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Empirical Exploration (empirical + exploration)
Selected AbstractsUNDERSTANDING SIZE AND THE BOOK-TO-MARKET RATIO: AN EMPIRICAL EXPLORATION OF BERK'S CRITIQUETHE JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2005Xinting Fan Abstract Because they are scaled by price, the ability of size (i.e., the market capitalization of a firm) and the book-to-market equity ratio to determine expected returns may, according to Berk (1995), reflect only a simultaneity bias. The two-stage least squares approach is used to control for this bias and to investigate the economic meanings of these variables. We discover that size and the book-to-market ratio contain distinct and significant components of financial distress, growth options, the momentum effect, liquidity, and firm characteristics. Our findings support Berk in his contention that that size and the book-to-market ratio reflect a combination of different economic mechanisms that are misspecified in the expected return process. [source] Dissecting Damages: An Empirical Exploration of Sexual Harassment AwardsJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2006Catherine M. Sharkey My empirical study first replicates and then extends a prior preliminary empirical study by Cass Sunstein and Judy Shih of sexual harassment damages awards. It covers a comprehensive set of 232 cases in which plaintiffs won some positive amount of compensatory damages from state and federal, trial and appellate court decisions from 1982,2004 (published either in official reporters or solely on Westlaw). Contrary to Sunstein and Shih's finding, my analysis of these data reveals a consistent, and statistically significant, positive relationship between punitive and compensatory damages (at least in cases where punitive damages are awarded). My new empirical study then employs dependent variables that, in my view, are more theoretically and statistically sound than those employed by Sunstein and Shih and others who have focused exclusively on the relationship between punitive and compensatory damages: total combined damages (i.e., all compensatory and punitive damages), and what I term "outrage" damages, or combined noneconomic compensatory and punitive damages. My empirical results, using these new dependent variables, essentially confirm Sunstein and Shih's conclusions regarding the irrelevance of variables pertaining to the nature and severity of harassment. What my study reveals as crucial predictive factors, by contrast, are factors pertaining to damages limitations. My study highlights that these factors,including the effect of the 1991 Civil Rights Act, and whether plaintiffs append state civil rights and tort claims to their Title VII claims,are critical to a fuller understanding of damages determinations in sexual harassment cases. [source] Commercial Innovations from Consulting Engineering Firms: An Empirical Exploration of a Novel Source of New Product IdeasTHE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2003Ian Alam Industrial firms interact with many outside organizations such as the customers, suppliers, competitors, and universities to obtain input for their new product development (NPD) programs. The importance of interfirm interactions is reflected in a large number of interdisciplinary studies reported in a wide variety of literature bases. As a result, several sources of new product ideas have been investigated in the extant literature. Yet given the growing complexity and risks in new product development, there seems to be a need for managers to obtain input from new and unutilized sources. Apparently, one source that industry has not tapped adequately for its NPD efforts is the consulting engineering firms (CEFs). To fill the aforementioned gap in the literature, this article explores the roles and suitability of CEFs in new product development by conducting a rigorous in-depth case research of new product idea generation in a large Australian firm manufacturing a variety of industrial products. To generate ideas for the sponsoring firm, longitudinal field interviews with 64 managers and engineers from 32 large CEFs were conducted over a one-and-one-half year period. The findings of the field interviews were combined with the documentary evidences and the archival data. This longitudinal data collection enabled the author to generate new product ideas over real time and to gain access to the information that otherwise might have been difficult to obtain. The results suggest that CEFs are a rich source of new product ideas of potential commercial value. However, industry is making little use of CEFs, which underscores the need for industrial firms to collaborate and to establish an effective idea transfer relationship with them. Moreover, the services of CEFs are not restricted to idea generation but can stretch across the entire NPD process. These findings of the study encourage product managers to conceptualize NPD as a highly synergistic mutually interdependent process between CEFs and industrial firms rather than simply an arm's-length consulting transactions. Given the dearth of research on idea generation with CEFs, this study highlights the findings that are novel and that go beyond the techniques of new product idea generation established in the extant literature. [source] Trust and Innovation: from Spin-Off Idea to Stock ExchangeCREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2004Marko Kohtamäki Trust among entrepreneurs, their co-workers and between the entrepreneurs and their business partners plays a key role in the early stages of formation of a new company. In this piece of research, trust is defined as a belief consisting of eight trusting beliefs, emphasising the rational consideration between these beliefs and other situational factors. The concept of trust is developed through objects, mechanisms and antecedents. The present paper is an empirical exploration of these phenomena in the context of innovativeness in a high-tech company. The goal is to describe the role, content and impact of trust at the different stages of a business evolution process. [source] Entrepreneurial Scripts and the New Transaction Commitment Mindset: Extending the Expert Information Processing Theory Approach to Entrepreneurial Cognition ResearchENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE, Issue 4 2009J. Brock Smith In this study, we extend the expert information processing theory approach to entrepreneurial cognition research through an empirical exploration of the new transaction commitment mindset among business people in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Using analysis of covariance, multivariate analysis of variance, and hierarchical regression analysis of data from a cross-sectional sample of 417 respondents, our results provide a foundation for additional cross-level theory development, with related implications for increasing the practicality of expert information processing theory-based entrepreneurial cognition research. Specifically, this paper: (1) clarifies the nature of the relationship between entrepreneurial expert scripts and constructs that might represent an entrepreneurial mindset at the individual level of analysis; (2) identifies analogous relationships at the economy level of analysis, where the structure found at the individual level informs an economy-level problem; (3) presents a North American Free Trade Agreement-based illustration analysis to demonstrate the extent to which cognitive findings at the individual level can be used to explain economy-level phenomena; and (4) extrapolates from our analysis some of the ways in which script-based comparisons across country or culture can inform the more general task of making information processing-based comparisons among entrepreneurs across other contexts. [source] Diversity,stability relationships in multitrophic systems: an empirical explorationJOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2003Priyanga Amarasekare Summary 1The relationship between diversity and stability is crucial in understanding the dynamics of multitrophic interactions. There are two basic hypotheses about the causal link between diversity and stability. The first is that fluctuations in resource abundance allow consumer coexistence, thus increasing diversity at the consumer trophic level (resource variability hypothesis). The second is that interactions between coexisting consumer species reduce consumer efficiency and dampen population fluctuations, thus increasing consumer,resource stability (consumer efficiency hypothesis). 2The two hypotheses lead to three comparative predictions: (i) fluctuations should be greater (resource variability) or smaller (consumer efficiency) in resource populations with coexisting consumer species, compared to those invaded only by the consumer species superior at resource exploitation; (ii) average resource abundance should be greater (resource variability) or smaller (consumer efficiency) in resource populations with greater fluctuations; and (iii) removal of the consumer species inferior at resource exploitation should increase or not affect resource population fluctuations (resource variability), or always increase them (consumer efficiency). 3I tested these predictions with data from a host,multiparasitoid community: the harlequin bug (Murgantia histrionica) and two specialist parasitoids (Trissolcus murgantiae and Ooencyrtus johnsonii) that attack the bug's eggs. 4Local host populations with coexisting parasitoids exhibited smaller fluctuations and greater average abundance compared to those with just Trissolcus, the species superior at host exploitation. Local populations that lost Ooencyrtus, the species inferior at host exploitation, exhibited an increase in host population fluctuations compared to those that did not. 5The results contradict the expectations of the resource variability hypothesis, suggesting that host population fluctuations are unlikely to be driving parasitoid coexistence. They are consistent with the consumer efficiency hypothesis, that interactions between coexisting parasitoid species dampens host population fluctuations. I discuss the implications of these results as well as possible caveats. [source] Are Nativists a Different Kind of Democrat?POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2001"Outsiders" in Japan, Democratic Values This paper combines three elements: a discussion of democratic values and the status of outsiders in Japanese political culture, the development of new measures to examine sensitive issues of nativism and foreigner perception in Japan, and an empirical exploration of the relationship between democratic values and antipathy toward outsiders. Two forms of democratic orientation were investigated in a sample of about 1,000 university students in Japan: a defensive version, which adheres to the formalistic requirements of democracy but is exclusionary and illiberal, and a universalist version that is liberal and tolerant. A defensive orientation is associated with greater chauvinism, a greater sense of threat emanating from foreigners, and a heightened anxiety about economic competition. A universalist orientation is associated with low perceived threat and low chauvinism, a lack of fear of economic competition, and a positive view of the cultural contributions of outsiders. Nativism may indeed be compatible with democratic values, but only with the defensive, exclusionary form. In short, the defensive form is democracy for xenophobes. Such an orientation is not unique to Japan, but is likely to be found in developing democracies as well as in advanced democracies that feel threatened. [source] | ||||||||||