The Role of Information in Resolution Trust Corporation Auctions of Failed Thrifts

This paper performs empirical tests of alternative auction models, based on the auctions of failed thrifts conducted by the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC). RTC auctions are especially appealing because of the availability of a well-defined signal of underlying value as well as a measure of potential competition, both missing in previous studies of auctions of failed financial institutions. The evidence suggests that these transactions are best described as individual private value auctions and that they are significantly different from the takeovers of failed financial institutions previously studied.     

Discussion: Statistics Research in Business and Industry ‐ The General Electric Experience

For over 60 years, the statistics group at General Electric (GE) has used statistical methods to successfully address key company issues, both reactively and in recent years more and more proactively and holistically. Much of this work invariably calls for some degree of statistics research, including what we now call statistical engineering. We briefly review the history of research at GE, describe the accomplishments, research, and evolution of the GE statistics group over time, and present our views on the state of statistics research in business and industry.     

Quality in life and death: can we have the conversations?

As nurses, we participate in providing social justice through the delivery of health care. While much of what we do supports healthier lifestyles and healing, we must also acknowledge that for an increasing number of our patients, life may have become irreversibly painful and unwanted. Nurses have acute sensitivity to the dilemmas faced by dying patients and their families. Our empathy and know-how in such cases dictates that we make an effort to relieve such suffering. Easing suffering will require assessments of the changing terrain of end-of-life care and the populations receiving that care. Dialogues can bridge the interest of patients, providers, and policymakers and ultimately legislation that reinforces ethical end-of-life care and ensures a voice for those who will be most affected.     

Focus forecasting reconsidered

Focus Forecasting is a popular heuristic methodology for production and inventory control although there has never been a rigorous test of accuracy using real time series. We compare Focus Forecasting to damped-trend, seasonal exponential smoothing using five time series of cookware demand in a production planning application. We also make comparisons using 91 time series from the M-Competition study of forecast accuracy. Exponential smoothing was more accurate in both cases.     

Organization‐Based Self‐Esteem,Psychological Contract Fulfillment,and Perceived Employment Opportunities: A Test of Self‐Regulatory Theory

This study addresses organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) development by examining the role of perceptions of employer psychological contract fulfillment, and the self‐regulatory processes by which OBSE evolves and produces its effects. Self‐regulatory theory helps reveal why psychological contract fulfillment relates to OBSE, how OBSE mediates its effects, and the ways in which OBSE might interact with perceived employment opportunities to affect job satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions. The results show that OBSE is related to and mediates the relationships between relational contract fulfillment and employee job satisfaction and performance, but OBSE is not related to transactional contract fulfillment. Nor does OBSE mediate the relationships between transactional contract fulfillment and the dependent variables. Perceived employment opportunities moderate the relationships of OBSE with job satisfaction and turnover intentions. This study concludes with recommendations of ways managers can increase their sensitivity to the types of messages they communicate to employees. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

澳大利亚水资源分配与管理原则及其对我国的启示

今天世界上许多国家都面临水资源短缺的问题,怎样对现有的水资源进行分配,如何对水资源进行有效的管理显得尤为重要。澳大利亚政府在这方面进行了卓有成效的尝试。基于此,首先介绍了澳大利亚水资源的现状,其次分析了澳大利亚水资源分配和管理的原则,最后阐述了澳大利亚在水资源分配和管理方面对我国的启示。     

Implicit human resource management theory: a potential threat to the internal validity of human resource practice measures

Since the publication of Huselid's (1995) paper examining the relationship between HR practices and firm performance, there has been an explosion of published papers examining the empirical relationship between HR practices and various measures of firm performance. This study examines the possibility that informants typically providing data about organizational HR practices may be biased by an implicit theory of human resource management. Our findings suggest the responses from subjects typically providing data about HR practices may be biased in their reporting by the performance of the organization. The generalizability of these results is considered and implications for future studies of the HR-firm performance relationship reviewed.     

Tax smoothing and tariff behavior in the United States

This paper develops and tests a public finance theory of tariff behavior. Tariffs are viewed as being part of the optimum revenue raising tax package so that tariff revenue is closely tied to government spending. A key implication of the theory is that tariff rate movements should be consistent with tax-smoothing behavior. The test focuses on the United States during the years 1869–1916. The results of the test support the theory.     

Product Design: Preference for Rounded versus Angular Design Elements

Two experiments tested whether a general relative preference for objects with rounded rather than angular form (Bar & Neta, 2006, 2007) can be applied in the context of the design of consumer products. Images of product packaging—a chocolate product (Experiment 1) and water and bleach bottles (Experiment 2)—were manipulated with regard to the shape of both contour and graphics. There was a preference for rounded designs that extended to self‐report purchase likelihood—with additive effects of contour and graphics shape that could not be accounted for by design typicality or perceived ease of use.