The perceived availability of resources which contribute to accounting faculty productivity

This study collected evidence from administrators and faculty of accounting programs concerning their perceptions of the availability of selected resources that potentially influence faculty productivity. The objective of the analysis was to determine if there were differences in the perceptions of respondents due to their professorial rank, their employing institution (stratified into three institutional groups by highest degree offered) and/or their employment role, that is, administrator versus faculty. The results suggest that faculty perceptions are influenced more by institutional differences than by rank. When faculty were compared to administrators, the evidence indicated that administrators' perceptions of resource availability consistently exceeded that of the faculty groups.     

Fair bets and profitability in college football gambling

Efficient markets in college football are tested over a 25-year period, 1976–2000. the market in general is found to be efficient, but betting on underdogs of more than 28 points violates a fair bet. The strategy of betting home underdogs reveals stronger results. Home underdogs of more than seven points are found to reject the null hypotheses of a fair bet over the last 10 years of the sample, 1991–2000. Home underdogs of more than 28 points are found to reject the null of no profitability during the same time frame.     

Measuring program success

Growth in the use of programs has led to a requirement of understanding what constitutes program success. A measurement construct for program success, which comprises four dimensions—delivery capability, organizational capability, marketing capability, and innovative capability—was developed based on 172 responses to a web‐based questionnaire to program managers. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and canonical correlation analysis were applied to test for the relationship between program success and program context. Results showed that the measurement construct for program success was stable over different types of program contexts. It provides a tool for further investigation into program success assessment.     

Gulf War Reparations

Abstract . On February 27, 1991, the government of Iraq accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 674, a measure requiring it to pay reparations to the victims of its aggression in the Gulf Crisis of 1990–1991. The economic problems and consequences that may result as Iraq faces the provisions of Resolution 674 are discussed. This latest example of international economic compensation is placed in the context of the transfer problem and the economic debate engendered by the experience of Germany in dealing with its reparations burden after World War I. Lessons gained from this historical example of reparations are then applied to the case of Iraq, one of the world's major petroleum producers, a country that must rely on oil exports to make its reparations payments.     

Joint product management strategies for E. coli O157 and feedlot profits

The objective of this study was to investigate the associations of management strategies on Escherichia coli O157 and feedlot profits. Management practices that affect cattle performance were identified using ordinary least squares regressions, while a negative binomial regression was used to identify management practices that were associated with E. coli O157 prevalence. Findings support the hypothesis that E. coli O157 occurrences in the feedlot were not directly associated with cattle performance in the feedlot, which suggests potential for a downstream production externality problem. General categories of management strategies were associated with cattle performance and E. coli O157 occurrences and were consistent with past research. As implementation of enhanced food safety regulations potentially shift responsibility of ensuring safety of the food supply from a government based agency onto private firms, a portion of the costs of E. coli O157 outbreaks is likely to shift to feedlots in the future.     

Beyond the line: exploring the HRM responsibilities of line managers,project managers and the HRM department in four project-oriented companies in the Netherlands,Austria, the UK and the USA

The topic of what human resource management (HRM) responsibilities are devolved from the HRM department to line managers has attracted much interest in recent years. We report findings from a study on the devolution of HRM practices in four project-oriented companies (POCs) and argue that although HRM practices are carried out beyond the HRM department, they are also carried out beyond the line. While the literature on devolving HRM responsibilities to line management is burgeoning, the HRM responsibilities of managers beyond the line organization are neglected. We make two contributions to the literature. Firstly, our study reveals that some HRM practices are the domain of the project manager rather than either the line manager or the HRM department. The complex interplay of the roles of the HRM department, line management and project management creates challenges and pitfalls where people are managed across the boundaries of the permanent and temporary organization. We identify a potentially powerful role for the HRM department in both monitoring and guiding the different players from the line and the project organizations, and in protecting the well-being of employees whose work traverses these organizational boundaries. Our second contribution is that we map the diversity of practices in different POCs for managing the interplay between the three main parties delivering HRM practices and offer project orientation as a contextual indicator that contributes to diversity in HRM practices.     

Idiosyncratic risk and the cross-section of stock returns: Merton (1987) meets Miller (1977)

Merton [1987. A simple model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information. Journal of Finance 42, 483–510] predicts that idiosyncratic risk should be priced when investors hold sub-optimally diversified portfolios, and cross-sectional stock returns should be positively related to their idiosyncratic risk. However, the literature generally finds a negative relationship between returns and idiosyncratic risk, which is more consistent with Miller's [1977. Risk, uncertainty, and divergence of opinion. Journal of Finance 32, 1151–1168] analysis of asset pricing under short-sale constraints. We examine the cross-sectional effects of idiosyncratic risk while explicitly recognizing the confounding effects that dispersion of beliefs and short-sale constraints produce in the Merton framework. We find strong support for Merton's [1987. A simple model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information. Journal of Finance 42, 483–510] model among stocks that have low levels of investor recognition and for which short selling is limited. For these stocks, the relation between idiosyncratic risk and expected returns is positive, as predicted by Merton [1987. A simple model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information. Journal of Finance 42, 483–510].