Portfolio efficiency analysis with SFA: the case of PSI-20 companies

This study aimed to assess the technical efficiency (TE) of individual companies and their respective sectors that are traded on the Portuguese stock market. We accomplished this by combining the internal input variables (e.g., ‘market value and return’) with exogenous variables (e.g., ‘interest income’, ‘depreciation’, ‘cost of goods’, ‘employees’ and ‘net sales’) into a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) model. The TE of the PSI-20 (Portuguese Stock Index) was estimated using factors that affect efficiency variability. The main advantage of using the SFA approach is its potential to discriminate between measurement error and systematic inefficiencies in the estimation process. The results demonstrated that TE is higher for enterprises in the industrial, construction and distribution sectors, whereas the commercial banking sector has the lowest TE scores. The ‘employees’ and ‘depreciation’ are the variables which most contribute to stock market inefficiency.     

Commodity futures trading performance using neural network models versus ARIMA models

Neural networks trading returns are compared out-of-sample with traditional ARIMA returns for corn, silver, and deutsche mark. Results show that neural network and ARIMA models had positive returns, and at about the same levels. However, deutsche mark was less profitable and returns were not statistically different from zero, in contrast to corn and silver. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 18: 965–983, 1998     

Are consumers' financial needs and values common across cultures? Evidence from six countries

Are consumers' financial needs, and financial values, the same or different across cultures? Two studies, with student (Study 1; n = 988) and non‐student (Study 2; n = 959) participants, explore the extent of equivalence, across six countries (Brazil, Russia, China, Taiwan, Tunisia and US), in financial need belief, and financial value, measurement models. The financial need beliefs, derived from self‐determination theory (SDT) principles, include financial self‐efficacy, financial autonomy, financial community trust and support; the financial values include materialism and financial altruism. Both the financial need and financial value constructs evidence configural invariance (similar factor structure), and factor invariance among student but not non‐student samples. The financial need constructs evidence full, and the financial value constructs evidence partial, metric (factor loading) invariance. Factor covariance invariance obtains for the financial need beliefs constructs but not the financial value constructs. Finally, neither financial need nor financial value constructs evidence scalar (intercept) invariance. These results provide partial support for extending SDT's hypothesis of universal human needs to the financial domain. In contrast, the financial value constructs of altruism and materialism are largely instable across cultures, suggesting that consumer views of giving, and the role of wealth in social status, differ between countries.     

A conceptual framework to analyse hospital competitiveness

This article proposes a conceptual framework to analyse hospital competitiveness at the organisational level. Hospital competitiveness, defined as the capacity a hospital has to develop a superior performance that leads it to a position of competitive advantage, may be analysed in three dimensions: organisation, strategic behaviour, and performance. Based on previous studies and on the current structural adjustment in the Portuguese public hospital sector, this article suggests the following categories: legal status, organisational complexity, and resources for the organisation dimension; stakeholders, services and inter-organisational relationships for the strategic behaviour dimension; and type of indicators, efficiency and effectiveness, and benchmarking for the performance dimension. This framework seems to be particularly useful in evaluating Portuguese hospital competitiveness and providing insights for hospitals' managers and public decision makers both from Portugal and other countries.     

On using relative prices to measure capital-specific technological progress

Recently, Greenwood, Hercowitz and Krusell (GHK) have identified the relative price of (new) capital with capital-specific technological progress. In a two-sector growth model, however, the relative price of capital equals the ratio of the productivity processes in the two sectors. Restrictions from this model are used with data on wages and prices to construct measures of productivity growth and test the GHK identification, which is easily rejected by the data. This raises questions about various measures of the contribution that capital-specific technological progress might make to the economy. This identification also induces a negative correlation between the resulting measures of capital-specific and economy-wide technological change, which potentially explains why papers employing this identification find that capital-specific technological change accelerated in the mid-1970s. We impose structure on the productivity measures based on their long-run behavior and find evidence of a slowdown in productivity in the 1970s that is common to both sectors and an acceleration in the mid-1990s that is exclusive to the capital sector.     

Online Engagement and the Role of Digital Influencers in Product Endorsement on Instagram

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the forms of engagement generated from the endorsement of products by digital influencers on Instagram, considering the characteristics of their online posts. A qualitative approach was used to investigate digital influencers’ posts based on semiotic image analysis and the critical incidents technique. The results reinforced that digital platforms enable distinct forms of engagement by establishing new configurations that affect relationship marketing and promotion strategies. In particular, on Instagram, the development of engagement can involve four participants who play different social roles, expanding the process of value co-creation.     

National,regional, and corporate planning methodologies—system dynamics versus simultaneous equation using regression

This paper compares two distinct large scale modeling approaches—Systems Dynamics and Simultaneous-Equation Regression—in terms of methodological features and user friendliness. The circumstances under which one methodology may be more appropriate than the other is explored. Several suggestions are made regarding the practical choice of one approach over the other.     

Impacts of Technology Adoption by Small Independent Food Retailers

This paper aims to understand the impacts of technology adoption on small independent food retailers in Portugal. Based on primary data, perceptions of the impacts were related to types of technology and retailer‐specific characteristics. Although technologies for managing customer relationships are the most frequently adopted, there is no empirical evidence that they yield strong perceived impacts on firms' performance. The complexity and novelty of such technologies seems to require time for firms and workers to become proficient in their use, and hence to generate perceived impacts on firms' performance.