Analysing the Statement of Cashflows

Australian public companies have been required to report a statement of cashflows since 30 June 1992. Since then, little has been written on the usefulness of the cashflow statement. This paper suggests some cashflow ratios and explores the usefulness of the statement through a financial analysis of Brash Holdings Ltd. The paper particularly emphasises cashflow ratios derived wholly from the statement of cashflows and suggests that ratios derived in this way are a useful analysis tool. The application to Brash Holdings also serves as a useful pedagogic instrument for financial analysis using cashflow and accrual information.     

Recommended play and correlated equilibria: an experimental study

This study reports a laboratory experiment wherein subjects play a hawk–dove game. We try to implement a correlated equilibrium with payoffs outside the convex hull of Nash equilibrium payoffs by privately recommending play. We find that subjects are reluctant to follow certain recommendations. We are able to implement this correlated equilibrium, however, when subjects play against robots that always follow recommendations, including in a control treatment in which human subjects receive the robot “earnings.” This indicates that the lack of mutual knowledge of conjectures, rather than social preferences, explains subjects’ failure to play the suggested correlated equilibrium when facing other human players. We are grateful for financial support provided by the Purdue University Faculty Scholar program and the Asociación Méxicana de Cultura, as well as for the valuable research assistance provided by Shakun Datta and Marikah Mancini. We received helpful comments from Shurojit Chatterji, David Cooper, Arthur Schram, Ricard Torres, an anonymous referee, and from conference and seminar participants at Royal Holloway, the University of Amsterdam, Purdue University, the Economic Science Association and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory.     

A provider-cost/patron-effort schema for classifying products

Since the commodity-oriented thinkers of marketing’s early history, marketers have sought a valid schema for classifying products. Currently, the marketing literature is dominated by two types of schemata for classifying products: product-based and consumer cost-based. Despite marketing tenets such asexchange is the focal notion of marketing andgood marketing theory integrates the perspectives of firms and consumers, no existing schema embodies either exchange or a dual firm/consumer perspective. After reviewing the existing classificational schemata, one such schema is proposed and evaluated. The two classifying dimensions of this schema are providers’ relative variable costs (PRVC) and patrons’ relative effort (PRE). Crossing high and low levels of PRVC and PRE yields four product categories: low cost/effort, patroneffort heavy, provider-cost heavy, and high cost/effort. His work has appeared inJournal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Business Horizons, Business Ethics: A European Review, and other journals. His current research interests include marketing theory, advertising, and ethics. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Purdue University. will soon receive his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of North Texas. His work has appeared inAcademy of Management Journal, as well as the proceedings of the American Marketing Association, the Decision Science Association, and the Society of Franchising. His research interests include building and testing models in international marketing, consumer behavior, and marketing management. His current research interests include self-referent processing of advertisements and consumer satisfaction.     

Relationships among measures of retail salesperson performance

A lack of understanding of the relationships among measures of salesperson performance exists in practice and in the retailing/sales management literature. This article examines the relationships among three commonly used measures—one outcome (sales volume) and two judgmental measures (managerial evaluations and salesperson self-evaluations). We empirically demonstrate that not all judgmental measures are related to outcome measures; that is, salesperson self-evaluations are significantly related to sales volume, but managerial evaluations are not. The study also examines the efficacy of retailers using short outcome-measuring periods for evaluation purposes. The results suggest that outcome measure variance within salespeople for short periods is high and therefore these data should be used with caution. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from The Ohio State University. His research interests are in the areas of retailing, logistics, and sales management. He has published extensively in journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Retailing. He is co-author of Retailing Management. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are in the area of sales management and organizational behavior. His has published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.     

An approach to prioritize customer-based,cost-effective service enhancements

Service firms routinely enhance their offerings to satisfy and retain current customers and to attract new customers. We show theoretically that service improvements can be prioritized by simultaneously taking into account the likely incremental revenue (through increased customer value) and the incremental cost of making the improvement. The customer values obtained from a sample of respondents, and cost estimates obtained from managers of the service providing organization are combined to prioritize improvements using a ‘bang for the buck’ (i.e. value/cost) rule. Such a prioritization would be helpful to come up with a ‘short list’ of service improvements. The items on the short list can be evaluated in detail for their ‘Return on Quality’. The approach for prioritization is illustrated in the context of improving passenger train service between a pair of cities in India. An adaptive self-explicated approach is used for obtaining customer values and cost estimates. The customer values so elicited display substantial cross-validity.     

Layoffs and duration dependence in a model of turnover

A semi-Markov model of turnover, resulting from optimizing behavior on the part of workers, is developed. Duration dependence in the transition out of employment is modelled as resulting from a layoff probability which decreases with tenure. Some preliminary results, based on DIME data, are presented. These indicate that a declining hazard rate in the transition out of employment is a significant feature of the data.     

Choosing an optimal channel mix in multichannel environments

In the last two decades, particularly with the advent of the Internet, multichannel strategies have come to the fore in business-to-business marketing. Multichannel strategies allow firms to reach customers in multiple ways, increasing the firms' reach. In addition, multichannels allow customers to reach businesses by using their preferred channel (e.g., Internet, salesforce, or value-added reseller). The advantages of reaching increasing number of customers through multiple channels (e.g., sales, trial, profit) are partially offset by two potential negative effects of multiple channels. First, multiple channels create conflict that may dissuade some channels' members from carrying the firm's product. Second, with an increase in the number of channels carrying the product, the sales derived from each new channel drops making it difficult for a firm to recover its costs. Based on these considerations, the paper provides a framework that will allow firms to develop optimal channel mix in multichannel environments. We test the framework in the context of a software firm and provide academic and managerial implications.     

The Impact of Information Overload and Contribution Overload on Continued Usage of Electronic Knowledge Repositories

In the modern competitive organizational environment, more and more organizations are implementing knowledge management initiatives to achieve strategic advantages. One such initiative involves the implementation of electronic knowledge repositories (EKR). EKR implementation frequently results in a rapid increase in the quantity of information that must be processed daily by employees. This raises concerns about information overload (IO), and this is particularly true in relation to modern EKRs that use distributive technology. Furthermore, employees can also suffer from contribution overload (CO) because they can fulfill the functions of both knowledge seekers and knowledge contributors. This study employs the cognitive dissonance theory to determine whether IO and CO affect employees' willingness to use EKRs. The results from 144 survey respondents provide the first empirical evidence that contribution overload exerts a direct and significant negative effect on the intention to continue using EKR, whereas information overload exerts an indirect and significant negative effect on the intention to continue using EKR by altering perceived usefulness and satisfaction with the system.