In view of the numerous accounting and corporate scandals associated with various forms of moral misconduct and the recent financial crisis, economics and
business programs are often accused of actively contributing to the amoral decision making of their graduates. It is argued that theories and ideas taught at universities engender moral misbehavior among some managers, as these theories mainly focus on the primacy of profit-maximization and typically neglect the ethical and moral dimensions of decision making. To investigate this criticism, two overlapping effects must be disentangled: the self-selection effect and the treatment effect. Drawing on the concept of moral judgment competence, we empirically examine this question with a sample of 1773 bachelor’s and 501 master’s students. Our results reveal that there is neither a self-selection nor a treatment effect for economics and business studies. Moreover, our results indicate that—regardless of the course of studies—university education in
general does not seem to foster students’ moral development
Previous organizational research on decoupling in the context of socio-environmental governance has suggested a trade-off between compliance and goal achievement, meaning that remedying the decoupling of policies and practices tends to jeopardize efforts to remedy the decoupling of means and ends. We expand on previous research on the trade-off between compliance and goal achievement by examining the spatiotemporal processes of sensemaking by which the meaning of compliance and achievement is negotiated among multiple actors. Taking a qualitative analytical approach we examine the evolution of anti-corruption policies at Siemens and affiliated actors, and describe how different anti-corruption narratives have developed over time at different locations and how they have been linked to each other. We explain that through narration actors develop a shared understanding of what it means to be compliant and successful and elaborate how the apparent tension between compliance and goal achievement is dissolved through story-telling. Our study contributes to decoupling re-search by examining the ideational-communicative dynamics underlying the social deconstruction of the compliance-achievement gap.
In den letzten Jahren scheinen Unternehmen vermehrt CEOs einzustellen, die bereits vorher in derselben Branche und in einem Unternehmen mit vergleichbarer Grösse tätig waren und damit über vermeintlich relevante Erfahrung verfügen. Doch welche Rolle spielt es für die Unternehmensperformance überhaupt, ob ein neuer CEO bereits solche Erfahrungen mitbringt?
In diesem Beitrag werden die impliziten Kapitalkosten fur den Schweizer Aktienmarkt auf monatlicher Basis fur einen Zeitraum von Januar 2006 bis Juni 2014 ermittelt. Diese stellen auf die aktuellen Erwartungen der Marktteilnehmer fur die Zukunft ab und fuhren so zu zukunftsorientierten Werten fur die Eigenkapitalkosten. Entsprechend den gestiegenen Unsicherheiten am Kapitalmarkt verzeichnet die Schweizer Marktrisikopramie in der Finanzkrise von 2008 und im Sommer 2011 mit der zunehmenden Frankenstarke einen deutlichen Anstieg. Die Branchenrisikopramien schwanken ebenfalls mit den konjunkturellen Veranderungen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ausserdem, dass Analystenschatzungen fur Schweizer Unternehmen auch in volatilen Zeiten verzerrt und ungenau sind, wobei Argumente fur und gegen eine daraus resultierende Verzerrung der Kapitalkosten diskutiert werden.
In this paper, I derive the implied cost of capital for the Swiss capital market on a monthly basis for the period from January 2006 to June 2014. Implied cost of capital models consider the actual expectations of market participants for future periods when deriving the cost of capital. In line with increased uncertainty in capital markets, the Swiss market risk premium shows a substantial increase during the financial crisis of 2008 as well in summer of 2011 when the Swiss Franc strengthened substantially. Industry risk premia also fluctuate with changes in the economic conditions. The results further show that analysts’ forecasts of earnings of Swiss firms are biased and inaccurate in volatile times, and I discuss conditions under which this may result in biased estimates of the cost of capital.
This paper presents an analysis of the higher-order dynamics of key financial quantities in asset-pricing models with recursive preferences. For this purpose, we first describe a projection-based algorithm for solving such models. The method outperforms common methods like discretization and log-linearization in terms of effciency and accuracy. Our algorithm allows us to document the presence of strong nonlinear effects in the modern long-run risks models which cannot be captured by the common methods. For example, for a prominent recent calibration of a popular long-run risks model, the log-linearization approach overstates the equity premium by 100 basis points or 22.5%. The increasing complexity of state-of-the-art asset-pricing models leads to complex nonlinear equilibrium functions with considerable curvature which in turn have sizable economic implications. Therefore, these models require numerical solution methods, such as the projection methods presented in this paper, that can adequately describe the higher-
order equilibrium features.
We compare the performance of a specifically designed feedforward artificial neural network with one layer of hidden units to the K-means clustering technique in solving the problem of cluster-based market segmentation. The data set analyzed consists of usages of brands (product category: household cleaners) in different usage situations. The proposed feedforward neural network model results in a two segment solution that is confirmed by appropriate tests. On the other hand, the K-means algorithm fails in discovering any somewhat stronger cluster structure. Classification of respondents on the basis of external criteria is better for the neural network solution. We also demonstrate the managerial interpretability of the network results.
In this paper, the authors develop a model to predict collected amounts of glass at the regional level of municipalities. Learning about the factors that influence the amount of collected glass is a prerequisite for the evaluation and reorganisation of collection systems. Furthermore, such a model provides essential input for decisions like restructuring activities, implementation of legal directives or investments into new recycling plants. The authors hypothesise that the amount of collected glass depends on both, the waste glass potential and factors which influence the convenience such as the density of collection sites. The authors develop a multivariate regression model providing valuable insights about the relationship between demographic parameters and the amount of collected waste glass, as well as between logistic parameters and collected waste glass. The aim of such a model is the identification of parameters which significantly influence the amount of collected waste in order to provide decision makers with a tool for accurate planning. A significant positive impact of the logarithmic number of collection sites on the amount of waste glass collected was found. A significant impact of the percentage of city area, overnight stays per person, percentage of employees in the service sector, indices of purchasing power and percentage of alpine area were identified. The model explains the amount of collected waste glass and can help to estimate the waste glass potential.
The aim of this paper is to develop a model predicting the collected amount of waste paper at the regional level of municipalities. Learning about the factors that influence the amount of collected paper is a prerequisite for the evaluation and reorganization of collection systems. We hypothesize that the amount of collected paper depends on both the waste potential and the factors which influence the convenience such as the density of collection sites. For this study, we used a sample of 649 municipalities. Between the municipalities, the data show a high variance in terms of the collected waste paper per person and year. We developed a multivariate regression model providing valuable insights about the relationship between demographic parameters and the amount of collected waste paper. Furthermore, we found a significant positive impact of the convenience of the collection system.
Pay-per-bid auctions require all bidders to pay for every bid. However, paying bidding fees without receiving the auction item in return often causes high dissatisfaction among losers, resulting in heated discussions and high churn rates. To reduce these negative reactions, pay-per-bid auctioneers created the Buy-Now feature, which allows losers to put all or part of the bidding fees that they paid during an auction toward buying the auction item. Using unique data, including individual customer bidding histories and cost data from more than 6,800 pay-per-bid auctions, we find that, overall, the Buy-Now feature leads to more aggressive bidding behavior, attracts more bidders, increases loyalty, and results in a higher profit per auction. However, for voucher auctions that represent common value auctions, the Buy-Now feature causes a decrease in the number of bidders and the profit per auction, although we find an increase in the average number of bids per bidder. We also show theoretically that a bidder can pursue a risk-free bidding strategy. However, we find empirically that bidders rarely use this strategy.
