Business Commons^™

Upholstered Household Furniture In The United States: A Survey Of Current Ownership And Purchasing Plans, Steven H. Bullard, Max L. Doolittle

Faculty Publications

This report presents highlights of the results of a telephone survey of U.S. households concerning their ownership, purchasing plans, and preferences regarding upholstered household furniture. The survey was conducted in October and November 1989, by the Survey Research Unit of the Social Science Research Center of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. The SUl'Vey also included Canadian households, and subsequent reports will present results for Canada as well as statistical analyses of specific results for both countries. The sUl'vey was intended to help identify market potential for various items of upholstered household furniture, and the results are therefore not …

The Upholstered, Wood Household Furniture Industry In North America: A Spatial Equilibrium Analysis, Eric J. Todd, Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

Upholstered, wood household furniture production has become an increasingly important part of total furniture production in the United States. From 1982 to 1987, employment in the upholstered furniture industry grew 16 percent, and in 1987, the industry's 82,100 employees represented about 30 percent of U.S. household furniture indush-y employment (USDC Bureau of the Census 1990). Over the same 5-year period, value added for the upholstered furniture industry increased by 52 percent to more than $2.6 billion.

Nobody's Grandfather Was A Merchant: Understanding The Soviet Commercial Negotiation Process And Style, Mahesh N. Rajan, J. L. Graham

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pal Rule Clarification Should Aim To Simplify, Annette M. Nellen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Attention To Social Comparison Information: An Individual Difference Factor Affecting Consumer Conformity, William O. Bearden, Randall L. Rose

Faculty Publications

Interpersonal influence in consumer behavior is moderated by the extent of consumer sensitivity to social comparison information concerning product purchase and usage behavior (cf. Calder and Burnkrant 1977). Two survey studies indicate that Lennox and Wolfe's (1984) attention-to-social-comparison-information (AT-SCI) scale has adequate convergent and discriminant validity and moderates the relative influence of normative consequences on behavioral intentions, as predicted. A quasi-experiment and an experiment in which control subjects under no social pressure are compared with high and low ATSCI subjects under pressure reveal that high ATSCI subjects are more likely to comply with normative pressures.

The Geography Of Home Furnishings Sales In The U.S., Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

Sales by U.S. "furniture and home furnishings" stores were nearly $75 billion in 1987, the year of the most recent Census of Retail Trade. The sales total includes $26 billion for "furniture" stores, $16 billion for "homefurnishings" stores, $8 billion for "household appliance" stores, and $24 billion for "radio, television, computer, and music" stores.

The 1987 Census of Retail Trade reports sales for the combined category, furniture and home furnishings, for all U.S. states, counties, and metropolitan areas. In this article, therefore, the term "furniture and home furnishings" refers to combined sales for all of the store types in Table …

Rental Of Residences, Annette M. Nellen, K. Marucheck

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Accounting Tutor Platform, Rayman D. Meservy

Faculty Publications

Many educational researchers consider computers to be the most important technological development for education since the invention of the printing press or writing itself. They believe that computers will one day transform education, leaving their mark on education as writing and books have done. Even though computer aided instruction (CAI} has been used for many years, results at the college level have been mixed, although generally moderately positive, sometimes reducing instructional time while increasing learning effectiveness. [Kulik, 1990]

Privatize Deposit Insurance, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Furniture Manufacturing And Marketing In The ‘American Economic Transition, Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

The Office of Technology Assessment recently prepared a 500 page report titled Technology and the American Economic Transition, Choices for the Future. OTA sees four major factors that are resulting in "economic transition" factors that will continue to transform the U.S. economy during the next 20 years: new technologies, new challenges from abroad, new resource constraints, and new values and tastes in U.S. consumer and labor markets.

New technologies, particularly in collecting and handling information, are expected to have long-term, pervasive economic and social impacts comparable to past U.S. economic transformations from major technologies such as automobiles and railroads. New …

The Mississippi Furniture Industry And Its Use Of Wood-Based Materials, Steven H. Bullard, Brian A. Doherty, Paul H. Short

Faculty Publications

Furniture manufacturing is one of the most important industries in Mississippi; the industry's phenomenal growth and current high levels of production and employment have recently been widely recognized and publicized. The Mississippi Economic Council (1988), for example, recently labeled the state "The New Furniture Capital of America;' and Northeast Mississippi was recently described as a "booming region'' that "wants to be the Furniture Capital of America'' (Evans 1987). The present report characterizes important aspects of Mississippi's furniture industry, including its development and relative importance within the state and within the U.S., and assesses current information on the availability and use …

Present Net Worth And Internal Rate Of Return: A Note On Equivalence In Use, K. A. Blatner, Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

Present net worth and internal rate of return are frequently used for ranking investment alternatives. The relative merits and limitations of the two criteria are discussed at length in numerous journal articles and texts. For analysts wishing to present consistent project comparisons, the issue is not which criterion is superior, but when are they equivalent. In this article, conditions for equivalence in use are outlined under alternative assumptions. Although the conditions appear complex, they are not unduly restrictive.

Research On Effective Schools: Implications For Less Developed Countries, Elchanan Cohn, Richard A. Rossmiller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Investigating Expertise In Auditing, Paul E. Johnson, Andrew D. Bailey Jr, Rayman D. Meservy

Faculty Publications

Research on human expertise in auditing contexts is an important area of study. Our objective in this paper is to present an approach to conducting research on human expertise. We begin with some issues of terminology and then propose a strategy for inquiry into the phenomena of expertise. Finally, we attempt to illustrate this strategy with three examples of recently completed work. The examples include: two from the auditing literature that involve the analysis of internal control and a medical diagnosis case which illustrates the "garden path" problem that is of concern in any decision making context, including auditing.

Toward A Jurisprudence Of Bank-Customer Relations, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Note On Equivalence In Ranking Investments, Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

Present net worth, benefit/cost, and internal rate of return are considered for ranking investments. In some cases, rankings can be contradictory, and the investment criterion can influence inter-project allocations. There are situations, however, when ranking equivalence is assured. In this article, conditions for equivalence in ranking investments are presented using simple graphics and algebra. The conditions are restrictive, and can be effective in demonstrating the need for discretion in selecting an economic criterion for evaluating investments.

Effects Of Inflation And After-Tax Present Values Where Business Costs Are Capitalized, Steven H. Bullard, W. David Kempere

Faculty Publications

Business investments often span periods of time with significant inflation. If taxes are not considered, inflation can be ignored in computing the present value of future net income. Inflation should not be ignored, however, in after-tax analyses of rates of return or net present values of potential investments. Inflation affects the present value of business costs which are capitalized for tax purposes, and the influence must be considered for present value calculations to be accurate. After-tax analyses must include the tax savings which result from being able to deduct business-related costs from taxable income. Costs which are expensed, of course, …

The Coming Boom In Computer Loads, Oliver S. Yu, R. Squitieri, C. Roach

Faculty Publications

Computers and other electronic equipment now consume as much electricity as electric steel furnaces, and their growth shows no signs of slowing. Utilities are active participants in the computer revolution. Northeast Utilities, for example, reports that 20% of electricity use in a typical new office building in its service area goes to computers. Given the expected growth in computers and computer loads, this technology deserves greater attention from utility planners and other energy analysts. It is shown that the commercial sector has been the largest contributor to kilowatt-hour (kwh) sales growth and that new uses within the commercial sector have …

Kass: A Knowledge-Based Auditor Support System, Ramayya Krishnan, Rayman D. Meservy, Vandana Gadh

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the design of a knowledge-based system to assist auditors in the evaluatation of internal accounting controls and focusses on the logic-based language AL that has been developed as a knowledge representation formalism. Interesting features of AL include a declarative approach to modeling accounting systems and the means to explicitly describe authority structures typically used to enforce internal controls.

Decision Support Systems, Expert Systems, And Artificial Intelligence: Realities And Possibilities In Public Accounting, Andrew D. Bailey, Rayman D. Meservy, Joanne H. Turner

Faculty Publications

As the business environment becomes more complex and more competitive, accountants and other business managers must exploit the advantages of the computer to remain competitive. Even though managers have long used data which was collected, stored, summarized, and reported using computer technology, managers have not traditionally used computers to manage. Only recently have managers realized that the computer is a cost-effective tool which can directly aid and support business decisions (i.e., not only can computers generate data to be used in making decisions, they can also make comparisons, evaluate alternatives, weigh the costs and benefits, and perhaps even make certain …

Internal Control Evaluation: A Computational Model Of The Review Process, Rayman D. Meservy, Andrew D. Bailey Jr, Paul E. Johnson

Faculty Publications

This study investigated the strategies by which experienced auditors evaluate systems of internal accounting controls. The research method included: (1) observations, using concurrent protocols, of a small sample of practicing auditors performing the internal control evaluation task; (2) extensive interviews with one of the practicing auditors; (3) formalization of auditor processes as a computational model; and (4) validation of the model. The simulation model was Im· plemented as an expert system and tuned to one auditor. The model output consists of a trace of the model processing including: (1) rec• ommendatlons for specific controls to be compliance tested; and (2) …

Auditing, Artificial Intelligence And Expert Systems, Andrew D. Bailey, Rayman D. Meservy, Gordon L. Duke, Paul E. Johnson, William Thompson

Faculty Publications

This paper will provide the reader with an introduction to the field of financial auditing and the applicability of Decision Support Systems (DSS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Expert Systems (ES) to that field of endeavor. The paper will also discuss a continuing research project concerning the application of DSS/AI/ES techniques to the evaluation of internal accounting controls. The reader will find that the evaluation of internal accounting controls is a critical step in every financial audit and that it is an area in which the auditor exhibits substantial expertise. It is thus an area of work particularly suited to the …

Maximizing Expected Profits In Competitive Bidding, Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

Forest products firms often buy much of their raw material through competitive bidding. The bidding process is vital to such companies, yet models are often used which merely help predict winning bids. Managers should consider expected returns from potential timber buying contracts-the product of profit and the prob· ability of realizing that profit. A general approach is summarized for maximizing expected profit in competitive bidding. For timber buying, profits are net returns minus stumpage costs. The probability of obtaining the profit is the probability a given bid will be accepted, and can be represented by a probability density function. The …

Transborder Data Flow: An Overview And Critique Of Recent Concerns, I. Trotter Hardy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Acquiring Small And Medium-Sized Companies: A Study Of Corporate Decision Behavior, Daniel Joseph Power

Faculty Publications

This field research study investigated corporate acquisition decisions made by managers in U.S. manufacturing and conglomerate firms. The introductory chapters review organizational decision theories and empirical research on organizational and acquisition decision making. The thesis presents and investigates hypotheses for two descriptive models: a prediction model and a decision-process model. Through mail questionnaires, data were gathered about 28 acquisitions completed between October 1, 1979 and March 31, 1980. Managers were asked for retrospective information about decision activities and for a current assessment of the acquired company's performance . Twenty-six companies made the acquisitions: nine very large companies with 1979 sales …

A Mathematical Contraction And Automated Analysis Of Internal Controls, Andrew D. Bailey Jr, Gordon Leon Duke, James Gerlach, Chen-En Ko, Rayman D. Meservy, Andrew B. Whinton

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a precedent oriented computer assisted method of designing, analyzing and evaluating systems of internal controls. The ..!..nternal Control _!iodel, TICOM III, is fundamentally a design and analysis tool useful in the context of Automated Office Information Systems (AOIS's). Traditional analysis and evaluation tools, such as flowcharting, written narratives and questionnaires, are inefficient, if not insufficient, to support the design and control analysis of these new systems. The advantages of TICOM III over traditional methods such as narrative description, questionnaires and flowcharts are: (1) the evaluation can be more rigorous and exhaustive because of the speed, accuracy and …

A Methodology For Nurse Staffing, Bruce M. Meglino

Faculty Publications

Increases in both staff salaries and in the number of personnel per patient have been prime factors in the rapid rise of hospital costs. This is particularly true in the nursing area, which is responsible for the greatest portion of these costs. Limited information has been available to aid hospital managers in the efficient utilization of the nursing staff. This article presents guidelines for determining patient load and a systematic procedure for allocating nursing personnel.

Interdependence Of Market Risk Measures, Philip L. Cooley, Rodney L. Roenfeldt, Naval K. Modani

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fuels For Future Electric Power, Oliver S. Yu, A. Manne

Faculty Publications

OVER THE NEXT FORTY YEARS, THE U.S. WILL EXPERIENCE PROBLEMS BECAUSE OF DWINDLING SUPPLIES OF FOSSIL FUELS AND AN INCREASING DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. SEVERAL ALTERNATIVES ARE AVAILABLE, SUCH AS MORE STRINGENT CONSERVATION MEASURES OR ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF ENERGY. HOWEVER, NO SINGLE ALTERNATIVE WILL BE SUFFICIENT. A STUDY WAS CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE THE MOST EFFICIENT ALLOCATION POSSIBLE OF RESOURCES. THE ANALYSIS WAS CONDUCTED ON THE BASIS OF ASSUMED HAPPENINGS IN THE FUTURE RATHER THAN BY PROJECTING HISTORIC TRENDS INTO THE FUTURE. FOR EXAMPLE, AS ONE SOURCE OF ENERGY SUCH AS OIL BECOMES MORE SCARCE, THE COST WILL GO UP, INDUCING …

On The Net Present Value Rule For Educational Investments, Elchanan Cohn

Faculty Publications

Focuses on the net present value rule for educational investments. Profitability of investment in education; Omission of direct educational costs from the benefit-cost calculations; Standards on the applicability of the net present value rule.