Executive pay is one of the most hotly debated topics around. Are executives being fairly compensated for their contributions to firm and shareholder value, or are they overpaid? One of the obstacles to finding the answer has been the difficulty in measuring pay versus contribution, but now Bang Dang Nguyen and Kasper Meisner Nielsen have come up with an ... Read More

Enron Corporation, Tyco International, WorldCom… you don’t have to be an investor or an economist to know that these were three of the more notorious corporate scandals of the early 2000s. In 2002, in response to these and other malpractices the US Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) by an overwhelming majority, with a view to strengthening ... Read More

Much has been written about how abusive supervision can lead to organisational deviance, or misbehaviour, among subordinates. But as Huiwen Lian, D. Lance Ferris, Rachel Morrison and Douglas J Brown report, these reports typically end with a short note that the opposite may also be true. So which is it? The supervisor or the subordinate? The authors produce ... Read More

You wish to rent an apartment and the agent shows you descriptions of two one-bedroom apartments in the same price range. Apartment A is superior in terms of size, public transport and closet space; Apart B scores highly for its stunning views, amount of sunlight and the stylish décor. How do you choose? If you use your head the “cognitive dimensions” of ... Read More

Executive pay disparity – as when the CEO earns significantly more than the other top managers – has become a red flag issue for investors. Moody’s, for instance, sees high disparity as a credit risk. It can also affect the cost of equity capital, as a study by Zhihong Chen, Yuan Huang and K.C. John Wei has shown. The cost of capital is one of the key ... Read More

Brand alliances bring together two or more brands in joint marketing events that in theory should benefit all participants. But the science behind which brand alliances make the best “fit” has been weak, complicated by the difficulty in collecting data and determining the best measures. The reason is that brands are strategically combined into alliances ... Read More

Assume you are the head of R&D at a high-tech firm that develops new accessories for cell phones. One year ago, $200 million was budgeted to develop a new cell phone battery instead of developing a new cell phone screen. To date, $100 million has been spent, and the project is 75% complete. Then the company hears that a competitor has just marketed a cell ... Read More

Large firms often grapple with hundreds of simultaneous decisions relating to investments in information systems (IS). But the question of why some decisions are approved and others rejected, and how that relates to the firm’s IS strategy, has not been properly studied. A new study addresses that gap by developing a model and applying it to actual decision ... Read More

At the cashier of a fast-food restaurant, online, in the supermarket – there are countless opportunities every day when we are likely to see others make consumption decisions. There are even times when those same customers watch us subsequently make our choice, perhaps when they see us drop the same product in our basket. A study by researchers Young Eun Huh ... Read More

If you see that a bottle of Chardonnay has dropped in price from $7.00 to $6.99, does it feel like you’re getting a bargain? The chances are it does – and you decide to buy it. In fact, the product is only one cent cheaper – so not such a great deal, after all! You probably wouldn’t buy it if it had fallen from $7.08 to $7.07. It is all because the left-hand ... Read More