Approaches to teleconferencing justification: Towards a general model

For organizations considering teleconferencing, five major justification perspectives are identified: the intuitive leaf; cost efficiency; timeless of decisions, improved work coordination; and reaching out. The perspectives are combined to form a model that charts their likely impacts on productivity. Proper planning through teleconferencing feasibility studies is advocated. That, and learning from others' experience, can help prospective users avert many pitfalls, avoid repeating past failures, and develop a teleconferencing system that will fulfill the promises of the justifications.     

Marketing information systems—The problem of system usage

Much literature has been devoted to singing the praises of present and potential computer utilization in marketing. Highly touted are “total information systems,” “on-line, real-time systems,” and “simulation-based systems.” One would be led to believe that each company has devoted or should be devoting its moneys and energies to the design and implementation of such sophisticated computer-based marketing information systems. Yet recent evidence has indicated a lack of enthusiasm-indeed, in some cases antagonism exists toward information systems in marketing. One reason for this disillusionment has been low usage of existing marketing information systems by marketing management. System utilization holds the key to a favorable return on investment in marketing information systems. This article explores many of the causes of infrequent to non-existent system usage and offers a plea and a plan for active elimination of this problem.     

The satisfaction-performance controversy: New developments and their implications

Current speculation continues to imply that satisfaction and performance are causally related. While the performance-causes-satisfaction proposition is a more recent development, the contention that satisfaction causes performance remains more widely held. Recent research findings, however, offer only moderate support of the former view and reject the latter. The evidence indicates that the relationship is more complex: rewards constitute a more direct cause of satisfaction than does performance, and rewards based on current performance cause subsequent performance. Thus, the manager who wants to improve his subordinates' performance must, first, provide valued rewards of sufficient magnitude and then establish the necessary contingencies between effort and performance and between performance and rewards. Last, he needs to consider a range of nonmotivational factors.     

RELATIVE PRICE VARIABILITY AMONG AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES AND MACROECONOMIC INSTABILITY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

This paper develops measures of relative price variability among agricultural commodities in the UK farm sector for the period 1956-88. Econometric tests of the hypothesis that relative price variability is positively correlated with instability in the macroeconomy are carried out. The results indicate that UK agricultural commodity prices become more volatile relative to one another when the economy-wide inflation rate increases and when aggregate output becomes more variable. These findings suggest that UK producers and consumers of domestically grown farm products experience increased risk and uncertainty in their production and consumption decisions during periods of macroeconomic instability. The effects of UK entry into the European Community are also examined; no evidence is found to suggest that adoption of the Common Agricultural Policy reduced year-to-year relative price variability among agricultural commodities.     

Primal/Dual Positive Math Programming: Illustrated through an Evaluation of the Impacts of Market Resistance to Genetically Modified Grains

The goal of Howitt's positive mathematical programming procedure is to calibrate a mathematical programming model so that it will reproduce a set of base data for the primal variables. This article develops an analogous procedure allowing one to specify the levels of both primal and dual variables. This article also sheds light on a potential ambiguity of Howitt's procedure (with attendant policy evaluation impacts). The procedure is illustrated through application to an equilibrium displacement model focused on evaluating the consequences of the reluctance of U.S. trading partners to accept genetically modified crop products for U.S. production patterns and net farm income.     

Explaining the Short‐ and Long‐Term IPO Anomalies in the US by R&D

Abstract:   Financial scholars who research the initial underpricing and long‐term underperformance of IPOs generally attribute these phenomena to information asymmetry and investors' misevaluations. Here, we identify, on a sample of 2,696 US IPOs issued during 1980–1995, a widespread source of information asymmetry and valuation uncertainty—the R&D activities of issuers—and document that these activities significantly affect both the initial underpricing of IPOs (R&D is positively correlated with underpricing) and their long‐term performance (R&D is positively related to long‐term performance). Given the pervasiveness and constant growth of firms' R&D activities in modern economies, our identification of R&D as a major factor affecting IPO's performance contributes to the understanding of this important economic and capital market phenomenon.