitive elements, leading to sustained corporate commitment in one CSSP and unmet promises in the other. These insights expose the paradoxical nature of coopetition at the interface of social and economic goals, and advance current research by indicating competition’s positive effects and the respective partnership design implications. On this basis, our study helps reveal and better understand sustainability-related tensions and opportunities at the inter-organizational level.     

Curriculum assessment through a capstone course: a case study in hospitality and tourism programs

The purpose of this study was to develop a systematic process that other educational institutions and programs could follow to establish a consistent and accurate evaluation method for a capstone course. Hospitality industry professionals and hospitality management faculty were interviewed through focus-group discussions, and a post-focus-group survey was conducted to determine a weighted percentage for each of the nine determined content domains. A test blueprint for a hospitality management capstone course was developed to measure programmatic student learning outcomes based on the weighted domains determined through this study. The results provide a usable instrument for hospitality and tourism management programs to enhance their current assessment methodology.     

Corporate and public responsibility, stakeholder theory and the developing world

It is often argued that multinational companies and other foreign developers have a responsibility to improve the material conditions of the people in whose territories they operate. As a matter of distributive justice it is thought that these companies should be sharing the acquired wealth with these people through the creation of 'collective goods' (like schools and aid posts), infrastructure development and compensation disbursements aimed at their benefit. Recently stakeholder theory and even legislative changes in the first world (especially in the US) have sought to impress on the corporate world the necessity to share the profits with affected non-shareholder groups. Many see these developments as possible advancements for indigenous peoples, indigenous rights and the cause of distributive justice for aboriginal groups. However, it can be shown that the attribution of such 'imperfect' duties to corporations results in the generation of excessive costs and of unrealistic expectations on the part of stakeholders. Distributive justice is more efficiently achieved by public sector involvement at the level of policy and project management.     

A Model of the Asset Disposition Decision of the RTC

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of the asset disposition decision for the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC). In this paper, we focus on the primary goal of the RTC—to maximize the net present value of the cash flows generated through holding and selling the assets it acquires. A major decision it faces is whether to hold or sell assets. This decision ultimately depends on the RTC's discount rate versus that of the marginal buyer. A second question relates to the decision of which assets to sell first and which ones to delay sale. The model developed in this paper characterizes the asset disposition decision process of the RTC for different types of assets. We develop a set of optimal disposition rules based on the simple premise of a multi-period cash flow maximization. In addition, we test some of these rules by analyzing RTC disposition performance. Through this exercise, we hope to provide some guidance to the RTC in implementing its enormous task as well as to policy makers in charting the progress of the RTC. The main results of this analysis indicate that liquid assets and retail deposit franchises should be sold as quickly as possible. Illiquid assets that are performing and do not have high servicing costs are good candidates to finance through senior/subordinated securities or sale with seller financing by the RTC. Illiquid non-performing assets are good candidates for equity participation financing by the RTC. The sales proceeds obtained by the RTC will be increased if buyers have greater certainty with respect to expected cash flows and RTC sales policies.     

A SURVEY OF JEL CODES: WHAT DO THEY MEAN AND ARE THEY USED CONSISTENTLY?

The use and prevalence of JEL code categorization is wide in the field of economics, but what do JEL code classifications actually tell us? And are they used with consistency by academics in the field? Utilizing a data set of articles published in the American Economic Review from 1990 to 2008, we investigate whether there is heterogeneity in JEL codes assignments between authors and editors. We find that there is. A secondary goal of this paper is to survey overall thematic trends in JEL code usage over the past four and a half decades. One result is that JEL category M: Business Economics, in particular, appears to be thematically and spatially distinct from much of the rest of the published literature in the top general interest journals in the field.     

How costly is the Sarbanes Oxley Act? Evidence on the effects of the Act on corporate profitability

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was intended to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures. However, critics have argued that the costs of SOX far outweigh its intended benefits. Prior studies based on stock-price reactions to SOX-related events document mixed evidence on the expected impact of SOX. In contrast, we provide evidence on the net realized costs of SOX by examining its impact on operating profitability. We find that average cash flows decline by 1.3% of total assets after SOX. These costs are more significant for smaller firms, for more complex firms, and for firms with lower-growth opportunities. Annually, these costs range from $6 million for smaller firms to $39 million for larger firms. Further, we document that net SOX-related costs are not limited to one-time expenses associated with internal-control design and implementation. In aggregate, for the 1428 firms in our sample, these costs amount to about $19 billion per year. Profitability is lower for up to four years post-SOX. To our knowledge, ours are the first estimates of the realized net costs imposed by SOX.     

IN TANDEM OR OUT OF SYNC? ACADEMIC ECONOMICS RESEARCH AND PUBLIC POLICY MEASURES

This paper investigates whether academic research attention to certain policy‐related measures (including gross domestic product, unemployment, and inflation) is correlated with empirical measurements of the measures themselves. In other words, when unemployment rises, does research attention to the matter increase? Or do economists pursue research (in the short run) relatively uninfluenced by policy shocks on the ground? Text analysis implies that economic attention to key policy terms does correlate with empirical movements of the terms in most instances; however, the stronger and more consistent correlation is between use of policy terms in the literature and discussion of them by the broader public. (JEL A11, H00)     

Adjustable-Rate Mortgages, Economic Fluctuations, and Lender Portfolio Change

In this study we examine the effects of economic fluctuations on the repayment behavior of a portfolio of adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Because the U.S. experience with ARMs is quite recent, we have used data on a form of ARM used in Canada, the rollover mortgage. The results of our analysis suggest that use of ARMs similar to the rollover mortgage may reduce but not eliminate interest-rate risk for lenders, as borrowers, albeit constrained, prepay above-market-rate loans. In addition, we find that the periodic payment change inherent in the rollover mortgage does not lead to higher default rates and, therefore, credit risk.