All posts by Business School

Accounting, Taxation

Cognitive Responses to Partitioned Pricing of Consumption Taxes: Consequences for State and Local Tax Revenues

Cynthia Blanthorne and Michael L. Roberts
The Journal of the American Taxation Association, Vol. 37, Issue 1, pp. 183-204

How do taxpayers respond cognitively to add-on sales taxes versus all-inclusive excise taxes? If structural variations produce cognitive differences, then do the differences affect buying behavior? These are important questions because consumer spending drives the U.S. economy and directly determines the amount of tax revenues collected from consumption taxes.

If the negative opinion that people have about taxes (Tax Foundation 2009) increases the saliency of the tax, then an add-on sales tax might decrease consumer spending more than an all-inclusive excise tax pricing structure. Instead, results suggest that demand is higher when the add-on component is a sales tax as compared to an excise tax that is embedded into the total price. The effects on demand are even more pronounced and people recall lower prices when the add-on sales tax is presented as a percentage of the base price—as is generally the case in the U.S.—rather than as an additional currency component.

Health Management, Information Systems

Extending Care Outside of the Hospital Walls: A Case of Value Creation through Synchronous Video Communication for Knowledge Exchange in Community Health Network

Jiban Khuntia, Mohan Tanniru, John Zervos
International Journal of E-Business Research (IJEBR), Volume 11 Issue 2, Pp. 1-17

In healthcare settings knowledge exchange among important stakeholders such as doctors, family and patients, and other care providers is a critical imperative. However, such a community modelled approach is missing, limited in scope or its business value not well understood. In this study, the authors illustrate the value potential and subsequent development of a business model for knowledge exchange within the healthcare delivery model outside a hospital setting. Specifically, they illustrate how Synchronous Video Consultation with social media features, in a staged approach, can support knowledge exchange among a network of community health care professionals who address global health disparities and sustain this exchange through resource generation. The authors discuss the contributions and implications of the proposed framework towards value creation in a collaborative setting in general and suggest opportunities for future research.

Entrepreneurship

The University of Colorado Certificate Program in Bioinnovation and Entrepreneurship: An Update and Current Status

Madhavan Parthasarathy, David Forlani, Arlen Meyers
Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, Vol. 21 Issue 2, April 2015

The purpose of this paper is to provide an update and report the current status of the cross-campus University of Colorado Denver program in bioinnovation and entrepreneurship, details of which were first reported in the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology in 2012 5. The paper outlines the joys and challenges of implementing an inter-campus program that attempts to marry cutting-edge biotechnology innovation with a solid business foundation. The tremendous value offered by such a program, particularly …

Accounting

Infer, predict, and assure: Accounting opportunities in data analytics

Gary P Schneider, Jun Dai, Diane J Janvrin, Kemi Ajayi, Robyn L Raschke
Accounting Horizons,Vol. 29, Issue 3, Pages: 719-742.

The business use of data analytics is growing rapidly in the accounting environment. Similar to many new systems that involve accounting information, data analytics has fundamentally changed task processes, particularly those tasks that provide inference, prediction, and assurance to decision-makers. Thus, accounting researchers and practitioners must consider data analytics and its impact on accounting practice in their work. This paper uses the organizing principles from Mauldin and Ruchala’s (1999) meta-theory …
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Business Analytics

Integrating tabu search and VLSN search to develop enhanced algorithms: A case study using bipartite boolean quadratic programs

Fred Glover, Tao Ye, Abraham P. Punnen, Gary Kochenberger
European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 241, Issue 3, 16 March 2015, Pages 697–707

The bipartite boolean quadratic programming problem (BBQP) is a generalization of the well studied boolean quadratic programming problem. The model has a variety of real life applications; however, empirical studies of the model are not available in the literature, except in a few isolated instances. In this paper, we develop efficient heuristic algorithms based on tabu search, very large scale neighborhood (VLSN) search, and a hybrid algorithm that integrates the two. The computational study establishes that effective integration of simple tabu search with VLSN search results in superior outcomes, and suggests the value of such an integration in other settings. Complexity analysis and implementation details are provided along with conclusions drawn from experimental analysis. In addition, we obtain solutions better than the best previously known for almost all medium and large size benchmark instances.

Management

Why Institutions Matter: Stakeholder Attention to Organizational Ethics Commitments

David Chandler
Research in the Sociology of Organizations (Institutions and Ideals: Philip Selznick’s Legacy for Organizational Studies), Volume 44, March 2015, Pages 201-235

This paper investigates the substance of institutions in the context of business ethics. In particular, I test a theory of stakeholder attention to resource commitments by firms that implement the Ethics and Compliance Officer (ECO) position, from 1990 to 2008. Results support the hypothesized curvilinear relationship between resource commitments and stakeholder attention À while both high and low levels of ECO implementation generate low levels of reported ethics transgressions (the former due to good firm behavior and the …

Information Systems

Role of Social Media in Social Change: An Analysis of Collective Sense Making During the 2011 Egypt Revolution

Onook Oh, Chanyoung Eom, H Raghav Rao
Information Systems Research,Vol. 26, Issue 1, Pages: 210-223.

This study explores the role of social media in social change by analyzing Twitter data collected during the 2011 Egypt Revolution. Particular attention is paid to the notion of collective sense making, which is considered a critical aspect for the emergence of collective action for social change. We suggest that collective sense making through social media can be conceptualized as human-machine collaborative information processing that involves an interplay of signs, Twitter grammar, humans, and social technologies. We focus on the …
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Management

The survey effect: Does administering surveys affect trainees’ behavior?

Traci Sitzmann, Mo Wang
Learning and Individual Differences, Volume 37, January 2015,  Pages 1-12

This research demonstrates a survey effect, such that the act of administering  surveys alters training effectiveness. Two aspects of survey administration were  manipulated: the number of survey questions per training module (ranged from 1 to 30  across experimental conditions) and the type of survey questions (self-regulation or trainee reactions) across two studies focusing on self-administered online training. The number of survey questions had an indirect, negative effect on learning via the amount of time spent …

Information Systems

The Role of Dynamic Capabilities in Responding to Digital Disruption: A Factor Based Study of the Newspaper Industry

Jahangir Karimi and Zhiping Walter
Journal of Management Information Systems, Volume 32, Issue 1, Pp. 39-81.

Internet and digitization are fundamentally changing and disrupting newspaper companies’ traditional operating models. Disruptive innovation theory offers explanations for why companies succeed or fail to respond to disruptive innovations. This study builds on disruptive innovation theory by ascertaining the role of dynamic capabilities in the performance of response to digital disruption. Empirical results suggest that first-order dynamic capabilities that are created by changing, extending, or adapting a firm’s existing resources, processes, and values are positively associated with building digital platform capabilities, and that these capabilities impact the performance of response to digital disruption. For information systems (IS) researchers, this study clarifies the role of first-order dynamic capabilities in responding to digital disruption. For IS practice, it helps managers to focus on the most promising factors for creating first-order dynamic capabilities, for building digital platform capabilities, and for reinventing their core functions to accelerate digitization.

Information Systems

Lemon Complaints: When Online Auctions Go Sour

Judy E. Scott, Dawn G. Gregg, and Jae Hoon Choi
Information Systems Frontiers, Vol 17 Issue 1, January 2015, pp. 177-191.

“Lemon” complaints reveal that online auction experiences can turn sour. Theory on information asymmetry explains how “lemons” could drive high quality items away from a market leaving a dominance of poor quality goods. In this paper we analyze “lemon” complaints using content analysis and hierarchical logistic regression. In the data collection of 306 complaints from 8 product categories in online auctions, the results show that compared to standard products “lemons” are much more likely if the product category is for functional items, such as computers and consumer electronics; non-standard items with product description complexity, such as collectibles; and fragile items, such as pottery and glassware. Contrary to expectations, clothing and jewelry, representing sensory products, did not have a statistically significant impact on the frequency of “lemons”. Although two seller negative feedback rating measures did predict non-receipt of goods, seller and buyer ratings and experience did not predict “lemons”.

Management

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Strategic Perspective

David Chandler
Business Expert Press, November 2014

The goal of this project is to detail the core, defining principles of strategic CSR that differentiate it as a concept from the rest of the CSR/sustainability/business ethics field. It is designed to be a provocative piece, but one that solidifies the intellectual framework around an emerging concept–strategic CSR. The foundation for these principles comes from my perspective as a management professor within the business school. As such, it is a pragmatic philosophy, oriented around stakeholder theory, that is designed to persuade …

Management

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful: Acknowledging appearance mitigates the “beauty is beastly” effect

Stefanie K Johnson, Traci Sitzmann, Anh Thuy Nguyen
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 125 Issue 2, November 2014, Pages 184-192

Physically attractive women are discriminated against when applying for masculine sex-typed jobs, a phenomenon known as the beauty is beastly  effect. We conducted three studies to establish an intervention for mitigating the beauty is beastly effect and to determine mediators and moderators of the intervention. As expected, physically attractive women were rated higher in employment suitability when they acknowledged that their sex or physical appearance is incongruent with the typical applicant for a masculine sex-typed …

Finance

The differential impact of the bank–firm relationship on IPO underpricing: evidence from China

Xiangchao Hao, Jing Shi, Jian Yang
Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Vol. 30, November 2014, Pp. 207-232

This study investigates the impact of the bank–firm relationship on IPO underpricing in China, an emerging economy with a bank-dominated financial system. Utilizing a hand-collected loan data for 902 Chinese IPO firms from 2004 to 2011, we document that the bank–firm relationship reduces the degree of IPO underpricing. Both the lender’s and the borrower’s firm characteristics affect the signal quality of the bank–firm relationship, resulting in differential impacts on IPO underpricing. The relationship between firms and banks with …

Marketing

Measuring the financial value of marketing strategy with excess stock market return

Vicki Lane
International Journal of Risk and Contingency Management (IJRCM), Volume 3, Issue 4, Pp. 16

This paper proposes excess stock market return as a way to measure the impact of marketing strategy on firm value. First, it provides an overview of event study method. An event study examines the excess return to a firm’s stock price after the release of information that is relevant to the firm’s financial success. Second, it shows how excess return captures a marketing strategy’s impact on firm value. It presents a model that illustrates how a marketing strategy impacts consumers, future cash flows, firm value, investor’s expectations, and excess return. Third, a comparison shows that excess return stacks up well against standard marketing metrics. Excess return yields unbiased estimates, allows direct causal inference, is future oriented, includes all cash flows, accounts for opportunity costs, factors in risk, and takes into account the time value of money.

Management

Learning to Behave Badly: Performance Feedback and Illegal Organizational Action

Vinit Desai
Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 23, Issue 5, Pp. 1327-1355.

Two perspectives predict how organizational performance influences illegal action. First, poor performance creates tension, leading decision makers to repair the gap through any means necessary. However, strong performance also bolsters risky behavior, possibly leading to violations. To integrate these perspectives, I suggest that performance evaluation provides only the motive to commit illegal action and that decision makers also require an opportunity to do so. I extend organizational learning theory by suggesting that managers in organizations performing far from expectations may evaluate information about the potential success of illegal acts, and I examine whether they use this information to time violations.

Accounting

Who did the audit? Audit quality and disclosures of other audit participants in PCAOB filings

Carol Callaway Dee, Ayalew Lulseged, Tianming Zhang
The Accounting Review,Vol. 90, Issue 5, Pages: 1939-1967.

We empirically test whether audit quality is affected when part of an SEC issuer’s audit is outsourced to auditors other than the principal auditor (“participating auditors”). We find a significantly negative market reaction and a significant decline in earnings response coefficients (ERCs) for experimental issuers disclosed for the first time as having participating auditors involved in their audits. However, we find no market reaction and no decline in ERCs for a matching sample of issuers that are not disclosed as using …
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Finance, Sustainability

Explaining the Location of Mission-Driven Businesses: An Examination of B-Corps

Hickman, Leila; Byrd, John; Hickman, Kent
Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Volume 2014, Number 55

In his well-known essay, Milton Friedman (1970) argued that it is the social responsibility of business to maximize profit. While such laissez-faire reasoning theoretically considers the welfare of all the stakeholders in the business enterprise through market pricing mechanisms, there is a growing and pressing concern with market failures. Among these failures are externalities, issues of inter-generational equity and short-termism, the commons problem, and decision making biases. The ramifications of these market imperfections have manifested themselves in climate change, financial crises, and deforestation, among other global challenges. Some businesses have responded by refocusing their mission away from solely profit maximisation to broader, more sustainable goals. In this paper, we explore the factors that contribute to businesses adopting one such innovation, the B-Corporation designation.

Management

Examining project commitment in cross-functional teams: Antecedents and relationship with team performance

Kyle Ehrhardt, Janice S. Miller, Sarah J. Freeman, and Peter W. Hom
Journal of Business and Psychology, Volume 29, Issue 3, pp 443–461

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test a model positing both antecedents and consequences of project commitment for members of cross-functional teams. Signaling theory and previous research guided study hypotheses.

Design/Methodology/Approach: We collected primary data from 142 team members and 31 team leaders across 24 cross-functional product development teams nested within six manufacturing organizations in the US and Canada.

Findings: Findings suggest that project commitment among team members is an important driver of team performance as rated by the team leader. In addition, several factors contribute toward shaping project commitment among cross-functional team members, including team leaders’ encouragement of self-expectation, as well as team members’ perceptions of an organization’s support for the team project.

Implications: Cross-functional teams are often charged with completing projects critical to the profitability, growth, and even survival of a firm. Especially as we show that members’ project commitment is a meaningful predictor of team performance, managers may draw insight from study results as to what actions may be taken to promote the development of this important psychological state among members of cross-functional teams.

Originality/Value: Use of cross-functional teams for accomplishing a wide variety of firm objectives is becoming commonplace in organizations. Although theorized as an important construct in cross-functional team settings, empirical examinations of the nature and implications of project commitment have been limited. By examining both antecedents and potential team performance consequences of project commitment in multiple organizations, we contribute toward filling this gap.