Golf Versus Nongolf Club Operations: Benchmarks for 2014

With the club industry comprising of different types of clubs, a more in-depth analysis separating clubs with and without golf operations would be beneficial. Financial performance can be summarized via financial ratios. This study surveyed 115 clubs regarding their financial performance and calculated 24 financial ratios for 2014. The median profit margin of all clubs was at 1.65%. Clubs with golf operations reported a median profit margin at 1.73%, doubling that of the nongolf operations at 0.83%. T-tests using means of financial ratios showed a statistically significantly difference in only the food inventory turnover by days.     

Warehouse location problems for air freight forwarders: a challenge created by the airport relocation

The move of Hong Kong International Airport from the city centre to a suburban area in July 1998 provided sufficient capacity to meet the increasing demand of passenger and air-cargo flows in Hong Kong in the foreseeable future. However, the move has adverse side effects such as causing the readjustment of many existing systems and creating many imminent strategic problems. One of such problems is the warehouse location of freight forwarders: they have to decide whether they should locate their warehouses in the new airport, in current locations, or in new locations somewhere in the city. This paper delineates the results of a survey conducted in the summer of 1997 before the airport was relocated. The survey asked what decisions the freight forwarders had made and how they evaluated some potential warehouse locations. The paper also considers two mathematical models, which explain and predict, respectively, the location pattern of freight forwarder warehouses before and after the relocation of the airport.     

Are the best of the best better than the rest? The effect of multiple rankings on company value

In this paper, we explore the cumulative and interactive effects from being listed on one or more of four popular annual surveys (Fortune’s “Most Admired Companies” and “100 Best Companies to Work For,” Business Ethics “Best Corporate Citizens,” and Working Mother’s “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers.”) We find portfolios constructed of firms selected across these surveys add value to a portfolio, initially and over longer-holding periods, but the overall results are driven by the performance of those firms selected from the Most Admired Companies and Best Corporate Citizens rankings. We also discover that being listed in two or three different surveys on a yearly basis produces incremental value.     

European and Asian resistance to the use of the American case method in management training: possible cultural and systemic incongruencies

In this contribution to the use of the Harvard-style case-style method in the training of managers, a transfer problem is identified. This is manifested in the difficulties presented for many non-American students in the use of traditional case-studies. As a result, an example of a revised case method is proposed which offers more educational flexibility and better acceptability.     

The U.S.-China Exchange Rate Debate: Using Currency Offer Curves

The paper introduces an innovative graph for presenting bilateral exchange rates. The currency quantities are on the axes and the exchange rate is the ratio between them, i.e., the slope of a ray from the origin. Behavior is captured by currency offer curves. The paper uses the model to address the issues surrounding China’s export-led growth strategy, i.e., its policy of undervaluing the yuan.     

Jackson,Karl D., (Ed.), Asian Contagion: The Causes and Consequences of a Financial Crisis

The purpose of this article is to identify the extent of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide. A large number of countries were aggregated on a regional basis to examine their inward and outward stocks as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation for the period 1980–2006. Among the findings was that the annual increase for both inward and outward FDI was less than 1%. Also, countries grouped by the aggregates developed, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia and Oceania, and developing were found to differ significantly in their means.     

The Effects of Ambiguous Information on Initial and Subsequent IPO Returns

Newly public companies must disclose significant risk factors in the offering prospectus. These disclosures are examples of “soft” or ambiguous information. Ambiguity models predict that investors will alter their portfolio weights and react to subsequent signals about such information. We test for these effects in a sample of 1,398 initial public offerings (IPOs) using word count ratios between soft and hard information as measures of ambiguity. We find a significant relationship between the soft information on risk and both initial and ex post measures of returns. These results support the view that soft information embeds ambiguity and that it influences investors’ portfolio choices.     

The impact of off-balance-sheet activities on banks returns: An application of the ARCH-M to Canadian data

This paper revisits the impact of off-balance-sheet (OBS) activities on banks risk-return trade-off. Recent studies (e.g., Stiroh and Rumble, 2006) show that increasing OBS activities does not necessarily yield straightforward diversification benefits for banks. However, introducing a risk premium in the standard banks returns models, and resorting to an ARCH-M procedure, Canadian data suggest that banks risk-return trade-off displays a structural break around 1997. In the second subperiod of our sample (1997–2007), we find that the noninterest income generated by OBS activities no longer impacts banks returns negatively. While during the first period (1988–1996) the volatility variable is not significant in any returns equations, a risk premium eventually emerges, pricing the risk associated to OBS activities.