Dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation and small and medium enterprise performance in emerging economies

The removal of trade barriers has encouraged the entry of new competitors into formerly protected markets. This situation creates pressure on many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies such as Tanzania. Using a survey method and cross-sectional research design, the research examines three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), namely: pro-activeness, risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness. Understanding their relationships and variance may help to improve our ability to explain SME performance. The findings contribute to how SME performance in emerging economies can be enhanced to enable SMEs to face challenges posed by competitor influx in the context of an open market economy. The findings indicate a strong relationship between EO dimensions and performance, with risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness moderating the effect of pro-activeness. The proposed model could predict 72% of the variance explained in SME performance.     

Value Orientations, Income and Displacement Effects, and Voluntary Contributions

Identifying the value orientations of subjects participating in market or non-market decisions by having them participate in a ring game may be helpful in understanding the behaviour of these subjects. This experiment presents the results of changes in the centre and the radius of a value orientations ring in an attempt to discover if the measured value orientations exhibit income or displacement effects. Neither significant income effects nor displacement effects are identified. An external validity check with a voluntary contribution game provides evidence that value orientations from rings centred around the origin of the decision-space explain significant portions of voluntary contributions while value orientations from displaced rings do not.     

The Influence of Unethical Peer Behavior on Observers’ Unethical Behavior: A Social Cognitive Perspective

The relationship between unethical peer behavior and observers?? unethical behavior traditionally has been examined from a social learning perspective. We employ two additional theoretical lenses, social identity theory and social comparison theory, each of which offers additional insight into this relationship. Data from 600 undergraduate business students in two universities provide support for all the three perspectives, suggesting that unethical behavior is influenced by social learning, social identity, and social comparison processes. Implications for managers and future research are discussed.     

Valuation and classification of company issued cash and share-puts

This paper examines whether investors’ valuations of cash and share-put warrants are influenced by their potential differential effect on firm solvency. It is motivated by the enactment of SFAS 150, which requires that all contingent put warrant obligations be classified as balance sheet liabilities regardless of put type. Consistent with the critics of SFAS150, we show that market participants differentially value cash and share-puts based on their solvency characteristics beyond the firm’s recorded assets and liabilities. Our results add to existing capital structure literature by suggesting that complex financial instruments (such as cash and share-puts) be reported separately from each other on a firm’s balance sheet.

The contextual nature of the predictive power of statistically-based quarterly earnings models

We present new empirical evidence on the contextual nature of the predictive power of five statistically-based quarterly earnings expectation models evaluated on a holdout period spanning the twelve quarters from 2000–2002. In marked contrast to extant time-series work, the random walk with drift (RWD) model provides significantly more accurate pooled, one-step-ahead quarterly earnings predictions for a sample of high-technology firms (n = 202). In similar predictive comparisons, the Griffin-Watts (GW) ARIMA model provides significantly more accurate quarterly earnings predictions for a sample of regulated firms (n = 218). Finally, the RWD and GW ARIMA models jointly dominate the other expectation models (i.e., seasonal random walk with drift, the Brown-Rozeff (BR) and Foster (F) ARIMA models) for a default sample of firms (n = 796). We provide supplementary analyses that document the: (1) increased frequency of the number of loss quarters experienced by our sample firms in the holdout period (2000–2002) vis-à-vis the identification period (1990–1999); (2) reduced levels of earnings persistence for our sample firms relative to earnings persistence factors computed by Baginski et al. (2003) during earlier time periods (1970s–1980s); (3) relative impact on the predictive ability of the five expectation models conditioned upon the extent of analyst coverage of sample firms (i.e., no coverage, moderate coverage, and extensive coverage); and (4) sensitivity of predictive performance across subsets of regulated firms with the BR ARIMA model providing the most accurate predictions for utilities (n = 87) while the RWD model is superior for financial institutions (n = 131).

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Regime Shifts in a Dynamic Term Structure Model of U.S. Treasury Bond Yields

This article develops and empirically implements an arbitrage-free,dynamic term structure model with "priced" factor and regime-shiftrisks. The risk factors are assumed to follow a discrete-timeGaussian process, and regime shifts are governed by a discrete-timeMarkov process with state-dependent transition probabilities.This model gives closed-form solutions for zero-coupon bondprices, an analytic representation of the likelihood functionfor bond yields, and a natural decomposition of expected excessreturns to components corresponding to regime-shift and factorrisks. Using monthly data on U.S. Treasury zero-coupon bondyields, we show a critical role of priced, state-dependent regime-shiftrisks in capturing the time variations in expected excess returns,and document notable differences in the behaviors of the factorrisk component of the expected returns across high and low volatilityregimes. Additionally, the state dependence of the regime-switchingprobabilities is shown to capture an interesting asymmetry inthe cyclical behavior of interest rates. The shapes of the termstructure of volatility of bond yield changes are also verydifferent across regimes, with the well-known hump being largelya low-volatility regime phenomenon.     

Parsing Work Environments Along the Dimensions of Sexual and Non-Sexual Harassment: Drawing Lines in Office Sand

Laws addressing harassment at work have evolved considerably since court systems first recognized that (sexual) harassment is illegal. Now, managers must worry about protected classes other than sex (e.g., race, age, etc.), and the effects of harassment on bystanders as well as victims (i.e., ambient harassment). Understanding these newer conceptualizations of workplace harassment is critical for mangers dealing with an increasingly complex array of possible work environments, only some of which are illegal. Toward this end, we present a taxonomy of eight possible work environments, created by parsing the legal definition of sexual harassment (i.e., the first-recognized type of hostile work environment). The taxonomy illustrates the evolution of law in this area, and highlights the multidimensional nature of workplace harassment. Also discussed are potential complications arising from how a reasonable person and a victim might interpret behavior. Managers using the taxonomy may better assess whether their work environments have crossed the line, or facilitate movement from less- to more-desirable work environments.

Emic and etic interpretations of engagement with a consumer-to-consumer online auction site

This paper provides emic and etic interpretations of engagement with a consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online auction site, based on in-depth interviews with buyers. The study exposes three misconceptions about online C2C auctions; that the interaction between parties occurs exclusively online, that the relation between buyers and sellers is purely transactional in nature, and that the interaction between buyers and sellers does not lead to ongoing business relationships. The paper reveals the utilitarian, hedonic and social benefits that are the bases of engagement with the auction site. Social benefits materialize for auction buyers during offline exchanges. The paper also reveals marketer incentives and structural disincentives for consumers' ongoing use of the auction site.