Bilateral Opportunism in Buyer–supplier Partnerships

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Literature analyzes interorganizational relationships mostly from a relational perspective by emphasizing partnerships’ positive aspects. Yet business reality is often less romantic and more opportunistic. Especially within the automotive industry opportunistic behaviors often cause extreme reactions in both partners, resulting in poisoned relationships. This study examines the effects of bilateral opportunism between buyers and suppliers on both partners’ relationship induced financial performance, using an automotive industrial setting of new product development (NPD) partnerships. Furthermore, we evaluate the “opportunistic fit” between both partners to assess whether partnerships are characterized by opportunistic parity or unilateral domination.     

Capital market efficiency and the relationship between equity returns, interest rates, and monetary aggregates in Australia

This paper examines the efficiency with which the Australian share market incorporates new information relating to interest rates and the monetary aggregates into share prices. It finds a strong relationship between medium term government security yields and equity returns although little relationship could be found between unanticipated changes in the monetary aggregates and share returns. Furthermore, the interest rate relationship involved long lags and suggests inefficiency in stock market pricing in Australia.     

Does the “management approach” contribute to segment reporting transparency?

Segment reporting creates an opportunity for companies to add value to the information they disseminate about their industry and geographic operations. This article examines the “management approach” to segment reporting from a user perspective that should be of great interest to corporate financial executives. The management approach to segment reporting requires companies to report segment financial information consistent with the way they manage their businesses. We conclude that, despite more segment data being reported, the potential of the new management approach to significantly benefit users is compromised by uneven compliance among reporting companies. The complicity of external auditors in compliance shortcomings should concern all stakeholders in the financial reporting process. Noting two high-profile examples of accounting fraud, we comment on how the management approach sheds light on Enron's operations, while WorldCom concealed important segment information due to probable auditor malfeasance.     

Social Investing: Mainstream or Backwater?

Social investing, though not yet fully mainstream, has the potential to obtain such status. Questions relating to the future of social investing include the following. (1) What properly falls within the ambit of social investing? Assuming that no single definition of social responsibility is feasible, what then are the limits? (2) What do we need to know about investor psychology concerning social investing? What motivates people to buy socially screened investments and why do they sometimes act inconsistently? (3) How can we improve the measures of social performance? Is it possible to develop GAAP and GAAS equivalents for social reporting? (4) Should social reports by firms be audited? If so, how? (5) What sorts of public policies are necessary to support the social screening of investments?     

Statistical manipulability of social choice functions

We consider the proportion of profiles at which an anonymous neutral social choice function cannot be manipulated to any coalition's advantage. We fix the number of alternatives and consider the limit as the number of individuals goes to infinity, and assume that the limit of the fraction of all profiles in the domain is 1. We show that there is a continuous function on “profile vectors’ which gives the maximum probability of strategy-proofness, and that this is strictly between 0 and 1 for three alternatives. We also analyze a number of common social choice functions along these lines.     

Consumer microwave use of melt-blown material for fat reduction

Consumers, who use their microwave oven to heat bacon, were asked to heat either bacon or sausage on non-woven, melt-blown material and on paper towels in the microwave oven. The consumers were surveyed about their concerns for fat and cholesterol in the diet. The panelists also were asked to evaluate the appearance, greasiness, ease of use and overall acceptability. A survey of the consumers indicated that they were concerned about fat and cholesterol in the diet and purchased items lower in fat. However, 28% of these individuals save and re-use bacon fat. Panelists liked the appearance of bacon heated in the melt-blown pad better than on the paper towels and found it easier to use. Sausage heated in the melt-blown pad was found to be less greasy and more acceptable than that heated on paper towels.     

LABOR MARKET IMPACTS OF SMOKING REGULATIONS ON THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY

This paper examines the impact of smoking regulations on restaurant employment in West Virginia, a state with a high rate of smoking prevalence. Using a confidential establishment‐level dataset, our results suggest that smoking bans reduced restaurant employment by between 0.7 and 1.5 workers, depending on model specification. We find that smoking restrictions have heterogeneous impacts across establishments, with the largest impacts on mid‐sized establishments, defined as those with 10–29 employees. Our results also suggest that the impact of smoking restrictions was larger in counties with higher rates of smoking prevalence. (JEL L51, D78, H0)