Institutional demand pressure and the cost of corporate loans

Between 2001 and 2007, annual institutional funding in highly leveraged loans went up from $32 billion to $426 billion, accounting for nearly 70% of the jump in total syndicated loan issuance over the same period. Did the inflow of institutional funding in the syndicated loan market lead to mispricing of credit? To understand this relation, we look at the institutional demand pressure defined as the number of days a loan remains in syndication. Using market-level and cross-sectional variation in time-on-the-market, we find that a shorter syndication period is associated with a lower final interest rate. The relation is robust to the use of institutional fund flow as an instrument. Furthermore, we find significant price differences between institutional investors’ tranches and banks’ tranches of the same loans, even though they share the same underlying fundamentals. Increasing demand pressure causes the interest rate on institutional tranches to fall below the interest rate on bank tranches. Overall, a one-standard-deviation reduction in average time-on-the-market decreases the interest rate for institutional loans by over 30 basis points per annum. While this effect is significantly larger for loan tranches bought by collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), it is not fully explained by their role.     

Implications of nurse-physician relations: report of a successful intervention

Given the evidence linking medical errors to ineffective communication, strategies for improving communication among health care professionals must be implemented. The purpose of this article was to examine the effect of a collaborative intervention on improving communication patterns between nurses and physicians on two study units. The intervention consisted of two nurses and two physicians (per unit) meeting together (8 hours total) to collaboratively develop a solution to communication issues on their respective units. Physicians scored significantly higher on reports of openness of communication within groups, openness between groups, accuracy between groups, and collaboration between groups. Collaboration reported among nurses and physicians improved for both professions, with significance reached for physicians (p = 0.031). Strategies must be identified to break down the barriers set by the current culture, and that expedite the development of a team-centered culture supporting collaborative relations among health care professionals.     

The Solow residual,Domar aggregation,and inefficiency: a synthesis of TFP measures

We consolidate and interrelate the four main approaches to the measurement and decomposition of total factor productivity growth, namely Solow’s residual analysis, the index number approach, Data Envelopment Analysis, and Domar aggregation. Two new results link the general technology TFP growth measure to the industry Solow residuals and inefficiency.     

Implementing global corporate citizenship: An integrated business framework

Recent economic, social-political, and natural disasters have all served to highlight the fragility of the global marketplace. As such, it is no longer questioned as to whether or not companies should be good corporate citizens; that is a given. Rather, concern in the 21^st century centers on how businesses can become better global corporate citizens. Unfortunately, without clear guidance regarding how this may be accomplished, global corporate citizenship will remain a fringe activity and not become a critical component of an organization's core business strategy. The integrated framework presented herein identifies key elements and tips for implementing a business-based approach to global corporate citizenship.     

How far does the apple fall from the tree? The size of English bank branch networks in the nineteenth century

After the Bank Charter Act in 1833, English banks could branch nationally without legal or geographical restriction. It has been previously thought that despite this freedom, early English joint-stock banks predominantly began as single units. Drawing upon a new data set, this article maps the growth of branch banking, the size of bank networks and their geographical location and spread. It demonstrates that banks pursued branching strategies energetically against the intentions of regulators and were successful in forming large and complex networks. However, ultimately, before 1880 the majority settled for local, district and multi-regional structures, as opposed to national structures.     

The digitalization triumvirate: How incumbents survive

In an era of increasing technological transformation, the lines among industries, competitors, and companies are blurring as firms and platforms combine to create unique methods for engagement. Survival and growth in a rapidly changing marketplace require incumbent companies to divest themselves of legacy thinking and to embrace internal innovation that adds value for both channel members and customers. This entails understanding the mechanisms of process digitalization, communications digitalization, and buyer digitalization. It requires incumbent firms to build and innovate on strengths currently possessed in-house and to identify and cover resource gaps. Incumbents also must work to overcome organizational inertia and effectively implement an agile approach for digitalization across the company, channels, and customer triumvirate. In sum, incumbents must: (1) consider and embrace gains from the digitalization of process, communications, and buyer; (2) respect the core business while recognizing that elements of the existing business model must adapt to changing channels and customer expectations; and (3) recognize that digitalization comes in many forms with multiple applications.     

Marksist Management: Sophisticated Human Relations in a High Street Retail Store

Large non-union firms such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Marks & Spencer are frequently cited as ‘role models’ for ‘soft HRM’. The key elements of sophisticated human relations practised by these firms are well-known, but there is little evidence of employees’ perceptions or experience of this particular management style. Data from a high street retail store which follows the Marksist version of sophisticated human relations reveals a significant gap between aspirations (rhetoric) and outcomes (reality).     

It's Not Black and White: Advertising and Race in Cultural Context

ABSTRACT

Studies in the United States have found that matching an advertising model's race to the target audience is an effective marketing strategy. However, race is a cultural construct and little research has been conducted on race and advertising effectiveness outside of the United States. This study, conducted with female consumers in Brazil, found that advertisements were not more effective when the subject and the model were of the same race. To better understand the psychological processes triggered by race, this study explored two related but distinct conditions of identification: similarity and liking. It found that in conditions of boundary permeability between groups, liking is more important than similarity in determining advertising effectiveness in the target sample. A general model is proposed.     

The reach and impact of Child Support Grants: evidence from KwaZulu-Natal

This paper examines the reach and impact of the South African Child Support Grant, using longitudinal data collected through the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies. The grant is being taken up for a third of all age-eligible resident children, and appears to be reaching those children living in the poorer households of the demographic surveillance area (DSA). Children who received the grant are significantly more likely to be enrolled in school in the years following grant receipt than are equally poor children of the same age. However, older brothers and sisters of grant recipients, when they were observed at younger ages, were less likely than other children to be enrolled in school – perhaps reflecting the greater poverty in grant-receiving households. Thus the grant appears to help overcome the impact of poverty on school enrolment.