Evidence on the motivation for management forecasts of corporate earnings

A multivariate model of the process by which managers decide to release public forecasts of their firms' earnings is developed, based on factors that are hypothesized to affect the demand for and the willingness to supply such forecasts. We test the model on data from a comprehensive sample of earnings forecasts, and find support for our hypotheses about the likely joint influence of those factors. Larger firm size, greater leverage, higher and more stable earnings rates and less rapid growth rates are found to be associated with an increased propensity for management to provide earnings forecasts for their firms.     

Complaint,patience, and neglect: responses to a dissatisfying service experience

This study examines the responses of complainers and non-complainers after a service failure in the auto repair and medical service contexts. In particular, this study focuses on differentiating the two types of dissatisfaction responses of non-complainers, patience and neglect, from complaint. The results, based on a survey of 230 respondents, indicate that attitudes toward complaining and emotional bonding differentiate neglect from complaint, and the criticality of the service failure differentiates patience from complaint. The findings suggest that patience customers have higher return intentions than neglect customers, and as high as those of complainers with satisfying service recoveries.     

Empowerment in hospitality organizations: Customer orientation and organizational support

Although empowering employees has often been prescribed as an efficient strategy for hospitality organizations, the strategy alone cannot ensure success. Individual and organizational factors should be considered to increase employees’ perception of empowerment. This study examines the impact of employees’ customer orientation and organizational factors on the employee empowerment perceptions. Our findings, based on a survey of 203 guest contact employees, suggest that organizations should hire customer oriented people, guide them with service training, provide a reward system, and facilitate service standards communication in order to increase perceived empowerment. Implications of these findings for hospitality service managers are discussed.     

Call Center Employees’ Intent to Quit: Examination of Job Engagement and Role Clarity

Call centers have become a valuable resource for hotels in managing customer experiences and relationships, yet they have also developed a reputation for being a stressful job which has made it a significant challenge to retain employees. Given high turnover rates among call center employees, it is important for hospitality firms to understand the factors influencing their intentions to quit. This study focuses on job engagement and role clarity to examine hotel call center employees’ intent to quit. The survey results of call center employees at a large resort hotel suggest that job engagement significantly influences the hotel call center employees’ intent to quit after accounting for job satisfaction and organizational support. Role clarity, however, is not related to intent to quit. Managerial implications and recommendations for increasing employee job engagement are discussed.     

The effects of social justice and stigma-consciousness on gay customers' service recovery evaluation

This study examines how social justice and the stigma-consciousness level of gay customers influence their service recovery perceptions. The results, based on an experiment involving 379 gay respondents, indicate that distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice significantly affect gay customers' service recovery evaluations (satisfaction) and post-complaint behavioral intentions (negative word-of-mouth and repatronage). Also, higher stigma-consciousness gay customers show more negative service recovery evaluations and behavioral intentions than those with lower stigma-consciousness. Service providers who are interested in attracting and maintaining gay customers should create awareness among their employees about stigma-consciousness.     

Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft Hauptfach an der Universität Hamburg

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

First Versus Second Mover Advantage with Information Asymmetry about the Profitability of New Markets

Is it better to move first, or second—to innovate, or to imitate? We show that if one player's information about the profitability of new markets is only modestly superior, the possibility of foreclosing the market can lead to a first‐mover advantage. On the other hand, more extreme information superiority can reverse this, leading to a second‐mover advantage. Knowing more surely what is the best choice, the better‐informed player wants to delay to keep his information private and the less‐informed player wants to delay to learn. Because of this, more accurate information can actually lead to inefficiency by increasing the incentive to delay, and exogenous costs of delay can aid efficiency by neutralizing that strategic incentive. In fact, in some circumstances a player may purposely coarsen his information to deter imitation.     

Reverse Price Discrimination with Bayesian Buyers

This paper studies price discrimination under the situation in which buyers' prior valuations are initially observable by a seller but buyers receive further information about a product or service which remains private thereafter. The buyers interpret new information via Bayes' rule. We show that, in this environment, prices are not monotone in buyers' prior valuations. Interestingly, this results in the possibility that a seller intentionally offers a higher price to a low valuation buyer rather than a high valuation buyer (Reverse Price Discrimination). We derive this result in both monopoly and duopoly markets.