Time Variation of Ex-Dividend Day Stock Returns and Corporate Dividend Capture: A Reexamination

This paper documents some empirical facts about ex-day abnormal returns to high dividend yield stocks that are potentially subject to corporate dividend capture. We find that average abnormal ex-dividend day returns are uniformly negative in each year after the introduction of negotiated commission rates and that time variation in ex-day returns during the negotiated commission rates era is consistent with corporate tax-based dividend capture. Ex-day returns are more negative when the tax advantage to corporate dividend capture is greatest and more positive when increases in transaction costs and risk reduce incentives to engage in corporate tax-based dividend capture.     

Developing a process for the relative valuation of R&D programmes

This paper addresses the issue of R&D programme prioritisation within a manufacturing company in the aerospace industry, in the context of an overall framework for technology management. A review of approaches to R&D project selection leads into a recent case, which describes how the company developed a practical methodology. The benefits of the process and the relevance of the academic contribution are discussed, leading to a practical checklist for in-company development of a prioritisation process.     

A Bayesian Signals Approach for the Detection of Crises

In this paper, we consider the signals approach as an early-warning-system to detect crises. Crisis detection from a signals approach involves Type I and II errors which are handled through a utility function. We provide a Bayesian model and we test the effectiveness of the signals approach in three data sets: (1) Currency and banking crises for 76 currency and 26 banking crises in 15 developing and 5 industrial countries between 1970 and 1995, (2) costly asset price booms using quarterly data ranging from 1970 to 2007, and (3) public debt crises in Europe in 11 countries in the European Monetary Union from the introduction of the Euro until November 2011. The Bayesian model relies on a vector autoregression for indicator variables, and incorporates dynamic factors, time-varying weights in the latent composite indicator and special priors to avoid the proliferation of parameters. The Bayesian vector autoregressions are extended to a semi-parametric context to capture non-linearities. Our evidence reveals that our approach is successful as an early-warning mechanism after allowing for breaks and nonlinearities and, perhaps more importantly, the composite indicator is better represented as a flexible nonlinear function of the underlying indicators.

     

Managing policy lapse risk in Sweden’s life insurance market between 1915 and 1947

Abstract

We examine the challenges that Swedish life insurers faced in managing the lapse risk of policies written on the lives of the industrial urban working class between 1915 and 1947. We observe that with the threat of State socialisation of insurance in the 1930s, industrial life insurers modified their business practices to better control policy lapses. Using firm-level data, we also analyse the effect of socio-economic changes, such as rising real wages, interest rate fluctuations and unemployment on life insurance policy lapses. Our results support contemporary tests of the emergency fund and interest rate explanations for the voluntary premature termination of life insurance policies.     

Why so Serious? Theorising Playful Model-Driven Group Decision Support with Situated Affectivity

An integrative approach to theorising behavioural, affective and cognitive processes in model-driven group decision support (GDS) interventions is needed to gain insight into the (micro-)processes by which outcomes are accomplished. This paper proposes that the theoretical lens of situated affectivity, grounded in recent extensions of scaffolded mind models, is suitable to understand the performativity of affective micro-processes in model-driven GDS interventions. An illustrative vignette of a humorous micro-moment in a group decision workshop is presented to reveal the performativity of extended affective scaffolding processes for group decision development. The lens of situated affectivity constitutes a novel approach for the study of interventionist practice in the context of group decision making (and negotiation). An outlook with opportunities for future research is offered to facilitate an integrated approach to the study of cognitive–affective and behavioural micro-processes in model-driven GDS interventions.     

Company technology strategy

Abstract
The authors report the results of a small-scale study of the attitudes of 174 British companies to managing their technology. Their data sources were replies to a questionnaire and interviews with 18 senior managers of the respondent companies. They relate their findings to current academic thinking about technolgy strategy, of which a bibliography and critical review is presented in the paper.
The results showed that the firms in the survey did not give much specific attention to technology when formulating their strategies. Some do not have a clear notion of what is meant by 'their technology', and others have difficulty in deciding its character. In any case a 'firm's technology' is usually seen as a cluster of technologies, which is enmeshed in a network of external technologies such as those practised by suppliers and customers, rather than as a single entity. After in-house R&D the most often used forms of technology acquisition are licensing-in and contract R&D. The import of technology presents difficulties, such as codifying it in usable form and making sure that there are in-house staff capable of using it.
The authors conclude overall that few firms in the sample can assess their technological strengths and weaknesses or clearly conceptualize their situation. They remark that academic approaches to technology strategy are oversimplified and do not sufficiently address the main problems in this area, which are to help managers to understand the nature of their technology position and the technological network of which their firm forms a part.     

A Sociology of Expectations: Retrospecting Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects

Future expectations and promises are crucial to providing the dynamism and momentum upon which so many ventures in science and technology depend. This is especially the case for pre-market applications where practical utility and value has yet to be demonstrated and where investment must be mobilised. For instance, clinical biotechnology (including a wide range of genetic therapeutic and engineering applications) has been at the centre of ferocious debates about whether or not promises and expectations will be realized. In some cases, the failure of expectations has severely damaged the reputation and credibility of professions, institutions and industry. The need for a better analytical understanding of the dynamics of expectations in innovation is both necessary and timely. This paper develops the basis for a sociology of expectations, drawing on recent writing within Science and Technology Studies (STS) and case studies of biotechnology innovation. In particular, we offer a model for understanding how expectations will predictably vary according to some key parameters. Such factors include the degree to which technologies and innovation relationships are either relatively established or newly emergent. Expectations will also vary according actors' relative closeness and involvement in knowledge production itself. The paper proceeds by analyzing the way expectations in clinical biotechnology have changed over time. That is, we compare the way the future was once represented with the way it has been represented more recently. The paper concludes by offering a means by which it is possible to map or model the "situatedness of expectations'.