Capital gains lock-in and governance choices

Differences in accrued gains and investors’ tax-sensitivity induce variation in a capital gains lock-in effect across mutual funds even for the same stock at the same time. Exploiting this variation, we show this effect influences funds’ governance decisions: higher capital gains decrease the likelihood a fund exits prior to contentious votes and increase the likelihood a fund votes against management. Consistent with tax motivation, these findings are concentrated among funds with tax-sensitive investors. Further, high aggregate capital gains across funds holding a stock predict a higher likelihood management loses a vote and a lower likelihood a contentious vote is proposed.     

Retaining and engaging older workers: A solution to worker shortages in the U.S.

Over the next 20 years, many organizations will experience significant shortages of skilled workers. At the same time, because of longer lifespans and a gradual rise in what society has considered the traditional retirement age of 65, older workers will represent a growing proportion of the American workforce. For a variety of reasons, many of these older workers desire to continue working and, if retained and engaged, they constitute a significant labor source for mitigating the emerging shortages of skilled workers. However, many organizations are not prepared to take advantage of this demographic shift; some even generate barriers that impede the retention and engagement of older workers. In this article, we identify a variety of ways in which organizations can retain and engage older workers to meet their staffing needs and enhance organizational performance. We also discuss the relationship of these proposals to prominent theories of motivation in management.     

What does corporate social responsibility mean for charitable fundraising in the UK?

Coporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown enormously in the last ten years and the business case is compelling. That is not to say that CSR is the ‘silver bullet’ for achieving meaningful social change — this will require collaborative action. Part of this is a more mature relationship between charities and businesses — something beyond the worth ‘charitable donation’. Charities need to engage with business in a way that achieves mutual benefit; not ‘cap in hand’ but exploring the potential in shared objectives. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

The myth of purchasing professionals’ expertise. More evidence on whether computers can make better procurement decisions

In a previous experiment, we have shown that risk assessments of purchasing experts are certainly not better than that of subjects untrained in purchasing, and worse than the decisions made by formal models (J. Purchas. Supply Manage. 9 (2003) 191–198). Since both these results are rather counterintuitive, we conducted a series of experiments geared at replication and extension of these findings. These new experiments show that our previous results are robust, and reveal an additional finding that is both worrying and puzzling. It actually seems to be the case that for the purchasing decision tasks in our experiments, experts perform worse with growing experience. It therefore seems that, at least for the kinds of purchasing decisions under study, it does not make much sense to use expert judgments at all. However, we show that there is a way in which expert judgments can be used in combination with formal models to improve the predictive accuracy of purchasing predictions. In our case, superior predictions are made when we combine the prediction of a formal model with the prediction of the ‘average expert’, thereby combining the robust linear trends as encapsulated in the formal model with the more intuitive configural rules used by experts. We provide several explanations for this phenomenon.     

Corporate governance and firm performance in Russia: an empirical study

Using the agency and institutional perspectives, this study advances several hypotheses about the board structure–firm performance relationship within Russia. We tested these hypotheses using survey data. Despite a relatively small sample size, predictions from both theoretical perspectives were supported. Specifically, we found a negative relationship between “informal” CEO duality and firm performance. This finding is noteworthy given the 1996 Russian Federal law which prohibits the CEO from also serving as board chair. Also, we found that the more vigorously the firm pursues a retrenchment strategy, the more negative the relationship between proportion of inside directors and firm performance. Overall, these findings suggest that effective corporate governance may be essential to firm performance in Russia.     

Information styles of marketing and R&D personnel during technological product innovation projects

Abstract The research question in the present article can be phrased in the following way: what are the elements which influence the perception of the utility of information received from another function? A field study research has been conducted in 40 Belgian companies. In each company, we have studied two on-going innovation projects (one planning project, one development project). Crossfunctional communication behaviours at the R&D/marketing interface have been measured by means of mailed structured questionnaires. Three-hundred and eighty-six questionnaires have been returned. The data analyses show that there are four underlying information dimensions, i.e. the perceived relevance, the perceived comprehensibility, the perceived novelty and the perceived credibility of information. We also discuss some contingency variables (function of the message receiver, stage in the innovation process) that might moderate the impact of these dimensions. It will be shown that the interaction between source and receiver has a significant impact on the perceived credibility, the perceived comprehensibility and the perceived novelty of the received information.     

Client, User and Architect Interactions in Construction: Implications for Analysing Innovative Outcomes from User-Producer Interactions in Projects

Three case studies of user/client-architect interaction, and their implications for an understanding of the design and innovation process in capital goods projects, are considered in this paper. The studies presented include a major 'City Challenge'-funded social housing development programme in the UK, a housing co-operative-driven workplace and housing scheme associated with the same programme and a new building for the business school of a major UK university. Reflecting upon existing literature on user-producer relationships, the paper draws two key conclusions from the case studies that add to this literature. The first points to the need to account for the broader strategic motivations of agents within projects. Two of the case studies describe how innovation driven by the architects involved exceeded the original requirements of the client, and in so doing reveal architects to be oriented toward non-project specific goals. The second conclusion focuses on the user/client and points to the importance of a strong and coherent 'customer vision' in 'enabling' the client to determine project outcomes more fully. Following from these conclusions, it is argued that an analysis of client/ user-producer interactions needs to account more fully for the effects of longer-term strategic planning by agents.     

Trade, foreign firms and economic policy in Indonesian and Thai manufacturing

This paper first examines the rapid growth and changing composition of manufactured exports in Indonesia and Thailand, highlighting the rapid growth of office and computer machinery and electric machinery, somewhat slower growth of non-electric and transportation machinery, as well as the low growth of previously large exports of textiles apparel. Second, the important contributions of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) to export growth in the machinery industries, particularly in electric, office, and computing machinery, are documented. Third, the paper describes trade policies in all these industries in some detail, emphasizing how low protection was a key facilitator of rapid export growth in the MNEs that dominated the electric, office, and computing machinery industry, while high protection reduced incentives to export among MNEs in the transportation machinery industry.     

Contemporary ethical issues in labor-management relations

Numerous labor-management issues possess ethical dimensions and pose ethical questions. In this article, the authors discuss four labor-management issues that present important contemporary problems: union organizing, labor-management negotiations, employee involvement programs, and union obligations of fair representation. In the authors view, labor and management too often view their ethical obligations as beginning and ending at the law's boundaries. Contemporary business realities suggest that cooperative and enlightened modes of interaction between labor and management seem appropriate.Robert S. Adler is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches courses in Business Law, Business Ethics, and Regulation. Prior to coming to UNC, Professor Adler served as Counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives.William J. Bigoness is Professor of Business Administration and Director, Center for Management Studies at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His professional interests include organizational behavior, human resource management, and labor-management relations. Dr. Bigoness was Visiting Professor of Business Administration at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) located in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1985 to 1987.