Review

Journal of Business Ethics -     

FINANCING DECISIONS AND SIGNALING BY PARTIALLY ACQUIRED FIRMS

It is well documented that financing decisions by firms can signal valuable information about that firm. Our goal is to determine whether financing decisions by firms can signal valuable information about large stakeholders who have a substantial investment in those firms. In particular, we focus on financing decisions by firms after they had been partially acquired to determine whether these decisions signaled information that affected the values of their corresponding partial acquirers. We find that some financing policies by partially acquired firms may not only signal valuable information about themselves, but may also signal valuable information about their corresponding partial acquirers. We also find that the magnitude of the signal for the partially acquired firm that enacts a financing policy is dependent on the degree of monitoring imposed by the respective partial acquirer. JEL classification: G14, G34     

时不我待——赢在整合客户智能营销平台

媒体沟通渠道增多，产品和服务形成差异化的能力下降（商品化），新型交互式多媒体以客户为中心的营销策略的出现……随着营销复杂程度不断提高CMO急需更好的营销平台支持其更明智的决策，提高成功率。营销职责日益严格，CEO、CFO和利益相关方要求提高透明度并论证营销投入的投资回报。客户自主能力提高，左右营销组合要素并要求个性化对待（他们的满意度通过点击鼠标可影响数百万人）。这些因素是营销高管面临的挑战，需要围绕客户彻底改变运营模式。     

The Poverty of Politics: How Income Redistribution Hurts the Poor

In spite of the significant research literature identifying a tradeoff between income redistribution and economic growth, massive public programs have been implemented to help the poor by transferring income to them. Since Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty began in 1964, over 3.5 trillion dollars have been transferred. However, the possibility that everyone, including the poor, may in fact be made worse off by the transfer has largely been ignored. With a simple algebraic model, the authors demonstrate that, over time, both high and low-income groups are harmed by redistribution. In addition, social mobility, as well as political concerns with relative poverty and international income redistribution increases the damage to all income groups produced by redistribution.     

Approaches to teleconferencing justification: Towards a general model

For organizations considering teleconferencing, five major justification perspectives are identified: the intuitive leaf; cost efficiency; timeless of decisions, improved work coordination; and reaching out. The perspectives are combined to form a model that charts their likely impacts on productivity. Proper planning through teleconferencing feasibility studies is advocated. That, and learning from others' experience, can help prospective users avert many pitfalls, avoid repeating past failures, and develop a teleconferencing system that will fulfill the promises of the justifications.     

A COMPARISON OF PROCEDURES FOR ESTIMATING RETURNS TO RESEARCH USING PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS

The production function approach has been one of the two main ex-post procedures used to estimate the rate of return to agricultural research. A critical part of estimating the marginal internal rate of return (MIRR) is the procedure adopted to spread the benefits of research through time. Past studies using this approach have given only brief consideration to this computational procedure. The objective in this study was to review the different computational procedures used and, then, using cross-section production function estimates for U.S. agriculture, determine whether the MIRR estimates are sensitive to the computational procedure used. The results from this comparison indicate a large range in the estimates. The implication, then, is that careful consideration should be given to the choice of computational procedure, both when undertaking such a study and when comparing the results of different studies.     

Operations change interactions in a service environment: Attitudes,behaviors, and profitability

An attitudinal and behavioral change program was developed and implemented in a service operations function. Changes were (1) stabilizing operations management (reducing turnover) and (2) improving attitudes and behaviors of employees with strong union affiliations in a common carrier trucking terminal when compared to similar employees in a control terminal undergoing no planned change. Management turnover was reduced. Other results from the eighteen-month longitudinal study indicated that employee attitudes in both groups remained negative toward work, management, and the company throughout the study period. Behaviors relating to attitudes — particularly turnover, absenteeism, and accident rates—improved at the experimental terminal, even though expressed attitudes remained negative. Operating efficiencies and profitability improved at the experimental terminal. It was found that these employees, pick-up and delivery drivers, retain positive attitudes toward customers and customers the same toward them, in spite of the drivers' negative attitudes toward the company. The operative service employee appeared to discriminate between attitudes toward the company and the customer; the drivers' negative attiudes toward most everything (except the customer) not affecting the customer's perceptions of the driver or the company.     

Tracking innovation: The need for reliable measures of its presence and effects

It is generally accepted that innovation is an essential ingredient of corporate success and, when pervasive, strengthens the economy while warding off foreign competition. Many point to a perceived weakening of this process in U.S. firms as a contributing factor to the steady decline of productivity growth vital to our nation's stability. They clamor for government programs to encourage technical venturing, embracing the “R & D hypothesis” which declares that privately sponsored research is the wellspring of innovation, and thus the key to a producer's prosperity — leading to more vigorous industries.In response, Washington is seeking ways to spur private spending on R & D during this era of diminished Federal backing for research. Such initiatives are handicapped by a lack of data establishing the existence and extent of the apparent slump in industrial creativity. Also there is scant information available to management that demonstrates a close correlation between fortunes of the firm and activities characterized as innovations. Without such evidence, business appears reluctant to abandon its cautious attitude towards support of R & D that cannot be readily commercialized.Little is known about innovation's economic impact or bearing on the survival of an enterprise. The connection between industrial research and the launch of desirable products is too abstruse to permit the assumption that in-house R & D inevitably spawns viable innovations. We do not have data which permit rational decisions for the effective management of innovation by firms, or the design of a workable model for the process. This information gap has a deleterious effect in industries traditionally dependent upon research, and leads to strategies — aimed at fostering innovation — that are inadequate, badly timed or ill conceived.An innovation stems from a series of management decisions motivated by the quest for profits and tempered by industry conditions — government incentives notwithstanding. Companies pay for R & D which promises revenues that would not otherwise appear, and back a new product when the expected return is comparable to that from less risky alternative investments. They require an easily administered method for verifying, in accounting terms, the outcome of an innovation so its contribution to profits can be contrasted with the yield from product improvements or line extensions. Management could then weigh a proposed innovation the same way it evaluates other commitments.Authors of public policy need to monitor the pace of innovation on a regional or national scale so that they can determine when stimulants are called for — to restore this activity to the desired level. The traditional indices of innovation's intensity are imprecise, and misleading if the purpose be to identify a trend. “R & D expenditures” must be viewed with circumspection for they are not always incurred in pursuit of innovations, especially with increasing outlays for compliance with government regulations. “Patents awarded” or “technical articles published” are scant proof of seminal activity, and “government contracts awarded” is not a useful statistic. A true “index of innovation” is needed to guide public policy — one founded on data tied to the launching of products.In conclusion, this article suggests a technique for quantifying innovation inside the firm, as a planning tool of management and to provide the data base for a meaningful “index of innovation”. It describes the index, to be derived from data reported by a representative sample of geographically dispersed companies. A procedure is outlined for generating such data in firms, collecting it by a central authority, and calculating the index.