Corporate social responsibility perception in business students as future managers: a multifactorial analysis

This paper examines undergraduate business students' perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in cases in which they have not attended any specific course either dealing with CSR or providing training in ethics. A survey was conducted of 535 Spanish business students as future managers. The results show that the stakeholders' perspective deserves a huge attention for those students considering what the keys of business success are. Significant differences in perception were nevertheless identified when a multifactorial analysis was undertaken. Female students are more concerned about CSR issues. The maximization of value for shareholders is less valued by second‐ and third‐year students than by first‐year ones. The findings point to a number of important orientations for the future development of university curriculum.     

REIT Going Private Decisions

Over the recent decade there was a wave of REITs going private, from an average of about three per year to 40 between 2005 and 2007. Standard corporate finance theory posits that firms go private when there is no longer a positive tradeoff between the expected benefits and the costs of being public, and it provides empirical evidence that going private decisions are motivated by potential gains from leverage, tax benefits, and expected improvements in corporate governance. Given the unique institutional environment for the REIT industry, this paper sheds new light on the going-private decision. Specifically, we examine the determinants of the going-private decision and document announcement wealth changes using a sample of 160 REITs from 1985 to 2009. We find firm performance and agency-related factors significantly impact the probability that a REIT announces to go private. We find that the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley and a proxy for differential performance in the private and public markets have no significant impact on the decision. The announcement day abnormal return is almost 12% and the three-day abnormal return is 15%, magnitudes that are both statistically and economically significant. Variations in the market reaction are associated with lower levels of cash and higher stock price volatility. Overall, we document a new set of going-private factors and wealth impacts for the REIT industry that are unique from those of previous corporate finance literature.     

PATTERNS OF INNOVATION IN THE SERVICE SECTOR: SOME INSIGHTS FROM THE SPANISH INNOVATION SURVEY

Although the attention of innovation studies has traditionally been focused on manufacturing, the differential features of innovation activities carried out by services are gaining more and more relevance in innovation research. The aim of this paper is to thoroughly analyse the data from the Spanish Innovation Survey 2000, the first large-scale innovation survey that included service activities in Spain, in order to identify the main patterns of innovation in Spanish services. The results of our investigations confirm that a high degree of heterogeneity, in relation to innovation patterns, exists among service firms and among service industries as well. Nevertheless, important similarities are found between pioneer classifications, such as the theoretical taxonomy of service industries by Soete and Miozzo (1989) Soete, L. and Miozzo, M. 1989. “Trade and Development in Services: A Technological Perspective”. The Netherlands: MERIT Research Memorandum, 89-031. MERIT.  [Google Scholar] or the classification of service firms elaborated by Hollenstein (2003) Hollenstein, H. 2003. Innovation modes in the Swiss service sector: a cluster analysis based on firm-level data. Research Policy, 32(5): 845–863. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], and the taxonomy we obtained by applying multivariate analysis.     

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)'s Impact on B to B Sales Professionals' Collaboration and Sales Performance

Purpose: Sales literature has traditionally considered technology adoption from acceptance and diffusion perspectives. This article examines the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) technology on business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals' ability to collaborate with internal stakeholders and also assesses the relationship between CRM utilization and sales performance. The study moves from assuming that CRM utilization positively impacts salesperson effectiveness and performance to assessing this outcome from the perspective of the salesperson.

Methodology: A survey that was comprised of four scales was sent to 115 B2B sales professionals and usable surveys were received from 70 respondents. The data were analyzed using partial least squares regression to test the hypothesized paths. Partial least squares regression has been shown to work for small sample sizes.

Findings: There is empirical evidence that CRM adoption and utilization positively impacts sales performance, sales effectiveness, and collaboration. As a partial mediator, collaboration positively influenced CRM utilization's effect on sales performance. However, collaboration did not positively influence sales process effectiveness. Explanations of the findings are offered.

Managerial Implications: Sales managers can use CRM technology to make their sales team more effective and efficient. Second, increased collaboration across the firm positively mediates sales performance. Lastly, to increase collaboration, sales managers should stress that CRM leads to higher performance for both the sales team and the entire firm.     

The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks and the Answers All Donors Crave: How You Can Inspire Someone to Give Generously,by H. McKinnon

Organizational learning and customer orientation have been a focus of research for a number of years in both marketing and management literature. Customer learning orientation is conceptualized as three important components: management customer orientation, customer feedback, and employee learning orientation. By drawing from both marketing and organizational research theories, the authors propose a model of customer learning orientation in a public sector organizational setting. Customer learning orientation is hypothesized to have a significant effect on employee attitudes of role ambiguity and self-efficacy, which in turn affects job outcomes of job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors. Using a sample of 438 employees of a public sector organization, the authors test the model through a structural equation modeling technique. The results provide general support for the model. Implications for managers of public sector organizations and future research are discussed.     

Does the exchange rate pass-through into prices change when inflation targeting is adopted? The Peruvian case study between 1994 and 2007

This paper analyzes whether the exchange rate pass-through into prices changed when the inflation targeting scheme was adopted in Peru. First, a simple dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model is simulated, which shows that adopting this scheme induces an increase in exchange rate volatility. Furthermore, applying the theory of the currency denomination of international trade, it is demonstrated that increased exchange rate volatility reduces the share of firms that set their prices in foreign currency. Given that the pass-though has a direct relationship with this share, it is shown that adopting inflation targeting generates a pass-through contraction. Second, we empirically test whether the Peruvian Central Bank’s decision to adopt inflation targeting in January 2002 actually had an effect on the pass-through estimating a time-varying vector autoregressive model which allows for an asymmetrical estimation of the pass-through. It provides parameters for both the pre and post inflation targeting regimes based on the assumption that the transition from one regime to the other is smooth. An analysis of the generalized impulse response functions reveals that the decision to adopt inflation targeting significantly decreased the exchange rate pass-throughs into import, producer, and consumer prices. The results are consistent with economic theory and are robust to the specification of parameters of the model.     

Relevance of barriers and facilitators in the use of health technology assessment in Colombia

Objectives: Several studies, mostly from developed countries, have identified barriers and facilitators with regard to the uptake of health technology assessment (HTA). This study elicited, using best-worst scaling (BWS), what HTA experts in Colombia consider to be the most important barriers and facilitators in the use of HTA, and makes a comparison to results from the Netherlands.

Methods: Two object case surveys (one for barriers, one for facilitators) were conducted among 18 experts (policymakers, health professionals, PhD students, senior HTA-researchers) from Colombia. Seven respondents were employees of the national HTA agency Instituto de Evaluación Tecnológica de Salud (IETS). In total, 22 barriers and 19 facilitators were included. In each choice task, participants were asked to choose the most and least important barrier/facilitator from a set of five. Hierarchical Bayes modeling was used to compute the mean relative importance scores (RIS) for each factor, and a subgroup analysis was conducted to assess differences between IETS and non-IETS respondents. The final ranking was further compared to the results from a similar study conducted in the Netherlands.

Results: The three most important barriers (RIS >6.00) were “Inadequate presentation format”, “Absence of policy networks”, and “Insufficient legal support”. The six most important facilitators (RIS >6.00) were “Appropriate timing”, “Clear presentation format”, “Improving longstanding relation”, “Appropriate incentives”, “Sufficient qualified human resources”, and “Availability to relevant HTA research”. The perceived relevance of the barriers and facilitators differed slightly between IETS and non-IETS employees, while the differences between the rankings in Colombia and the Netherlands were substantial.

Conclusion: The study suggests that barriers and facilitators related to technical aspects of processing HTA reports and to the contact and interaction between researchers and policymakers had the greatest importance in Colombia.     

Right anterior thoracotomy aortic valve replacement is associated with less cost than sternotomy-based approaches: a multi-institution analysis of ‘real world’ data

Background:

Large institutional analyses demonstrating outcomes of right anterior mini-thoracotomy (RAT) for isolated aortic valve replacement (isoAVR) do not exist. In this study, a group of cardiac surgeons who routinely perform minimally invasive isoAVR analyzed a cross-section of US hospital records in order to analyze outcomes of RAT as compared to sternotomy.

Methods:

The Premier database was queried from 2007–2011 for clinical and cost data for patients undergoing isoAVR. This de-identified database contains billing, hospital cost, and coding data from >600 US facilities with information from >25 million inpatient discharges. Expert rules were developed to identify patients with RAT and those with any sternal incision (aStern). Propensity matching created groups adjusted for patient differences. The impact of surgical approach on outcomes and costs was modeled using regression analysis and, where indicated, adjusting for hospital size and geographical differences.

Results:

AVR was performed in 27,051 patients. Analysis identified isoAVR by RAT (n?=?1572) and by aStern (n?=?3962). Propensity matching created two groups of 921 patients. RAT was more likely performed in southern hospitals (63% vs 36%; p?p?p?p?p?Conclusions:

Outcomes analyses can be performed from hospital administrative collective databases. This real world analysis demonstrates comparable outcomes and less cost and ICU time with RAT for AVR.     

Culturally responsive relational reflexive ethics in research: the three rs

In this article, the authors define ethics, discuss why researchers should care about ethics, and briefly review the history of ethics and the surrounding contemporary debate as related to research, the development of research ethics codes, research ethics legislation, and the formation of the human subjects research review boards in the West with an emphasis on the United States’ Institutional Review Board. They then explicate the difference between minimalist ethical codes, which all respected researchers must adhere to, and an aspirational ethical stance. Culturally Responsive Relational Reflexive Ethics (CRRRE) is then advanced as a viable aspirational ethical stance for the research community. Finally, the authors draw on their own research for examples of ethical dilemmas involving ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and power that CRRRE has helped illuminate.