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Information Acquisition (information + acquisition)
Selected AbstractsReporting Frequency, Information Precision and Private Information AcquisitionJOURNAL OF BUSINESS FINANCE & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1-2 2010Rick Cuijpers Abstract:, This study examines whether the choice between quarterly and semiannual reporting affects the precision of investors' information and their private information acquisition activities. In the first part of this study, we show that a firm's reporting frequency has no effect on the average precision of investors' information. However, our analysis of announcement-period price variance and share turnover shows that an increase in reporting frequency does make interim and annual financial reports a more important component of investors' information set, relative to other sources of information. In particular, the results of this analysis suggest that investors of semiannual reporters hold more precise pre-announcement information than investors of quarterly reporters. In the second part of our study, we test one explanation for this finding. We argue that an increase in a firm's reporting frequency reduces investors' incentives to acquire private information between consecutive announcement dates and, consequently, should reduce information asymmetry among investors, increase share liquidity, and stimulate trading. Consistent with this reasoning, we find that quarterly reporters have lower average bid-ask spreads and higher abnormal share turnover than semiannual reporters. [source] Strategic Information Acquisition in Capital Markets*THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2001Andreas Szczutkowski A simple model of an asset market is presented, where agents are asymmetrically informed and hence information is transmitted through the price system. Prior to the trading period, a group of traders is given the opportunity to decide in a collusive arrangement whether they want to undertake a (costless) analysis which yields information about the future dividends of a risky asset. It will be shown that the fully rational and risk-averse insiders can do better without the information, if the dividend volatility of the risky asset is sufficiently low. JEL Classification Numbers: D82, G14. [source] Information acquisition, dissemination, and transparency of monetary policyCANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2008Jacob Wong Abstract., This paper examines the role of transparency in a benevolent monetary authority's policies. Each firm's payoff depends on unobservable macroeconomic conditions and firms may incur a cost to acquire private information about macroeconomic conditions. The policy authority attempts to infer the underlying macroeconomic conditions from a noisy measure of aggregate actions and makes a public announcement to inform firms of this inference. High-quality announcements provide firms the incentive not to gather private information and base actions solely on information contained in policy announcements. However, this makes the observed actions of firms less informative to the policy authority. Ce mémoire examine le rle de la transparence dans les politiques d'une autorité monétaire bienveillante. Les résultats financiers de chaque entreprise dépendent de conditions macroéconomiques qui ne sont pas observables et les entreprises peuvent avoir à encourir des cots pour acquérir ces renseignements. L'autorité monétaire essaie d'extraire ce que sont les conditions macroéconomiques de base à partir d'une mesure agrégée des activités, et en fait l'annonce pour informer les entreprises. La grande qualité de telles annonces incite les entreprises à ne pas essayer de se procurer de tels renseignements privément, ce qui fait qu'elles fondent leurs décisions seulement sur les renseignements annoncés par l'autorité monétaire. Voilà qui rend l'observation du comportement des entreprises bien moins riche en information pour l'autorité monétaire. [source] Strategic Experimentation with Exponential BanditsECONOMETRICA, Issue 1 2005Godfrey Keller We analyze a game of strategic experimentation with two-armed bandits whose risky arm might yield payoffs after exponentially distributed random times. Free-riding causes an inefficiently low level of experimentation in any equilibrium where the players use stationary Markovian strategies with beliefs as the state variable. We construct the unique symmetric Markovian equilibrium of the game, followed by various asymmetric ones. There is no equilibrium where all players use simple cut-off strategies. Equilibria where players switch finitely often between experimenting and free-riding all yield a similar pattern of information acquisition, greater efficiency being achieved when the players share the burden of experimentation more equitably. When players switch roles infinitely often, they can acquire an approximately efficient amount of information, but still at an inefficient rate. In terms of aggregate payoffs, all these asymmetric equilibria dominate the symmetric one wherever the latter prescribes simultaneous use of both arms. [source] Evaluation of the participant-support method for information acquisition in the "Multiplex Risk Communicator"ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATIONS IN JAPAN, Issue 9 2009Tomohiro Watanabe Abstract In this paper, we propose a smooth risk communication support method for the Multiplex Risk Communicator. There has been a diversification of the social risks to the information-based society, leading to complex social issues, and risk communication is necessary in order to solve the complicated social problems that arise concerning stakeholders with various levels of knowledge and differing standards regarding risks. We introduce a portal system that assists participants to achieve an optimal combination of countermeasures. The characteristics of the proposed method are: first, to classify the stage when participants acquire information; second, to enable smooth transitions during the information acquisition stage; and third, to support information acquisition by offering information portals. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 92(9): 24,35, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10092 [source] Approaches to career success: An exploration of surreptitious career-success strategiesHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2006Lloyd C. Harris Theorists have forwarded a vast range of career-success determinants, including sociodemographic, social capital, personality, and other behavioral factors. We suggest that existing studies have overconcentrated on the overt behavioral determinants of career success to the detriment of the covert, clandestine, and concealed. Our analysis of two detailed qualitative case studies involving 112 indepth interviews with executives, managers, supervisors, and front-line staff in a large financial services organization and a medium-sized fashionable restaurant group uncovered five main strategies of surreptitious career success. These strategies are obligation creation and exploitation, personal-status enhancement, information acquisition and control, similarity exploitation, and proactive vertical alignment. Our findings indicate that just over 79% of those interviewed (88 of 112) referred to, at some point in their careers, premeditated strategies to enhance their careers that they concealed from coworkers. Consequently, we argue that surreptitious actions are central to employee career-focused activities and fundamental to a more complete understanding of the complexities of career-oriented employee behavior. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] INFORMATION GATHERING BY A PRINCIPAL,INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2006Ed Nosal In the standard principal,agent model, the information structure is fixed. In this article the principal can choose to acquire additional information about the state of the world before he contracts with an agent. In the event that the principal acquires this information, the agent never learns what the principal knows about the state of the world. I examine cases where the agent can and cannot observe whether the principal has acquired the additional information. The implications for risk sharing, information acquisition, investment, and welfare are examined for both cases. [source] The relationship between indecisiveness and eye movement patterns in a decision making informational search taskJOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 4 2010Andrea L. Patalano Abstract Indecisiveness is a trait-related general tendency to experience decision difficulties across a variety of situations, leading to decision delay, worry, and regret. Indecisiveness is proposed (Rassin, 2007) to be associated with an increase in desire for information acquisition and reliance on compensatory strategies,as evidenced by alternative-based information search,during decision making. However existing studies provide conflicting findings. We conducted an information board study of indecisiveness, using eye tracking methodology, to test the hypotheses that the relationship between indecisiveness and choice strategy depends on being in the early stage of the decision making process, and that it depends on being in the presence of an opportunity to delay choice. We found strong evidence for the first hypothesis in that indecisive individuals changed shift behavior from the first to the second half of the task, consistent with a move from greater to lesser compensatory processing, while the shift behavior of decisive individuals suggested lesser compensatory processing over the whole task. Indecisiveness was also related to time spent viewing attributes of the selected course, and to time spent looking away from decision information. These findings resolve past discrepancies, suggest an interesting account of how the decision process unfolds for indecisive versus decisive individuals, and contribute to a better understanding of this tendency. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] No decision-maker is an Island: integrating expert advice with information acquisitionJOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 1 2006Gunnar E. Schrah Abstract The present research examined the social context of information acquisition. The main purpose was to examine how decision-makers' information acquisition processes changed when they were provided access to expert advice. Results indicated that all decision-makers opted to acquire advice; however, they typically did so only after completing over 75% of their own information search. Decision-makers agreed more with the advice as task complexity increased, but, in general, searched information in two stages,i.e., a pre-advice "hypothesis generation" stage and a post-advice "hypothesis testing" stage. To behave in an adaptive manner, decision-makers could have used expert advice either to increase their decision accuracy or to reduce their effort expenditure (or both); they chose the former. Implications and further extensions are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Nurses' decision-making in collecting information for the assessment of patients' nursing problemsJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 2 2002TARJA JUNNOLA MNSc ,,The paper addresses two questions: Firstly, what kind of information do nurses acquire from cancer patients for purposes of judging their patients' problems and preparing a care plan? Secondly, how systematically do nurses proceed in the decision-making process from the formulation of initial assumptions about the patient's situation to the final definition of problems? ,,The instrument used for data collection was a computer-simulated case description compiled by a team of four nursing researchers and one medical researcher. The case description was based on a real patient history. ,,The sample consisted of 107 Registered Nurses on four oncology, two internal medicine and five surgical wards of two central university hospitals in Finland. Data were collected in autumn 1998 and spring 1999 using a laptop computer and a tape recorder. ,,The four most important problems identified by nurses at baseline were pain (85%), pain medication (59%), family situation (66%) and spread of cancer (49%). Presented with a list of 23 options, they obtained additional information on average on 13 areas. Almost one-third collected information from 16 to 22 areas. On average nurses identified 12 of the 28 nursing problems specified. A statistically significant association was observed between information acquisition and problem definition in seven different variables. These had to do with pain, general condition and prognosis. ,,Nurses adequately prioritized their patients' problems and systematically collected data on those problems. On the other hand they also identified a number of problems that were not relevant to the situation. [source] Market mavenism and consumer self-confidenceJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 3 2008Ronald A. Clark The purpose of this study was to test hypothesized associations between market mavenism and consumer self-confidence (CSC). A survey of 190 US consumers provided the data. The results showed significant relationships between mavenism and several dimensions of CSC, and regression analysis emphasized the relationships with two of these: information acquisition (confidence in the ability to obtain and use marketplace information) and social outcomes decision making (confidence in obtaining positive reactions from others). These findings both enrich our knowledge of the psychology of market mavenism by suggesting some motivations for these behaviors and suggest marketing strategies can be fine-tuned to appeal more effectively to this important segment of consumers. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Learning About Foodborne Pathogens: Evaluation of Student Perceptions of Group Project Work in a Food Microbiology CourseJOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE EDUCATION, Issue 4 2009Mark S. Turner ABSTRACT:, This study examined the experiences of students in an active learning group work exercise in an introductory food microbiology course involving the study of foodborne pathogens. Small groups were required to access, analyze, and present information regarding a single food poisoning bacterium. The presentations contained features and epidemiological information of the pathogen and also a review of a research journal article and a real food poisoning outbreak report involving the pathogen. Analysis of responses from a questionnaire that allowed direct comparisons to be made with other published group work studies revealed that this exercise was a positive learning experience. In particular, students noted improvements in communication, interaction, information acquisition, and organizational skills. [source] Joint estimation of information acquisition and adoption of new technologies under uncertainty,JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2008Awudu Abdulai Abstract This article develops a framework to examine households' joint decision to acquire information on new technologies and the adoption of the technology in the presence of uncertainty. The empirical application involved a sample of 406 dairy farmers in Tanzania. Education, scale of production, household size, age, and liquidity constraints are hypothesized to be the determinants of information acquisition and adoption decisions. The empirical evidence indicates that information acquisition and adoption decisions are made jointly. The findings also show that human capital and scale of operation positively and significantly affect the decision to acquire information and to adopt the technology, while liquidity constraints negatively impact on the decision to adopt, as well as the extent of adoption. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A Representational Approach to Patient EducationJOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 3 2001Heidi Scharf Donovan Purpose: To describe the theoretical basis for a representational approach to patient education and the application of this approach to the development, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of a representational intervention for pain management. Organizing Construct: Leventhal's common sense model (CSM) was a guide for this approach to patient education. The CSM is based on the idea that people have common sense beliefs, or representations, that guide how they cope with health problems. Theoretically based interventions derived from the CSM have not been reported. Methods: Steps included: (a) designing a general approach to educational interventions, centered on illness representations; (b) specifying an intervention (RIDPAIN) to facilitate coping with cancer pain; (c) pilot-testing and revising the intervention; and (d) testing feasibility and acceptability of the intervention with 61 patients in a Midwestern American city. Findings: The RIDPAIN intervention was useful in eliciting misconceptions of pain and pain management from patients experiencing cancer pain. Many patients found RIDPAIN to be meaningful and useful, and they perceived it to have an effect on pain-related beliefs and behaviors. Conclusions: This theory-driven approach should be effective and widely applicable because it includes patients as active participants in all phases of the learning continuum, from information acquisition to behavior change. [source] A Learning Real Options Framework with Application to Process Design and Capacity PlanningPRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2005Luke T. Miller This paper studies the impact of learning on a multi-staged investment scenario. In contrast to other models in the real options literature in which learning is viewed as a passive consequence of the delay period, this paper quantifies information acquisition by merging statistical decision theory with the real options framework. In this context, real option attributes are discussed from a Bayesian perspective, thresholds are identified for improved decision-making, and information's impact on downstream decision-making is discussed. Using real data provided by a firm in the aerospace maintenance, repair, and overhaul industry, the methodology is used to guide a multi-phased irreversible investment decision involving process design and capacity planning. [source] Auctions and information acquisition: sealed bid or dynamic formats?THE RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2007Olivier Compte The value of an asset is generally not known a priori, and it requires costly investments to be discovered. In such contexts with endogenous information acquisition, which selling procedure generates more revenues? We show that dynamic formats, such as ascending-price or multistage auctions, perform better than their static counterpart. This is because dynamic formats allow bidders to observe the number of competitors left throughout the selling procedure. Thus, even if competition appears strong ex ante, it may turn out to be weak along the dynamic format, thereby making the option to acquire information valuable. This very possibility also induces the bidders to stay longer in the auction, just to learn about the state of competition. Both effects boost revenues, and our analysis provides a rationale for using dynamic formats rather than sealed-bid ones. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||