Prior Literature (prior + literature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting


Selected Abstracts


An Empirical Study of the Effect of Knowledge Management Processes at Individual, Group, and Organizational Levels,

DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 2 2003
Rajiv Sabherwal
ABSTRACT To enhance our understanding of knowledge management, this paper focuses on a specific question: How do knowledge management processes influence perceived knowledge management effectiveness? Prior literature is used to develop the research model, including hypotheses about the effects of four knowledge management processes (internalization, externalization, socialization, and combination) on perceived individual-level, group-level, and organizational-level knowledge management effectiveness. The study was conducted at the John F. Kennedy Space Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration using a survey of 159 individuals and two rounds of personal interviews. Structural equation modeling was performed to test measurement and structural models using the survey data. The emergent model suggests that internalization and externalization impact perceived effectiveness of individual-level knowledge management. Socialization and combination influence perceived effectiveness of knowledge management at group and organizational levels, respectively. The results also support the expected upward impact in perceived effectiveness of knowledge management, from individual to group level, as well as from group level to organizational level. The study's limitations and implications for practice and future research are described. [source]


Can Diversification Create Value?

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2005
Evidence from the Electric Utility Industry
Despite SEC and state-level resistance, and contrary to the trend pursued by other firms, many electric utilities have diversified into non-electric and unregulated businesses. Moreover, this failure to focus has been rewarded with higher firm values, again contrary to the discounts documented in the literature for other diversifying firms. Prior literature has questioned whether these premiums (or discounts) can be attributed to diversification per se. Rather, these premiums could arise from the characteristics of the diversifying firms, which have then endogenously chosen to diversify. In a new approach, where regulation can make the diversification decision largely exogenous, we examine the investment policies of the comparable electric-segments in the diversifying and non-diversifying utilities. We find that single-segment electric utilities over-invest compared to diversifying utilities, which explains their diversification premiums and implies that diversification can create value by opening up new investment opportunities. [source]


Partial Utilitarianism as a suggested ethical framework for evaluating corporate mergers and acquisitions

BUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 4 2010
Nick Collett
Prior literature on ethical concerns in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has often concluded that many stakeholders, such as workers and communities, have unjustly suffered as a result of takeovers and associated defences and that their rights as stakeholders have been violated. However, very few papers provide any guidance on how to evaluate a merger or acquisition from an ethical standpoint. This study looks at how ethical frameworks could be used to assess the ethical impact of a merger or acquisition and gives practical guidance. It is proposed that decision makers should consider the impact on four stakeholder groups: shareholders, employees, customers and directors. We call the proposed method for doing this Partial Utilitarian analysis. We suggest two possible ways of applying the Partial Utilitarian analysis. One approach could rely on the evidence from a sample of recent deals. For this, empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of large M&As in the United Kingdom in the period 1993,2003. Alternatively, a better approach, requiring considerable management time, requires forecasting of the economic impact on the four groups of stakeholders. The paper shows how to do this. [source]


Are Fundamentals Priced in the Bond Market?,

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003
Inder K. Khurana
Abstract To date, the discussion of the Lev and Thiagarajan 1993 fundamentals in the prior literature has been exclusively in the context of the stock market. Our study is the first to examine the value-relevance of these fundamentals for default risk. By focusing on the market for new bond issues, we examine the value-relevance of the fundamental score using expected rather than realized returns. Also, by focusing on the bond market we provide a different perspective than that brought by prior studies relying solely on stock prices. We find the fundamentals to be priced in the market for new bond issues as indicators of expected future earnings and to be value-relevant in enabling the market to discern differences in bond credit quality over and above the published bond ratings. [source]


Measurement Equivalence Using Generalizability Theory: An Examination of Manufacturing Flexibility Dimensions

DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 4 2008
Manoj K. Malhotra
ABSTRACT As the field of decision sciences in general and operations management in particular has matured from theory building to theory testing over the past two decades, it has witnessed an explosion in empirical research. Much of this work is anchored in survey-based methodologies in which data are collected from the field in the form of scale items that are then analyzed to measure latent unobservable constructs. It is important to assess the invariance of scales across groups in order to reach valid, scientifically sound conclusions. Because studies have often been conducted in the field of decision sciences with small sample sizes, it further exacerbates the problem of reaching incorrect conclusions. Generalizability theory can more effectively test for measurement equivalence in the presence of small sample sizes than the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tests that have been conventionally used for assessing measurement equivalency across groups. Consequently, we introduce and explain the generalizability theory (G-theory) in this article to examine measurement equivalence of 24 manufacturing flexibility dimension scales that have been published in prior literature and also compare and contrast G-theory with CFA. We show that all the manufacturing flexibility scales tested in this study were invariant across the three industry SIC groups from which data were collected. We strongly recommend that G-theory should always be used for determining measurement equivalence in empirical survey-based studies. In addition, because using G-theory alone does not always reveal the complete picture, CFA techniques for establishing measurement equivalence should also be invoked when sample sizes are large enough to do so. Implications of G-theory for practice and its future use in operations management and decision sciences research are also presented. [source]


Early development of children at familial risk for Dyslexia,follow-up from birth to school age

DYSLEXIA, Issue 3 2004
H. Lyytinen
Abstract We review the main findings of the Jyväskylä of Dyslexia (JLD) which follows the development of children at familial risk for dyslexia (N = 107) and their controls (N = 93). We will illustrate the development of these two groups of children at ages from birth to school entry in the skill domains that have been connected to reading and reading disability in the prior literature. At school entry, the highest score on the decoding task among the poorer half (median) of the at risk children,i.e. of those presumably being most likely genetically affected,is 1 SD below the mean of the control group. Thus, the familial risk for dyslexia shows expected consequences. Among the earliest measures in which group differences as well as significant predictive associations with the first steps in reading have emerged, are indices of speech processing in infancy. Likewise, various measures of early language including pronunciation accuracy, phonological, and morphological skills (but not performance IQ) show both group differences and predictive correlations, the majority of which become stronger as the reliability of the measures increases by age. Predictive relationships tend to be strong in general but higher in the at risk group because of its larger variance in both the predictor variables and in the dependent measures, such as early acquisition of reading. The results are thus promising in increasing our understanding needed for early identification and prevention of dyslexia. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The Market for Professional Services in Indonesia

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDITING, Issue 2 2004
Ilias G. Basioudis
This paper reports the results of a study which investigates the market for professional services in Indonesia, a country which has not been investigated in the by audit fee literature prior. A well-developed research model used in the prior literature has also been applied in this study, and the empirical findings suggest broad similarities in the pricing of professional services in Indonesia and other countries previously studied. In addition to extending the results of prior research to a country not previously studied, this paper examines whether the large auditors fee premium documented in other countries exists in Indonesia, especially after the major Asian financial crisis of 1997/98, since then almost all companies in this geographical area exercise tight budget controls. The results suggest that no audit fee premium is accrued to Indonesian Big 5 auditors, in contrast to the large audit firm fee premium documented in many other countries. [source]


Aggregate Earnings and Asset Prices

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 5 2009
RAY BALL
ABSTRACT A principal-components analysis demonstrates that common earnings factors explain a substantial portion of firm-level earnings variation, implying earnings shocks have substantial systematic components and are not almost fully diversifiable as prior literature has concluded. Furthermore, the principal components of earnings and returns are highly correlated, implying aggregate earnings risks and return risks are related. In contrast to previous studies, the correlation we report between the systematic components of earnings and returns is stable over time. We also show that the earnings factors are priced, in the sense that the sensitivities of securities' returns to the earnings factors explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional variation in returns, even controlling for return risk. This suggests earnings performance is an underlying source of priced risk. Our evidence that the information sets of returns and earnings are jointly determined implies cash flow risk and return risk are not fully separable, and raises the possibility that it is the common variation of earnings and returns that is priced. [source]


Predictability in Financial Analyst Forecast Errors: Learning or Irrationality?

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006
STANIMIR MARKOV
ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose a rational learning-based explanation for the predictability in financial analysts' earnings forecast errors documented in prior literature. In particular, we argue that the serial correlation pattern in analysts' quarterly earnings forecast errors is consistent with an environment in which analysts face parameter uncertainty and learn rationally about the parameters over time. Using simulations and real data, we show that the predictability evidence is more consistent with rational learning than with irrationality (fixation on a seasonal random walk model or some other dogmatic belief). [source]


Recognition v. Disclosure, Auditor Tolerance for Misstatement, and the Reliability of Stock-Compensation and Lease Information

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2006
ROBERT LIBBY
ABSTRACT We examine whether information in footnotes might lack reliability because auditors permit more misstatement in disclosed, as opposed to recognized, amounts. In both the stock-compensation and lease settings, audit partners require greater correction of misstatements in recognized amounts than in the equivalent disclosed amounts. Debriefing questions indicate that the partners make these decisions knowingly, even though they expect greater client resistance to correcting recognized amounts, because they view recognized amounts as more material. Partners also spend more time on correction decisions for recognized information. While prior literature suggests that amounts are often relegated to footnotes because they are less reliable, our results suggest that the actual choice to disclose versus recognize can also reduce information reliability. These results have implications for the interpretation of prior research on the reliability of recognized and disclosed numbers, for financial-accounting standard setters who may want to consider the reliability effects of their recognition versus disclosure decisions, and for auditing standard setters who may wish to clarify auditors' responsibilities for preventing misstatements in disclosed amounts. [source]


Domestic and Foreign Earnings, Stock Return Variability, and the Impact of Investor Sophistication

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005
JEFFREY L. CALLEN
ABSTRACT We examine the importance of foreign earnings relative to domestic earnings for a sample of U.S. multinationals using variance decomposition. Our methodology represents an alternative and complementary approach over the prior literature, which is based on traditional regressions and earnings response coefficients. We document that domestic earnings are more important in explaining the variance of unexpected returns than are foreign earnings and that the relative importance of domestic earnings is a decreasing function of investor sophistication. Last, we classify institutional investors as either short- or long-term oriented following Bushee [1998]. We find that the variance contribution of foreign earnings increases with the level of investment by long-term investors. In contrast, there is no significant relation between the degree of ownership by short-term (or transient) investors and the variance contribution of domestic and foreign earnings. Overall, our results are consistent with Thomas's [1999] finding that investors on average underestimate the persistence of foreign earnings. [source]


Otra Empanada en la Parilla: Examining the Role of Culture and Information Sharing in Chile and Australia

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1 2008
Stephen B. Salter
One of the biggest assets of a firm is its information base. Included in this information base is a knowledge of prior errors and failures. Extant research suggests that while the propensity to share "bad news" (i.e. a prior error) is dependent on the cost of sharing, the perceived value of that cost may be culturally dependent. One area of interest that has received substantial attention in the prior literature has been cross-cultural differences in negative information sharing in general, as well as the particular context in which the individual's superior is either present or absent during the information-sharing process. Our study examines the role of the two cultural values (individualism/collectivism and to a lesser extent power distance) in explaining national differences in information sharing. By focusing on a sample from Chile and Australia, we were able to remove the regional cultural dimension of face, which has been inherent in prior studies that used Greater China as the representative of a collectivist society. Results from our quasi experiment show that when a supervisor is present during information sharing, collectivist Chilean decision-makers are more willing to share negative information with their colleagues than their counterpart and individualist Australian decision-makers. Our results also show that when a supervisor is absent, both Australian and Chilean decision-makers are willing to share more negative information but the increase in the Australian propensity is significantly greater than that of the Chileans. [source]


Fetal Exposure to Moderate Ethanol Doses: Heightened Operant Responsiveness Elicited by Ethanol-Related Reinforcers

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 11 2009
Samanta M. March
Background:, Prenatal exposure to moderate ethanol doses during late gestation modifies postnatal ethanol palatability and ingestion. The use of Pavlovian associative procedures has indicated that these prenatal experiences broaden the range of ethanol doses capable of supporting appetitive conditioning. Recently, a novel operant technique aimed at analyzing neonatal predisposition to gain access to ethanol has been developed. Experiment 1 tested the operant conditioning technique for developing rats described by Arias and colleagues (2007) and Bordner and colleagues (2008). In Experiment 2, we analyzed changes in the disposition to gain access to ethanol as a result of moderate prenatal exposure to the drug. Methods:, In Experiment 1, newborn pups were intraorally cannulated and placed in a supine position that allowed access to a touch-sensitive sensor. Paired pups received an intraoral administration of a given reinforcer (milk or quinine) contingent upon physical contact with the sensor. Yoked controls received similar reinforcers only when Paired pups activated the circuit. In Experiment 2, natural reinforcers (water or milk) as well as ethanol (3% or 6% v/v) or an ethanol-related reinforcer (sucrose compounded with quinine) were tested. In this experiment, pups had been exposed to water or ethanol (1 or 2 g/kg) during gestational days 17 to 20. Results:, Experiment 1 confirmed previous results showing that 1-day-old pups rapidly learn an operant task to gain access to milk, but not to gain access to a bitter tastant. Experiment 2 showed that water and milk were highly reinforcing across prenatal treatments. Furthermore, general activity during training was not affected by prenatal exposure to ethanol. Most importantly, prenatal ethanol exposure facilitated conditioning when the reinforcer was 3% v/v ethanol or a psychophysical equivalent of ethanol's gustatory properties (sucrose,quinine). Conclusions:, The present results suggest that late prenatal experience with ethanol changes the predisposition of the newborn to gain access to ethanol-related stimuli. In conjunction with prior literature, this study emphasizes the fact that intrauterine experience with ethanol not only augments ethanol's palatability and ingestion, but also facilitates the acquisition of response,stimulus associations where the drug acts as an intraoral reinforcer. [source]


When (not) to indulge in ,puffery': the role of consumer expectations and brand goodwill in determining advertised and actual product quality

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 6 2000
Praveen K. Kopalle
We analyze why some firms advertise product quality at a level different from the actual quality of a product. By considering the interacting effects of product quality and advertising, we develop a dynamic model of consumer expectations about product quality and the development of brand goodwill to determine the optimal values for the decision variables. The model parameters are determined based on prior literature and we use numerical techniques to arrive at the solution. We then derive conditions under which a firm will find it optimal to overstate or understate product quality. The results suggest that quality may be overstated in markets characterized by high price sensitivity, low quality sensitivity, low brand loyalty, and high source credibility, suggesting the need for vigilance on the part of consumers, upper level managers and regulatory authorities in such market conditions. This is important because current regulatory resources are insufficient to reduce deceptive advertising practices (Davis JJ. 1994. Ethics in advertising decision-making: implications for reducing the incidence of deceptive advertising. Journal of Consumer Affairs28: 380,402). Further, the law of deceptive advertising prohibits some advertising claims on the ground that they are likely to harm consumers or competitors (Preston IL, Richards JI. 1993. A role for consumer belief in FTC and Lanham Act deceptive advertising cases. American Business Law Journal31: 1,29). Also, Nagler (1993. Rather bait than switch: deceptive advertising with bounded consumer rationality. Journal of Public Economics51: 359,378) shows that deceptive advertising causes a net social welfare loss and a public policy effectively preventing deception will improve social welfare. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Competition for exclusive customers: comparing equilibrium and welfare under one-part and two-part pricing

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2008
James D. Reitzes
Abstract., This paper compares one-part and two-part pricing in a discrete-continuous choice model, providing more extensive welfare results than prior literature. Under two-part pricing, firms may set fixed fees with or without ,unit-price commitment,' where the lack of unit-price commitment is consistent with ,after-market monopolization.' We find that two-part pricing with unit-price commitment is firms' dominant unilateral and joint pricing policy. Two-part pricing without unit-price commitment is the least desirable policy from a welfare standpoint. Under appropriate conditions, one-part pricing produces the highest consumer and social welfare, but the lowest profits. Ce mémoire compare la tarification en une et deux parties dans un modèle de choix discret-continu et fournit des résultats plus extensifs en termes de bien-être que ce qui était disponible auparavant. Dans la tarification en deux parties, les firmes peuvent établir des prix fixes à l'entrée avec ou sans engagement pour ce qui est du prix unitaire qui suivra, alors même que ce manque d'engagement porte à conséquence puisqu'il y aura de facto monopole après coup. On découvre que la tarification en deux parties avec un engagement quant au prix unitaire constitue la stratégie dominante et unilatérale de tarification conjointe. La tarification en deux parties sans engagement pour ce qui est du prix unitaire est la moins désirable des possibilités au plan du bien-être. Dans des conditions appropriées, la tarification en une partie engendre le plus haut niveau de bien-être pour le consommateur et la société, mais les profits les plus bas. [source]