Examining the forward pricing function of the Australian equity index futures contract

The relationship between the Australian equity index futures and spot prices is examined. Tests indicate that futures prices with one, two and three months to maturity are unbiased predictors of the spot and hence provide an efficient hedging mechanism for Australian equity index market participants, while six‐, nine‐ and twelve‐month futures prices are biased predictors of spot prices, indicating that speculative opportunities may exist in futures contracts for these time spreads. An analysis of the short‐run dynamic properties of the long‐run equilibrium relationship found that for all time spreads the futures prices respond to changes in the long‐run equilibrium, and for the twelve‐month contract, both futures and spot prices adjust to return to the long‐run equilibrium.     

Large shareholders and firm value: Are high-tech firms different?

This paper explores the relationship between ownership structure and firm value in firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The results of the estimations, taking into account simultaneity and reverse causality, show that the relationship between ownership concentration and firm value differs across firms belonging to the sector of innovative technologies and more ‘mature’ firms. The results give support to the hypothesis that ‘mature’ firms with higher ownership concentration are likely to perform better than firms with more dispersed ownership. In contrast, in high-tech companies, with large share of knowledge related activities, higher ownership concentration is associated with lower firm value. This effect is robust to various alternative specifications.     

The relationship between accounting numbers and returns: some empirical evidence from the emerging market of the Czech Republic

Generally, stock prices reflect future expectations of earnings, whereas accounting data reflect past performance. This paper attempts to discover the relationship between accounting data and market price returns of the companies listed on the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE). The Prague Stock Exchange was established in 1993 and provides an opportunity to make a comparison between a newly established market and the findings of studies of established markets. There has been a wealth of publications and accounting research studies on developed markets. Generally, accounting attributes are thought to be relevant because they tend to be contemporaneously statistically associated with stock prices. Some studies have suggested, and empirically tested, that stock prices lead earnings (e.g. Collins et al., 1987; Kothari, 1992; Kothari and Sloan, 1992; Kothari and Zimmerman, 1995). This study tests the existence of such a relationship in the Czech capital market, relying partially on the methodology proposed by Kothari and Sloan (1992) and Kothari (1992). This paper investigates whether there is a statistically significant permanent relationship between returns and accounting data on the Czech market. The study was conducted using accounting earnings and stock prices during the period 1993–8. The empirical evidence here suggests that a similar relation exists on the emerging Czech market. The relation is statistically significant for measurement windows of one year and longer. The increase in the mean response coefficient, reported later in this study, suggests that one-leading-year returns are as important as contemporaneous returns in terms of their sensitivity to annual earnings changes. However, one cannot infer with a degree of confidence that the Czech capital market views earnings changes to be largely permanent, which would be consistent with the time-series properties of annual earnings.     

Qualitative Research in the Service of Understanding Learners and Users of Statistics

This paper seeks to add to a scholarly dialogue regarding the role and value of qualitative techniques in research on learning and using statistics. The paper briefly outlines some of the core assumptions of qualitative research methods, and presents four examples to illustrate selected qualitative methods that are used by educational researchers and service organizations. The discussion emphasizes the need to integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches in research on learners and users of statistics, and suggests that such integration may be needed to study emerging web-based communities of learners and users of statistics.     

'Staying Within the Fence': Lifestyle Entrepreneurship in Tourism

Lifestyle, non-economic motives have been recognised as significant stimuli for tourism entrepreneurship and growth of the small-business sector. Tourism research, to date, has focused on the conceptualisation of entrepreneurship informed largely by economic analysis. In this context, the long-term survival of lifestyle entrepreneurs in tourism has been addressed as a constraint within regional economic development. Our research of an emerging cohort of lifestyle entrepreneurs in New Zealand tourism, focusing on the motivating values of these entrepreneurs, reveals that their often conscious rejection of economic and business growth opportunities is an expression of their sociopolitical ideology. Coincidentally, this rejection of an overtly profit-driven orientation does not necessarily result in financial suicide or developmental stagnation but rather provides opportunities to engage with 'niche' market consumers informed by values common to themselves within rapidly segmenting markets. Moreover, the research indicates that these lifestyle entrepreneurs are often instrumental in the creation and introduction of innovative products to the wider industry which are not only capable of articulating values common to the sustainability debate with respect to a sense of place and community, but also stimulate regional development and reproduction of niche market products.     

The Effects of Background Music on Consumer Responses in a High-end Supermarket

Abstract

This study examines the effects of in-store background music valence (liking) and music fit with the overall store image on consumer evaluative and behavioural responses in the context of a high-end supermarket chain. Based on the previous body of work, a conceptual model is developed to examine music valence on customer appraisal of store offering and personnel, and on the length of shopping time and the value of purchase. The influence of the perceived music fit with the overall store image on shopping time is also assessed in the model. The hypothesized relationships are examined via covariance analysis using store-intercept consumer data. Implications of the structural analyses results for management of retail store brands and for future research on music as an element of store atmospherics are discussed.     

The rise of the ‘network organisation’ and the decline of discretion

This article explores the implications of ‘networked’ and ‘flexible’ organisations for the work and skills of professionals/ Drawing on material from four different case studies, it reviews work that is outsourced (involving IT professionals and housing benefit caseworkers), work that is done by teachers contracted to a temporary employment agency and work organised through an inter‐firm network (chemical production workers). In each case work that was outsourced was managed very differently to that undertaken in‐house, with managerial monitoring replacing and reducing employees' discretion. New staff in these networks had fewer skills when hired and were given access to a narrower range of skills than their predecessors. By contrast, the production staff directly employed on permanent contracts in the inter‐firm network were given (and took) significant amounts of responsibility, with positive results for both their skills and the work processed. Yet, despite the negative impact they have on skills, outsourcing and subcontracting are a far more common means of securing flexibility than organisational collaboration.     

Accelerated Equity Offers and Firm Quality

A series of deregulatory reforms has promoted accelerated equity issuance at the expense of adequate time for underwriter and market scrutiny. Today the majority of publicly listed companies can raise equity on a moment's notice, but many eligible issuers choose to allow additional time for scrutiny. We hypothesise that issuers with less favourable inside information (i.e. lower quality issuers) prefer to avoid the pre‐issue scrutiny that could reveal their inside information and are therefore more likely to accelerate their offer. We find supportive evidence using measures of stock valuation and earnings quality as proxies for firm quality. The results suggest that investors are slow to capitalise the information embedded in the speed of issuance.