The role of respect in the effects of perceived ad interactivity and intrusiveness on brand and site

This paper examines the interrelated effects of respect, ad intrusiveness, and ad interactivity on attitudes toward brands and the publishers that serve online advertisements. Despite widespread use of the term, respect has received almost no attention in the advertising literature. A structural equations model indicates that ad formats that are perceived as respectful to viewers result in more favorable attitudes toward both the brand and publisher site. Ad intrusiveness negatively affects respect, while interactivity has a positive influence. Respect is demonstrated to exhibit a partial mediating role in the effect of these two variables on brand and site. Results also suggest that advertisers should strive for greater interactivity in ads if their objective is branding rather than direct response, as this can minimize the negative influence of intrusiveness. Publishers can also benefit from these kinds of ads.     

Is Knowledge Cursed When Forecasting the Forecasts of Others?

Financial decision makers (lenders, insurers, advisees) often need to estimate how well others make decisions. Is knowledge a blessing or a curse when forecasting others' forecast accuracy? The authors show that this depends on its type. Within a single experimental setting, they identify and test 4 distinct information types that have different effects on forecast accuracy. First, the authors revisit the well-known “curse of knowledge” and show that it may have resulted from entirely arbitrary, uninformative anchors. Second, we show that in contrast, genuinely informative cues purged of anchoring potential enhance estimation accuracy. Third, richer, more detailed financial information has no effect even for participants better able to interpret it. Fourth, domain experts do not overimpute others' forecast ability. The authors conclude that in financial settings knowledge may be a blessing or a curse, or have no effect depending on its type.     

Calibration of local volatility model with stochastic interest rates by efficient numerical PDE methods

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Long-maturity options or a wide class of hybrid products are evaluated using a local volatility-type modelling for the asset price S(t) with a stochastic...     

Unpacking the Black Box: A realist evaluation of performance management for social services

This study examined how and why performance management works to achieve accountability and improvement among voluntary organizations, through the use of performance information. Applying realist evaluation methodology, initial programme theories of performance management were developed and tested against empirical data gathered from six case studies in the voluntary sector in Singapore. Considerable variation in implementation undermined the success of performance management, leading to the use of performance information primarily for reporting purposes rather than for learning and improvement. Findings highlight the need for greater attention to the contexts necessary to optimize the effective implementation of performance management.     

The regulation of merchant fees in credit card markets

Journal of Regulatory Economics - This paper provides a theory on how to regulate the level of merchant fees in credit card markets. In particular, we discuss how to regulate the merchant fee in a...     

What Drives Investor Response to CSR Performance Reports?

Recent research finds that investors' assessments of a stock's fundamental value are influenced by corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance through the affect-as-information heuristic. We extend prior research by examining two boundary conditions for the use of this heuristic: (i) whether the CSR performance relates to activities that are integrated in a firm's core business practices (material CSR issues) or not (immaterial CSR issues), and (ii) whether the CSR performance is positive or negative. Employing an experimental method, we find that the affect-as-information heuristic applies only to immaterial CSR issues but not to material CSR issues, and only to positive but not negative CSR performance. Our findings suggest that investors likely use a heuristic approach to process immaterial and positive CSR issues, and a more deliberate and systematic approach to process material or negative CSR issues. Our study has both practical and theoretical implications.     

Impact of funding sources on innovation: evidence from Brazilian software companies

This paper aims to investigate the impacts of different sources of innovation funding on company performances in the context of an emerging economy. Brazilian software companies are selected as a case for this investigation. Data – related to the types of funding support received and eight types of company performances measured in binary scales – was collected through an online survey from 188 companies located across Brazil. A multivariate probit model was estimated to assess the impacts of different funding schemes on company performances – controlling for other confounding effects. The findings confirmed the critical importance of public innovation funding, and revealed that companies that: (1) Used public funds were more likely to become nationally competitive; (2) Used loans from commercial banks were less likely to become nationally and internationally competitive; (3) Reinvested revenues were more likely to gain market share, and help in increasing the number of employees; (4) Not aware of public funding schemes were less likely to invest on research, development, and innovation. The overall findings suggest the positive impacts of innovation funds on company performance. They can serve as a policy guide to develop targeted performance strategy to determine which funding scheme would be effective to foster what outcomes.     

Dancing with Wolves: How Disadvantaged Firms Fare in Asymmetric Alliances in China

This study examines how dependence asymmetry and joint dependence affect the performance of less-powerful organizations in alliances in China’s emerging market. Based on a sample of 1,127 strategic alliances between Chinese publicly listed firms, the authors found that, unlike the conventional wisdom that the dependence-advantageous firms are typically the winners in western economies, the dependence-disadvantageous firms actually benefit from asymmetric alliances in China’s sociocultural and business environment. This positive impact is further channeled by high joint dependence. In addition, partnering with firms in unrelated business areas is beneficial for the disadvantaged organizations. This research extends the interdependence mechanisms to a different sociocultural context and contributes to the literature by examining it as a condition for value creation versus value appropriation     

Sibling donation games: pure-altruism,strategic-altruism,and the interaction of familial and public transfers

Accompanying the rapidly aging populations of high-income countries are increasing transfers of time and money from adult children to elderly parents (ascending altruism). In this paper we first develop a theoretical model to characterize the general reaction-functions of two adult siblings choosing transfer amounts (possibly time) to their needy parents under two alternative motivations: pure altruism and strategic altruism. We show that transfers are strategic substitutes under pure altruism and strategic complements under strategic altruism. The Nash-equilibrium generates distinct predictions associated with each motivation and we then explore some implications of our findings. A result with potentially important policy implications is that the response of children transfers to increased pension payments to the parents depends on the children's motivations. This contrasts with much of the literature which assumes transfers decrease with increased pension payments.