Allegations of Sexual Misconduct: A View from the Observation Deck of Power Distance Belief

Journal of Business Ethics - We seek to understand how third-party observers respond to allegations of sexual transgressions, whether their responses vary and if so why, how they determine...     

Modeling the Transition from Enhanced Oil Recovery to Geologic Carbon Sequestration

Policy debates suggest a future role for geologic carbon sequestration. As geologic sequestration (GS) evolves from enhanced oil recovery operations to an emissions‐mitigation option, regulations must evolve to manage the risks of carbon dioxide (CO₂) migration. We develop an engineering‐economic model to understand the key deployment pathways in this transition. Major results reveal that dedicated CO₂ storage in aquifers is associated with the greatest net revenues under only a limited number of scenarios. This finding suggests that regulators should anticipate GS operations in reservoirs that were not initially intended as GS operations and, therefore, may have higher leakage rates. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using factor analysis to explore principal components for quality management implementation

Quality remains or continues to be one of the top ranking strategic issues in all major organisations. However, today organisations are faced with increasingly sophisticated and informed stakeholder expectations. Standards by which organisations are judged are continuously evolving as are consumer’s expectations, needs and preferences. Thus, in such an environment, the alignment of quality with today’s business challenges, are widely criticized. There is a sense that quality has become outdated somewhere over the last two decades and that it is still predominately understood and practiced using the framework and direction provided historically by quality leaders such as Deming, Juran, Crosby and others. The above has resulted in many organisations struggling with the implementation of quality management. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current status of quality management practices in manufacturing related organisations in South Africa. It extracts principal components, for quality using factor analysis, in order to suggest key factors for quality management in present day, as practiced by the organisations that participated in this study.     

Event Risk Covenants and Shareholder Wealth: Ethical Implications of the "Poison Put" Provision in Bonds

This paper examines the ethical implications of "poison put" provisions included in bond offerings. A number of firms are using event-risk protections in bond offerings in an effort to attract investors back into the bond market. One of the most common event-risk protections is a "poison put" provision, which allows the bondholder to "put" the bond back to the firm at par or at a premium under certain specified conditions, such as a takeover effort or a downgrading of the bond by rating agencies. While such a provision is obviously of value to the bondholders, there is a secondary effect that is not as obvious. Using such a provision helps to insure that boards of directors must put the interests of all of the stakeholders ahead of any personal interests of the board members, thus protecting the stakeholders. The use of event-risk protections helps to deter takeovers, induce bidders to negotiate with management in any takeover efforts, and avoid two-tier takeover offers. As a result, the "poison put" provisions have a positive impact on share values while simultaneously protecting the investments of bondholders. Such an impact makes the use of "poison put" provisions in bonds an ethical use of management power.     

The evolution of Indian accounting standards: Its history and current status with regard to International Financial Reporting Standards

This paper addresses the adoption and applicability of International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to India. Specifically, the paper highlights some major areas where the country lacked harmonization with IAS in 1993 and the rapid congruence with IAS in the decade that followed. The attempt to achieve congruence with IAS appears to be more a by-product of the country's rapid economic growth rather than its catalyst. However, continued growth and the attraction of foreign capital to domestic ventures will depend on the transparency of the financial dealings. The Institute of the Chartered Accountants of India, (ICAI), India's standard setting body, is increasingly attempting to provide this transparency by revisions and additions to accounting standards, and by Exposure Drafts which aim to bring India more in line with International Financial Reporting Standards.     

Cost-effectiveness of combination daclatasvir-sofosbuvir for treatment of genotype 3 chronic hepatitis C infection in the United States

Background: A phase III trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of Daklinza (daclatasvir or DCV) in combination with sofosbuvir (SOF) for treatment of genotype (GT) 3 hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients.

Aim: This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of DCV?+?SOF vs SOF in combination with ribavirin (RBV) over a 20-year time horizon from the perspective of a United States (US) payer.

Methods: A published Markov model was adapted to reflect US demographic characteristics, treatment patterns, costs of drug acquisition, monitoring, disease and adverse event management, and mortality risks. Clinical inputs came from the ALLY-3 and VALENCE trials. The primary outcome was the incremental cost-utility ratio. Life-years, incidence of complications, number of patients achieving sustained virological response (SVR), and the total cost per SVR were secondary outcomes. Costs (2014 USD) and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were discounted at 3% per year. Deterministic, probabilistic, and scenario sensitivity analyses were conducted.

Results: DCV?+?SOF was associated with lower costs and better effectiveness than SOF?+?RBV in the base case and in almost all scenarios (i.e. treatment-experienced, non-cirrhotic, time horizons of 5, 10, and 80 years). DCV?+?SOF was less costly, but also slightly less effective than SOF?+?RBV in the cirrhotic and treatment-naïve population scenarios. Results were sensitive to variations in the probability of achieving SVR for both treatment arms. DCV?+?SOF costs less than $50,000 per QALY gained in 79% of all probabilistic iterations compared with SOF?+?RBV.

Conclusion: DCV?+?SOF is a dominant option compared with SOF?+?RBV in the US for the overall GT 3 HCV patient population.     

Forecasting the Downturn of the Great Recession

We examine the quantitative forecasts of Wall Street Journal economists made during the Great Recession. The recession was not predicted in advance, and the severity of the decline was not recognized immediately. An important problem was that the real-time data did not reflect the actual state of the economy and contributed to the forecast errors. At times there was substantial disagreement among the forecasters. A time-series forecast disagreement might provide valuable information about impending recessions.     

Linking Social Entrepreneurship and Social Change: The Mediating Role of Empowerment

Entrepreneurship is increasingly considered to be integral to development; however, social and cultural norms impact on the extent to which women in developing countries engage with, and accrue the benefits of, entrepreneurial activity. Using data collected from 49 members of a rural social enterprise in North India, we examine the relationships between social entrepreneurship, empowerment and social change. Innovative business processes that facilitated women’s economic activity and at the same time complied with local social and cultural norms that constrain their agency contributed to changing the social order itself. We frame emancipatory social entrepreneurship as processes that (1) empower women and (2) contribute to changing the social order in which women are embedded.     

MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICIES AND STOCK PRICES

Investigations into business cycles have found money supply to be a lead variable to stock prices. However, some would argue that the stock market, being efficient, anticipates money supply changes and therefore, stock prices are lead variables to money supply changes. Recent developments in time series methods have facilitated the testing of these relationships through identifying bivariate and multivariate autoregressive models. However, in many cases, the results using different procedures contradict themselves and are in conflict with theoretical reasonings. In this paper the causal relationship is tested between fiscal and monetary policies and stock prices using Canadian data and bivariate andmultivariate autoregressive models.