Earnings management, lawsuits, and stock-for-stock acquirers’ market performance

There is a positive association between stock-for-stock acquirers’ pre-merger abnormal accruals and post-merger announcement lawsuits. The market only partially anticipates the effects of post-merger announcement lawsuits at the merger announcement and the post-merger announcement long-term market underperformance is largely limited to litigated acquisitions. Overall, the evidence suggests that it is important that investors not only undo the direct stock price effects of earnings management but also factor the contingent legal costs associated with earnings management.     

The perils of debt deflation in the Euro area: a multi regime model

Academic research and policy makers in the Euro area are currently concerned with the threat of debt deflation and secular stagnation in Europe. Empirical evidence seems to suggest that secular stagnation and debt deflation in the Euro area may be rather slowly developing. Yet what appears as major peril is that debt deflation with a lack of economic growth, rising real interest rates and further rising debt may trigger household defaults, defaults of firms and banks, rise of risk premia, and default risk of certain sectors of the economy or sovereign defaults. It is this rising default and financial risk that may lead to a regime change to a slowly moving debt crisis with high financial risk and high financial stress. In order to explore those issues, a macro policy model of Svensson type is introduced, exhibiting a regime of low and high financial stress. Then, a four dimensional multi-regime VAR is employed to an Euro area data set to support the theoretical model and the claim that in particular Southern Euro area countries are affected by debt deflation and financial market stress.     

Self-Efficacy and Stereotyping in Advertising: Should Consumers Want a Change?

Sex-role stereotyping in advertising has been a controversial issue in the past decade. While studies have shown a disproportionate use of males in authority roles, little research has been done to examine the effects on consumers' self-efficacies. Results from this research indicate that, contrary to expectations, females had higher confidence in their purchase decisions after viewing stereotypical television advertisements. Social implications for advertisers and marketers are discussed.     

Reducing risky interactions between tourists and free-ranging dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in an artificial feeding program at Monkey Mia, Western Australia

We studied interactions between tourists and free-ranging bottlenose dolphins in an artificial feeding program at Monkey Mia, Australia. We used logistic regression to identify factors that contributed to the incidence of “risky” (potentially injurious) interactions between tourists and dolphins. Rates of dolphin-to-tourist risky interactions were heightened with longer waiting times before dolphins were fed. We documented differences among provisioned dolphins in their proclivity to engage in risky interactions; however, it was more likely for risky interactions to be initiated by tourists. Our findings suggest several readily implemented management strategies to reduce incidence of risky interactions. Long-term monitoring of tourism based on artificial feeding is essential to identify and rectify detrimental effects of provisioning on dolphins, to ensure the safety and welfare of dolphins and tourists, and to promote sustainability of this potentially harmful tourist activity.     

Antecedents of creative decision making in organizational crisis: A team-based simulation

Although it has been claimed that the devastation and complexities that characterize an organizational crisis may be addressed most effectively with creative solutions, theoretical and empirical research examining this challenge is scarce. We developed a theoretical model concerning creative decision making during organizational crisis for crisis management teams. To test this theory, we collected data from 191 individuals in 37 teams who participated in multi-hour, multi-phased organizational crisis simulations in the United States and Canada. Using regression analysis, we found that crisis management teams generated a creative decision when they were familiar with solutions, trusted their team members, and had creative intentions. This study supports organizational efforts to leverage education, training and accountability to reinforce creativity in crisis decision making.     

Dreaming of Flying When Grounded: Occupational Identity and Occupational Fantasies of Furloughed Airline Pilots

This article analyses the effects of job loss on the occupational identities of a group of United States pilots, laid off (or ‘furloughed’) twice by their employer in the decade following 9/11. Using a narrative methodology, the paper examines how the childhood dream of flying, referred to as the Phaëthon dream, serves as an identity anchor that sustained their occupational identities. When the circumstances of the aviation industry (restructuring, outsourcing, and downsizing) led to extensive lay‐offs, this identity anchor functioned in two contrasting ways. Some pilots moved on to retrain and start new careers, without abandoning their occupational identities or relinquishing the dream of flying. Another group of pilots, however, were stuck in occupational limbo waiting to be recalled by their employer, unwilling to forsake this dream and refusing to contemplate a move that would decisively take them out of their pilot seats. The paper's contribution lies in theorizing how a dream originating in childhood, linked to a long‐standing archetype of flying and subsequently hardened into a shared occupational fantasy, acts as an identity anchor and how this shapes responses to the trauma of job loss. The paper concludes by linking the Phaëthon dream to its mythological counterpart in order to highlight its enduring, shared, and unconscious character.     

The Positive Ethical Organization: Enacting a Living Code of Ethics and Ethical Organizational Identity

A vision of a living code of ethics is proposed to counter the emphasis on negative phenomena in the study of organizational ethics. The living code results from the harmonious interaction of authentic leadership, five key organizational processes (attraction–selection–attrition, socialization, reward systems, decision-making and organizational learning), and an ethical organizational culture (characterized by heightened levels of ethical awareness and a positive climate regarding ethics). The living code is the cognitive, affective, and behavioral manifestation of an ethical organizational identity. We draw on business ethics literature, positive organizational scholarship, and management literature to outline the elements of positive ethical organizations as those exemplary organizations consistently practicing the highest levels of organizational ethics. In a positive ethical organization, the right thing to do is the only thing to do. Amy Klemm Verbos is a Ph.D. candidate at the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she received a Chancellor’s Fellowship, Graduate Fellowship, Dissertation Fellowship, and C. Edward Weber Research Award. She co-authored ‚Positive Relationships in Action: Relational Mentoring and Mentoring Schemas in the Workplace’ in the forthcoming edited book, Positive Relationships at Work. Her work on positive organizing also has been presented at the Academy of Management Conference. Joseph A. Gerard is a Ph.D. student at the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater teaching organizational behavior, strategy, and accounting. He is a founding member of Ascent Organization Development LLC, which provides management consulting services to for-profit organizations in the areas of effectiveness and performance enhancement. Paul R. Forshey is a Ph.D. student in Organizations and Strategic Management at the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research interests include startup firms and firms in transition. Charles S. Harding is a Ph.D. student in Organizations and Strategic Management at the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Awarded a Chancellor’s Fellowship, his research interests include strategic decision-making and the role of value creation in strategy. Janice S. Miller is an Associate Professor at the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she has received the Business Advisory Council Award for Teaching Excellence. Her published work has appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Journal of Business Ethics among others. She received her Ph.D. in Human Resources Management from Arizona State University.     

Intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment

This paper develops a product cycle model with endogenous innovation, imitation, and foreign direct investment (FDI). We use this model to determine how stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the South affects innovation, imitation and FDI. We find that stronger IPR protection keeps multinationals safer from imitation, but no more so than Northern firms. Instead, the increased difficulty of imitation generates resource wasting and imitation disincentive effects that reduce both FDI and innovation. The greater resources absorbed in imitation crowd out FDI. Reduced FDI then transmits resource scarcity in the South back to the North and consequently contracts innovation.     

Are Production Decisions Decoupled under a Bond Scheme? Experimental Evidence

Experimental economics procedures were used to investigate impacts of a proposed bond scheme on production decisions. As expected, production with subsidy payments tied to a support price was substantially higher than with no policy. A shift from the support price to equivalent annual or lump-sum payments not tied to price resulted in production at or near no-policy levels, providing empirical evidence to support the theoretical prediction that bond schemes would not result in production distortions. Potential extensions to the basic model used in this study also are presented.     

A Decade of Service-learning: A Review of the Field Ten Years after JOBE’s Seminal Special Issue

This article reviews developments in the field of service-learning, both in terms of general management education and business ethics specific courses, over the past 10 years. Using the 1996 Journal of Business Ethics special issue on service-learning as a benchmark, numerous accomplishments are presented and continued barriers are discussed. Finally, three issues are raised as next steps for service-learning authors and practitioners as we move forward into the next decade: (1) designing effective and sustainable university/community partnerships, (2) addressing problems stemming from the conspiracy of courtesy, and (3) optimizing the intersection between online learning and service-learning.