Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Upjohn Institute Policy Paper: Public Pension Crisis And Investment Risk Taking: Underfunding, Fiscal Constraints, Public Accounting, And Policy Implications, Nancy Mohan, Ting Zhang

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Public pension funds that cover retirement benefits for almost 20 million active or retired employees have been significantly underfunded. An important, though largely overlooked, issue related to pension underfunding is the excessive investment risk levels assumed by public plans. Our analysis suggests government accounting standards strongly affect public fund investment risk, as higher return assumptions (used to discount pension liabilities) are associated with higher investment risk.

Public funds undertake more risk if they are underfunded and have lower investment returns in previous years, consistent with the risk transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, pension funds in states facing fiscal constraints allocate more assets …

Two Essays On Managerial Incentives, Hui Liang

Doctoral Dissertations

Jensen and Meckling (1976) and Jensen (1986) argue that the separation of ownership and control may generate agency problems between managers and shareholders. The equity-based compensation, by tying managerial wealth to firm long-run stock performance, can incentivize managers to be more receptive to undertaking value-increasing financial policies and to improving firm performance therefore can be used as an effective tool to achieve consonance between managers actions and shareholders interest. Over the last two decades, the increased prevalence of equity-based compensation in the form of stock and options, is partially due to an increased acceptance of the alignment effect of equity-based …

Controlling Labor Costs In Restaurant Management: A Review Of The Internal-Marketing Concept As A Method For Enhancing Operating Efficiency, Scott Yandrasevich

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Restaurants experience many challenges, including economic uncertainty, competition, demographic shifts in target markets, changes in employee work habits, and such financial considerations as maintaining adequate cash flow. Controlling costs in the restaurant business is essential to the success or failure of the establishment. In the hospitality industry, labor costs are very high; in fact, they amount to approximately 45% of operating costs. The goal of this review is to promote further research into identifying the specific criteria that govern the relationship between the use of labor resources and the goal of operating efficiency, mainly with a focus on internal marketing …

Red Lion Hotel Corporation, Yin-Chia Shao

MBA Student Scholarship

This paper is a strategy executing research project of Red Lion Hotels Corporation. The research content includes the nature of the business, environmental analysis, strategy position within the industry, competitive advantage, strategic history, evaluate strategy and a conclusion. The company grew from a focused differentiation strategy to a broad differentiation diversification. Examining the business environment analysis, the external environment has a moderately strong impact on the company and the internal environment has a moderately weak position. The inferior position is a disadvantage to the Red Lion Hotel Corporation's growth. In addition, compared the company with Choice International Hotels, Inc and …

Developing A Culturally Responsive Classroom Collaborative Of Faculty, Students, And Institution, Paul J. Colbert

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

Culture is integral to the learning process. It is the organization and way of life within the community of students and teachers and directs the way they communicate, interact, and approach teaching and learning. Although founded in particular values and principles, the academy, like most organizations, is impacted day-to-day by its culture. Yet, the traditional higher education institution has not been designed to operate within a racially or ethnically diverse student population. The social, political, economic, and cultural forces that support the institution influence the teaching and learning environments. To better address cultural diversity in the classroom, faculty must first …

With The Financial Crisis Over, Banks Are Hiring Again – But With A Different Job Description, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The massive blood-letting that was supposed to happen with the recent financial crisis went by, without much of hoopla – at least in this part of the world – and many financial institutions are hiring again. However, with new market reforms, human resource managers are mulling over job descriptions. The mindset to maximise profits may be important, but according to the experts, professionals in the industry will be expected to bring more onto the table – to be accountable to a wider circle of stakeholders and to demonstrate a different set of values.

Analysis Of The Military Medical Retirement System, Joseph M. Barnum

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the 60 year old military medical retirement system. Specifically, this thesis answered three research questions regarding a comparison of pay between the current system and the societal standard for injury and illness, identification of current segments of the military population disproportionately affected by the current system, and establishment of a minimal standard for medical retirement compensation. Previous research established the societal standard for compensation as the Value of Statistical Life. This thesis compared the current military medical retirement system with the Value of Statistical Life and identified several segments of the military …

The Correlation Of Human Capital On Costs Of Air Force Acquisition Programs, Stephen E. Gray

Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies have linked human capital with performance. The studies have shown performance, measured as output, of a firm can be increased by adding more personnel and/or increasing education levels. This research uses the Cobb-Douglas Production function to build upon that relationship of inputs to outputs. The output in this study is the average cost overrun of Aeronautical Systems Center research, development, test, and evaluation contracts managed from 1994 to 2008. The inputs are the numbers of military/government employee financial managers, program managers, engineers, rated personnel, and military/government employees in those career fields possessing a graduate degree or higher. A …

Modeling U.S. Occupational Health Costs, Joseph M. Bauer

Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this research was to improve the effectiveness of cost comparison analyses for the 75th Aerospace Medicine Group, Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Bioenvironmental engineers sought a more robust cost comparison tool, allowing engineers to quickly determine the viability of proposed occupational health-related expenditures. To justify the funding of potential projects, engineers must quantify the expected cost savings. Improved cost comparison analysis enables personnel to better justify worthy projects or filter out uneconomical solutions. A secondary purpose of this research was to validate Department of Defense (DoD) occupational illness cost factors. This research effort focused on cost …

Ceo Characteristics, Ceo-Firm Match And Corporate Refocus Value, Sheng Huang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates how CEO characteristics affect firm value through divestiture. Using a novel dataset tracking CEO’s career path, from which CEO’s talent and expertise are reasonably inferred, I find when CEOs have differing abilities across divisions of conglomerates, they more likely divest divisions that they are less qualified to manage, and focus on divisions of better match with their talents and expertise. The better match of their talents with firms’ retained assets is the source of value creation from refocusing divestiture. Divestitures that increase corporate focus but not improve the talent-asset match do not create value in long run. …

Employee Incentives To Make Firm Specific Investment: Implications For Resource-Based Theories Of Corporate Diversification, Heli Wang, Jay B. Barney

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We argue that the risk associated with the value of a firm's core resources has an impact on employee decisions to make firm-specific investments, independent of the threat of opportunism that might exist in a particular exchange. We further explore mechanisms firms may adopt to mitigate the employee incentive problem stemming from the risk associated with core resource value. These arguments shed new light on resource-based theories of corporate diversification.

Full-Time Faculty Salaries By College By Rank & By Gender, Wku Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate

Report of full-time faculty salaries by college by rank and by gender for FY 2005-2006.

Obesity, Educational Attainment, And State Economic Welfare, Martin W. Sivula Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

For the first time in history, estimates of the overweight people in the world rival estimates of those malnourished. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) ranked obesity among the top 10 risks to human health worldwide. In the early 1960s, nearly half of the Americans were overweight and 13% were obese. Today some 64% of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5% are obese. Even more alarming, twice as many U.S. children are overweight than were twenty years ago, a 66% increase. Non-communicable diseases impose a heavy economic burden on already strained health systems. Health is a key determinant of development …

The Balanced Scorecard At Futura Industries, Andra Gumbus, Susan D. Johnson

WCBT Faculty Publications

Most companies use the balanced scorecard (BSC) to focus on the financial aspects or the operational metrics required by ISO quality certification. But that is not all one unique company uses the BSC for. At Futura Industries, President Susan Johnson built the enterprise's success over the past 3 years on the BSC's foundational level - the learning, innovation, and growth dimension. This dimension provides the building blocks that generate success in the remaining 3 quadrants: customer service, financial, and internal operations. And the results have followed: a 50% increase in revenue without adding personnel from 1996 to 1999. This organization …

Risk Management In Banking & Insurance Sector, Rakesh Agarwal

Management Dynamics

No abstract provided.

Sampling Concepts, Paul Boyd, Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

The usefulness of any research is dependent upon how well the group studied represents the group about which decisions are to be made or conclusions drawn. That is, it depends upon how well the sample reflects relevant characteristics of the population. When it is possible to study every member of that group there is no problem, for on these occasions we can easily calculate the exact attribute (parameter) of interest for our population.

For example, if we were interested in determining the average number of gallons of gasoline sold to customers at our service station yesterday, we …

Human Capital Valuation: An Improved Model, Deep Chatterjee, M Kalidas, Kaushik Kundu, Pankaj Gautam, Sumit Shantanu

IIMB Management Review

Human capital is one of the buzzwords of the knowledge society. The concept lay dormant for two centuries after Adam Smith first introduced it, but it was revived in the 1960s by American economists, such as Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer, who then exported it triumphantly around the world. Human capital is a beautifully unifying idea facilitating quantitative analyses. It is an excellent vehicle for framing policy discussions too, whether on schooling, training, or labor market performance. But companies differin the models they use to value human capital. An attempt has been made here to develop a model that can …

Empowerment And Growth: The Eva Story At Tcs, S Mahalingam

IIMB Management Review

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) employs over 15000 professionals, has offices in 23 countries and projects in 50 countries across the world, and revenues around $700 million. Among its clientele are a number of Fortune 500 companies and it is in the league of 30 top IT consulting firms in the world. TCS today is an Indian enterprise with a global reach. Its hiring and people care practices are in line with the industry practices and the compensation model has been traditional. The company has now set its sights on becoming a truly global organization. Its vision is to be among …

The Role Of The State In Economic Development : A Case Study Of Johor, Malaysia, Wei Lin Tan

Student Works (2000-2009)

Johor is one of the fastest growing stales in Malaysia. Its strong economic growth is very much to the credit of the state; in one form or another, the government intervened, systematically and through multiple channel to foster development. In relation to this, the study found that the state has not only created a business-friendly environment where the legal and regulatory structure was generally hospitable to private investment. the state has also established clear performance criteria for selective interventions and to monitor performance. In other words, intervention has taken place in disciplined and performance- based criteria. The State has been …

Measuring And Evaluating Sales Force Training Effectiveness: A Proposed And An Empirically Tested Model, Ashraf Magdy Attia

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Recent reports show that 95% of organizations conduct some form of sales training and organizations spend more than $30 billion dollars annually on sales training programs. According to {\it Sales \& Marketing Management\/} (1993), the average estimated field training costs for a sales trainee is \$37,000. Due to the accelerating investments in sales training, Honeycutt, Ford, and Rao (1995) found that 57% of sales training executives said that the major area in greatest need of additional research is determining sales training effectiveness.

The research contained herein addresses a gap in the marketing literature by: (1) proposing and testing a model …

A Vft Approach To Allocation Of Manpower And Budget Cuts, Thomas G. Boushell

Theses and Dissertations

The National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC), like many Department of Defense (DoD) and civilian organizations, has been forced to undergo budget and manpower reductions. This year's resource allocation decision requires NAIC to identify both contracts and personnel to be cut. In order to reduce the amount of time and subjectivity involved in this important decision, a resource allocation model was developed to compare different alternatives. This model uses decision analysis with value-focused thinking to quantify the resultant impact of the chosen cuts. The impact was quantified based upon the NAIC Commander's values and preferences, which were used to build a …

No. 130 1997 November

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents

Are Salaries In The National Hockey League Related To Nationality?, William (Bill) H. Williams, David A. Williams

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

No. 129 1997 April

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents

No. 128 1996 November

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents

Exhibit - Wku Compensation Study Report, W.F. Corroon Consultants

Board of Regents Documents

Study to address issues of internal fairness and market competitiveness of salaries for all non-faculty staff below the director level performed by W.F. Corroon Consultants.

No. 127 1996 April

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents

No. 126 1995 November

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents

No. 125 1995 April

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents

No. 124 1994 November

International Journal for Business Education

SIEC Historical Documents