Overcoming the Trend Toward Healthier Foods: The Impact of Advertising and Intangibles on Investor Returns in the Packaged Food Industry

The study analyzes the impact of advertising, goodwill, and other intangibles on investor returns in the consumer packaged food and beverage industry during 2008–2012, a timeframe during which smaller brands wrestled $18 billion in sales away from large manufacturers of processed foods. The findings demonstrate that those firms that were able to allocate a greater percentage of their revenue to their ongoing advertising efforts were able to enhance investor holding period returns (HPR). In addition, those firms with a higher ratio of intangible assets other than goodwill to total assets were also able to enhance HPR. However, there was not a significant positive relationship between the ratio of acquired goodwill to total assets and HPR. Hence, packaged food and beverage manufacturers are advised to seek competitive advantages through their own brand-building efforts rather than seeking to enhance investor returns through a strategy based on company mergers and acquisitions.     

Carbon information on vegetables: How does it affect the buying process?

Information on the climate impact of a food product has practically not been communicated in Germany, even though it could provide important acknowledgement of producers’ actions in low‐carbon production. So far, carbon labelling has predominantly been discussed without taking into account German consumers’ opinions (proven by empirical data) on this issue, even though involving the consumer in the considerations of a Carbon Label is essential for its success. Especially the question, if information on the product carbon footprint is a considerable factor within the search process of a purchase decision, was of special interest in this work. To answer these questions, we analysed consumers’ information‐seeking behaviour using an information display matrix (IDM) experiment with 232 participants. The IDM is a process tracing technique which allows to track the information search in a buying process. Our results show that basically the place of origin is the most important criterion for the purchase decision, followed by price and production method (conventional/organic). In contrast, the sustainability information (i.e., carbon footprint and water consumption) are at a low level of importance. Comparing two locally produced products with the help of a multinominal logistic regression‐model, it seems that the group of consumers preferring organic products is influenced in the purchase decision by the carbon footprint information. In summary it can be stated that although some people may be basically interested in carbon labelling of fresh food, the purchase decision would probably be hardly influenced by a carbon label on vegetables at present. The majority of people are more concerned about factors like origin and price so that Carbon Labelling would only be a viable option for a small group of consumers.     

Social support timing and persistence in nascent entrepreneurship: exploring when instrumental and emotional support is most effective

This paper investigates how the timing of social support, both emotional and instrumental support, affects entrepreneurial persistence of nascent entrepreneurs. Drawing on social support theory, we hypothesize that the effectiveness of support depends on when, during the venture development process (number of gestation activities completed), it is provided. We also propose that the impact of social support depends on when during the entrepreneur’s life stage (age) that support is made available. Testing our hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset of nascent entrepreneurs, we find that emotional support is most relevant earlier on during venture development, while instrumental support is most relevant for entrepreneurs who begin their businesses in earlier life stages.     

The impact of R&D on value added for domestic and foreign firms in a newly industrialized economy

This study compares the impact of R&D on value added between domestic and foreign firms in Singapore. The analysis is based on a comprehensive panel database from 1993 to 1999 provided by the Singapore Government. Our results found that R&D investments of foreign firms generated higher value added than those of domestic firms, and that the difference in value added contributed by R&D was moderated by the type of R&D and the technological level of industry. The study supports the argument that the ownership advantages possessed by foreign firms, relative to domestic firms, have positive effects on R&D performance.     

Firm value and its relation to equity retention levels, forecast earnings disclosures and underpricing in initial public offerings in Hong Kong

This study helps extend our understanding of the factors underlying the valuation of initial public offering (IPO) firms within the Hong Kong market context. The issues investigated are all the more important given Hong Kong's unique position in China, where free and unfettered capital markets entice global institutions wishing to partake in the ‘China investment story’. We find support for three signals of initial firm value: the fraction of equity retained by pre-listing stakeholders [Leland, H., & Pyle, D. (1977). Information asymmetries, financial structure and financial intermediation. Journal of Finance, 32, 371–387], the voluntary disclosure of a prospectus earnings forecast [Trueman, B. (1986). Why do managers voluntarily release earnings forecasts. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 53–71] and the amount of funds ‘given-up’ through IPO underpricing [see Allen, F., & Faulhaber, G. R. (1989). Signalling by underpricing in the IPO market. Journal of Financial Economics, 23, 303–323; Grinblatt, M., & Hwang, C. Y. (1989). Signalling and the pricing of new issues. Journal of Finance, 44, 393–420; Welch, I. (1989). Seasoned offerings, imitation costs, and the underpricing of initial public offerings. Journal of Finance, 44, 421–449]. Moreover, the signals appear robust to different firm valuation measures (i.e., market-to-book and Tobin's Q) and to the inclusion/exclusion of PRC state-owned H-share issuers.A number of other important contributions also emerge. First, we develop a new measurement form for the pre-listing shareholders’ equity retention level (α) by decomposing it to reflect differential effects from primary and (‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’) secondary offers. We further show that after accounting for listing rule effects—which partially drive the choice of the retained equity level in the Hong Kong setting—the equity retention-firm value relation is seen with much greater clarity.In a later stage of analysis we deepen the signal-firm value findings by relating the three signals to post-IPO earnings. We note a positive association between the fraction of equity retained by pre-listing owners and earnings growth. However, this association weakens somewhat beyond the first two accounting year-ends post-listing. Significantly, earnings appreciation appears markedly weaker for issuers going to market with a secondary offer component within their overall IPO. Finally, consistent with Jain and Kini's [1994. The post-operating performance of IPO firms. Journal of Finance, 49(5), 1699–1726] US evidence, IPO underpricing appears to have little or no association with post-listing earnings.     

Kurzarbeit — Sinnvoller Konjunkturpuffer oder verlängertes Arbeitslosengeld?

Zusammenfassung  Zur überwindung der aktuellen Krise wird nicht nur in Deutschland das Instrument der Kurzarbeit verwendet. Es ist in Deutschland im Vergleich zu anderen L?ndern jedoch sehr gro?zügig gestaltet und wurde kürzlich sogar noch ausgeweitet. Damit besteht die Gefahr, dass nicht nur — wie beabsichtigt — bei einem vorübergehenden Arbeitsausfall Entlassungen verhindert werden, sondern notwendige strukturelle Anpassungen verz?gert werden. Wie ist die Ausgestaltung der deutschen Kurzarbeit zu bewerten? Dr. Werner Eichhorst, 40, ist stellvertretender Direktor am Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit, IZA in Bonn; Paul Marx, 26, Dipl.-Politologe, ist dort als Doktorand t?tig. Erweiterte und aktualisierte Fassung von W. Eichhorst, P. Marx: Le ch?mage partiel, ammortisateur social de la crise?, in: Regards sur l’Economie Allemande, H. 90, S. 23–30.     

Entrepreneurship and innovation in Ghana: enterprising Africa

This study adopts a multi-level theoretical framework to examine data from 496 entrepreneurs in Ghana. Seven types of innovation activity are analysed against three categories of variables: the characteristics of the entrepreneur, the internal competencies of the firm, and firm location. Across all respondents, the incidence of incremental innovation was far greater than novel innovation. The extent of innovation was related to the education level of the entrepreneur. Firm size and involvement in exporting were positively related to innovation, but firm growth is less systematically so. Innovation was greater in firms located in conurbations compared to firms located in large and small towns. We conclude with suggestions for policy to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Ghana.      

Seven challenges to combining human and automated service

We introduce this special issue by addressing seven key challenges associated with managing hybrid human-automated service systems. These consist of the following:

• 1 What strategic and tactical issues arise when managing hybrid service systems?
• 2 How should the core “value proposition” be set?
• 3 What special considerations arise in the design and implementation phases?
• 4 How can service delivery be managed to identify systemic problems and to address service breakdowns?
• 5 How can communications with clients improve the functioning of service systems?
• 6 What performance measures should be used to monitor process, outputs, client perceptions, and financial outcomes?
• 7 How can we coordinate the various interdisciplinary activities needed to address the previous six issues?

We consider these challenges after first characterizing the historical evolution of service delivery, reviewing some of the literature in the administrative sciences, and proposing a conceptual framework. Copyright © 2009 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of regulation on market risk

While it is crucial to understand the impact of regulatory changes on market risk, the literature does not show how risk responds to expected regulatory changes that are specifically designed to change risk. Our paper fills this gap by providing a detailed study of one such case. Using both a sample of privatized U.K. companies, and U.K. and U.S. control portfolios, between 1993 and 2000, we show (both for the single-factor market model and the three-factor Fama-French model) that the observed changes in market risk are significant and consistent with theory.