The Effect of Concept Formulation on Concept Test Scores

While concept testing is a mainstay of the new product development process, there is little empirical evidence on the variation in consumer responses due to alternative concept formulations, particularly for those tests undertaken early in the product development process. The present study addressed this gap in the literature by using a split sample mail survey to compare stripped, embellished, and visual concept formulations for five heterogeneous product concepts. It was found that respondents' answers to attitude and purchase intention questions showed only minor variation with different formulations of the concept test statement. It also was found that the ranking of the concepts showed no substantial changes across the different formulations. Therefore, the type of concept statement formulation may not be that important, at least for early ranking tasks performed before experiential prototypes are available. Early concept tests therefore may be carried out using stripped concept statements. This may reduce costs, allowing organizations to undertake early concept testing more frequently across a wider range of products.     

We’re on a road to somewhere: women's groups in unions

Women's groups (WGs) provide a platform from which women can develop their strengths, advance their concerns and access empowering positions. Academic attention to WGs in British unions has recently increased, reflecting their expansion and growing union responsiveness to female members. However, the meaning of WGs for unions remains under‐researched. This article examines this using case studies of two major unions and a range of their WGs based on a typology of equality ideas and model of union organisation.     

BEA's Regional Economic Accounts Program: Recent and Planned Improvements

This article highlights recent improvements and plans for further improvements to each of BEA’s major regional economic accounts programs. The improvements focus on the acceleration of release of the estimates and on the preparation of new and extended estimates. There also is a brief discussion on BEA’s research effort to improve the regional accounts.JEL Classification E010     

Consistency of UK Pension Fund Investment Performance

Transition matrix techniques are used to relate the past and present performance of pension fund portfolios. In particular, funds are ranked to study the tendency of portfolios to remain in the same quartile of the ranking as they were in the previous period. For raw returns, funds in both of the top quartiles are found to be more likely to remain in the same quartile than would be expected by chance. This result can be taken as limited evidence for the consistency of performance. Similar systemic effects are observed on a risk-adjusted basis. There appears to be clear evidence that some fund managers can offer a degree of consistent good performance.     

Contemporary University Strategising: The Financial Imperative

This paper examines the financially focused strategies now evident amongst institutions competing for space in the global higher education system. In their search for increasing financial self‐sufficiency, universities and other higher education providers are examined for their primary competitive strategies. The study provides comprehensive evidence of their cost and operating efficiency strategies, facilitated by increasingly pervasive financial performance accountability systems. The primary operational strategies of teaching and research are found to have been transmogrified into strategies of customised education and research that is primarily focused upon and measured in terms of its funds generation. These trends contribute to complex performance management and accountability challenges as universities’ senior managers balance their internal financial ambitions with the expectations of external stakeholders, while simultaneously projecting sanitised imagery through corporate public relations strategies.     

International harmony measures of accounting policy: comparative statistical properties

Van der Tas's (1988) I index and the between-country C index introduced by Archer et al. (1995) are competing measures of international harmony. We present comparative statistical properties of these indices, via a simulation study covering three accounting methods in 10 countries, with uniform, bimodal and unimodal distributions of companies across accounting methods. The indices are also adjusted for non-disclosures using techniques developed by Archer and McLeay (1995) and Archer et al. (1995). The I index and the between-country C index are mathematically equivalent in the two-country case even in the presence of non-disclosures. As more countries are compared, the two indices diverge. The means and standard deviations of the I index, with a correction proposed by Archer and McLeay (1995), decrease and there is little skewness or kurtosis. In contrast, as more countries are compared, the between-country C index exhibits more stability in means, lower standard deviations, higher skewness and kurtosis. The between-country C index may be superior to the corrected I index because (i) between-country C index means approximate their ‘expected values’ (where all observations equal expected values) more closely than do corrected I index means: and (ii) between-country C index means are more stable than corrected I index means where the data come from stable distributions.     

Financial reporting to employees: the pattern of development 1919 to 1979

This paper examines the literature on financial reporting to employees between 1919 and 1979. It finds that the level of publication interest has varied widely during the period as has the relative interest of accountant and non-accountant groups. Periods of heightened publication activity appear to repeatedly coexist with four major socioeconomic factors, and arguments that this coexistence is not coincidental are considered. Finally it is noted that the same reporting to employee issues are frequently recalled and re-examined; possible reasons for this are considered.