Detecting Buyer Preferences to Guide Product Development and Advertising

If you could tell which product characteristics consumers would prefer, product development could be targeted sharply and positioning the product competitively could be done with more confidence. This article describes one approach by which a relatively large set of test products is evaluated by consumers in order to identify the most acceptable combination of product attributes. Identification of this combination provides the product developer with guidelines as to which test product should be selected for subsequent introduction. The focus is on the discovery of discernible attributes of a product in a fragmented category to support the advertising claim.     

Modelling organizational buying as a sequence of decisions

Organizational buying consists of several stages, each of which yields a decision. These decisions may be linked together in a sequence to form a simple yet powerful model that marketers can use to predict outcomes of proposed marketing programs and to diagnose problems in existing programs. The model may be used with qualitative or quantitative data. The model helps both practitioners and scholars to identify research needs and opportunities.     

The role of generally accepted reporting methods in the public sector: An empirical test

This study explores the role of standard or generally accepted accounting and reporting methods in the public sector. It differs from prior studies that address public sector accounting issues in that it considers more directly how the political process influences decisions to report financial information. The primary contention is that adopting standard reporting methods reduces costs to public officials that arise from factors that characterize political markets. Empirical evidence based on data from the state governments is consistent with this contention, but theoretical and methodological problems restrict our ability to ascertain which specific factors are relevant.     

Discovering an accountant's tax accrual workpapers: Should auditors join the priveleged few?

This article explores the legal controversy over the limits of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) power to summons documents in an investigation of corporate income tax liability. The controversy focuses upon IRS access to an independent auditor's tax accrual workpapers. Required by federal securities laws, these workpapers record the accountant's predictions of the likelihood of successful IRS challenges to aggressive corporate tax positions. Routine IRS access to the tax accrual workpapers would stifle management's candid disclosure of questionable tax positions to the auditors. This article defines the limits of an auditor's work-product privilege premised on the social need for full disclosure of a company's contingent tax liabilities to assure the setting aside of adequate reserves to cover those contingencies. While the privilege should serve to protect those investing in American businesses, its primary purpose is to maintain a public trust in the integrity of certified financial statements.     

Branch plant location and the product cycle in computer manufacturing

This paper examines the implications of changes in product and process technology in the computer industry for the regional location pattern of production facilities. Emphasis is placed on the different locational needs of research and development activities as opposed to volume production of components. Using establishment data, the existing pattern of location is analyzed. A location model for branch plants is estimated across SMSAs; the results show that SMSA size and wage rates are repelling forces for branches. Agglomeration factors, educational level, and the supply of engineers, as well as the distance to headquarters, are positive influences on location.Manufacturing employment in the United States has grown faster outside than inside the traditional manufacturing belt for decades (Carlino 1984); this trend has accelerated in recent years. Causes of this redistribution may include surplus farm labor in the South (Cogan 1982), an attractive climate in the West, and unionization and high taxes in the North. Changes in product and process technology have also affected the location of some industries. This paper attempts to show how technology and the product life cycle influence the location of computer manufacturing.     

Efficiency in public schools: Does competition matter?

The focus of many recent school reforms has been on changing the incentives faced by school administrators, mainly through increased competition. In this study, we assess whether competition amongst public schools influences the efficiency in which these schools operate, using a two-stage estimation procedure and data from the state of Illinois from 1997–1998. We find some evidence that public school districts become more efficient as neighboring districts become more efficient. However, such spillovers only occur if districts operate within a financially flexible environment.     

The pyramid model of school management

Models of organizational management are presented in the literature and in the managerial practices of recent years. They are aimed to improve organizational governance, and to enhance organizational overall efficiency. The common denominator for most, if not all these management models is that they generally focus on a single aspect, or on a very limited number of aspects of the organizational conduct whereas running an organization is a highly complex undertaking, incorporating a large number of functions and processes. School principals tend to adapt out-of-school management process, usually adapting them from the business world. And therefore we can see that the educational system at all and the school system in particular, implement business management methods. This research indicates that school principals are well aware of all the school management processes and procedures. The important contribution of this research, which is based on the unique contribution of the multi-faceted theory, is acknowledging the work of the school principals as a pyramid which its base is composed of essential consensus procedures and its three sided indicate three major school management process. We suggest that this pyramid will be called “The Pyramid Model of School Management”. The various management processes that built this pyramid are based on mutual aims and consensus of the school team to reach these aims. The consensus of the aims is essential, and with out it, the school cannot exist as an affective organization. Choosing when to take a various management action is a feedback based, and situation-based conduct. It is also shown in this research that school principals distinguish between three major management processes which we recommend that they will be called the “pyramid sides” and include: results management, human resources management and general resources management. The three groups are bounded by the “core of management” which we recommend that will be called the “pyramid base”. The pyramid base is connected to each and every phase of the life cycle of the organization, to each process and each result. It includes the school targets and aims which all the school team has to agree upon and there must be an un-doubtful consensus about them.     

School Quality, House Prices and Liquidity

This paper develops an empirical framework for taking into account the effects of endogenous liquidity on price capitalization estimates. Changes in school attendance zones in the East Baton Rouge Parish public school district provide a natural experiment for studying how changes in school characteristics affect house prices and liquidity. House price and selling time, or liquidity, are simultaneously determined in search markets. The empirical model exploits variation in the surrounding neighborhood market conditions pertinent to each house to identify the system of price and liquidity equations. The estimates are consistent with search-market theory in that liquidity absorbs part of the capitalization of school quality.