Rank and file equity compensation and earnings management: Evidence from stock options

The widespread use of rank and file equity‐based compensation suggests that executives believe that rank and file employees can affect firm outcomes, and some research supports this view. If equity‐based incentives influence rank and file employees’ productive efforts, they might also influence their earnings management decisions. We find that increases in rank and file employees’ option‐based compensation—our proxy for equity‐based compensation—are associated with increases in earnings management and that this relation is attributable to real activities (as opposed to accrual) earnings management. Cross‐sectional tests indicate that the relation is stronger when rank and file option compensation is likely to generate greater performance incentives and attenuated in the presence of more intense monitoring. Finally, we explore the role of cash constraints and overvaluation as potential alternative explanations for this relation and find that neither accounts for our results.     

Spatial Dislocation and Affective Displacement: Youth Perspectives on Gentrification in London

Analyses of contemporary processes of gentrification have been primarily produced from adult perspectives with little focus on how age affects or mediates urban change. However, in analysing young people's responses to transformations in their neighbourhood we argue that there is evidence for a more complex relationship between ‘gentrifiers' and residents than existing arguments of antagonism or tolerance would suggest. Using a participatory video methodology to document experiences of gentrification in the east London borough of Hackney, we found that young people involved in this study experienced their transforming city through processes of spatial dislocation and affective displacement. The former incorporated a sense of disorientation in the temporal disjunctions of the speed of change, while the latter invoked the embodiment of a sense of not belonging generated within classed and intercultural interactions. However, there are expressions of ambivalence rather than straightforward rejection. Benefits of gentrification were noted, including conditions of alterity and the possibility to transcend normative behaviours that they found uncomfortable. Young people demonstrated the capacity to reimagine their relationship with the complex spaces they call home. The findings suggest a need to reframe debates on gentrification to include a more nuanced understanding of its differential impact on young people.     

Open innovation requires integrated competition-community ecosystems: Lessons learned from civic open innovation

Open innovation has received substantial business attention as a means of providing firms in hyper-competitive environments with the ability to create a stream of new products and services. For open innovation, organizing external sources correctly is a critical capability; current literature suggests that external sources should be organized either as collaborative communities or as competitive markets. While firms have generally been slow to adopt open innovation, many cities in the U.S. and Europe have been quick to embrace it—providing needed field-based experience on how to organize external sources. Based on our examination of six cities opening their data for innovation, we found that while cities often started with one or the other approach to organizing their external sources, each approach was inadequate in ways that could potentially be addressed by the addition of the other approach. Thus, we conclude with an integrated approach in which the needs of the entire ecosystem of sources and supporters of innovation are organized to address both competitive and community needs.     

Expansion of the economic frontier: Paraguayan growth in the 1970s

The rapid growth of the Paraguayan economy over the last decade is analyzed in terms of the expansion of agricultural production and an increase in construction activity. Construction of the Itaipu Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, has provided employment and spurred private construction. A government colonization programme and spontaneous Brazilian immigration has brought new land into production. Favourable international prices for Paraguayan exports and funds from the Itaipu project swelled foreign reserves and served to maintain the Paraguayan currency at an already overvalued rate. The paper argues that the overvaluation, combined with extensive smuggling, undermined incentives for investment in manufacturing and deprived the government of revenues needed to finance infrastructure for sustained economic growth and development.     

Self-monitoring,norms, and attitudes as influences on consumer complaining

Reactions of consumers to marketplace problems vary widely despite the frequent similarity of sources of dissatisfaction. The results of two studies designed to investigate the determinants of consumer inclinations to complain are presented. Two alternative social-psychological explanations of behavior employing self-monitoring, moral and social norms,and attitudes as predictor variables are examined.     

Intra-urban journeys and activity linkages

Data from a travel diary study of Watford residents are used to examine the linkages between successive stages of multi-stage journeys. The linkage patterns in the journeys made each day by housewives and by other adults are described. A simple model of the number of stages to which journeys are extended is presented. The numbers of journeys made each week by various population sub-groups are also described. Some implications for planning and transport prediction are discussed.     

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: The Value of Low Purchase Intention Consumers to Product Pricing

Hypothetical bias is a common research problem in measuring intentions. This study examines differences in individuals' hypothetical and nonhypothetical willingness to pay (WTP) based on purchase intention level. The purpose of Study 1 is to see if hypothetical bias is affecting all groups of individuals when segmented by purchase intentions. The contingent valuation method (CVM) was used to assess to individuals' purchase intentions and hypothetical WTP for an environmentally friendly (EF) offering. Individuals then participated in an auction that required them to bid on the same offering, thus requiring an actual monetary commitment. Through segmenting individuals into three purchase intention groups (high, moderate, and low), WTP biases were found to be positively related to stated intention level. High and moderate purchase intenders significantly overstated their hypothetical WTP. However, low purchase intenders did not. Further, no significant differences existed in nonhypothetical WTP between the three groups. The price that low purchase intenders were willing to pay through the CVM represented closely what they and the rest of the market were willing to pay in practice. The purpose of Study 2 was to examine several reasons why higher purchase intenders may be overstating their hypothetical WTP, with normative pressure and social desirability bias taken into consideration. Individuals indicated their purchase intentions and hypothetical WTP for an EF and a non‐EF product, and then participated in an auction. The higher purchase intenders again overstated their actual WTP for both products, whereas low purchase intenders did not. Results suggest that both normative pressure and social desirability bias contribute to hypothetical bias for products that carry a normative dimension (EF products). Controlling for these two factors eliminated the differences between hypothetical and nonhypothetical WTP. For products that did not have a normative component (non‐EF products), controlling for social desirability eliminated the gap between the hypothetical and nonhypothetical WTP amounts. A main implication from this research is that hypothetical bias is not a universal phenomenon and does not operate equally in all groups of purchase intenders. Marketers may want to consider only using lower purchase intenders in their pricing estimates for new products, especially for those that carry a normative component. Further, the CVM has received much criticism for measuring hypothetical WTP. However, estimates produced by the CVM were nearly exact for the low purchase intender group and were reliable when controlling for social desirability bias and normative pressure for the higher purchase intenders.     

Internal vs. External Whistleblowers: A Comparison of Whistleblowering Processes

We conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of 33 cases of internal and external whistleblowers wrongfully fired for reporting wrongdoing. Our results show external whistleblowers have less tenure with the organization, greater evidence of wrongdoing, and they tend to be more effective in changing organizational practices. External whistleblowers also experience more extensive retaliation than internal whistleblowers, and patterns of retaliation by management against the whistleblower vary depending on whether the whistleblower reports internally or externally. We discuss implications for organizations and whistleblowers, and we conclude that researchers need to develop different theoretical explanations of internal and external whistleblowing processes.