The importance of consumer multihoming (joint purchases) for market performance: Mergers and entry in media markets

Consumer “multihoming” (watching two TV channels, or buying two news magazines) has surprisingly important effects on market equilibrium and performance in (two‐sided) media markets. We show this by introducing consumer multihoming and advertising finance into the classic circle model of product differentiation. When consumers multihome (attend more than one platform), media platforms can charge only incremental value prices to advertisers. Entry or merger leaves consumer prices unchanged under consumer multihoming, but leaves advertiser prices unchanged under single‐homing: Multihoming flips the side of the market on which platforms compete. In contrast to standard circle results, equilibrium product variety can be insufficient under multihoming.     

Comparing the True Cost of Living Indices of Demographically Different Households

The comparison of true cost of living indices between demographically different households (relative equivalence scale) is argued to be sensitive to the way demographic characteristics enter demand analysis. In particular, parameters reflecting the cost of demographic characteristics at base prices, though themselves do not have welfare (equivalence scale) interpretation, can alter the benchmark from which demographically varying inflation effects are measured. The empirical analysis, based on a rank‐3 demand system applied to UK individual household data, shows that the inflation adjustment of child benefits can vary with the way demographic costs at base period prices are specified.     

The ‘demographic timebomb’ and how some hospitality employers are responding to the challenge

The phrase ‘demographic timebomb’ has taken on the aura of a shibbholeth and that everyone knows they ought to be fearful about. But is it really understood and what needs to be done? This article seeks to answer these questions and to shed some light on the employment strategies being developed by some British hospitality employers to counteract the demographic changes of the 1990s. As a result, some of the myth that the hospitality industry is lagging behind other industries can be dispelled but other findings support popular testimony that the industry faces special problems.     

Top executive gender diversity and financial reporting quality

We examine whether gender diversity of chief executive and chief financial officers (CEOs and CFOs) is associated with financial reporting quality. The CEOs and CFOs of publicly traded companies are both required to certify the appropriateness of their financial statements and annual disclosures. We argue that gender diverse dyads (groups) of executives can bring different perspectives and professional skepticism to financial reporting. Using a sample of different CEO/CFO gender dyads during 2006–2019, we postulate and find evidence of higher accruals quality among firms led by gender-diverse dyads compared to accruals quality reported by firms led by all-male CEO/CFO pairs. Additional analyses reveal that the auditors of firms with gender-diverse executive dyads issue audit reports later, charge higher audit fees, and are more likely to be one of the Big 4 firms. These findings support the view that top executive gender diversity enhances financial reporting quality, which has important implications for corporate governance mechanisms.     

Toward a Phylogenetic Reconstruction of Organizational Life

Synopsis Classification is an important activity that facilitates theory development in many academic disciplines. Scholars in fields such as organizational science, management science and economics and have long recognized that classification offers an approach for ordering and understanding the diversity of organizational taxa (groups of one or more similar organizational entities). However, even the most prominent organizational classifications have limited utility, as they tend to be shaped by a specific research bias, inadequate units of analysis and a standard neoclassical economic view that does not naturally accommodate the disequilibrium dynamics of modern competition. The result is a relatively large number of individual and unconnected organizational classifications, which tend to ignore the processes of change responsible for organizational diversity. Collectively they fail to provide any sort of universal system for ordering, compiling and presenting knowledge on organizational diversity. This paper has two purposes. First, it reviews the general status of the major theoretical approaches to biological and organizational classification and compares the methods and resulting classifications derived from each approach. Definitions of key terms and a discussion on the three principal schools of biological classification (evolutionary systematics, phenetics and cladistics) are included in this review. Second, this paper aims to encourage critical thinking and debate about the use of the cladistic classification approach for inferring and representing the historical relationships underpinning organizational diversity. This involves examining the feasibility of applying the logic of common ancestry to populations of organizations. Consequently, this paper is exploratory and preparatory in style, with illustrations and assertions concerning the study and classification of organizational diversity.     

我国人口结构变化、资本偏向型技术进步与劳动收入份额演变 ——基于1990-2017省际面板数据的研究

在我国老龄化程度加深及出生率下降的背景下,从CES生产函数出发,构建理论模型,试图从人口结构、技术进步偏向角度探索我国劳动收入份额的演变机制。并通过我国1990-2017年省级层面数据的研究,表明我国要素间是互补的,技术进步偏向资本,我国人口结构的变化——老年抚养比上升及少儿抚养比下降对我国劳动收入份额产生了负面的影响。同时,我国技术进步的资本偏向性特征,降低了我国劳动收入份额。在控制了其他因素、分区域及剔除异常值进行检验后,结果仍然显著。     

Inclusion climate: A multilevel investigation of its antecedents and consequences

This study investigates the antecedents and consequences of organization‐level inclusion climate. A national sample of human resource decision‐makers from 100 organizations described their firms' formal diversity management programs; 3,229 employees reported their perceptions of, and reactions to, their employers' diversity management. Multilevel analyses demonstrate that identity‐conscious programs (programs that target specific identity groups) generate an inclusion climate. Moreover, the analyses provide evidence of multilevel mediation: In organizations with an inclusion climate, individual employees perceive the organization as fulfilling its diversity management obligations and respond with higher levels of affective commitment. This study represents an important step toward understanding how a shared perception of organizational inclusiveness develops and how inclusion climate facilitates the achievement of diversity management objectives. The findings also shed light on the important role of identity‐conscious programs in promoting organizational commitment within a diverse workforce.     

The influence of top management team traits on corporate financial performance in the US

This article aims to study the effect of human capital on the financial performance of the most admired American firms. Human capital is measured in terms of the demographic attributes and the diversity of top managers. The use of panel linear multiple regressions reveals that the most successful firms are characterized by coherent and homogeneous top management teams with moderate tenure and excellent wages. Moreover, the heterogeneity of managers is recommended for fairly young top management teams and for larger firms operating in a turbulent environment. Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does participation in the sloping land conversion program reduce the sensitivity of Chinese farmers to climate change?

Over the last two decades, extensive literature has examined the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of China's Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), a program that was launched in late 1990s to mitigate the environmental effects of agricultural production and reduce rural poverty. However, little empirical evidence exists with regard to the impact of SLCP on rural households' sensitivity to nature-induced changes and environmental challenges. In this study, household-level data covering the period 1995–2010 from five Chinese provinces were used to examine the effect of SLCP on farmers' sensitivity to climate change. The empirical results show that participation in SLCP significantly reduced farmers' sensitivity to climate change by reducing their dependency on land and natural resources for income, and by diversifying their livelihood options. Spatially, the results reveal that the effect of SLCP on farmers' sensitivity vary across regions. Specifically, SLCP was found to have a ‘rate effect’ on farmers in the Northern regions and a ‘level effect’ on farmers in the Southern regions. Likewise, we found that the effect of SLCP differs considerably across income groups, with the effect on low- and middle-income groups being most significant. The results indicate that subsidy is the main pathway through which SLCP reduces farmers' sensitivity to climate change. In contrast, we found inclusive evidence about the indirect effect of SLCP farmers' sensitivity through the promotion of non-agricultural employment. These results carry major implications with regard to the effectiveness of ecological conservation programs and their mitigation potential through building farmers' resilience in China and ecologically fragile environments.