Business Commons^™

Sabbaticals, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

With the year end upon you and many workplaces closing, reducing hours or accommodating employee vacations because of the holidays, this column focuses on rewards in the form of time away from work that is not so common -- sabbaticals. Sabbaticals are a generous benefit to those workers who have them. And they can clearly be an important part of a total rewards package. According to inc.com, while 5% of firms in the US offer sabbaticals, 25% of the companies listed in "Best Companies to Work For" offer them. Corporate sabbaticals, however, aren't typically as generous in length as those …

Retention Pay, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

In many seasonal jobs, such as store clerks during the holiday shopping season, retention is about employers wanting as little employee turnover as possible during the small window they have each year to earn a big part of their profits. One way seasonal businesses might persuade workers to stay is with some sort of cash bonus paid for staying until the season's end or by paying a substantially higher wage at the very end. While the summer beach of Cape Cod may feel worlds away from the corporate office, the need to consider retention strategies for key employees is universal. …

Does The Adoption Of Ifrs Affect Corporate Social Disclosure In Annual Reports?, Joyce Van Der Van Der Laan Smith, Andrea L. Gouldman, Rasoul H. Tondkar

Accounting Faculty Publications

In this exploratory study we investigate the impact of the implementation of IFRS on corporate social disclosures (CSD) within the context of stakeholder theory. We measure the level of CSD in annual reports using a disclosure instrument based on the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report “Guidance on Corporate Responsibility Indicators in Annual Reports”. We find that IFRS adoption had a differential effect on CSD based on a firm's institutional setting i.e., the stakeholder–management relationship prevalent in their institutional environment. Firms in the stakeholder countries did not have a significant change in the level of CSD following the …

Paid Workers And Volunteers, Side By Side, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Millions of Americans volunteer annually and, on average, volunteers are highly skilled individuals. With unpaid volunteers working alongside W2-paid employees, sometimes it is difficult in a workplace to distinguish one from the other. Motivations for volunteering are many and the author does not intend to fully explore the myriad reasons identified by social scientists for this behavior, including to gain experience, create a path to a paid job, offer service to others or gain personal recognition. An interesting study of volunteerism is Richard Freeman's Working for Nothing: The Supply of Volunteer Labor. Using data from a unique survey, Freeman showed …

Pay, Corporate Location And Donations To Charity, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

State and local governments direct a great deal of effort (and resources) toward incenting companies to locate in their particular jurisdictions. The cited reasons for this effort are often the increase in jobs and boost to the local tax base. In "The Geography of Giving: The Effect of Corporate Headquarters on Local Charities", David Card, Enrico Moretti and the author investigated a number of issues related to the geographical location of corporate headquarters and charitable giving. It turns out that location does matter and the movement of highly paid employees does, too. There are at least two main channels through …

Paying To Put Out Fires, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

There is surprisingly little academic work on the compensation of firefighters. This may be, in part, because their wages are often set by collective bargaining agreements and that those paid as firefighters are regularly paid by seniority. But many aspects of the labor market can still be studied through this interesting occupation, including labor unions, compensation for job risk and even volunteerism. Consider the mountains of papers on Fortune 500 CEOs relative to the number (500) of employees doing this job in the US. In contrast, consider the tiny number of papers on firefighters relative to the large numbers who …

Retaliating Against Customer Interpersonal Injustice In A Singaporean Context: Moderating Roles Of Self-Efficacy And Social Support, Violet Ho, Naina Gupta

Management Faculty Publications

Few studies have examined the relationship between customer injustice and employees' retaliatory counterproductive behaviors toward customers, and those that have done so have been conducted in a Western setting. We extend these studies by examining the relationship in a Singaporean context where retaliatory behaviors by employees might be culturally constrained. While the previously established positive relationship between customer injustice and counterproductive behaviors was not replicated using peer-reported data from employees across two hotels in Singapore, we found that individuals' self-efficacy and perceived social support moderated it. Specifically, the injustice-to-counterproductive behaviors relationship was positive for individuals with high self-efficacy, and for …

Ceo Pay Over The Very Long Run, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Recent work by economic historians shows people that while CEO pay has risen dramatically since the 1990s, such a trend was all but nonexistent from World War II through the mid-1970s. Imagine coming upon an article in a prestigious business publication titled "Another Decade of Deterioration in Top Executive Pay Compared to the Economy as a Whole." Its author, Arch Patton, reports data from a set of more than 400 "top managers" from 1953-1964. What is particularly startling is the size of the deterioration relative to the average. People know from piles of recent evidence that executive compensation has increased …

Incentive Compensation For Ministers?, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Paying leaders of for-profit organizations is difficult. And this is even the case when there is some agreement regarding the objectives of the organizations (e.g., returns to shareholders in publicly held companies). But as they step away from the most obvious objective of maximizing shareholder return or profit, things can get more complicated. Three authors shed considerable light on this by using a rich data set of more than 2,000 Methodist ministers over 43 years. To be sure, the data are from one specific religious group in one region of the US, but the data are absolutely extraordinary. In "Is …

Passion Isn't Always A Good Thing: Examining Entrepreneurs' Network Centrality And Financial Performance With A Dualistic Model Of Passion, Violet Ho, Jeffrey Pollack

Management Faculty Publications

We propose a conceptual model that links entrepreneurs' passion, network centrality, and financial performance, and test this model with small business managers in formal business networking groups. Drawing on the dualistic model of passion, we explore the relationships that harmonious and obsessive passion have with financial performance, mediated by network centrality. Results indicate that harmoniously passionate entrepreneurs had higher out‐degree centrality in their networking group (i.e., they were more inclined to seek out members to discuss work issues), which increased the income they received from peer referrals and, ultimately, business income. Obsessively passionate entrepreneurs had lower in‐degree centrality (i.e., they …

Tipping, Technology And Lessons In Compensation Design, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

New technologies seem to be popping up everywhere to make it easier for customers to exercise their power to pay. From personal phone apps to iPad kiosks in restaurants to video screens in taxis, a tip amount is instantly calculated for you just choose the percent or level you wish to tip. All this technological assistance on tipping is also creating exciting, new data sources. Increasingly, labor economists and other social scientists are using such data sources to better understand how people respond to incentives and the resulting workplace implications. The tipping examples described in this article offer some interesting …

The Changing Role Of Ancillary Health Care Service Providers: An Evaluation Of Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc., Steven M. Thompson, Stephen Varvel, Szilard Voros, Dawn Thiselton, Shahrzad Grami, Ralph M. Turner, John Barron

Management Faculty Publications

In an effort to reduce cost and improve quality, health care payers have enacted a number of incentives to motivate providers to focus their efforts on achieving better clinical outcomes and reducing the prevalence and progression of disease. In response to these incentives, providers are entering into new arrangements such as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes to redesign delivery processes and achieve quality and cost objectives. This article reports the results of a study designed to evaluate the impact on cost and quality of care resulting from services provided by Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc., a clinical laboratory with …

What Have You Done For Me Lately?, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

The author considers the question of whether some occupations or pay plans can create incentives to strategically time employees' best performance and what problems that might create. There certainly is plenty of evidence across a set of industries that the timing of performance can have real effects on the compensation of employees. To the extent that this gives employees (athletes, salespeople, executives, and others) incentives to shift the timing of effort in ways that may not be in the best interests of the employer, shareholders, and other constituents is certainly something worth thinking about if you want to better curb …

Accelerating Startups: The Seed Accelerator Phenomenon, Susan L. Cohen

Management Faculty Publications

We examine and discuss the seed accelerator phenomenon which has recently received much attention both in the US and across the globe. While accelerators appear to be proliferating quickly, little is known regarding the value of these programs; how to define accelerator programs; the differences between accelerators, incubators, angel investors and co-working environments; and the importance of the various aspects of these programs to the ultimate success of their graduates, the local entrepreneurship ecosystems and the broader U.S. economy.

Coworker Mistreatment In A Singaporean Chinese Firm: The Roles Of Third-Party Embeddedness And Network Closure, Violet Ho

Management Faculty Publications

This study integrates research in social networks and interpersonal counterproductive behaviors to examine the role of third-party relationships in predicting an individual’s susceptibility to coworker mistreatment, and in moderating the relationship between coworker mistreatment and job performance. Third-party embeddedness and network closure are examined in the formal workflow network and the informal liking network. Results obtained from employees in a family-owned Chinese business in Singapore indicate that an individual is more likely to be mistreated by a coworker when both parties are strongly embedded in mutual third-party relationships in the workflow network, and that the individual is less likely to …

A Model To Support It Infrastructure Planning And The Allocation Of It Governance Authority, Steven M. Thompson, Peter Ekman, Daniel Selby, Jonathan W. Whitaker

Management Faculty Publications

Information technology (IT) requires a significant investment, involving up to 10.5% of revenue for some firms. Managers responsible for aligning IT investments with their firm's strategy seek to minimize technology costs, while ensuring that the IT infrastructure can accommodate increasing utilization, new software applications, and modifications to existing software applications. It becomes more challenging to align IT infrastructure and IT investments with firm strategy when firms operate in multiple geographic markets, because the firm faces different competitive positions and unique challenges in each market.

We discussed these challenges with IT executives at four Forbes Global 2000 firms headquartered in Northern …

A Social Connection Approach To Corporate Responsibility: The Case Of The Fast-Food Industry And Obesity, Judith Schrempf-Stirling

Management Faculty Publications

Corporate responsibility for consumption-related issues has been on the business ethics agenda for several decades. However, some recent consumption-related issues, such as obesity, differ qualitatively from the traditional product liability cases. This study proposes an alternative responsibility concept, referred to as the social connection corporate responsibility (CR). A detailed conceptualization of a social connection CR is presented and subsequently contrasted with the liability approach to CR. Then, a social connection logic to the case of obesity is applied followed by an examination of how fast-food chains are socially connected to obesity, and of what kind of responsibilities such a …

Pay And Time Of Day, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Is when we work an important part of total rewards? Total rewards are important to workers and organizations.

Industry-Specific Human Capital And Wages: Evidence From The Business Process Outsourcing Industry, Keongtae Kim, Sunil Mithas, Jonathan W. Whitaker, Prasanto K. Roy

Management Faculty Publications

Human capital is becoming more critical as the global economy becomes more information intensive and service intensive. While IS researchers have studied some dimensions of human capital, the role of industry-specific human capital has remained understudied. The IT-enabled business process outsourcing (BPO) industry provides an ideal setting to study returns to human capital, because jobs in this industry are standardized and many professionals in this new industry have come from other industries. We build on IS and Economics literature to theorize returns to human capital in the BPO industry, and we test the theory using data for over 2,500 BPO …

Walking The Talk: A Multistakeholder Exploration Of Organizational Authenticity, Employee Productivity, And Post-Merger Performance, Margaret Cording, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Robert E. Hoskisson, Karsten Jonsen

Management Faculty Publications

Does consistency between how a firm treats employees (what it does) and its espoused employee-oriented values (what it says) affect employee productivity? Furthermore, given that the stakeholder theory perspective holds that what happens to one stakeholder influences other stakeholders, does this sort of consistency vis-à-vis a firm’s customers also influence employee productivity? We empirically investigate the influence of organizational authenticity—defined as consistency between a firm’s espoused values and realized practices—in the context of a merger, and specifically during post-merger integration. Our findings show that a lack of organizational authenticity in terms of both under-promising and over-promising to both employees and …

Titles As Compensation, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Wages and salaries are just part of total rewards. Insurance, vacation time, bonuses, and working conditions are other important forms of compensation. Each of these costs the organization something. But there are other attributes of jobs -- less easily measured in dollars -- that employees value. These can include colleagues, company reputation, and even job titles. At the margin it is possible to imagine a tradeoff between a higher salary and a job title. In fact, some have argued that some firms offer titles in absence of raises where salary budgets are slim. When thinking about job titles as a …

The First-Year Seminar: An Innovative Way For Business Law Professors To Integrate Liberal Arts Pedagogy Into Undergraduate Business Education, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, Lewis A. Litteral

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

We begin with a brief historical perspective of first-year experiences and how, through a 30-year journey, that pedagogical innovation recently and literally flipped upside down my approach to produce student learning. Then we will examine the genesis, development, and teaching of my current FYS Water: Economics, Politics and Policy, and why it has been such a successful course at my university. Next, my coauthor will examine the genesis, development, and teaching of his FYS Morality and the Great Recession of 2008-2009, another successful example of the FYS at our university.

With that as a pedagogical foundation, we offer …

How Consumers’ Use Of Brand Vs. Attribute Information, Randle D. Raggio, Robert P. Leone, William C. Black

Marketing Faculty Publications

Prior research has identified that brands have a differential impact on consumer evaluations across various brand benefits. But no work has considered whether these effects are stable over time, or evolve in a consistent way. We address this question by decomposing consumer evaluations of brand benefits into overall brand and detailed attribute-specific sources in order to understand whether brand effects remain stable or evolve over time. With two unique datasets, the first containing cross-sectional data from Kodak across four different consumer goods categories, and another longitudinal dataset from the U.S. and Canada in the surface-cleaning category, covering seven brands over …

Beyond “Halo”: The Identification And Implications Of Differential Brand Effects Across Global Markets, Randle D. Raggio, William C. Black, Robert P. Leone

Marketing Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether brands impact consumer evaluations in ways other than a consistent halo and the degree to which consumers use both overall brand information along with detailed attribute-specific information to construct their evaluations.

Design/methodology/approach – The authors decompose consumer evaluations of brand benefits into overall brand and detailed attribute-specific sources through a standard CFA approach. Data cover 55 brands in four product categories sold in nine global markets.

Findings – Halo effects are rare in global CPG markets. The authors identify the presence of differential brand effects in eight of nine …

Gratitude In Relationship Marketing: Theoretical Development And Directions For Future Research, Randle D. Raggio, Anna M. Walz, Mousumi Bose Godbole, Judith Anne Garretson Folse

Marketing Faculty Publications

Purpose – For centuries, gratitude has represented an integral component of social relationships, yet it remains relatively overlooked by marketing scholars in the study of commercial relationships. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how gratitude helps to build, maintain and transform commercial relationships and to suggest noteworthy areas of investigation for those researchers seeking to help companies understand the role of gratitude in relationship marketing.

Design/methodology/approach – Gratitude's role in relational exchange is explored by a review of relevant literature and two qualitative studies. Questions developed from the literature and exploratory interviews are then investigated in a main …

The Effects Of Offshoring On Judgment Quality In A Management Accounting Task, Daniel D. Selby

Accounting Faculty Publications

This study investigates the effects of offshoring on judgment quality in a management accounting context (i.e., capital budgeting). The effects of offshoring on judgment quality are understudied and might explain the ineffective and inefficient use of information in offshoring arrangements (Srikanth and Puranam, 2011). A 3x2 between-subject experiment was conducted where participants were assigned to one of three experimental conditions: onshore team, offshore team, or no team. Two dependent variables were measured for judgment quality: effectiveness and efficiency. My results suggest that offshoring may have detrimental effects on efficiency. However, I also find that offshoring does not affect effectiveness.

Releasing Information In Xbrl: Does It Improve Information Asymmetry For Early U.S. Adopters?, Marshall A. Geiger, David S. North, Daniel D. Selby

Accounting Faculty Publications

Information released in XBRL is intended to improve the quality and accessibility of SEC filings, leading to less information asymmetry in the equity market. Research findings on the effects of XBRL on information asymmetry in the US., however, are mixed. Kim et al. (2012) reports that XBRL reduces information asymmetry while Blankespoor et al. (2012) reports that XBRL increases information asymmetry. In contrast to these prior studies, we report that the answer as to whether XBRL affects information asymmetry is matter of firm size. In this study we examine shifts in two measures of information asymmetry for early adopters of …

Safaricom: Innovative Telecom Solutions To Empower Kenyans, Laura Beauchesne, Nick Dorion, Nathaniel Griggs, Jeffrey S. Harrison

Robins Case Network

Safaricom is thriving by selling what many would consider a luxury product in an impoverished country. Africa is a vast market for telecommunications, and Kenya is the third largest mobile market. It is also one of the fastest growing economies in the region. This case contains a fascinating perspective on Kenya, and on the range of services Safaricom provides to its citizens. It also contains excellent detail on Safaricom’s business and philanthropic strategies.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Brian Blaylock, David Earle, Danielle Smith, Jeffrey S. Harrison

Robins Case Network

Chesapeake is the second largest producer of natural gas in the United States, but the company is struggling financially. In addition, its CEO left the company amid governance concerns. This case provides a description of upstream, midstream and downstream energy production and trends in those segments, and how Chesapeake has shifted its emphasis in an effort to increase its performance. The extreme price volatility in this industry is also described, as are technological advances in areas such as “fracking.”

How Large Are The Benefits Of Emerging Market Equities?, C. Mitchell Conover, Gerald R. Jensen, Robert R. Johnson

Finance Faculty Publications

We perform a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of emerging market equities by extending previous research in four fundamental ways. The contribution of this study is that it 1) evaluates a more complete sample; 2) examines performance measures that account for asymmetric return distributions; 3) separates emerging markets by region; and 4) considers the influence that the market environment has on the benefits of emerging market investments. Our results suggest that previous research has understated the benefits associated with investing in emerging markets. We find that broad emerging market indices have relatively low downside risk, which results in Sortino ratios …