The effects of role strain on the consumer decision process for groceries in single-parent households

Single-parent families are becoming a larger part of American society. But what is known about their decision-making processes? Role strain is of particular interest when studying single parents because of their need to serve multiple family roles otherwise carried out by dual-parent families. In this study, the consumer decision process for single parents is empirically examined in the context of grocery shopping. Role strain was found to have a significant effect on problem recognition style and reactive shopping behaviors. Advertising positively influenced proactive shopping behaviors and had a negative relationship with reactive shopping behaviors. Implications for food retailers are provided.     

An Ethical Decision-Making Framework for Competitor Intelligence Gathering

Competitor intelligence gathering involves the aggregation of competitive information to facilitate strategic development and a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, companies are sometimes willing to carry out questionable gathering practices to collect such information. An ethical decision making framework for competitor intelligence gathering is presented in this paper that outlines the impact of several strengthening and weakening factors on individual ethical reasoning. Dialogue is provided about the management of intelligence gathering from various viewpoints, and the implications of these managerial suggestions are discussed. Terri Rittenburg is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Wyoming; she is a member of the Editorial Policy Board for the Journal of Macromarketing. Her research has appeared in journals such as Psychology and Marketing,Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Macromarketing. Sean Valentine is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Wyoming. His research has appeared in journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Businees Research, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. James Faircloth is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of North Dakota.He has previously published in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice and Psychological Reports.     

Ambiguity intolerance and financial reporting alternatives

Authoritative accounting pronouncements almost always require more, rather than less, financial reporting disclosures and accountants rarely, if ever, act to overturn the required disclosures. Since the personality literature suggests that desire for more information is linked to an individual's intolerance for ambiguity, this study tested selected hypotheses about the relationship between accountants' intolerance for ambiguity and their desire for financial reporting alternatives. The findings of the study did not disclose a significant relationship between accountants' intolerance for ambiguity and their desire for financial reporting alternatives. However, the results did disclose a relationship between education level and two dependent variables: desire for disclosure and consistency of desired disclosures with generally accepted accounting principles. Therefore, additional research should pay more attention to the effects of demographic information, which may in fact be more informative than many previously tested variables such as personality characteristics.     

Stock market liquidity and firm value

This paper investigates the relation between stock liquidity and firm performance. The study shows that firms with liquid stocks have better performance as measured by the firm market-to-book ratio. This result is robust to the inclusion of industry or firm fixed effects, a control for idiosyncratic risk, a control for endogenous liquidity using two-stage least squares, and the use of alternative measures of liquidity. To identify the causal effect of liquidity on firm performance, we study an exogenous shock to liquidity—the decimalization of stock trading—and show that the increase in liquidity around decimalization improves firm performance. The causes of liquidity's beneficial effect are investigated: Liquidity increases the information content of market prices and of performance-sensitive managerial compensation. Finally, momentum trading, analyst coverage, investor overreaction, and the effect of liquidity on discount rates or expected returns do not appear to drive the results.     

The Impact of Range Pricing on Marketing Time and Transaction Price: A Better Mousetrap for the Existing Home Market?

In various markets around the country, some real estate professionals are employing a new pricing strategy that involves marketing homes for sale with a price range rather than a single asking price. This strategy is often touted as a mechanism that will attract more potential buyers to look at a house and thus result in reduced marketing times for existing homes, with prices determined by competitive forces. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether houses using range pricing, often referred to as value range marketing, sell in the same amount of time and sell for similar prices as those marketed in the traditional manner. Two staged least squares with a correction for sample selection and Weibull duration models are used to test the hypotheses, employing a sample of 5,852 residential houses that were sold during the period January 1999 to December 2000. In contrast to claims of the strategy’s proponents, the results indicate that houses take longer to sell when using the range pricing strategy after controlling for physical characteristics and market conditions. Furthermore, there is no evidence that this strategy has any significant impact on transaction prices.     

GASB mandatory disclosure rules and municipal bond yield spreads

The implementation of the Government Accounting Standards Board’s Statement 45 mandates disclosure of “other post-employment benefits” (OPEB) in a standardized format. The mandate provides an opportunity to analyze noninformation impacts of mandatory disclosures, as key components of the information were already publicly available. We find that this mandate is associated with a significant 15 and 73 basis-point increase in yield spreads among tax-exempt and taxable bonds, respectively. This effect is particularly pronounced for riskier bonds—nonrated and longer maturity taxable bonds. However, states that do not follow the GASB 45 recommendation of prefunding the OPEB obligations face a greater increase in their yield spreads.     

The impact of corporate debt on long term investment and firm performance

Prior research indicates a linkage between debt, research and development (R&D) and physical investment, and that the relationship varies depending on the type of firm (science versus non–science). Leverage also plays a multidimensional role in corporate performance and growth. The relationship between financial leverage and R&D expenditure is analysed using a sample of large United States (US) manufacturing firms. Then, the impact of leverage on R&D expenditure is studied using corporate performance drivers as intermediate variables. The results indicate that there is a strong negative relationship between the degree of financial leverage and the level of R&D expenditure that firms undertake. The negative relationship is robust to changes in model specifications and sample periods. More importantly, the results show that it is higher leverage that leads to lower R&D expense rather than R&D causing variations in future leverage. In addition, the results indicate that higher leverage adversely influences future investment in R&D which may in turn lead to negative impact on long term operating performance and future growth opportunities.     

Diplomatic relations and tourism advertising effectiveness: U.S. travel interest to Cuba

This study explores the relationship between nation brand familiarity and increased interest in tourism and tourism advertising effectiveness. Surveys fielded a few months before and a few months after the historic 17 December 2014 announcement of improved diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba showed an increase in familiarity with Cuba as well as increased interest in traveling to Cuba among US adults. Respondents also indicated a more favorable reaction to a 30-s ad agency-produced television commercial for Cuba tourism. Results are discussed in light of literature on destination brand familiarity as it relates to brand interest and advertising evaluation. Implications for destination marketing managers are presented.     

The Publishing of Real Estate Articles Within a Finance Department

A unique data set of 311 professors is employed to examine the relative research productivity between real estate and finance faculty. The results suggest that, on average, real estate faculty within a finance department publish more real estate and finance publications than do their finance colleagues. The results also indicate that publications in top real estate journals increase annual salary by approximately $800. Collected over a twenty-year period, this increment in salary would increase the professor's wealth by more than $10,600. Finally, there is some evidence that real estate faculty are paid less than finance faculty, ceteris paribus, although the results are not statistically significant.     

Corporate Diversification and Credit Constraints: Real Effects across the Business Cycle

We study whether differences in access to credit cause focusedfirms to perform differently from diversified firms in the productmarket. Prior work has identified binding credit constraintsfor bank-dependent firms during recessions. We assess whethercorporate diversification alleviates these constraints. We findthat during recessions sales growth rates drop more for bank-dependentfocused firms than for rival segments of bank-dependent diversifiedfirms. We also find that during recessions inventory growthrates drop more for bank-dependent focused firms than for bank-dependentdiversified firms even after we control for contemporaneoussales growth. Consistent with a credit constraint explanation,we find no difference in the sensitivities to recessions ofbank-independent focused and bank-independent diversified firms.(JEL G30, G31, G32)