Business Commons^™

A Descriptive Comparison Of Two Sources Of Occupational Fraud Data, George L. Hunt

Faculty Publications

The propose of this study was to determine if the data contained in the Internal Auditor Roundtable and Fraud Finding columns are consistent with data reported in the ACFEs Report to the Nation. Cases of fraud reported in the Internal Auditor columns were analyzed, summarized, and compared to the data contained in the Report to the Nation. The results show significant similarities between the two data sources.

Analysis Of The Relation Between The Spiders Spot And Option Implied Volatility., Stoyu Ivanov

Faculty Publications

In this study we use spectral analysis on SPY (Spiders) options to examine the relation between option spot and implied volatility for this exchange trade fund. We attempt to address the question is there a relation between the option spot and implied volatility or option implied volatility has no relation with the spot exchange trade fund volatility. We find that this relation does exist for SPY at-the-money call and put options and the in-the-money call and out-of-the-money put options. Using two spectral statistics – the coherence and the phase statistics, we find that the SPY option implied volatility and spot …

Teaching International Business Via Social Media Projects, Ilan Alon, Ruwanthi Herath

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the outcomes of an experiential learning technique coupled with social media in an international marketing course. It was conducted among 155 students placed in groups that were assigned to develop a YouTube video for use as a country branding marketing tool. Measured evaluations of the students’ perceptions of the experience reveal that it was both beneficial and positive, and it helped to promote an understanding of the importance of team work and the uses of technology. Factor analysis grouped the perceptions and attitudes regarding the exercise into four categories.The differences in perception …

Shibusawa Eiichi, Dai Ichi Bank, And The Spirit Of Japanese Capitalism, 1860-1930, John Sagers

Faculty Publications

Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931) has been called the “father of Japanese capitalism” and was associated with nearly five hundred business enterprises in his lifetime. From his main position as head of Dai Ichi Bank, Shibusawa was a strong advocate for business interests when the Japanese government was generally preoccupied with military concerns. He also consistently argued that business leaders should look to Confucian principle for moral guidance if they were to maintain the public's trust. Through an analysis of Shibusawa's public statements and his legacy in subsequent historical scholarship, particularly Dai Ichi Bank's 1957 official company history, we see that appeals …

Using Measures Of Risk Perception To Predict Information Security Behavior: Insights From Electroencephalography (Eeg), Anthony Vance, Bonnie Anderson, C. Brock Kirwan, David Eargle

Faculty Publications

Users' perceptions of risks have important implications for information security, as the actions of individual users can compromise entire systems. Therefore, there is a critical need to understand how users perceive and respond to information security risks. Previous research on perceptions of information security risk has chiefly relied on self-reported measures. Although these studies are valuable, risk perceptions are often associated with feelings—such as fear or doubt—that are difficult to measure accurately using survey instruments. Additionally, it is unclear how these self-reported measures map to actual security behavior. This paper contributes by demonstrating that risk-taking behavior is effectively predicted using …

What Type Of Relationship Do We Have With Loved Brands?, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion, testing and comparing two different relationship theories and their underlying scales as applied to brand love. Current brand love studies neglect a detailed discussion and analysis of the appropriate relationship theory and underlying measurement scale to be used. Design/methodology/approach – We use a 2 × 2 experimental design where we compare two relationship theories (interpersonal versus parasocial) across two samples (USA and Japan). Model testing were conducted using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling techniques assessing the type of relationship consumers have with …

Do I Have A Bridge For You: Fiduciary Duties And Investment Advice, Francis J. Facciolo

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The debate about financial advice in the United States has taken a wrong turn. Instead of focusing on particular practices and the potential that these practices raise for conflicts of interest between advisers and their clients, the debate has focused recently on whether brokers, advisers to municipal and state issuers, and advisers to employee benefit plans regulated by ERISA should be held to a fiduciary duty standard. A fiduciary standard implies, in the words of Justice Cardozo, that “[a] trustee is held to something stricter that the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of …

Increasing And Generalizing Self-Efficacy: The Effects Of Adventure Recreation On The Academic Efficacy Of Early Adolescents, Mark A. Widmer, Mat D. Duerden, Stacy T. Taniguchi

Faculty Publications

This quasi-experimental study examined the impact of an adventure recreation program on adolescent participants’ outdoor recreation and academic self-efficacy. The study also explored the transferability of efficacy beliefs across non-related domains. The sample included 262 adolescents, 194 who served as participants in the program and 68 who served as comparisons. The average age for each group was 13.6 years. The intervention, a two-week, theory-based program, involved a variety of outdoor recreation activities. Pre-/post-instruments measured perceived levels of outdoor efficacy and academic efficacy, attitudes, and motivations. Results indicated participants experienced significantly more growth than comparisons on both outdoor and academic measures …

Stock Options As Lotteries, Brian H. Boyer, Keith Vorkink

Faculty Publications

We investigate the relationship between ex ante total skewness and holding returns on individual equity options. Recent theoretical developments predict a negative relationship between total skewness and average returns, in contrast to the traditional view that only coskewness is priced. We find, consistent with recent theory, that total skewness exhibits a strong negative relationship with average option returns. Differences in average returns for option portfolios sorted on ex ante skewness range from 10% to 50% per week, even after controlling for risk. Our findings suggest that these large premiums compensate intermediaries for bearing unhedgeable risk when accommodating investor demand for …

Optimistic Reporting And Pessimistic Investing: Do Pro Forma Earnings Disclosures Attract Short Sellers?*, Theodore E. Christensen, Michael S. Drake, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

When companies announce their quarterly results, along with their standard GAAP earnings number, managers sometimes choose to disclose an adjusted (pro forma) earnings figure that excludes one or more income statement line items from net income. While managers frequently argue that they exclude transitory items from GAAP income in an effort to better reflect core operating performance, regulators and critics of pro forma reporting contend that these exclusions can overstate operating results. In particular, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a warning that under certain circumstances, pro forma reporting “can mislead investors if it obscures GAAP results” (SEC 2001). …

The Reputational Costs Of Tax Avoidance*, John Gallemore, Edward L. Maydew, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

This study investigates whether firms and their top executives bear reputational costs from engaging in aggressive tax avoidance activities. At least two decades of empirical tax research has shown that firms engage in a wide range of strategies for tax avoidance purposes. 1 Recent studies suggest that for many firms, tax avoidance appears to be highly effective at reducing the firms’ tax payments and increasing their after-tax earnings. For example, Dyreng, Hanlon, and Maydew (2008) find that more than a quarter of publicly traded U.S. firms are able to reduce their taxes to less than 20 percent of their pre-tax …

The Media And Mispricing: The Role Of The Business Press In The Pricing Of Accounting Information, Michael S. Drake, Nicholas M. Guest, Brady J. Twedt

Faculty Publications

This study investigates the role of the business press in the pricing of accounting information. Using a comprehensive dataset of more than 111,000 earnings-related business press articles published from 2000–2010, we find that press coverage of the annual earnings announcement mitigates cash flow mispricing, but has a negligible effect on accrual mispricing. We provide evidence that this impact is driven primarily by the press disseminating the information more broadly, rather than by the creation of new content that helps investors understand the implications of accounting information. Our results suggest that the business press plays an important role in facilitating the …

Investigation Into The Ratio Of Operating And Support Costs To Life-Cycle Costs For Dod Weapon Systems, Gary L. Jones, Edward D. White, Erin T. Ryan, Jonathan D. Ritschel

Faculty Publications

Recent legislation, such as the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, requires a renewed emphasis on understanding Operating and Support (O&S) costs. Conventional wisdom within the acquisition community suggests a 70:30 cost ratio with respect to O&S and acquisition of an average weapon system. Using 37 Air Force and Navy programs, the authors estimate the mean overall ratio of O&S costs to acquisition costs to be closer to 55:45, although many weapon systems displayed significant deviation from this 55 percent average. Contributing factors such as life expectancy and acquisition strategy (i.e., new system or modification) affect this variance. Their …

Stories From The Workplace: Using Mini-Modules Online To Increase Student Motivation And Learning, Jon Balzotti, Janet Roberts

Faculty Publications

In this article, we describe the incorporation of video modules into three professional communication classrooms. These modules were designed to give both teachers and students access to professional practitioners and their views about the changing role of communication in the 21st century workplace. We incorporated these modules into professional communication courses (junior/senior level technical communication course) and courses in the disciplines (freshman and senior engineering design courses). The article discusses how content designed to simulate the language conventions of friendly conversation can impact student motivation and foster greater participation in the professional communication classroom.

Trainees’ Perceived Knowledge Gain Unrelated To The Training Domain: The Joint Action Of Impression Management And Motives, Dan S. Chiaburu, Jason L. Huang, Holly M. Hutchins, Richard G. Gardner

Faculty Publications

Trainees’ knowledge gains represent an important outcome in human resource development. In this research, we tested a model examining the joint influence of social desirability (impression management, self-deception) and motives (need for power, need for approval) on trainees’ self-reported knowledge gain. We conducted a study with respondents who reported information related to individual differences and took a training program and reported their knowledge gain in domains that were both related and unrelated to the training program. Trainee unrelated knowledge gain was a function of the joint influence of individual predispositions (to impression manage or engage in self-deception) and motives (need …

The Efects Of Cryptocurrency Wealth On Household Consumption And Investment, Darren Aiello, Scott R. Baker, Tetyana Balyuk, Marco Di Maggio, Mark J. Johnson, Jason Kotter

Faculty Publications

This paper uses transaction-level bank and credit card data to identify cryptocurrency investors and assess the impact of crypto wealth fuctuations on household consumption, as well as on investments in other assets. We fnd an $0.09 MPC from crypto gains, exceeding most previous estimates from unrealized equity gains. However, crypto investors are mostly also active equity investors, with many similar consumption patterns across gains from both asset classes. Households sell cryptocurrencies to increase discretionary and housing expenditures, with the latter causing local house price appreciation.

Peer Effects In Risk Aversion And Trust, Kenneth R. Ahern, Ran Duchin, Tyler Shumway

Faculty Publications

Existing evidence shows that risk aversion and trust are largely determined by environmental factors. We test whether one such factor is peer influence. Using random assignment of MBA students to peer groups and predetermined survey responses of economic attitudes, we find causal evidence of positive peer effects in risk aversion and no effects in trust. After the first year of the MBA program, the difference between an individual and her peers' average risk aversion is only 41% as large as the difference was before starting the MBA. Finding no peer effects in trust is consistent with recent research showing that …

The Effects Of Team Flow On Performance: A Video Game Experiment, Mark Keith, Greg Anderson, Doug Dean, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

Research on effective team work has traditionally explained team performance as a result of team cohesion and goal commitment. Team cohesion was originally defined as the general level of attraction the team members had to all others in their group. This social relations-based concept of team cohesion is generally a strong indicator of team performance. However, more recent research has stressed the importance of incorporating the team members’ mutual level of commitment to the team task as another sub-dimension of cohesion. When including task commitment, team cohesion is a somewhat weaker predictor of team performance (Beal et al., 2003). To …

Proposing The Affect-Trust Infusion Model (Atim) To Explain And Predict The Influence Of High- And Low-Affect Infusion On Web-Vendor Trust, Paul Benjamin Lowry, Nathan Twyman, Matthew Pickard, Jeffrey L. Jenkins, Son Ngoc Bui

Faculty Publications

Trust is just as essential to online business as it is to offline transactions but can be more difficult to achieve—especially for newer Web sites associated with unknown Web vendors. Research explains that Web vendor trust can be created by cognitive and affective influences. But under what circumstances will emotion more powerfully impact trust and when will cognition be more powerful? Theory-based answers to these questions can help online Web vendors design better Web sites that account for unleveraged factors that will increase trust in the Web vendor.

We adapt the Affect Infusion Model to propose the Affect-Trust Infusion Model …

Library Instruction Case Wiki, Andy Spackman

Faculty Publications

We hope you find the guides and case studies collected here helpful, and we invite you to contribute by discussing your experiences on the discussion page for each case study, and by submitting case studies you have developed and used in your own instructional efforts.

Cases for Advanced Business Students

• Building a Company List - Trucking in Texas
• Company and Market Research - Big Sweety and the Chocolate Manufacturing Industry
• Determining Market Size - Infant Formula
• Entrepreneurial Marketing - The Comic Book Guy
• Global Trade and Economics - Manufacturing Medical Instruments
• International Business - Launching the Wii
• International Marketing - …

You Said What? Assessing The Impact Of Collaboration Technologies And Message Characteristics Using Physiological Measures, Taylor M. Wells, Alan R. Dennis

Faculty Publications

Collaboration technologies often are effective but sometimes they can distort messages, especially in emotional communication. We propose and test a theoretical model to explain how different technologies and message characteristics influence the emotional responses of recipients and how recipients evaluate the emotional content of the messages. Two collaboration technologies—email and voicemail—were examined because they differ in richness and naturalness. As some individuals are more capable in interpreting and understanding emotion, we also examined the role of emotional intelligence. The results show that a message sent via email was likely to trigger a different immediate psychophysiological emotional response and be evaluated …

The Determinants And Consequences Of Information Acquisition Via Edg, Michael S. Drake, Darren T. Roulstone, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

Using a novel dataset that tracks all web traffic on the SEC’s EDGAR servers from 2008-2011, we examine the determinants and capital market consequences of investor information acquisition of SEC filings. The average user employs the database very few times per quarter and most users target specific filing types such as periodic accounting reports; a small subset of users employ EDGAR almost daily and access many filings. EDGAR activity is positively related with corporate events (particularly restatements, earnings announcements, and acquisition announcements), poor stock performance, and the strength of a firm’s information environment. EDGAR activity is related to, but distinct …

Short Selling Around Restatement Announcements: When Do Bears Pounce?, Michael S. Drake, Linda A. Myers, Susan Scholz, Nathan Y. Sharp

Faculty Publications

This paper draws on two distinct literatures – one that investigates the impact of accounting restatements and another that investigates the trading behavior of short sellers – to further our understanding of how sophisticated investors process and respond to news about accounting corrections. We examine short-seller behavior in the days surrounding restatement announcements to determine when short sellers identify restatements and how they trade on restatement news. Our findings suggest that short sellers do not appear to anticipate restatement announcement dates, but we find that abnormal short selling is significantly higher than is typical when restatements are announced, especially for …

Applying Insights From Behavioral Economics To Policy Design, Brigitte C. Madrian

Faculty Publications

The premise of this article is that an understanding of psychology and other social science disciplines can inform the effectiveness of the economic tools traditionally deployed in carrying out the functions of government, which include remedying market failures, redistributing income, and collecting tax revenue. An understanding of psychology can also lead to the development of different policy tools that better motivate desired behavior change or that are more cost-effective than traditional policy tools. The article outlines a framework for thinking about the psychology of behavior change in the context of market failures. It then describes the research on the effects …

What Makes Annuitization More Appealing?, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, Stephen P. Zeldes

Faculty Publications

We conduct and analyze two large surveys of hypothetical annuitization choices. We find that allowing individuals to annuitize a fraction of their wealth increases annuitization relative to a situation where annuitization is an “all or nothing” decision. Very few respondents choose declining real payout streams over flat or increasing real payout streams of equivalent expected present value. Highlighting the effects of inflation increases demand for cost of living adjustments. Frames that highlight flexibility, control, and investment significantly reduce annuitization. A majority of respondents prefer to receive an extra “bonus” payment during one month of the year that is funded by …

Trust And Financial Reporting Quality, Jace Garrett, Rani Hoitash, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

Using unique survey data from Great Place to Work R Institute, we investigate the association of intraorganizational trust (i.e., employees’ trust in management) with three aspects of financial reporting: accruals quality, misstatements, and internal control quality. We find that trust is associated with better accrual quality, lower likelihood of financial statement misstatements, and lower likelihood of internal control material weakness disclosures. However, these effects are not uniform across all companies. Consistent with trust improving financial reporting quality through improved information production and information sharing, we find that trust is significantly associated with financial reporting quality in relatively decentralized firms, but …

Youth Time Outside: A Comparison Of Time Use Methodologies, Michael B. Edwards, Mat D. Duerden, Robin D. Lizzo, Katherine S. Campbell, Lauren M. Kamper

Faculty Publications

Significant public attention has been given to the perceived lack of youth time spent outside. Diverse approaches make it difficult to develop consensus around youth time-use patterns and guide efforts to get kids outside. The purpose of this study was to compare results of a 7-day time diary used to document adolescent outdoor time with results from other time-use methodologies. Seventh graders (N=43) were selected to complete week-long time-use diaries and recall surveys. Time diary estimates were compared to an online survey, a simulated two-day time diary, and a simulated experience sampling. Results suggested that differences existed between time outside …

A Critical Examination Of Couple Leisure And The Application Of The Core And Balance Model, Peter J. Ward, Keith W. Barney, Neil R. Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie

Faculty Publications

This study further clarified the relationship between couple leisure involvement, couple leisure satisfaction, and marital satisfaction through examining the core and balance framework as it has been applied to the relationship between couple leisure and marital satisfaction. The sample consisted of 1,187 couples across the United States (N = 2,374). SEM analyses supported previous findings, indicating satisfaction with couple leisure involvement was far more important when predicting marital satisfaction than the amount of leisure involvement. Furthermore, while core marital leisure satisfaction was the driving force in the explanation of variance in marital satisfaction, findings suggested before that can happen there …

Addressing Posttraumatic Stress Among Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans And Significant Others: An Intervention Utilizing Sport And Recreation, Jessie L. Bennett, Neil R. Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie, Dennis Eggett

Faculty Publications

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an existing "couples" adaptive sport and recreation program called Higher Ground developed by Sun Valley Adaptive Sports to reduce symptoms of PTSD, facilitate posttraumatic growth, and enhance marital satisfaction for veterans with PTSD and their significant others. The sample consisted of two experimental groups ( Group A five couples, Group B six couples) and a control group (six couples). ANCOVA analysis indicated significant decreases in PTSD symptoms and increases in marital satisfaction among the experimental groups following participation in the recreation program. Findings support the use of recreation programs …

Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions And Individual Scholars, D. Kip Holderness Jr., Noah M. Myers, Scott L. Summers, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

Previous rankings of accounting literature have largely ignored the subtopic of accounting education research. Given the important role that rankings play in creating incentives and benchmarks, ranking education research may improve both the quality and quantity of research in this subtopic. This paper ranks academic institutions and individual accounting researchers based on their production of accounting education research. We show that the correlation between education research rankings and singular, non-education research rankings is very low (i.e., ranges from 0.20 to 0.31), emphasizing the importance of considering education rankings separately from other topical areas in accounting research. We also provide evidence …