Pre-positioning and dynamic delivery planning for short-term response following a natural disaster

Natural disasters often result in large numbers of evacuees being temporarily housed in schools, churches, and other shelters. The sudden influx of people seeking shelter creates demands for emergency supplies, which must be delivered quickly. A dynamic allocation model is constructed to optimize pre-event planning for meeting short-term demands (over approximately the first 72 h) for emergency supplies under uncertainty about what demands will have to be met and where those demands will occur. The model also includes requirements for reliability in the solutions – i.e., the solution must ensure that all demands are met in scenarios comprising at least 100α% of all outcomes. A case study application using shelter locations in North Carolina and a set of hurricane threat scenarios is used to illustrate the model and how it supports an emergency relief strategy.     

New Nonlinear Approaches for the Adjustment and Updating of a SAM

Many structural relationships should be taken into account in any reasonable adjustment and updating process. These structural relationships are mainly represented by ratios of different types, such as technical coefficients or the proportion of the cell value in relation to its row or column total. We believe that in many cases (either because of lack of information or when the time elapsed for the estimation of a social accounting matrix is not long enough to allow for any significant structural change) the updating process should try to minimize the rela- tive deviation of the new coefficients from the initial ones in a homogeneous way. This homogeneity would mean that the magnitude of this relative deviation is similar among the elements of each row or column, therefore avoiding the concentration of the changes in particular cells of the SAM. In this work, we propose some new adjustment criteria in order to obtain a more homogeneous relative adjustment of the structural coefficients. These criteria combine the adjustment method proposed by Matuszewski et al. (1964) with other deviation functions. Each of the adjustment criteria proposed leads to a nonlinear optimization problem which is reformulated as a linear program. We test the usefulness of this proposal by comparing its results with the ones obtained by more standard approaches and we are able to show that these approaches tend to produce a less homogeneous pattern of coefficient adjustment, under certain circumstances, than the ones we put forward.     

Economic and environmental efficiency using a social accounting matrix

This paper aims to show the utility of the so-called Social Accounting Matrix and Environmental Accounts (SAMEA) for economic and environmental efficiency analysis. The article uses the SAMEA for Spain in 2000, applied to water resources and greenhouse gas emissions. This matrix is used as a central core of a multisectorial model of economic and environmental performance, and it calculates the denominated “domestics SAMEA multipliers” and their decomposition into characteristic, direct, indirect and induced effects. These multipliers show some evaluation of economic and environmental efficiency. Also, we present an application of these multipliers that demonstrates that there is no causal interrelation between those sectors with higher economic backward linkages and those with higher environmental deterioration backward linkages.     

Bond rating changes and stock returns: evidence from the Spanish stock market

This study analyzes the effect of corporate bond rating changes by international agencies on stock prices. This topic has not yet been analyzed for the Spanish stock market, despite the growing importance of ratings in Spanish financial markets. On an efficient market, rating changes will only have an effect if they contain some new information. The results from an event study indicate that rating actions cause significant negative abnormal returns in issuing firms around the date of the announcement. This evidence indicates an informational effect related to downgrades, which supports the hypothesis that credit rating agencies provide information that may reduce the asymmetric information problem between firms and investors. In the case of upgrades, our results are compatible with a redistribution of wealth between bondholders and owners or with the reputation hypothesis.      

Cargo cult science and the death of politics: A critical review of social and environmental accounting research

We present here an extensive literature review delineating the main theoretical parameters that have shaped the discursive field of Social Accounting/Social and Environmental Reporting (SER). In doing so, we reflect upon the way in which theory is used in SER focusing particularly on its political character. We show that SER theories have been developed in isolation from, and in contradistinction to, other organisational literatures and the social sciences more generally. This self-referentiality has precluded consideration of whether accountability is a realistic or desirable demand to make of corporations. In an age where political antagonism has been seriously eroded in the Western World, we argue that if SER is to avoid complicity in this, then SER research must break free from its self-imposed theoretical limitations and embrace a goal beyond accountability.     

Predicting market orientation through internal market orientation as culture and behaviour: an empirical application in Spanish hotels

The aim of this study is to analyse how the internal market orientation, considered from a dual perspective, cultural and behavioural, affects the development of external market-oriented behaviours by improving the attitudinal results (affective commitment and job satisfaction) of the internal customers. An empirical study was carried out, based on the perceptions of 68 managers and 296 supervisors at four- and five-star hotels in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). The findings show that (1) the internal market orientation (IMO) has a positive influence on the effective development of market orientation behaviours in managers and supervisors; (2) the IMO has a positive influence on the affective commitment and job satisfaction of hotel managers, but not supervisors; and (3) greater affective commitment and job satisfaction have no significant effect on market orientation behaviours in hotel managers or in supervisors. Based on the study results, the paper concludes with a discussion and implications for practitioners.     

Optimisation of water procurement decisions in an irrigation district: the role of option contracts

Water supply instability is one of the main risks faced by irrigation districts and farmers. Water procurement decision optimisation is essential in order to increase supply reliability and reduce costs. Water markets, such as spot purchases or water supply option contracts, can make this decision process more flexible. We analyse the potential interest in an option contract for an irrigation district that has access to several water sources. We apply a stochastic recursive mathematical programming model to simulate the water procurement decisions of an irrigation district's board operating in a context of water supply uncertainty in south‐eastern Spain. We analyse what role different option contracts could play in securing its water supply. Results suggest that the irrigation district would be willing to accept the proposed option contract in most cases subject to realistic values of the option contract financial terms. Of nine different water sources, desalination and the option contract are the main substitutes, where the use of either depends on the contract parameters. The contract premium and optioned volume are the variables that have a greater impact on the irrigation district's decisions.     

The mediating effect of satisfaction on consumers' switching intention

Most previous research on consumers' switching intention has focused on individual variables that have immediate effects on consumers' intentions or behaviors, rather than analyzing it as a complex phenomenon. This article provides evidence that some service provider behaviors precipitate relationship dissolution, whereas other behaviors create a predisposition to switch. This different effect is observed through the mediating effect of customer satisfaction. While poor service quality and low firm commitment undermine consumer satisfaction and have only an indirect effect on switching intentions, price unfairness and anger incidents have a strong effect on switching, both directly and indirectly through satisfaction. Implications are discussed for customer relationship management. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Toward a conceptual framework of the harmonization of bank financial reporting standards in transition economies: The case of Mexico

In recent years banks in emerging and transition economies throughout the world have been compelled to change lending and financial reporting practices in response to the economic transition of their countries. Correspondingly, on the basis of the theory of soft budget constraints (SBC), economists have studied the relationship between economic development, banks' lending practices, and banks' penchant to overstate loans. However, very little research has been performed by accounting researchers regarding the nature of bank loan overstatement during times of financial crisis in emerging markets. Accordingly, this paper uses the theory of soft budget constraints to develop a four stage conceptual framework of the harmonization of bank financial reporting standards during times of economic transition. Emphasis is placed on using the theory of soft budget constraints to characterize the harmonization of standards and practices with respect to bank loan overstatement. The framework is applied to the harmonization of Mexican bank financial reporting during the country's economic transition of the late 1990s. The Mexican harmonization process during this period generally followed the framework.     

Examining the behavior of renewable‐energy fund investors

Mutual fund investors could contribute to sustainable development by encouraging fund managers to channel their savings into the funding of sustainable energy projects adopted by firms. This study examines whether renewable‐energy investors take into account financial and/or nonfinancial factors when making the decision to invest in a specific fund, comparing their investment behavior with that of black‐energy and conventional investors. To this end, we have gathered information about 4,368 mutual funds (76 renewable‐energy funds, 109 black‐energy funds, and 4,183 conventional mutual funds) from January 2007 to December 2017. For this sample, we adopt a panel‐data approach with Petersen's standard errors clustered by fund and year. Our results indicate that renewable‐energy fund investors are less sensitive to past financial performance than are black‐energy and conventional fund investors, indicating that the former derive their utility from nonfinancial attributes whereas black‐energy investors derive their utility from a conditional multiattribute and conventional fund investors derive their utility from financial attributes.