Retaining Employees Through Anti–Sexual Harassment Practices: Exploring the Mediating Role of Psychological Distress and Employee Engagement

The present study utilized sexual harassment, organizational climate, and engagement theories to articulate a process model of how perceived anti–sexual harassment practices and sexual harassment incidents relate to affective commitment and intentions to stay. The authors hypothesized that perceived anti–sexual harassment practices and sexual harassment incidents would relate to employee engagement, both directly and indirectly through psychological distress. Moreover, psychological distress and employee engagement were hypothesized to mediate the relationships of perceived anti–sexual harassment practices and sexual harassment incidents with affective commitment and intentions to stay. Study findings supported these hypotheses within two subsamples of female (N = 3,283 and 3,207) and male (N = 3,460 and 3,300) military personnel. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Words versus Deeds: Evidence from Post‐Call Manager Trades

We examine the impact of conference call tones on the direction and magnitude of subsequent manager trades. Our univariate results show that corporate insiders buy company shares following negative‐tone conference calls and sell shares following positive‐tone conference calls. This inverse call tone–trading pattern holds for both managers’ introductory sessions and subsequent question‐and‐answer (Q&A) sessions. Our multivariate results confirm the univariate call tone–trading patterns and show that contrarian manager trades are mostly driven by managerial selling activity. In contrast to the consistent and strong evidence of managers trading in the opposite direction of their call tones, we find no evidence of managers trading in the same direction of their call tones. We also examine the impact of analyst Q&A challenges on post‐call manager trades. Our findings suggest that managers learn from analyst feedback and adjust their post‐call trades accordingly.     

Teaching auditing using cases in an online learning environment: the role of ePortfolio assessment

While teaching auditing using cases is regarded as an effective approach, spatial separation of students and teachers in online contexts can restrict the application of case teaching. This study examines an undergraduate auditing course implemented to address this challenge by integrating case teaching with ePortfolio assessment. Students’ written ePortfolio submissions and scores were analysed. Results show that despite spatial separation of the online learner from peers and teachers, integrating case teaching with ePortfolio assessment elicits learner behaviour desirable in online auditing courses. This approach enables online learners’ self-directed engagement as compared to instructor-led case teaching in conventional teaching contexts. Based on a new pedagogical approach for teaching auditing trialled in reduced (or absence of) face-to-face interaction, this study informs course design in auditing. It demonstrates that active student engagement, which presupposes an instructor’s role to facilitate student involvement in case discussions, can be implemented in online teaching of auditing.     

Commercial Real Estate Valuation: Fundamentals Versus Investor Sentiment

This paper investigates the role of fundamentals and investor sentiment in commercial real estate valuation. In real estate markets, heterogeneous properties trade in illiquid, highly segmented and informationally inefficient local markets. Moreover, the inability to short sell private real estate restricts the ability of sophisticated traders to enter the market and eliminate mispricing. These characteristics would seem to render private real estate markets highly susceptible to sentiment-induced mispricing. Using error correction models to carefully model potential lags in the adjustment process, this paper extends previous work on cap rate dynamics by examining the extent to which fundamentals and investor sentiment help to explain the time-series variation in national-level cap rates. We find evidence that investor sentiment impacts pricing, even after controlling for changes in expected rental growth, equity risk premiums, T-bond yields, and lagged adjustments from long run equilibrium.

Knobe, Side Effects, and the Morally Good Business

This paper focuses on Joshua Knobe’s experiments which show that people attribute blame and intentionality to the chairman of a company that knowingly causes harmful side effects, but do not attribute praise and intentionality to the chairman of a company that knowingly causes helpful side effects. Knobe’s explanation of this data is that people determine intentionality based on the moral consideration of whether the side effect is good or bad. This observation and explanation has come to be known as the “Knobe Effect.” One implication from the Knobe Effect is that it seems profit-driven businesses can only intentionally cause harmful and never good side effects. This paper examines the Knobe Effect, and argues for a way that business persons can understand it and avoid its implications. The argument has three parts. The first point is that business persons who care only about profits are blameworthy and rightly should not get credit for good side effects. Second, when a morally praiseworthy person who cares about values other than profits causes side effects, her actions are intentional and praiseworthy. Therefore, profit-driven business persons can be praised for intentionally producing good side effects if they consider other moral values as moral agents should. Finally, morally praiseworthy business persons need only to be Minimally Good Samaritans and not totally altruistic. When a business person strives for profits, adheres to other morally important values, and produces morally good side effects, then we should say that she intentionally caused those effects and is praiseworthy.     

Tourists’ emotional wellness and hotel room colour

In response to the growing wellness trend, the tourism and hospitality industry has offered various wellness services and facilities. Despite the significance of emotion in wellness, research on emotional wellness is surprisingly scant. The present empirical study examined the underlying dimensions of emotional wellness and the influence of guest room colour on emotional wellness via hypotheses testing. Results indicated that calmness is the most dominant dimension of emotional wellness. Results also suggest that a cool colour-themed guest room, particularly green, is preferable. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, and future research suggestions are provided.     

Are Government Owned Investment Funds Created Equal? Evidence from Sovereign Wealth Fund Real Estate Acquisitions

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are an institutional investor class about which relatively little is known. Even though they have trillions of...