An efficient market? Going public in London, 1891–1911

There have been claims that British capital was not well deployed in Victorian Britain. There was, allegedly, a lack of support for new and dynamic companies in comparison to the situation in Germany and the US. We find no evidence to support these claims. The London Stock Exchange welcomed young, old, domestic, and foreign firms. It provided funds to firms in old, existing industries as well as patenting firms in ‘new‐tech’ industries at similar costs of capital. If investors did show a preference for older and foreign firms, it was because those firms offered investors better long‐run performance. In addition, we show some evidence that investors who worked in the same industry and lived close to the firm going public were allotted more shares in high‐quality initial public offerings.     

Auditing Goodwill in the Post‐Amortization Era: Challenges for Auditors

The elimination of goodwill amortization in 2001 brought about significant change in how companies are required to account for goodwill. This change in accounting also brought with it new challenges for auditors, namely evaluating the reasonableness of management's assumptions related to goodwill valuation. In addition to introducing technical challenges, this task is particularly difficult given the misalignment in incentives it creates between managers who likely prefer to avoid recording an impairment and auditors who seek to minimize the bias in management's impairment testing. This study focuses on the consequences of the misaligned incentives that auditors face under the current goodwill assessment process. We find that the decision to record a goodwill impairment is associated with an increase in the probability of auditor dismissal. Consistent with the presence of significant friction with clients, our results also indicate that the likelihood of auditor dismissals is negatively related to the favorability of the impairment decision. Furthermore, we find that companies impairing goodwill prior to dismissing auditors subsequently employ auditors that are, on average, more favorable to clients in their impairment decisions.     

Impact of Auditor Report Changes on Financial Reporting Quality and Audit Costs: Evidence from the United Kingdom

While substantial revisions to auditor reporting requirements are being implemented internationally, the impact of these reforms on financial reporting quality is unknown. We exploit the United Kingdom's recent auditor reporting changes and find that the United Kingdom's new reporting regime is associated with an improvement in financial reporting quality as proxied by significant decreases in absolute abnormal accruals and the propensity to just meet or beat analyst forecasts, and a significant increase in earnings response coefficients. As for audit costs, we do not find a significant change in audit fees or audit delay surrounding the implementation of the new reporting regime. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that new auditor reporting requirements are associated with a significant improvement in financial reporting quality without detecting a significant increase in audit costs.     

Culture and age as moderators in the corporate reputation and loyalty relationship

This study investigates the moderating role of culture and relationship age in the relationship between customer-based corporate reputation (CBR) and customer loyalty using data from two service contexts (retailing and fast-food restaurants) in three countries (France, the U.K., and the U.S.) that differ with regards to two cultural values—uncertainty avoidance and time orientation. Results suggest that CBR has similar effects on affective and intentional loyalty in all three countries. However, culture interacts with relationship age, such that relationship age magnifies the effect of CBR in France, while relationship age suppresses CBR's effect in the U.K. and the U.S. The authors provide explanations for these effects based on cultural theories. Managerial and research implications are developed.     

Reflections on discriminant validity: Reexamining the Bove et al. (2009) findings

Bove, Pervan, Beatty and Shiu (2009) develop and test a latent variable model of the role of service workers in encouraging helpful behaviors by customers towards the service business (OCBs). Farrell (2010) questions these findings due to an incorrect application of the Fornell and Larcker (1981) discriminant validity test. The authors respond to Farrell's criticism by discussing the options available for assessing discriminant validity, the current use of these options in top journals, the underlying assumptions of these assessments, and the appropriateness of the alternative assessments under different types of situations. Finally, the authors address the specific concerns raised in Farrell (2010) in regard to Bove et al. (2009).     

A model of adolescents' online consumer self-efficacy (OCSE)

This paper investigates adolescent online shopping and self-efficacy development in the virtual setting. The authors present and test a model of antecedents and mediators to two dimensions of online consumer self-efficacy. Additionally, a discriminant analysis finds that more involved adolescent online shoppers can be differentiated from less involved online shoppers on key variables of interest-shopping motivations, self-efficacies, shopping behaviors, and relative influence in household decision-making.     

Managers’ psychological diversity climate and fairness: The utility and importance of diversity management in the hospitality industry

ABSTRACT

Despite corporate investments in diversity management programs, there is a dearth in the literature that examines managers' attitudes toward diversity management practices. This is a glaring gap in the literature because the success of diversity management programs is highly depend on managers. A survey was distributed to hotel managers from properties in the southern United States. The results showed that psychological diversity climate predicted the perceived utility and importance of diversity management, and these relationships were mediated by the fairness of diversity management. These results suggest that psychological diversity climate has an impact on attitudes toward diversity management practices.     

“我们正在寻找中国进口商”

亚洲是我国开展对外经贸合作最主要的对象之一，特别是东盟一巾吲自由贸易区2010年1月1日全面启动以来，中国与亚洲国家经贸合作正变得更广泛而深入。近日，本刊记者集中采访了新加坡、马尔代夫和马来阳砸驻华大使，请他们介绍中国企业在这些国家的发展机会。