Elements and methods of industrial forecasting

Industrialists have begun to ask questions concerning their long-term activity in the face of a changing and uncontrollable environment. How should they direct new research techniques or new products and plan their activities, taking account of indirect interactions? Drawing on the example of regional forecasting in France, and an analysis of one application of industrial forecasting, the author proposes a general method specifically suited to the industrial sphere. This method is a cross between systems analysis and the scenario method.     

Intraday Value at Risk (IVaR) using tick-by-tick data with application to the Toronto Stock Exchange

This paper investigates the use of tick-by-tick data for intraday market risk measurement. We propose a method to compute an Intraday Value at Risk based on irregularly spaced high-frequency data and an intraday Monte Carlo simulation. A log-ACD–ARMA–EGARCH model is used to specify the joint density of the marked point process of durations and high-frequency returns. We apply our methodology to transaction data for three stocks actively traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Compared to traditional techniques applied to intraday data, our methodology has two main advantages. First, our risk measure has a higher informational content as it takes into account all observations. On the total risk measure, our method allows for distinguishing the effect of random trade durations from the effect of random returns, and for analyzing the interaction between these factors. Thus, we find that the information contained in the time between transactions is relevant to risk analysis, which is consistent with predictions from asymmetric-information models in the market microstructure literature. Second, once the model has been estimated, the IVaR can be computed by any trader for any time horizon based on the same information and with no need of sampling the data and estimating the model again when the horizon changes. Backtesting results show that our approach constitutes reliable means of measuring intraday risk for traders who are very active in the market.     

Relational selling strategy and key account managers' relational behaviors: An exploratory study

Many companies see key account management as a potentially successful way to implement a relational strategy. Nevertheless, the literature suggests that strategy implementation at the sales force level is difficult to achieve, mainly because salespeople may not understand - nor accept - what they are requested to do. Despite their relevance, behaviors of key account managers have poorly been investigated. This article defines and tests a model of relational selling behaviors from the part of key account managers. Results show that the perception of the adoption of a relational selling strategy is associated with some specific key account managers' behaviors (customer-oriented selling, adaptive selling and team selling), but not with others (organizational citizenship behaviors). These findings suggest that potential discrepancies can exist between a relational selling strategy and its implementation at the key account manager level. Based on these results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Does asymmetric information affect the premium in mergers and acquisitions?

We test the influence of information asymmetry on the premium paid for an acquisition. We analyze mergers and acquisitions as English auctions. The theory of dynamic auctions with private and common value predicts that more informed bidders may pay a lower price. We test that prediction with a sample of 1,026 acquisitions in the United States between 1990 and 2007. We assume that blockholders of the target's shares are better informed than other bidders because they possess privileged information on the target. Our empirical results show that blockholders pay a much lower premium than do other buyers     

Integrating the Ethical Dimension into the Analytical Framework for the Reform of State-Owned Enterprises in China's Socialist Market Economy: A Proposal

The discussions about the reform of state-owned enterprises are so far dominated by economic and legal considerations while the ethical dimension of this highly complex problem is being barely addressed explicitly, much less developed systematically and integrated into a broader analytical framework for companies in China. This paper is a proposal to introduce this kind of ethical considerations. First, the main features of the reform of state-owned enterprises are briefly summarized and a number of critical issues are identified. Second, the "balanced concept of the firm" is presented and compared with other approaches to corporate ethics in chiefly Western literature (discussions on "corporate social responsibility", the stakeholder approach, and social contract theories). Finally, the relevance of this "balanced concept of the firm" for the reform of state-owned enterprises is briefly discussed.     

Ownership, exit and voice after mass privatizationEvidence from Mongolia

Exit (owners selling their shares) and voice (owners active in corporate activities) are important ingredients in the process by which mass privatization changes managerial behaviour in transition countries. We examine the structure of ownership and the extent of exit and voice in one such country, Mongolia. We document the size of ownership changes since privatization (through mergers, spin-offs, and stock sales) and examine which owners are changing in importance. We scrutinize enterprise governance, examining patterns of violations of companylaw and deviations from reasonable criteria for effective governance. We show that ownership changes and the quality of governance are correlated.
JEL classification: P11, P21, O53, H70, H20.