Collaboration, peer review and open source software

Open source software development may be superior to proprietary development because the open source organizational form naturally minimizes transactions costs associated with privately distributed information. This manifests itself in the ability of open source communities to encourage critical peer review and the sharing of ideas. When these activities are important, the open source organizational form may do better than a proprietary organizational form. My results suggest why open source is particularly powerful when maintainability of software is critical, and also suggest that the founder of a software project may be more likely to choose open source if there is an existing dominant proprietary software project.     

The coverage assignments of financial analysts

Previous studies document that forecast accuracy impacts analyst career outcomes. This paper investigates the influence of forecast accuracy on coverage assignments. I show that brokerage houses reward accurate analysts by assigning them to high-profile firms and penalise analysts exhibiting poor accuracy by assigning them to smaller firms. The coverage of high-profile firms increases the potential for future compensation linked to investment banking and trading commissions. In addition, covering such firms increases analysts' recognition from buy-side investors, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of obtaining broker votes and votes for the Institutional Investor star ranking. Overall, my results indicate that high forecast accuracy leads to increased future compensation.     

A NOTE ON PRICING OF PRODUCT QUALITY FOR STATUS CONCERNS

The paper analyses the optimal pricing of the product quality scheme when concerns for relative standing exist among consumers. We demonstrate that if the proportion of high‐value consumers is over (respectively, under) 1/2 of the total consumers, a firm has an incentive to select a large (respectively, small) quality gap among products. Therefore, there exists a cut‐off level for status concerns, which eliminates quality differences, and the firm assigns the same quality to all the consumers. These results indicate that consumers’ qualities will reflect distortions at the top and bottom. Accordingly, the firm's profit depends on which consumer category is larger.     

Team production,endogenous learning about abilities and career concerns

This paper studies career concerns in teams where the support a worker receives depends on fellow team members׳ efforts and abilities. In this setting, by exerting effort and providing support, a worker can influence her own and her teammates׳ project outputs in order to bias the learning process in her favor. To manipulate the market׳s assessment, we argue that in equilibrium, a worker has incentives to help or even sabotage her colleagues in order to signal that she is of higher ability. In a multiperiod stationary framework, we show that the stationary level of work effort is above and help effort is below their efficient levels.     

Towards an integrated model for the transference of environmental responsibility

This research explores how environmental responsibility transfers to others. Although environmental responsibility is one of the most debated topics in environmental management literature, a framework describing how a teacher's environmental responsibility shapes the student's environmental responsibility is still lacking. Adopting emotional contagion theory as a lens, the paper addresses this issue via the mediation of emotional contagion and the moderation of a teacher's environmental concern. Based on a survey of teachers and students (N = 283) conducted in Pakistan, our findings provide evidence that a teacher's environmental responsibility can better transfer to students via emotional contagion. Additionally, our data establish that the transference of environmental responsibility from teachers to students via emotional contagion is more effective when the teacher has a high level of environmental concern than when he or she has a low level of environmental concern. Finally, the authors discuss the implications for policy in detail.     

Cooperative game analysis of coordination mechanisms under fairness concerns of a green retailer

This study discusses how a green retailer's fairness concerns affect product greenness and profit and explores how to distribute surplus profits under the fairness concerns using cooperative game theory. Research findings indicate that cooperation contributes to increasing channel profits and improving product greenness, but the fairness concerns are detrimental to them. The three proposed coordination mechanisms (SVM, NSM, and TVM) are feasible to ensure coalition stability, but their beneficiaries differ. NSM benefits a manufacturer, while SVM benefits retailers. Additionally, the green retailer's fairness concerns serve as distribution tools to narrow profit gaps between the manufacturer and the green retailer.     

Personalisation–privacy paradox: The effects of personalisation and privacy assurance on customer responses to travel Web sites

Personalisation refers to individualizing products, services, and contents according to customer interests and preferences. In order to deliver appropriate personalised offerings, firms inevitably need to collect rich customer data profiles. Prior research suggests that personalised services lead to positive customer responses such as increased willingness to disclose personal information and make purchases. However, another stream of research emphasizes negative outcomes of personalisation – namely, privacy concerns surrounding the use of personal information and associated negative effects on behaviour. The objectives of this study are twofold: (1) to examine how privacy assurance affects proximal outcomes of personalisation, such as perceived usefulness and privacy concerns; and (2) to identify the role such outcomes play in predicting customer behavioural responses, such as willingness to disclose personal information and make purchases. Our findings show that enhancing privacy assurance increases the perceived usefulness of services and decreases customer privacy concerns. Moreover, customer behavioural responses are positively related to the perceived usefulness of services and negatively associated with privacy concerns. However, despite the positive effects on perceived usefulness and purchase intentions, personalisation has no effect on privacy concerns and intentions to disclose personal information.     

E-Commerce Consumer Perceptions Regarding On-line Shopping

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a survey exploring the perceptions of e-commerce consumers regarding the benefits and concerns of shopping on-line. Implications for the industry, site development, operational issues and customer service are presented.     

Bankruptcy risk induced by career concerns of regulators

We introduce a model in which a regulator employs mechanism design to embed her human capital beta signal(s) in a firm’s capital structure. This can enhance her compensation at the firm, and the value of her contract with the firm in the form of an executive stock option. We prove that the agency cost of this revolving door behavior increases the firm’s financial leverage, bankruptcy risk, and affects estimation of firm value at risk (VaR).     

公平关切下闭环供应链差别定价决策

针对零售商和第三方回收商具有公平关切的情形,研究由制造商主导的三级供应链成员及整个系统的差别定价最优决策。分析了零售商以及第三方回收商公平中性和公平关切两种情形的决策模型。研究发现:零售商以及第三方回收商的公平关切行为最终会造成各自利润的损失,并且对整条供应链利润也是不利的,而这样的公平关切行为对制造商来说却是有利的。同时当公平关切程度较弱时,对整条闭环供应链系统是不利的;而当公平关切程度较强时,对整条闭环供应链系统是有利的。