Strategic HR orientation and firm performance in India

This study tests the relationship between strategic HR orientation and firm performance. The study has been conducted to add to the growing empirical evidence in this field. The study has been carried out in the Indian setting, where the importance of human resources has gained currency in the last decade. Results show that there is a significant relationship between strategic HR orientation and firm performance.     

International Trade and Economic Growth Nexus in Australia: A Robust Evidence from Time‐Series Estimators

This study examines the effects of international trade on output and tests the null of Granger non‐causality between trade and economic growth in Australia. The single‐equation IV‐GMM, DOLS, FMOLS and NLLS and the system‐based ML estimates consistently support the positive and significant long‐run effects of exports and investment on output. The effects of imports are consistently negative across all the estimates. The OLSEG, RLS and ARDL‐ECM estimates provide a mixed and weak and that overparameterised level‐VAR estimates no support for the effects of trade on output. The estimates of the model with structural breaks provide a dominant support for the cointegrating relationship among variables. In conclusion, the evidence supporting the positive and significant long‐run effects overwhelms the evidence providing a mixed, weak or no support for the effects of trade on output. The results of the study can be inductively generalised to mimic the findings of the literature at large and to suggest that a part of the inconclusiveness over the gains of trade could analogously be ascribed to the use of different methodologies and test statistics across studies. The results support the acceleration of exports and investment to foster the higher levels of output and economic growth.     

The Role of Credit in the 2007–09 Great Recession

This paper examines the financial crisis of 2007/9 and the downturn in the U.S. We argue that effective demand over the 2001?C2006 expansion was maintained by credit. The role of credit in a Vector Error Correction Model and Granger-causality between aggregate spending, credit, disposable income, and profits are examined. We show that credit itself is determined by factors outside the circular flow of income. The results raise new hypotheses about the crucial relationships in macroeconomics that sustain aggregate spending. We then compute the generalized impulse responses in the VECM to demonstrate the severity of the downturn and show that legislative changes that dismantled the restrictions placed on the financial sector and the consequent structural changes after 1980 enabled the growth of new debt instruments and credit. The overexpansion of credit when profits and house prices were declining in 2005/06 and informational asymmetries on the quality of credit and its sudden withdrawal in 2007 paralyzed the economy and led to the Great Recession.     

A cross‐cultural analysis of print advertising targeted to Hispanic and non‐Hispanic American consumers

U.S. Hispanics represent an important consumer segment in the North American market, but research in the area of U.S. Hispanic advertising remains limited. This study provides cross‐cultural analysis of print advertising targeted to Hispanic and non‐Hispanic American consumers in an attempt to explore the differences or similarities in their depictions of cultural values. The authors develop a scheme for content analyzing cultural values based on cultural theory literature. Results show meaningful differences in the core cultural values emphasized to target U.S. Hispanic consumers. The study has implications for marketers and academics who want to differentiate between culturally adapted advertising appeals for U.S. Hispanic and non‐Hispanic American consumers. The coding scheme developed in this study can help marketers identify and depict Hispanic cultural value appeals in their marketing communications. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The nature of partnering experience and the gains from alliances

We examine the conditions under which the prior partnering experience of firms contributes to value creation in their new alliances. We propose that prior experience with the same partners, that is, ‘partner‐specific experience,’ provides greater benefits than ‘general partnering experience’ that encompasses all prior alliances with any partner. We further explore some of the boundary conditions for the effects of partner‐specific experience. We suggest that the effect of partner‐specific experience on value creation in alliances is moderated by the extent to which the assets of the new partner differ from those of the firm's prior partners. We also propose that the firm's own technological and financial resources increase the benefits of partner‐specific experience. Finally, we predict that the value of partner‐specific experience will increase under high levels of firm‐specific uncertainty. We test these hypotheses with comprehensive longitudinal multi‐industry data on joint ventures formed among Fortune 300 firms between 1987 and 1996. Based on stock market returns to joint venture announcements, the results provide support for the contingent value of partnering experience. The implications for managing alliances and advancing organizational learning are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analyzing determinants of value creation in domestic and cross border acquisitions in India

The present study seeks to assess the acquiring company announcement gains, and determinants thereof, in domestic and cross border acquisitions in India. For this purpose, 268 acquisitions comprising of 202 cross border acquisitions and 66 domestic acquisitions constitute the sample set. Standard event study methodology has been employed for computing the announcement returns. Further, regression analysis has been conducted to assess the sources of wealth gains in domestic and cross border acquisition. The results of event study indicate that cross border acquisitions have created significantly higher wealth gains than the domestic ones. Further, the results of regression analysis highlight that cross border acquisitions, pursued by the acquiring companies in technology intensive sector, for the target companies also in technology intensive sector, create superior wealth gains. The reason being, such cross border acquisitions provide an opportunity to the acquiring company to combine and judiciously utilize intangible resources of both the companies on a broader scale across new geographies. Thus, the study contributes to the existing literature on internalization theory by extending it to an emerging market like India.     

The human experience of ethics: a review of a decade of qualitative ethical decision‐making research

Qualitative studies are an important component of business ethics research. This large amount of research covers a wide array of factors and influences on ethical decision making published between 2004 and 2014. Following the methodology of past critical reviews, this work provides a synopsis of the diverse array of qualitative studies in ethical decision making within the business ethics literature. We highlight the distinct and investigative nature of qualitative research, synthesize and summarize findings, and suggest opportunities for future research. We conclude with a recommendation for developing qualitative studies in business ethics and a call for an increased openness when considering this valuable and underrepresented strategy of inquiry.     

LEARNING AND THE GREAT MODERATION*

We study a stylized theory of the volatility reduction in the U.S. after 1984—the Great Moderation—which attributes part of the stabilization to less volatile shocks and another part to more difficult inference on the part of Bayesian households attempting to learn the latent state of the economy. We use a standard equilibrium business cycle model with technology following an unobserved regime‐switching process. After 1984, according to Kim and Nelson (1999a), the variance of U.S. macroeconomic aggregates declined because boom and recession regimes moved closer together, keeping conditional variance unchanged. In our model this makes the signal extraction problem more difficult for Bayesian households, and in response they moderate their behavior, reinforcing the effect of the less volatile stochastic technology and contributing an extra measure of moderation to the economy. We construct example economies in which this learning effect accounts for about 30% of a volatility reduction of the magnitude observed in the postwar U.S. data.     

Underwriter Reputation, Initial Returns, and the Long-Run Performance of IPO Stocks

We find that the underperformance of IPO stocks relative to the market over a three-year holding period is less severe for IPOs handled by more prestigious underwriters. Consistent with prior studies, we also find that IPOs managed by more reputable underwriters are associated with less short-run underpricing. Among the various existing proxies for underwriter reputation, the Carter–Manaster measure is the most significant in the context of initial returns and also in the context of the three-year performance of IPOs. The study also provides an updated list of the Carter–Manaster measure for various underwriters.