Attendance and the Uncertainty-of-Outcome Hypothesis in Baseball

Sports offer interesting insights into demand due to the added twist of fan preferences for outcome uncertainty. We add to and amend previous work by analyzing the time series behavior of Major League Baseball attendance (1901–2003) using break point analysis, exploring a wide variety of measures of game uncertainty, playoff uncertainty, and consecutive season uncertainty. Only playoff uncertainty is statistically significant, and it is economically significant only for (1) truly ambitious intervention and (2) recent history. The policy implication is that actual league choices may be motivated by wealth redistribution rather than concerns over competitive balance.      

Embedding CSR Values: The Global Footwear Industry’s Evolving Governance Structure

Many transnational corporations and international organizations have embraced corporate social responsibility (CSR) to address criticisms of working and environmental conditions at subcontractors’ factories. While CSR ‹codes of conduct’ are easy to draft, supplier compliance has been elusive. Even third-party monitoring has proven an incomplete solution. This article proposes that an alteration in the supply chain’s governance, from an arms-length market model to a collaborative partnership, often will be necessary to effectuate CSR. The market model forces contractors to focus on price and delivery as they compete for the lead firm’s business, rendering CSR observance secondary, at best. A collaborative partnership where the lead firm gives select suppliers secure product orders and other benefits removes disincentives and adds incentives for CSR compliance. In time, the suppliers’ CSR habit should shift their business philosophy toward pursuing CSR as an end in itself, regardless of buyer incentives and monitoring. This article examines these hypotheses in the context of the athletic footwear sector with Nike, Inc. and its suppliers as the specific case study. The data collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing CSR beyond the superficial and often ineffectual ‹code of conduct’ stage.     

Manager Trustworthiness or Interactional Justice? Predicting Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are essential for effective organizational functioning. Decisions by employees to engage in these important discretionary behaviors are based on how they make sense of the organizational context. Using fairness heuristic theory, we tested two important OCB predictors: manager trustworthiness and interactional justice. In the process, we control for the effects of dispositional factors (propensity to trust) and for system-based organizational fairness (procedural and distributive justice). Results, based on surveys collected from 120 employee–supervisor dyads, indicate that manager trustworthiness explains variance in OCBs over and above the variance accounted for by interactional fairness. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Determinants of the Confucius Institute establishment

This paper investigates the determinants of the Confucius Institute (CI) establishment. It is shown that FDI, trade, geographical distance, developing country, and English speaking are important factors whereas GDP and population are marginally significant. Overall, CIs are under-represented in a non-English, distant, less wealthy developing country that trades infrequently with China. The results suggest that the CI network will have greater global impacts when new or more CIs are established in non-English speaking developing countries. However, potential mutual benefits between China and these under-representing countries should be preconditions in order to attract CIs in the countries.     

The Contributions of Firm Innovativeness to Customer Value in Purchasing Behavior

The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of firm innovativeness and product innovativeness on the components of customer value mediated by instrumental and symbolic brand benefits. Over the last 10 years, the mobile phone industry in Korea has grown rapidly, with the introduction of several innovative phone features. The research context therefore is mobile phones with Internet access and their users in Korea. A major research finding is that the firm innovativeness affects product innovativeness, and hence, the instrumental brand benefits. A firm's innovativeness also has a significant effect on the symbolic brand benefits and the partnership value. Our key academic contribution is to expand the previous fragmentary studies of customer value, by classifying customer value into four components: expectation, partnership, transaction, and relationship customer values, rather than just focusing on benefits and sacrifices. Implications for managers include the verification that firm innovativeness is a source of ability for mobile phone firms to create value for customers. Instrumental and symbolic brand benefits through innovation should be the focus area for marketers and new product development (NPD) managers in mobile phone firms to communicate with consumers to increase expectation values in the prepurchase step.     

Dynamic Global Linkages of the BRICS Stock Markets with the United States and Europe Under External Crisis Shocks: Implications for Portfolio Risk Forecasting

Crisis shocks often lead to changes in the interdependence across stock markets and thus affect risk assessment and management. This paper investigates the extent to which the global financial crisis of 2008–09, which was triggered by the US subprime crisis in 2007, and the European debt crisis that started at the end of 2009, affects the interdependence of the leading emerging markets of the BRICS countries with those of the United States and Europe. Our empirical analysis makes use of the FIAPARCH model combined with the Dynamic Equicorrelation (DECO‐FIAPARCH), which allows for the estimation of market linkage for a large group of countries as a whole, while controlling for asymmetric volatility and long memory. The results reveal the presence of important changes in the time‐varying linkages of the BRICS stock markets with the US and European ones. In particular, the average linkages have significantly been higher between 2007 and the first half of 2012 than the remaining part of the sample, and there is also evidence of a structural change around the Lehman Brothers collapse. We also show the effects of these stylised facts on portfolio risk assessment and forecasting.     

The Effects of Superstition on Choice and Latency

This study investigates the effects of superstition characteristics on choice and latency. Three dimensions of superstition are investigated—valence, accessibility, and relevance. Exposure to negative, accessible, or relevant superstition resulted in faster choices made. Superstitions that were negative or relevant led to choices favoring the auspicious product than superstitions that were positive or irrelevant. The auspicious product was also more likely to be chosen if it were associated with a superstition that was more accessible than less accessible. Findings also suggested that when superstition was relevant, the effects of a negative superstition were amplified than when superstition was irrelevant. Relevancy had less effect on positive superstition.     

The Value Relevance of Environmental Audits: Evidence from Japan

Environmental audits are implemented internally in order to monitor compliance with environmental laws, regulations and related accounting rules, and to develop recommendations for ways in which to improve environmental accounting processes and performance. In addition, external third‐party assurance on environmental information is used to verify whether firms’ disclosures on environmental information are in compliance with environmental accounting rules and regulations. We examine whether firms’ environmental audits positively affect their market values and whether third‐party assurance strengthens positive effects, using value relevance theory as a theoretical foundation. Our main tests are based on 266 Japanese manufacturing firms’ published environmental reports for the period 2010–2013. We find that the average market value of firms that implement environmental audits is 9 percent greater than those that do not. Further, we find that environmental audits positively affect firm value, largely through interaction with third‐party assurance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The Effects of Changes in Property Tax Rates and School Spending on Residential and Business Property Value Growth

In this article, we examine the effects of changes in property tax rates and school spending on residential and business property value growth in southeast Michigan. We use panel data for 152 communities in the five counties surrounding Detroit between the years 1983 and 2002, a period during which state government mandated major changes to school finance. Using the mandated changes to identify causality, we find that: (1) residential property values are more responsive to school spending changes than property tax rate changes; (2) business property values are more responsive to tax rate changes than school spending changes; and (3) business property values are more sensitive to changes in tax rates as compared to residential property. We also examine tax competition effects on property value growth, showing that tax competition plays an important role in property value growth in the southeast Michigan region.     

Customer‐based Brand Equity for a Destination: the Effect of Destination Image on Preference for Products Associated with a Destination Brand

This study investigated how destination image of customer‐based brand equity for a tourist destination can be transferred to products associated with a destination brand. The effect of destination image on preference for products associated with a destination brand (PPADB) and the relationship between tourists’ destination preference and PPADB were investigated. Two hundred and ninety six individuals replied to a self‐administered questionnaire distributed to 318 students at a major US university. The results revealed that both cognitive and affective image of a destination are positively related to PPADB; preference for a destination is also positively related to PPADB. Suggestions are provided for a successful destination brand extension strategy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.