Antecedents and consequences of corporate governance reform: the case of Germany

The paper examines the antecedents and consequences of the voluntary adoption of corporate governance reform in firms embedded in a relationship‐based governance system with less protection of minority shareholders. In such locations, ownership structure should be a key determinant of governance reform. Firms with dispersed ownership are likely to face agency problems but may lack sufficient ownership power in the hand of external owners for adoption to occur. Extensive ownership by external parties facilitates adoption but decreases the need and motivation to adopt governance reform. We examined the adoption of stock‐based incentive plans and transparent accounting regulations (e.g., greater disclosure to shareholders) among large German firms (DAX 100) during the late 1990s. We found an inverse ‘U’‐shaped relationship between ownership concentration and governance reform. In addition, we found that firms adopting governance reform were more likely to engage in corporate divestitures and achieve higher levels of market performance than firms not adopting governance reform. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ethical Unit Trust Financial Performance: Small Company Effects and Fund Size Effects

Recent papers which have examined unit trusts have controlled either for a 'fund size effect' or for the 'small firms effect' in the investment portfolio. The contribution of this paper is an analysis of the 'small firms effect' whilst simultaneously controlling for the 'fund size effect'. We show that the ethical unit trusts have significantly greater exposure than general unit trusts to the 'small firms effect', and that net of this there is no significant evidence of over or under performance by ethical trusts using an adjusted Jensen measure. Using two cross-sectional approaches, we demonstrate that whilst a 'small firms effect' has a role to play in explaining unit trust performance, fund size is not correlated with the financial performance of unit trusts. This cross-sectional analysis also provides some evidence that ethical unit trusts may perform less well than general unit trusts.     

双向沟通在绩效管理中的作用机制研究

绩效管理是企业将战略转化为行动的过程。绩效管理有别于传统的绩效考核，是一个完整的系统，具备完善的工作流程。绩效管理成败与否的关键在于管理者和员工之间双向沟通的过程，在于过程的连续性与有效性。本文分析了绩效管理各个环节中的沟通目的和作用机制以及就如何保证绩效管理中双向沟通的有效性提出了策略建议。     

Global marketing of industrial products: Are interpersonal relationships always critical?

The present paper examines the issue of whether interpersonal relationships are critical for global marketing of industrial products. The fields of relationship marketing, IMP group research, sales research, and network theory have stressed the importance of interpersonal relationships in the business-to-business or industrial marketing context. In contrast to this emphasis on interpersonal relationships, we argue that industrial firms can both conceive and enhance marketing strategies based on developing high quality and consistent processes, products, services or outcomes (consistent processes and outcomes). Such strategies are especially important given the fact that developing interpersonal relationships is expensive due to their reliance on frequent and/or face-to-face communications. In this paper, we examine industry and country contexts that lead to the choice of alternative industrial product marketing strategies and highlight some future research directions and managerial implications.     

Market orientation and customer satisfaction: Evidence from British machine tool industry

This paper examines empirically the relationship between market orientation and business performance in the context of British machine tool industry. An industry-specific market orientation scale was developed. Factor analysis revealed that there were four latent dimensions underlying the market orientation: customer orientation, competitor orientation, departmental responsiveness, and customer satisfaction orientation. Findings suggest that customer orientation and customer satisfaction orientation have a stronger impact on performance than the other dimensions, and that competitor orientation has a U-shape relationship with performance. Departmental responsiveness did not appear to be significantly related to the business performance. Managers could use the multidimensional conceptualization to develop particular kinds of orientations required for better performance.     

Corporate Governance and Expected Stock Returns: Evidence from Germany

Recent empirical work shows evidence for higher valuation of firms in countries with a better legal environment. We investigate whether differences in the quality of firm‐level corporate governance also help to explain firm performance in a cross‐section of companies within a single jurisdiction. Constructing a broad corporate governance rating (CGR) for German public firms, we document a positive relationship between governance practices and firm valuation. There is also evidence that expected stock returns are negatively correlated with firm‐level corporate governance, if dividend yields are used as proxies for the cost of capital. An investment strategy that bought high‐CGR firms and shorted low‐CGR firms earned abnormal returns of around 12% on an annual basis during the sample period.     

Mutual fund characteristics, managerial attributes, and fund performance

This study provides a comprehensive examination of recent mutual fund performance by analyzing a large set of both mutual funds and fund attributes in an effort to link performance to fund-specific characteristics. The results indicate that the hypothesized relationships between performance and the explanatory variables are generally upheld. After taking into consideration general market conditions and fund investment objective, the characteristic variables that relate to fund popularity, growth, cost, and management also explain performance. Finally, after controlling for survivorship and benchmark error as well as fund-specific factors, the results refute the performance persistence phenomenon.     

混凝土靶上边界对射孔器穿深性能的影响

混凝土靶是射孔器检测最常用的靶体之一，由于混凝土靶为有限边界靶体，其边界效应对射孔器各项性能指标必然存在影响．从而影响检测的准确性。以混凝土靶上边界对穿孔深度的影响为例进行研究，从而确定混凝土靶上边界对射孔器穿孔深度的影响程度。     

房地产企业开发经营绩效的影响因素研究

在分析房地产开发经营过程中关键价值活动的基础上，深入研究影响房地产开发经营绩效的四大因素：规划设计、施工质量、营销策划和物业管理的基本内容，以及其指标体系。以大最的数据调查为依据，对四大影响因素与房地产开发经营绩效关系模型的进行分析，为房地产开发企业的经营战略提供积极的指导价值。     

Firm orientations, innovativeness, and business performance: Advancing a system dynamics view following a comment on Hult, Hurley, and Knight's 2004 study

Hult, Hurley, and Knight's [Ind. Mark. Manage. 33 (2004) 429.] study reports correlations for each of the three subfactors of market orientation (competitor orientation, customer orientation, and interfunctional coordination) and innovativenss. However, their report fails to discuss the nature of these relationships. Such findings are worthy of discussion because they support prior evidence demonstrating the centrality of customer orientation in linking competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination with both innovativeness and business performance. Also, the finding that interfunctional coordination relates strongly with innovativeness supports the paradigm shift toward relationship marketing. The point needs mentioning that several different (more than one) standardized effects, structural equation models explain similar amounts of variance of business performance besides the models that Hult et al. examine. Thus, the implication by Hult et al. (p. 436) that “…learning orientation has no significant direct effect on performance” is accurate only for the model tested (shown in their Fig. 2). Applying the “quick clustering” method helps to inform interpretation when nearly all relationships among variables are statistically significant. The present article includes a proposal for advancing from one-directional structural equation modeling of innovativeness and business performance to system dynamics modeling that includes real-world feedback loops.