The effects of social TV on television advertising effectiveness

Social TV is the use of communication devices to connect with family and friends watching other TV screens. Plausible arguments suggest both positive and negative effects of social TV viewing on ad-effectiveness. This study contributes by providing evidence for the direction of social TV's effects. The results of a controlled laboratory experiment suggest that the benefits of social TV, principally its association with live TV and therefore less ad-avoidance, come at the cost of negative distraction effects. Like normal coviewing, social TV viewing distracts from ad-processing, reducing unaided recall and brand attitude favorability, compared to individual (solus) viewing. However, social TV messaging about ads improved brand attitude. Perceived creativity increased the likelihood of ad-related messaging. Social TV also has an additional source of distraction, multitasking, but in this study, multitasking did not further reduce ad-effectiveness compared to coviewing. The paper concludes with implications for advertisers and future research.     

Global supply network embeddedness and power: An analysis of international joint venture formations

As a subset of the international business literature, cross-border equity based partnerships have drawn significant academic attention. In the context of inter-firm partnerships, the power dynamics between parties and the implications that power has on the relational dynamics between firms is an important consideration. Research that connects power with network theory has recently emerged, suggesting that the network, as a source of power, plays a significant role in inter-firm dynamics. Yet, while there has been a substantial body of work either articulating the antecedents and consequences of power, little research has paid attention to the role that power plays in international JV formations; this presents a significant gap in the international business literature. Consequently, this study investigates the role that global network structure plays in the formation of new equity based international partnerships. Secondly, it contributes to the international JV literature by developing and testing a theoretical framework that examines inter-firm power dynamics as derived from the network position of each firm in the global network. Global network prominence, brokerage and weakness are key factors utilized in the analysis. The hypotheses are tested using a global manufacturing joint venture longitudinal dataset that contains 985,689 observations from 1985 to 2003. The results of the event history analysis indicate that for the manufacturer global network prominence, brokerage and weakness play an important role in new joint venture formations. On the other hand, only global network prominence is a significant factor for the potential partner.     

DEA APPLIED TO A GAUTENG SAMPLE OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS1

The research presented in this paper provides an analysis of the delivery of a few health care services by the public sector in Gauteng, South Africa. The data for the study was especially difficult to collect, suggesting the need for hospital level data information systems, as well as staff who are trained to analyze the information collected. The empirical results from the analysis suggest that services provided by small‐scale medical facilities waste fewer resources, while medical centres offering more technical services, such as surgeries, also appear to deliver medical services more efficiently.     

The Higher Earning in America: Are 529 Plans a Good Way to Save for College?

This article studies whether 529 plans are an effective way for most people to save for college. The 529 plans were created in 1996 to help low- and middle-income American families save for college. Since this time they have adopted more tax advantages and grown substantially as a result. While total balances in 529 plans now exceed $250 billion, less than 3.0 percent of households have a 529 plan. And the majority of 529 plan accounts are held by the wealthiest households. Low- and middle-income households receive little tax savings from investing in 529 plans, and some states count these plans against financial aid. Also, 529 plans are complicated, rules vary by state, and fund management fees tend to be high. Thus, 529 plans are not the panacea to college affordability.     

Firm characteristics and audit committees complying with ’best practice‘ membership guidelines

This study investigates demand and supply characteristics associated with firms that voluntarily established audit committees meeting ‘best practice’ membership guidelines. We focus on a set of best practice criteria rather than on the separate elements of the best practice criteria as in past studies. We conduct our tests using a sample of New Zealand listed companies that, relative to firms in other capital markets, are smaller and have more concentrated ownership. This setting differs from prior research because we expect the costs of voluntarily achieving best practice to be reasonably high. The results show that demand factors are not significantly related to the presence of an audit committee that conforms with best practice membership guidelines. However, supply factors (i.e. those firms with larger and more independent boards) are more likely to form audit committees that meet best practice. These results suggest that compliance costs will be greater for firms with smaller and less independent boards of directors if they are required to comply with best practice requirements.     

Matching using semiparametric propensity scores

This paper considers the application of semiparametric methods to estimate propensity scores or probabilities of program participation, which are central to certain program evaluation methods. To evaluate the practical benefits, we first conduct a Monte Carlo study. Second, we use data from the NSW experiment, CPS, and PSID. We compare treatment effect and evaluation bias estimates using propensity scores estimated from parametric logit, semiparametric single index, and semiparametric binary quantile regression models. Our results suggest that it is important to account for very general forms of heterogeneity in (semiparametric) estimation of the propensity score, particularly when the treatment effects vary in an unsystematic manner with the true propensity score.