Software innovativeness: outcomes on project performance, knowledge enhancement, and external linkages

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between product innovativeness and groups of outcomes flowing from the computer software product development process and the associated knowledge acquisition process. Data from interviews of managers in 94 software projects are analysed, and three groups of outcomes are measured: project performance, knowledge enhancement, and the strengthening of linkages to external actors/sources. The high innovative products show higher project performance for all measures of project performance compared with low innovative products. Similar results were found for all measures of personnel knowledge enhancement outcomes. Changes in the importance of linkages to nine different external sources of knowledge used by the firms during the knowledge acquisition process, also show some positive outcomes with respect to rising innovativeness levels. Strengthening of external linkages is found for 66% of the investigated linkages between one or two innovativeness levels. Of these, the linkages to hardware manufacturers, co-operation partners, and universities and other research institutions show strengthening when high innovativeness products are compared with low-level products. As the project performance and knowledge enhancement outcomes are due, in part, to knowledge gained within linkages to external actors/sources, managers could consider whether giving special attention to managing these linkages would be a winning innovation strategy for their particular firm.     

Factors that affect accountant's perceptions of alternative work arrangements

Advances in technology have impacted accounting careers with resulting changes in where, when and how accountants perform their job duties. In addition, employee attitudes towards, and need for, better work/life balance has led to more firms offering alternate work arrangements (AWA). Research suggests that AWA programs can lead to many benefits for both employers and employees. Despite the prevalence of these programs there are relatively few accountants working under these arrangements and concerns about work/life balance continue. This study examines factors that shape perceptions of the cost and benefits associated with the adoption and/or support of AWAs across work culture, gender and participation experience. Our results suggest that work environment had a significant effect on perceptions of AWAs. Public accountants perceived greater costs related to career advancement but correspondingly less concern about administrative issues than management accountants. We also found that accountants who have participated (or are currently participating in an AWA), perceived greater benefits and less concern for potential negative consequences to their careers than non-participants. Finally, women perceived greater benefits to result from participation in an AWA and men perceived correspondingly more costs. Regardless, both genders perceived that AWAs were not strictly a women's issue. These findings contribute to our understanding of alternate work arrangements and point to factors that must be addressed to increase the acceptance and success of these programs.     

HEDGING INTEREST RATE RISK UNDER TERM STRUCTURE EFFECTS: AN APPLICATION TO FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

In this paper we investigate the use of the structured full rank model for hedging the balance sheet of a financial institution. Simulation results suggest that the optimal hedge is insensitive to changes in parameter estimates. In addition, we hedge a portfolio of Treasury bills using both the full information covariance matrix and the structured covariance matrix. We then contrast these results with those obtained from a duration-based model. Empirical results suggest that the structured full rank model is generally more effective in hedging applications than either the full information model or duration-based model.     

Risk Aversion,Uncertain Information,and Market Efficiency

Abstract. We reexamine and extend tests of the uncertain information hypothesis (UIH) proposed by Brown, Harlow, and Tinic (1988, 1993). We find that their empirical results are sensitive to the sampling procedure employed and that their particular methodology does not sufficiently distinguish between event and nonevent periods. When the sampling procedure is modified to identify only relatively large, isolated events, the test results generally do not support the UIH. Instead, significant price shocks are consistently followed by short-lived price reversals. We observe this behavior following positive and negative events regardless of whether the event is classified as risk increasing or risk decreasing.     

Technological innovation in tyre manufacture

This paper discusses key factors in starting up local production of radials ahead of most other manufacturers, and how this affected comparative profitability. This led to the build-up of a viable capability for adapting basic overseas innovations to suit local conditions. It will be shown how this capability, in combination with independence in decision-making, compensated the Australian manufacturer relative to resources available to those manufacturers with overseas affiliations.     

The summer people and the natives some effects of tourism in a Vermont vacation village

A village in northern New England was the setting of fieldwork focused on the interaction between the year-round residents of the community (the natives) and their tourist season guests (the summer people). The annual round of activities is geared to the the presence and absence of the summer people; the most highly valued periods of time are the winter season when only natives are residents of the village. As the marketing of the pastoral image of their village to the summer people progresses, the natives face a dilemma. If they are sucscessful in their marketing endeavors, they will prosper financially but, at the same time, they hasten the corruption of their public ideology—the image they hold of their village. The natives are attempting to salvage their future by exploiting the summer people through a “phony-folk culture” and thereby preserving selected aspects of their traditional culture for themselves. The natives' traditional way of life becomes more and more difficult to maintain as it is distorted and consumed by the summer people.     

Share trading activity and the rise of the rentier in the UK before 1920*

Abstract

Using a hand-collected dataset, we examine share trading activity over the period 1882–1920 for the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, one of the largest UK companies of the time. Our main finding is that the steady flow of rentiers into the shareholding constituency of this company stymied share trading activity. Another important finding is that share trading still occurred during the closure of the stock exchange in 1914, but on a much-reduced scale. We also find that there was a substantial boom in share trading and in insurance stock prices after World War I.