Pub Date : 2018-05-23DOI: 10.1108/AJB-08-2017-0022
Marcelo J. Alvarado-Vargas, Qi Zou
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the number of lawsuits on firm performance and in-house legal department size. More importantly, this paper also aims to explore the interaction effect of in-house legal department size on the aforementioned lawsuit-performance relationship. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analyses are performed by using secondary data. Structural equation modeling is employed in order to examine multiple structural relationships between the number of lawsuits, size of in-house legal department, and firm performance. Findings Three key findings were generated: number of lawsuits has a significant detrimental effect on firm performance; number of lawsuits is positively associated with size of in-house legal departments; and size of in-house legal departments negatively moderates the relationship between number of lawsuits and firm performance. Practical implications The results corroborate the harmfulness of lawsuits. On the one hand, a large number of lawsuits damage the firm’s financial performance directly; on the other hand, more lawsuits lead to enlarged in-house legal departments which further aggravate the negative effects of lawsuits on firm performance. These results suggest that firms should spend more effort in properly managing legal departments. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature by empirically examining the economic impacts of lawsuits on firm performance. Moreover, it also explored the notion that having a large size of in-house legal department does not mitigate, but aggravates the harmfulness of lawsuits on firm performance.
{"title":"Getting rid of a heavy shield: downsizing the in-house legal department?","authors":"Marcelo J. Alvarado-Vargas, Qi Zou","doi":"10.1108/AJB-08-2017-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-08-2017-0022","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the number of lawsuits on firm performance and in-house legal department size. More importantly, this paper also aims to explore the interaction effect of in-house legal department size on the aforementioned lawsuit-performance relationship. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Design/methodology/approach \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000The empirical analyses are performed by using secondary data. Structural equation modeling is employed in order to examine multiple structural relationships between the number of lawsuits, size of in-house legal department, and firm performance. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Findings \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Three key findings were generated: number of lawsuits has a significant detrimental effect on firm performance; number of lawsuits is positively associated with size of in-house legal departments; and size of in-house legal departments negatively moderates the relationship between number of lawsuits and firm performance. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Practical implications \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000The results corroborate the harmfulness of lawsuits. On the one hand, a large number of lawsuits damage the firm’s financial performance directly; on the other hand, more lawsuits lead to enlarged in-house legal departments which further aggravate the negative effects of lawsuits on firm performance. These results suggest that firms should spend more effort in properly managing legal departments. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Originality/value \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000This paper contributes to the literature by empirically examining the economic impacts of lawsuits on firm performance. Moreover, it also explored the notion that having a large size of in-house legal department does not mitigate, but aggravates the harmfulness of lawsuits on firm performance.","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"118 1","pages":"2-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88081203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-03DOI: 10.1108/AJB-10-2016-0033
R. Dey, Lucy Lim
Setting audit fees is a persistent source of stress for auditors who must, on one hand, comply with the increasing government regulations that generally cause costs to rise; and on the other hand, respond to client pressures to keep audit fees down. In the post-scandal environment of Enron, WorldCom, and the demise of Arthur Andersen, policy makers have introduced additional costs for auditors by increasing regulations and creating a new industry watchdog – the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). In this environment of constant pricing-cost tension for the auditor, the purpose of this paper is to examine audit fee trends over an extended period, 2000-2014.,The authors calculate the unexpected audit fees using the audit fee model. The authors examine audit fee trends while controlling for changes due to inflation, auditor wages, and other audit fee determinants.,The key findings indicate that audit fees increased in response to the promulgation of new audit regulations requiring additional audit work, the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 and Auditing Standard No. 2 in 2004. Additionally, the authors find that audit fees decreased after new regulations alleviating audit work, namely the passage of Auditing Standard No. 5 in 2007, and remained unchanged when new regulations had a minimal impact on audit work, namely the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.,The findings of this research are relevant to audit clients, auditors, and regulators as they weigh the cost and benefits of significant new audit regulations and their impacts on audit fees.,Using the more recent US data, the results in this paper show how events changed audit fee trends in recent years. The findings indicate that audit fees increased after the passage of new audit regulations such as the SOX Act of 2002, Auditing Standards No. 2 in 2004, and decreased after the passage of Auditing Standards No. 5 in 2007.
对审计人员来说，设定审计费用是一个持续的压力来源，一方面，他们必须遵守不断增加的政府法规，这些法规通常会导致成本上升;另一方面，应对客户要求降低审计费用的压力。在安然(Enron)、世通(WorldCom)和安达信(Arthur Andersen)倒闭后的丑闻环境中，政策制定者通过加强监管和创建一个新的行业监管机构——上市公司会计监督委员会(Public Company Accounting Oversight Board，简称PCAOB)，给审计师带来了额外的成本。在审计师持续定价成本紧张的环境下，本文的目的是研究2000-2014年较长时期内的审计费用趋势。本文采用审计费用模型对意外审计费用进行了计算。作者检查审计费用趋势，同时控制由于通货膨胀，审计师工资和其他审计费用决定因素的变化。主要研究结果表明，审计费用的增加是由于新的审计法规的颁布，要求增加审计工作，即2002年的萨班斯-奥克斯利法案和2004年的第2号审计准则。此外，作者发现，在新法规减轻审计工作后，即2007年通过的第5号审计准则，审计费用有所下降，而在新法规对审计工作影响最小时，即2010年的多德-弗兰克法案，审计费用保持不变。本研究的结果与审计客户、审计师和监管机构有关，因为他们正在权衡重大新审计法规的成本和收益及其对审计费用的影响。本文使用美国最近的数据，结果显示了近年来事件如何改变审计费用趋势。结果表明，在2002年SOX法案和2004年第2号审计准则等新的审计法规通过后，审计费用有所增加，而在2007年第5号审计准则通过后，审计费用有所下降。
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Pub Date : 2018-04-03DOI: 10.1108/AJB-08-2017-0020
Meher Shiva Tadepalli, R. Jain
Market efficiency suggests that price of the security must reflect its intrinsic value by impounding all the available and accessible information. Asset pricing in capital markets has been an exceptionally dynamic area of scholarly research and is considered as a barometer for assessing market efficiency. This phenomenon was very well explained by several market pricing models and theories over the last few decades. However, several anomalies, which cannot be explained by the traditional asset pricing models due to seasonal and psychological factors, were observed historically. The same has been studied by several researchers over the years and is well captured in the literature pertaining to market asset pricing. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the research studies related to a few asset pricing anomalies, collectively referred to as “calendar anomalies”, such as – day-of-the-week, turn-of-the-month, turn-of-the-year and the holiday effects. In this pursuit, a thorough survey of literature in this area, published over the last 80 years (from 1934 to 2016) across 24 prominent journals, has been made and presented in a comprehensive, structured and chronologically arranged major findings and learnings. This literature survey reveals that the existing literature do provide a great depth of understanding around these calendar anomalies often with reference to specific markets, the size of the firm and investor type. The paper also highlights a few aspects where the existing literature is silent or provides little support leaving a gap that needs to be addressed with further research in this area.,The goal of the study requires a comprehensive review of the past literature related to calendar anomalies. As a consequence, to identify papers which sufficiently represent the area of study, the authors examined the full text of articles within EBSCOHost, Elsevier-Science direct, Emerald insight and JSTOR databases with calendar anomalies related keywords for articles published since inception. Further, each article was classified based on the anomaly discussed and the factors used to sub-categorize the anomaly. Once all the identified fields were populated, we passed through another article by constantly updating the master list till all the 99 articles were populated.,It is also important to understand at this juncture that most of the papers surveyed discuss the persistence of the asset pricing anomalies with reference to the developed markets with a very few offering evidences from emerging markets. Thus leaving a huge scope for further research to study the persistence of asset pricing anomalies, the degree and direction of the effect on asset pricing among emerging markets such as India, Russia, Brazil vis-a-vis the developed markets. Further, regardless of the markets with reference to which the study is conducted, the research so far appears to have laid focus only on the overall market returns derived from aggregate market indices to expl
{"title":"Persistence of calendar anomalies: insights and perspectives from literature","authors":"Meher Shiva Tadepalli, R. Jain","doi":"10.1108/AJB-08-2017-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-08-2017-0020","url":null,"abstract":"Market efficiency suggests that price of the security must reflect its intrinsic value by impounding all the available and accessible information. Asset pricing in capital markets has been an exceptionally dynamic area of scholarly research and is considered as a barometer for assessing market efficiency. This phenomenon was very well explained by several market pricing models and theories over the last few decades. However, several anomalies, which cannot be explained by the traditional asset pricing models due to seasonal and psychological factors, were observed historically. The same has been studied by several researchers over the years and is well captured in the literature pertaining to market asset pricing. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the research studies related to a few asset pricing anomalies, collectively referred to as “calendar anomalies”, such as – day-of-the-week, turn-of-the-month, turn-of-the-year and the holiday effects. In this pursuit, a thorough survey of literature in this area, published over the last 80 years (from 1934 to 2016) across 24 prominent journals, has been made and presented in a comprehensive, structured and chronologically arranged major findings and learnings. This literature survey reveals that the existing literature do provide a great depth of understanding around these calendar anomalies often with reference to specific markets, the size of the firm and investor type. The paper also highlights a few aspects where the existing literature is silent or provides little support leaving a gap that needs to be addressed with further research in this area.,The goal of the study requires a comprehensive review of the past literature related to calendar anomalies. As a consequence, to identify papers which sufficiently represent the area of study, the authors examined the full text of articles within EBSCOHost, Elsevier-Science direct, Emerald insight and JSTOR databases with calendar anomalies related keywords for articles published since inception. Further, each article was classified based on the anomaly discussed and the factors used to sub-categorize the anomaly. Once all the identified fields were populated, we passed through another article by constantly updating the master list till all the 99 articles were populated.,It is also important to understand at this juncture that most of the papers surveyed discuss the persistence of the asset pricing anomalies with reference to the developed markets with a very few offering evidences from emerging markets. Thus leaving a huge scope for further research to study the persistence of asset pricing anomalies, the degree and direction of the effect on asset pricing among emerging markets such as India, Russia, Brazil vis-a-vis the developed markets. Further, regardless of the markets with reference to which the study is conducted, the research so far appears to have laid focus only on the overall market returns derived from aggregate market indices to expl","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"11 1","pages":"18-60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82578159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-08-08DOI: 10.1108/AJB-11-2016-0036
Barton M. Sharp, Dinesh N Iyer, Thomas H. Brush
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to expand the understanding of the “front end” of innovation by examining the influence of top executives, who allocate the resources and cultivate the culture in which inventions are born, on the innovation process. Design/methodology/approach - This paper suggests that the effect of executives on innovation can be better understood by explicitly separating innovation into the component processes of invention and commercialization. This allows us to consider how executive characteristics might have a different effect on technology development outcomes than they do on the subsequent transformation of those technologies into new products. The theory is tested on a sample of firms from the biomedical device industry. Findings - The findings indicate that top management team (TMT) age and tenure have no effect on the type of technologies a firm develops (radical vs incremental) but do significantly affect the efficiency with which new technologies are turned into new products in some contexts. TMT heterogeneity affects both the type of technologies developed in the firm and also their transformation to new products. Interestingly, the effect of executives on commercialization depends on the type of underlying technologies which the firm has developed. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the literatures on TMTs and innovation by offering a more granular explanation of how executives differentially impact the disaggregated stages of the innovation process, and thus also contributes to knowledge of the long-term innovation performance implications of executive leadership.
{"title":"Executive influence on invention and commercialization: The moderating role of innovation radicalness","authors":"Barton M. Sharp, Dinesh N Iyer, Thomas H. Brush","doi":"10.1108/AJB-11-2016-0036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-11-2016-0036","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to expand the understanding of the “front end” of innovation by examining the influence of top executives, who allocate the resources and cultivate the culture in which inventions are born, on the innovation process. Design/methodology/approach - This paper suggests that the effect of executives on innovation can be better understood by explicitly separating innovation into the component processes of invention and commercialization. This allows us to consider how executive characteristics might have a different effect on technology development outcomes than they do on the subsequent transformation of those technologies into new products. The theory is tested on a sample of firms from the biomedical device industry. Findings - The findings indicate that top management team (TMT) age and tenure have no effect on the type of technologies a firm develops (radical vs incremental) but do significantly affect the efficiency with which new technologies are turned into new products in some contexts. TMT heterogeneity affects both the type of technologies developed in the firm and also their transformation to new products. Interestingly, the effect of executives on commercialization depends on the type of underlying technologies which the firm has developed. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the literatures on TMTs and innovation by offering a more granular explanation of how executives differentially impact the disaggregated stages of the innovation process, and thus also contributes to knowledge of the long-term innovation performance implications of executive leadership.","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"41 1","pages":"134-151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73021213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-08-08DOI: 10.1108/AJB-05-2016-0015
Mingming Feng, X. Wang, Jerry G. Kreuze
Purpose - Despite the intensive research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm financial performance, little is known about how the linkage between CSR and firm financial performance is heterogeneous across industries and how the performance implications are differentiated among specific categories of CSR activities. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the association between a firm’s engagement in CSR and firm financial performance is heterogeneous across industries and CSR categories. Design/methodology/approach - Using a sample of 17,083 firm-year observations representing 1,877 firms from the largest 3,000 US companies during years 1991 and 2011, the authors compare the association between CSR and firm financial performance across ten industry sectors defined by Global Industry Classification Standard and across the four CSR categories classified by Mandl and Dorr (2007). Findings - The authors find that the association between the overall CSR activities and firm performance is heterogeneous across industries. CSR has significant positive implications for firms from most, but not all, industries. Comparing the performance implication of CSR practices targeting different stakeholder groups, the empirical results indicate that different types of CSR have different influences on financial performance of firms from different industry sectors. Research limitations/implications - This study provides new angles for managers in maximizing firm performance through CSR activities and suggests an important and interesting direction for researchers who engage in CSR research. Due to its heterogeneous nature, the CSR-performance relationship needs to be examined more specifically – across industries and different CSR categories. Findings from studies incorporating both company industrial sector and CSR categories would provide more meaningful and practical implications for managers. Practical implications - This study provides important managerial implications. First, to maximize firm performance through CSR activities, managers must interpret the linkage between CSR and firm financial performance from the perspective of a specific industrial sector and acknowledge the importance of CSR practices across different CSR categories. Second, the findings suggest that CSR practices aiming at different stakeholder groups generate different financial returns in different industries. Firms engage in CSR to satisfy different stakeholder groups. When budgets are tight, managers may give higher priority to the CSR practices that have stronger effects on firm financial performance. Originality/value - This study advances our understanding of the CSR-financial performance relationship by exploring its heterogeneous nature across industry sectors and across specific categories. To obtain the biggest gain from CSR spending, managers must have a good understanding how a specific CSR category can contribute to the financial performance of their particul
{"title":"Corporate social responsibility and firm financial performance: Comparison analyses across industries and CSR categories","authors":"Mingming Feng, X. Wang, Jerry G. Kreuze","doi":"10.1108/AJB-05-2016-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-05-2016-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - Despite the intensive research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm financial performance, little is known about how the linkage between CSR and firm financial performance is heterogeneous across industries and how the performance implications are differentiated among specific categories of CSR activities. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the association between a firm’s engagement in CSR and firm financial performance is heterogeneous across industries and CSR categories. Design/methodology/approach - Using a sample of 17,083 firm-year observations representing 1,877 firms from the largest 3,000 US companies during years 1991 and 2011, the authors compare the association between CSR and firm financial performance across ten industry sectors defined by Global Industry Classification Standard and across the four CSR categories classified by Mandl and Dorr (2007). Findings - The authors find that the association between the overall CSR activities and firm performance is heterogeneous across industries. CSR has significant positive implications for firms from most, but not all, industries. Comparing the performance implication of CSR practices targeting different stakeholder groups, the empirical results indicate that different types of CSR have different influences on financial performance of firms from different industry sectors. Research limitations/implications - This study provides new angles for managers in maximizing firm performance through CSR activities and suggests an important and interesting direction for researchers who engage in CSR research. Due to its heterogeneous nature, the CSR-performance relationship needs to be examined more specifically – across industries and different CSR categories. Findings from studies incorporating both company industrial sector and CSR categories would provide more meaningful and practical implications for managers. Practical implications - This study provides important managerial implications. First, to maximize firm performance through CSR activities, managers must interpret the linkage between CSR and firm financial performance from the perspective of a specific industrial sector and acknowledge the importance of CSR practices across different CSR categories. Second, the findings suggest that CSR practices aiming at different stakeholder groups generate different financial returns in different industries. Firms engage in CSR to satisfy different stakeholder groups. When budgets are tight, managers may give higher priority to the CSR practices that have stronger effects on firm financial performance. Originality/value - This study advances our understanding of the CSR-financial performance relationship by exploring its heterogeneous nature across industry sectors and across specific categories. To obtain the biggest gain from CSR spending, managers must have a good understanding how a specific CSR category can contribute to the financial performance of their particul","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"3 1","pages":"106-133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78394534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-05DOI: 10.1108/AJB-07-2016-0021
S. Low
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of fund expense ratio for Malaysia-based international equity funds. An understanding of what these factors are and how they affect a fund’s expense ratio is important given that international funds can be expensive to operate and that fund expenses have negative impact on investors’ returns. Design/methodology/approach - This study employs a standard cross-sectional regression model in examining the factors that influence fund expense ratio of international equity funds. Findings - The findings show that sales charge is positively related to fund expense ratio although it is not included in the expense ratio computation. This suggests that investor could possibly incur additional “hidden cost” since sales charge represents an upfront cost that an investor has already paid at the time of the fund sale. Additionally, funds with aggressive investment objective and frequent portfolio turnover show higher expense ratios than funds with conservative investment objective and less trading activities. There is no evidence that fund size, fund age, and the number of funds in a fund family are significantly related to the fund expense ratio. While the lack of statistical finding for fund size in this study seems inconsistent with the results of the US market in general, the finding is supportive of the Thai equity fund market and thus implying that finding could be country specific. Research limitations/implications - There is limited availability of international equity funds in Malaysia. Practical implications - The findings provide useful insights for investors to make informed international fund selection decisions. Expense-conscious investors should pay particular attention to fund’s sales charge, turnover ratio, and its investment objective when selecting funds for investment. Originality/value - This paper provides first evidence on the determinants of fund expense ratio of Malaysia-based international equity funds.
{"title":"Explaining the expense ratio of international equity funds","authors":"S. Low","doi":"10.1108/AJB-07-2016-0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-07-2016-0021","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of fund expense ratio for Malaysia-based international equity funds. An understanding of what these factors are and how they affect a fund’s expense ratio is important given that international funds can be expensive to operate and that fund expenses have negative impact on investors’ returns. Design/methodology/approach - This study employs a standard cross-sectional regression model in examining the factors that influence fund expense ratio of international equity funds. Findings - The findings show that sales charge is positively related to fund expense ratio although it is not included in the expense ratio computation. This suggests that investor could possibly incur additional “hidden cost” since sales charge represents an upfront cost that an investor has already paid at the time of the fund sale. Additionally, funds with aggressive investment objective and frequent portfolio turnover show higher expense ratios than funds with conservative investment objective and less trading activities. There is no evidence that fund size, fund age, and the number of funds in a fund family are significantly related to the fund expense ratio. While the lack of statistical finding for fund size in this study seems inconsistent with the results of the US market in general, the finding is supportive of the Thai equity fund market and thus implying that finding could be country specific. Research limitations/implications - There is limited availability of international equity funds in Malaysia. Practical implications - The findings provide useful insights for investors to make informed international fund selection decisions. Expense-conscious investors should pay particular attention to fund’s sales charge, turnover ratio, and its investment objective when selecting funds for investment. Originality/value - This paper provides first evidence on the determinants of fund expense ratio of Malaysia-based international equity funds.","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"44 1","pages":"82-92"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79955967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-05DOI: 10.1108/AJB-10-2016-0032
Amit K. Ghosh
Purpose - The constantly changing prices, promotions, and packaging options have made decision making more complex for consumers of packaged goods. The purpose of this paper is to explore how price and promotions influence consumer propensity to buy a certain package size. Design/methodology/approach - Scanner panel data for shelf-stable salad dressing obtained from Information Resources Inc. were used to compute the proportion of large packages bought, the relative price paid for large packages, propensity to use various types of promotions, and a behavioral covariate for each household. Data of over 5,600 households were analyzed using a multiple regression analysis for hypothesis testing. Findings - The positive nature of relationship between the relative price of large packages and the proportion of large packages bought demonstrates the suboptimal nature of consumer decision making. The inefficiency is partially attributable to the abundance of promotions, to consumers’ lack of price awareness, and to the use of heuristics by consumers. Also, consumers who are prone to use promotions such as displays and temporary price reductions tend to purchase larger packages. They are more likely to buy impulsively and base their decisions on heuristics. In contrast, consumers who are influenced by featured price cuts and who utilize coupons tend to purchase smaller packages. Research limitations/implications - Data were obtained from grocery stores; only a single product category was studied. Practical implications - Offer coupons and advertise featured price cuts on small packages to increase the sales of smaller packages. To move large packages successfully, retailers should rely more on in-store displays and temporary price reductions. Originality/value - The impact of price and promotions on package size propensity has never been investigated. This study is also one of the few that uses a household-level analysis based on observable purchase data for consumer packaged goods.
{"title":"The influence of price and promotion on package size propensity","authors":"Amit K. Ghosh","doi":"10.1108/AJB-10-2016-0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-10-2016-0032","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - The constantly changing prices, promotions, and packaging options have made decision making more complex for consumers of packaged goods. The purpose of this paper is to explore how price and promotions influence consumer propensity to buy a certain package size. Design/methodology/approach - Scanner panel data for shelf-stable salad dressing obtained from Information Resources Inc. were used to compute the proportion of large packages bought, the relative price paid for large packages, propensity to use various types of promotions, and a behavioral covariate for each household. Data of over 5,600 households were analyzed using a multiple regression analysis for hypothesis testing. Findings - The positive nature of relationship between the relative price of large packages and the proportion of large packages bought demonstrates the suboptimal nature of consumer decision making. The inefficiency is partially attributable to the abundance of promotions, to consumers’ lack of price awareness, and to the use of heuristics by consumers. Also, consumers who are prone to use promotions such as displays and temporary price reductions tend to purchase larger packages. They are more likely to buy impulsively and base their decisions on heuristics. In contrast, consumers who are influenced by featured price cuts and who utilize coupons tend to purchase smaller packages. Research limitations/implications - Data were obtained from grocery stores; only a single product category was studied. Practical implications - Offer coupons and advertise featured price cuts on small packages to increase the sales of smaller packages. To move large packages successfully, retailers should rely more on in-store displays and temporary price reductions. Originality/value - The impact of price and promotions on package size propensity has never been investigated. This study is also one of the few that uses a household-level analysis based on observable purchase data for consumer packaged goods.","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"25 1","pages":"93-103"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84417191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-03DOI: 10.1108/AJB-08-2016-0028
Ji Eun Park, Sungjoon Yoon
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to further our understanding of the sources of consumer animosity and the moderating role of product involvement on purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach - Animosity is examined in the context of South Korean consumers’ purchase intentions toward Japanese products. A structural equation model was estimated in Lisrel 8.80 to assess the proposed model. Findings - The results offer evidence that consumer ethnocentrism and susceptibility to normative influence have a positive relationship with animosity while cosmopolitanism has a negative relationship with animosity. Furthermore, animosity negatively influences intentions to purchase for high-involvement products, but not for low-involvement products. Practical implications - International marketing managers can better identify the risk that consumer animosity poses to their products and services based on level of product involvement and characteristics of the market segment. Originality/value - This study offers clarity to the understanding of animosity by examining additional antecedents of animosity that reflect different world views. It also provides an exception to the previous findings that in general animosity has a negative impact on consumers’ willingness to buy products of countries for which consumers have animosity. In other words, the effect of animosity on purchase intention of products from a disliked country depends on the degree of involvement.
{"title":"Antecedents of consumer animosity and the role of product involvement on purchase intentions","authors":"Ji Eun Park, Sungjoon Yoon","doi":"10.1108/AJB-08-2016-0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-08-2016-0028","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to further our understanding of the sources of consumer animosity and the moderating role of product involvement on purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach - Animosity is examined in the context of South Korean consumers’ purchase intentions toward Japanese products. A structural equation model was estimated in Lisrel 8.80 to assess the proposed model. Findings - The results offer evidence that consumer ethnocentrism and susceptibility to normative influence have a positive relationship with animosity while cosmopolitanism has a negative relationship with animosity. Furthermore, animosity negatively influences intentions to purchase for high-involvement products, but not for low-involvement products. Practical implications - International marketing managers can better identify the risk that consumer animosity poses to their products and services based on level of product involvement and characteristics of the market segment. Originality/value - This study offers clarity to the understanding of animosity by examining additional antecedents of animosity that reflect different world views. It also provides an exception to the previous findings that in general animosity has a negative impact on consumers’ willingness to buy products of countries for which consumers have animosity. In other words, the effect of animosity on purchase intention of products from a disliked country depends on the degree of involvement.","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"38 1","pages":"42-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76800645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-03DOI: 10.1108/AJB-04-2015-0014
Mourad Mroua, Fathi Abid, W. Wong
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature in three ways: first, the authors investigate the impact of the sampling errors on optimal portfolio weights and on financial investment decision. Second, the authors advance a comparative analysis between various domestic and international diversification strategies to define a stochastic optimal choice. Third, the authors propose a new methodology combining the re-sampling method, stochastic optimization algorithm, and nonparametric stochastic dominance (SD) approach to analyze a stochastic optimal portfolio choice for risk-averse American investors who care about benefits of domestic diversification relative to international diversification. The authors propose a new portfolio optimization model involving SD constraints on the portfolio return rate. The authors define a portfolio with return dominating the benchmark portfolio return in the second-order stochastic dominance (SSD) and having maximum expected return. The authors combine re-sampling procedure and stochastic optimization to establish more flexibility in the investment decision rule. Design/methodology/approach - The authors apply the re-sampling procedure to consider the sampling error in the optimization process. The authors try to resolve the problem of the stochastic optimal investment strategy choice using the nonparametric SD test by Linton Findings - First, the authors find that reducing sampling error increases the dominance relationships between different portfolios, which, in turn, alters portfolio investment decisions. Though international diversification is preferred in some cases, the study’s results show that for risk-averse US investors, in general, there is no difference between the diversification strategies; this implies that there is no increase in the expected utility of international diversification for the period before and after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Nevertheless, the authors find that stochastic diversification in domestic, global, and Europe, Australasia, and Far East markets delivers better risk returns for the US risk averters during the crisis period. Originality/value - The originality of the idea in this paper is to introduce a new methodology combining the concept of portfolio re-sampling, stochastic portfolio optimization with SSD constraints, and the nonparametric SD test by Linton
{"title":"Optimal diversification, stochastic dominance, and sampling error","authors":"Mourad Mroua, Fathi Abid, W. Wong","doi":"10.1108/AJB-04-2015-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-04-2015-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature in three ways: first, the authors investigate the impact of the sampling errors on optimal portfolio weights and on financial investment decision. Second, the authors advance a comparative analysis between various domestic and international diversification strategies to define a stochastic optimal choice. Third, the authors propose a new methodology combining the re-sampling method, stochastic optimization algorithm, and nonparametric stochastic dominance (SD) approach to analyze a stochastic optimal portfolio choice for risk-averse American investors who care about benefits of domestic diversification relative to international diversification. The authors propose a new portfolio optimization model involving SD constraints on the portfolio return rate. The authors define a portfolio with return dominating the benchmark portfolio return in the second-order stochastic dominance (SSD) and having maximum expected return. The authors combine re-sampling procedure and stochastic optimization to establish more flexibility in the investment decision rule. Design/methodology/approach - The authors apply the re-sampling procedure to consider the sampling error in the optimization process. The authors try to resolve the problem of the stochastic optimal investment strategy choice using the nonparametric SD test by Linton Findings - First, the authors find that reducing sampling error increases the dominance relationships between different portfolios, which, in turn, alters portfolio investment decisions. Though international diversification is preferred in some cases, the study’s results show that for risk-averse US investors, in general, there is no difference between the diversification strategies; this implies that there is no increase in the expected utility of international diversification for the period before and after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Nevertheless, the authors find that stochastic diversification in domestic, global, and Europe, Australasia, and Far East markets delivers better risk returns for the US risk averters during the crisis period. Originality/value - The originality of the idea in this paper is to introduce a new methodology combining the concept of portfolio re-sampling, stochastic portfolio optimization with SSD constraints, and the nonparametric SD test by Linton","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"19 1","pages":"58-79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84780306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-03-27DOI: 10.1108/AJB-05-2015-0016
Matthew Hoag, Mark Myring, Joseph H. Schroeder
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the institutional changes accompanying the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) have standardized the audit’s role in the overall financial reporting process, thereby reducing the impact of auditor characteristics on financial reporting quality. Design/methodology/approach - To test this hypothesis, the association between audit quality characteristics (auditor size and industry expertise) and measures of financial reporting quality (analyst earning forecast dispersion and accuracy) are estimated using regression analysis. Results of this analysis are compared across the pre- and post-SOX periods. Findings - The results of the study document a significant relationship between auditor size (Big N vs non-Big N) and financial reporting quality (as proxied by analyst earnings forecast properties) during the pre-SOX period but not in the post-SOX period. Auditor industry expertise is significantly associated with financial reporting quality throughout the entire sample period. Thus, financial reporting quality continues to be dependent on the degree of specialization of an audit firm in both the pre- and post-SOX periods; however, the impact of auditor size as a surrogate for quality has diminished. Originality/value - The SOX Act of 2002 represented one of the most significant changes in the regulation of audits. This paper adds to the literature by examining the Act’s effects on financial professionals’ perception of the impact of audit firm characteristics on their client’s financial reporting quality.
{"title":"Has Sarbanes-Oxley standardized audit quality?","authors":"Matthew Hoag, Mark Myring, Joseph H. Schroeder","doi":"10.1108/AJB-05-2015-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-05-2015-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the institutional changes accompanying the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) have standardized the audit’s role in the overall financial reporting process, thereby reducing the impact of auditor characteristics on financial reporting quality. Design/methodology/approach - To test this hypothesis, the association between audit quality characteristics (auditor size and industry expertise) and measures of financial reporting quality (analyst earning forecast dispersion and accuracy) are estimated using regression analysis. Results of this analysis are compared across the pre- and post-SOX periods. Findings - The results of the study document a significant relationship between auditor size (Big N vs non-Big N) and financial reporting quality (as proxied by analyst earnings forecast properties) during the pre-SOX period but not in the post-SOX period. Auditor industry expertise is significantly associated with financial reporting quality throughout the entire sample period. Thus, financial reporting quality continues to be dependent on the degree of specialization of an audit firm in both the pre- and post-SOX periods; however, the impact of auditor size as a surrogate for quality has diminished. Originality/value - The SOX Act of 2002 represented one of the most significant changes in the regulation of audits. This paper adds to the literature by examining the Act’s effects on financial professionals’ perception of the impact of audit firm characteristics on their client’s financial reporting quality.","PeriodicalId":44116,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Business","volume":"21 1","pages":"2-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84326651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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