Business Commons^™

Not Every Risk Manager Needs To Become An Erm, Zachary S. Finn

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

The author reflects on the responsibilities of risk managers in fulfilling their important role in insurance companies. He asserts that traditional risk managers needs to be part adjuster, part attorney, part underwriter, part risk-finance professional and part loss-control engineer. With such profound task, he contends that risk managers can perform their vital role in the organization without the need of becoming an enterprise risk manager.

The Impact Of The Repeal Of The Stock-For-Debt Exception On Corporate Bankruptcy Restructurings, William D. Terando, Wayne H. Shaw

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

This paper investigates the effect repeal of the stock-for-debt exception on corporate bankruptcy restructurings. This exception permitted corporations to exclude cancellation of indebtedness income from gross income provided they exchanged their own common equity for debt while in Chapter 11. Consistent with claims made by Easton (1994), it is found that the change in tax law imposed significant explicit tax costs on bankruptcy filers. Despite these costs, it is found that many of these firms altered their debt restructure method to preserve net operating losses and reduce their cost of equity. Almost half of the sample firms issued significant levels …

It's Just A Game, Or Is It? Real Money, Real Income, And Real Taxes In Virtual Worlds, William D. Terando, Brian E. Mennecke, Diane J. Janvin, William M. Dilla

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Virtual worlds like Second Life offer players opportunities to earn real-world income through their activities in the game. It will not be long before governments begin to establish policies and regulations regarding the income generated by players of these game environments. This paper examines the issue of taxes in virtual world games. Two alternative places for recognizing income could be established by regulators: 1) at the point when in-game transactions take place; or 2) when players convert game assets into real-world currency. We argue for realization of income, and therefore taxation, at the exchange. We expect that burdensome policies such …

Ecotourism In Latin America: Four Types Of Birding Tours, Gregory E. Osland

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

No abstract available

Dimensions Of Internet Commerce Trust, D. Aiken, Robert Mackoy, B. Liu, Richard Fetter, Gregory E. Osland

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Trust is a central construct and plays a critical role in understanding Internet consumer behavior. This research seeks to directly address the subject of Internet Commerce Trust (ICT) by developing a valid, reliable, and generalizable scale to measure this multifaceted subject. Two separate studies reveal a common five-factor structure. These dimensions are labeled (1) Certification, (2) Resources and Capabilities, (3) Shopping Method, (4) Reliability, and (5) Communication Viability. An accurate measurement of ICT will serve as a viable control factor in future studies of Internet consumer behaviors, segmentation analyses, and in marketing strategy research.

Prior Debt And The Cost Of Going Public, Steven D. Dolvin, Merk K. Pyles

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Previous studies find that firms with prior debt, particularly publicly rated, have lower information asymmetry and experience a lower opportunity cost of going public, as measured by underpricing. Subsequent research suggests that underpricing may be an inaccurate measure of indirect issuance costs. Thus, we replicate and extend existing studies to examine whether previously issued debt reduces the true opportunity cost of issuance. We find that private debt issues have little effect; however, firms with public debt (particularly rated) have both significantly lower levels of underpricing and lower issuance opportunity costs, as well as narrower filing ranges and smaller price revisions, …

A U.S. Manager's Guide To Differences Between Ifrs And U.S. Gaap, James F. Sander, Susan B. Hughes

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are now required for consolidated financial reports for all European Union exchange-listed companies. Officials estimated that for 2005, the initial year of EU adoption, 8,000 financial statements were prepared in accordance with IFRS for the first time. Other countries have also adopted IFRS or IFRS-equivalent financial reporting standards. IFRS differ from U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in many key areas. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) are working on various convergence projects designed to reduce or eliminate differences between the two sets of reporting standards. But existing …

Seasonal Affective Disorder And The Pricing Of Ipos, Steven D. Dolvin, Mark K. Pyles

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Purpose - It has been found that stock market returns vary seasonally with the amount of daylight, and they attribute this effect to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is a psychological condition that causes depression and heightened risk aversion during the fall and winter months. The goal of this study is to examine whether this effect also manifests itself in the pricing of initial public offerings (IPOs).

Design/methodology/approach - The authors conduct an empirical analysis on IPO data

collected over the period 1986-2000. Specifically, we examine potential pricing differences between IPO that go public during the fall and winter months, …

The Effect Of Implementation Factors On Data Warehousing Success: An Exploratory Study, Hongjiang Xu, Mark I. Hwang

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Data warehousing is an important area of practice and research, yet few studies have assessed its practices in general and critical success factors in particular. Although plenty of guidelines for implementation exist, few have been subjected to empirical testing. In order to better understand
implementation factors and their effect on data warehousing success, perceptions of data warehousing professionals are examined in a cross sectional survey. Best subsets regression is used to identify the specific factors that are important to each success variable. Since different companies may have different objectives or emphases in their data warehousing endeavors, the results are useful …

Potential Tax Law Changes And Income Property Values, William D. Terando, Marvin L. Bouillon

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

The authors examine the effect on income property values if current tax rates increase or the proposal to broaden the individual income base and lower individual income tax rates is enacted.

“Off The Rack” Versus “Savile Row” The Value Of Custom Tailoring For Equity Investors, Steven D. Dolvin, Brent W. Ambrose, John Gonas

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Equity asset managers within professional investment advisory firms will often manage both discretionary fee-based accounts as well as open-ended mutual funds - using comparable domestic equity investment disciplines. When retail and institutional investors choose between these products, their decision often hinges on performance and portfolio customization. After reconciling each product’s gross performance for calculation methodology, management and trading costs, and systematic risk measures, we find that concurrently-managed (where the same personnel manage a separately managed account and an open-ended mutual fund over the same time period using identical investment disciplines) small-cap separately managed accounts outperform small-cap actively-managed open-ended mutual funds …

Effectiveness Of Online Learning Program: A Case Study Of A Higher Education Institution, Hongjiang Xu, Omamerhi Ebojoh

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Online learning has become a popular tool in addition to traditional learning methods. This study emphasizes on how assessment and delivery methods employed can influence the effectiveness of online program, as well as the benefits and constrains experienced in e-learning. The research project was conducted at a Higher Educational Institution for a period of three months. A case study methodology was employed to investigate the opinions and experiences of faculty and students involved in online programs. Various factors that affect the effectiveness of online programs were studied in order to provide insights on the major challenges, benefits and limitations faced. …

Exploring The Role Of Industry Structure In New Venture Internationalization, Stephanie A. Fernhaber, Patricia P. Mcdougall, Benjamin M. Oviart

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

While we have gained considerable knowledge since the late 1980s regarding the phenomena of international new ventures, less is known about the influence of industry structure on these ventures. In the present paper, we draw on literature from industrial economics, international business and entrepreneurship to identify industry structure variables that fit within the theoretical framework of international new ventures. We then offer propositions as to how the identified industry structure variables individually and jointly influence the likelihood of new venture internationalization.

Valuation And Classification Of Company Issued Cash And Share-Puts, William D. Terando, Wayne Shaw, David Smith

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

This paper examines whether investors’ valuations of cash and share-put warrants are influenced by their potential differential effect on firm solvency. It is motivated by the enactment of SFAS 150, which requires that all contingent put warrant obligations be classified as balance sheet liabilities regardless of put type. Consistent with the critics of SFAS150, we show that market participants differentially value cash and share-puts based on their solvency characteristics beyond the firm’s recorded assets and liabilities. Our results add to existing capital structure literature by suggesting that complex financial instruments (such as cash and share-puts) be reported separately from each …

Tracking Performance: When Less Is More, Kathy Paulson Gjerde, Susan B. Hughes

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

With or without a balanced scorecard, it is easy for managers to become inundated with metrics and measures. In this article, we first highlight the differences between lagging and leading measures. Second, we illustrate the importance of differentiating the strategic leading indicators-the key leading measures-from those that may improve operational efficiency without significant improvements in profitability. Third, we use a business simulation to demonstrate that focusing on and improving the key leading measures has the greatest impact on profitability, but getting lost in the secondary measures dilutes the effect. Combined, the results illustrate that less may be more when it …