INNOVATIONS IN PARTITIONING A SHARE OF STOCK

This paper presents a synthesis of innovations in the slicing and dicing of cash flows of a share of a firm's common stock. It begins by discussing PRIMEs and SCOREs, then Unbundled Stock Units (USUs), and finally three proposed hybrid equity options called DIVS, OWLS, and RISKS.
Decomposing a share of stock into components that can be traded separately allows investors to choose between the different investment attributes constituting the underlying share. An investor who desires only cash dividend income may buy only DIVS, and another who values capital appreciation but not current income can purchase only the residual claim.
Derivatives seem to go through a developmental process that is analogous to the biological phenomenon of natural selection and adaptation. The engines that drive this evolutionary process are changing domestic and international market conditions, international tax and regulatory arbitrage, and, of course, the financial innovators who learn from their own mistakes, and from the experience of others. These innovators continually develop new products that represent improvements over the old, if only by their ability to adhere more closely to the guidelines laid down by the regulators. The histories of PRIMEs and SCOREs, of USUs, and, most recently, of DIVS, OWLS and RISKS together provide a nice illustration of this developmental process.     

Servant leadership across cultures

Servant leadership is anchored in the human drive to bond with others and contribute to the betterment of the society. An emphasis on service motivation, as demonstrated by empowering and developing people with empathy and humility, differentiates servant leadership from other leadership frameworks. In this study, we analyzed the degree to which five aspects of servant leadership, Egalitarianism, Moral Integrity, Empowering, Empathy and Humility were endorsed as important for effective leadership across cultures. While each of these dimensions was found to be associated with effective leadership, there was considerable variation in degree of endorsement of components of servant leadership across different GLOBE culture clusters. The dimensions of Egalitarianism and Empowering were endorsed more strongly in Nordic/European cultures but less so in Asian and similar cultures. On the other hand, servant leadership dimensions of Empathy and Humility were more strongly endorsed in Asian cultures than European cultures. Further, significant relationships were found between several societal cultural values and aspects of servant leadership which help us understand why nations differ in endorsing this leadership construct.     

The curse of the superstar CEO

When struggling companies look for a new chief executive today, the one quality they prize above all others is charisma. But once they've recruited a larger-than-life leader, they often find that their troubles only get worse. Indeed, as the author's new research painfully reveals, the widespread belief in the powers of charismatic CEOs can be problematic. Why? First, Khurana says, there's no conclusive evidence that charismatic leadership affects an organization's performance. And yet--as Kodak's story over the past decade reveals--when a company is faltering, boards feel compelled to oust the incumbent chief executive and bring in a corporate savior. Second, the insistence on finding a charismatic leader, combined with the undefinable nature of charisma, results in selection processes that are overly conservative and even irrational. Boards end up considering only candidates who have already achieved the rank of CEO or president at a high-performing, high-profile company, even if they are not right for the job. Third, charismatic leaders deliberately destabilize organizations. This can result in a more vibrant company, as it did at General Electric during Jack Welch's tenure, but it can also leave a troubled legacy for the organization to overcome, as GE, Ford, and Enron have all found. Faith in a company, a product, or an idea can unleash tremendous innovation and productivity. But the extravagant hopes invested in charismatic CEOs resemble not mature faith but a belief in magic. If we are willing to reconsider our notion of leadership, this age of faith can be followed by an era of faith and reason.     

Valuation of Landmass Degradation Using Fuzzy Hedonic Method: A Case Study of National Capital Region

A Hedonic model to determine the revealed willingness to pay for landmass of different suitability classes, based on landmass functional characteristics obtained through subjective assessments, is developed for the National Capital Region in India. The inherent non-specificity involved in subjective evaluation is minimized using fuzzy logic based regression technique. The proposed fuzzy regression involves regression using central values of triangular fuzzy number and minimization of non-specificity using linear programming. The revealed willingness-to-pay for landmass of different suitability classes is used for valuation of disbenefits due to urban expansion on landmass of different agricultural suitability classes in National Capital Territory of Delhi. Appropriate pricing policies to prevent the future inappropriate landuse practices are developed using the landmass valuation.     

Equilibrium in abstract economies without ordered preferences and with a measure space of agents

We report a generalization of Aumann's (1966) existence theorem to economies without ordered preferences and with externalities in consumption. Our work can alternatively be viewed as a generalization of the Shafer–Sonnenschein (1975) theorem to economies with a continuum of agents.