Journal of Applied Business and Economics

Managerial Self-References in Corporate Disclosures: An Analysis of MD&A

Yamin Hao, Ying Mao, Xiaojia Wang — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

This study examines strategic pronoun usage in the Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) section of annual reports. Through automated textual analysis of a large sample of MD&As, we find that managers of firms with higher earnings growth tend to use more self-inclusive pronouns(e.g., “ we, ” “ us, ” and “ our ”) and fewer self-exclusive words (e.g., “the company ”). This self-referential language pattern is associated with a higher likelihood of future financial restatements. Our findings contribute to the literature on corporate narrative disclosures and identify a potential new indicator of financial misstatements. The results have implications for investors, analysts, auditors, and regulators.

Exploring the Effects of the Information Asymmetry on the Card-Debt Crisis

Chih-Hsiung Chang, Chung-Wei Li, Tung Hsiao, Sheng-Hsin Chang — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The article aimed to explore the effects of the information asymmetry on the card-debt crisis in Taiwan’s credit card market. The card-debt crisis of the credit cards broke out in Taiwan in 2005. To improve this situation, the financial authorities were forced to intervene in the market. The article employed the documents analysis and collected the related literature and statistical data to construct the information asymmetry model and the proposed hypotheses of the adverse selections and the moral hazards. The results concluded that the card-debt crisis did stem from the information asymmetry, and was alleviated by the intervention of the financial authorities.

Optimizing Healthcare Flexible Spending Account Contributions Using Inventory Management Theories: An Interdisciplinary Study

Bo Li — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The healthcare Flexible Spending Account (FSA) offers employees significant tax benefits by allowing the use of pre-tax funds for healthcare expenses, but it also carries the risk of forfeiting unspent funds. To address the challenge of maximizing tax savings while minimizing the risk of forfeiture, this study applies inventory management and economic theories to develop a heuristic for optimizing FSA contributions. Both basic and extended versions of FSAs are examined, alongside the impact of marginal tax rates on decision-making. A simulation model demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed heuristic, with results showing minimal deviations from the optimal solutions—less than 0.42% for the basic version and 3.11% for the extended version, and performance differences of less than 0.005% and 0.08%, respectively. By integrating operations management, economic theories, and personal finance research, this study introduces a novel decision-support tool for optimizing FSA contributions, while also laying the groundwork for future research in this interdisciplinary field.

The Trump Tax Penalty and Its Impact on the Economy

W. Terry Dancer — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed into law by former President Donald J. Trump in 2017.The law took effect on January 1, 2018.The law permanently cut the corporate tax rate to 21% and temporarily lowered individual tax rates. Evidence in this paper will demonstrate how an older married couple on Social Security and a modest pension actually incurred higher federal income taxes during the years 2018- 2021 as a result of TCJA. Paying higher federal income taxes as a result of TCJA is the Trump Tax Penalty.

Comparing Sustainability Practices of Large US Corporations: Domestic vs. International Operations

M. Anaam Hashmi, Jamal Al-Khatib — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Large US corporations are leading the way in reshaping business practices despite the absence of a national consensus regarding sustainability policies. This study highlights the commitment of some large US corporations to environmental, social, and corporate governance criteria and their widely employed sustainability practices compared with other global corporations. A survey of Fortune 500 corporations was conducted to identify their commitment to the nine major sustainability practices across domestic and international operations. Our findings indicate that several of the surveyed corporations exhibited significant adoption of these practices both domestically and internationally. Both hypotheses were rejected in favor of alternate hypotheses.

Stay or Leave: Investigating Factors Impact Crowd-Based Workers’ Platform-Based Justice Perceptions and Turnover Intentions

Xiaochuan Song — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Crowdsourcing has emerged as a transformative business model, harnessing collective intelligence to tackle complex tasks efficiently. However, the impact of crowd-based platforms on workers’ justice perceptions is still understudied. This research delves into organizational justice perceptions among crowd-based workers, focusing on platform features that influence these perceptions as well as workers’ subsequent turnover intentions. Drawing on data collected from 364 workers across multiple platforms, findings indicate that equitable compensation policies, participative evaluation, interactive and considerate communication, and rule-based evaluation can enhance procedural, distributive, and interactional justice perceptions, which in turn, significantly reduce turnover intentions. Moreover, media richness moderates part of these relationships, strengthening the mitigating effects of justice perceptions on turnover intentions. The study contributes to understanding the dynamics of organizational justice in crowdsourcing contexts and provides insights for platform management strategies to enhance worker retention.

Discretionary Accrual in the Knowledge-Based Economy

Pei-Hui Hsu, Ching-Lih Jan, Kim Shima — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The modern economy transit from manufacturing to knowledge-based industries that are dependent on investments in R&D, advertising, and employee talents. These investments and much of the value that they generate cannot be capitalized as assets. As these intangible assets are off-balance-sheet, a firm’s book value might be low. When book value fails to present a firm’s true value, we stipulate that management has incentive to manage its earnings to convey information that is not reflected in the balance sheet. We find that firms with negative book value and in the New Economy use more discretionary accruals.

Societal Impact of the Tennessee Small Business Administration: Lowered Barriers to Entry, State Growth, and Economic Freedom

Dennis Pearson, Amye Melton, Liz Snodgrass — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

This paper focuses on the effects of SBA lending and its possible effects on the economic growth in Tennessee. After all, claims about the belief that small business is the driving force behind job creation and economic growth are found throughout political speeches, newspaper columns, and public policy forums. These claims are frequently presented as justification for tax incentives, regulatory policies, and other government programs that favor small business by removing barriers to entry. Access to capital is often the biggest obstacle for an entrepreneur. This research focused on the relationship between guaranteed loans from the SBA and the economic growth of Tennessee. This research found a positive relationship between the SBA 7A lending and state growth in Tennessee. Thus, providing policymakers evidence that pursuing policies which support economic freedom will continue to support Tennessee’s state growth.

The Effects of Independent Non-Executive Directors (INED) on Company Performance – A Comparison of Family and Non- Family-Controlled Business

Kevin Chi Keung Li, Agol Ho Wai Ming — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This study will examine the influence of and relationship between independent non-executive directors (INEDs) and the performance of family -and non-family -controlled businesses listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK). It is well known and reported that family-managed businesses dominate different industrial sectors around the world and that one third of the companies listed in the Standard and Poor 500 Index in the US are managed by families, who are also the companies’ major shareholders. Many previous studies argue that INEDs can improve corporate governance and firm performance. It is worthwhile to study whether the increase in the number of INEDs will affect the behaviour of major shareholders and the performance of these family-managed firms or not.

The study aims to help policymakers/regulators determine whether further revision of the current INED policy is necessary. The results can be further investigated and applied to other emerging markets/regions worldwide with family-controlled enterprises.

Designing a Digital Interactive Simulation for Teaching Business Analytics, Strategy, and Economics

Moulare Kesse — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Students can experience a challenging period of adaptability as they transition from high school to college class activities. As such, students can potentially lose interest in studying entrepreneurial economics, which often leads to difficulties in choosing the academic path that can fulfill their learning enthusiasm as they debut their college journey. The use of an educational game can potentially spark students’ interest in the study of entrepreneurial economics. This research study explores the functional areas in the design of an educational game and the theoretical framework supporting the use of a digital interactive business simulation to facilitate the practical understanding of processes involved in strategic decisions and business analytics in the study of entrepreneurial economics.

Facility Compliance and Natural Disaster Events: Evidence From the U.S. Clean Air Act

SingRu Hoe, Lirong Liu, Daniel Hsiao — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

With the increasing severity and frequency of natural disasters, we investigate the impact of such events on company environmental performance in the United States. This study analyzes the effect of natural disasters on facility compliance with the Clean Air Act throughout the sample period from 2013 to 2022. Our findings show that facilities located in disaster areas are associated with higher violation rates. By examining individual types of disasters separately, we find that the results are most pronounced for floods, fires, and severe storms. We suggest that regulators collectively evaluate the environmental policies and practices for companies in areas prone to natural disasters.

Institutionalist Thought: Ceremonial-Instrumental Dichotomy of the Veblen-Ayres Tradition

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Veblen and Ayres’ ceremonial-instrumental dichotomy is considered the analytical core of Old Institutional Theory (OIT). This view offers a distinct perspective for analyzing economic issues. The object of economics is studied at the level of cultural generalization, not individual generalization (as neoclassicists do). Human behavior is understood as a process of cumulative adaptation to contextual circumstances. Thus, understanding the meaning of the dichotomy – of doing things and making social distinctions, and of its application to illuminate modern economic problems – deserves attention. This systematic literature review describes the main theoretical, analytical, methodological, and empirical contributions to the ceremonial-instrumental dichotomy of the Veblen-Ayres tradition. To this end, articles on the topic published in the last 46 years were reviewed, which resulted in the analysis of 45 articles, which can be classified as a) conceptual b) methodological; c) empirical, and d) literature reviews. This body of analysis provided insights that lead to inferring the possibility of research in different fields of social sciences.

An Integrated Stochastic Optimization and Simulation Approach to SERU vs. Assembly Line Manufacturing Systems

Gokhan Egilmez, Emre Kirac, Sami Khalafallah — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This research compares SERU manufacturing systems to traditional assembly lines, focusing on the impact of uncertainty in task processing time on production output. The study considers worker skill levels and team identity, using a stochastic mixed integer linear programming approach to model uncertainty and optimize workforce allocation. Discrete event simulation is then integrated to evaluate performance using five key performance indicators (KPIs). Results show that SERU systems outperform traditional lines in terms of throughput when uncertainty is considered. The integrated approach provides more reliable performance data than deterministic optimization alone. The study also highlights the advantages of SERU systems when worker skill levels and team identity are factored in. This research fills a gap in the literature by proposing a stochastic optimization approach that considers uncertainty and worker skill levels, and by integrating stochastic optimization with simulation for comprehensive analysis. This approach provides valuable guidance for production managers in optimizing production systems.

The Impact of Earnings Management on CEO Equity Incentives

Jangwook Lee — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This paper investigates whether firms adjust CEO equity incentives in response to prior earnings management. I show that the risk-taking incentives from new equity grants are lower for firms with higher prior real earnings management (REM), but not for firms with higher prior accruals-based earnings management (AEM). These adjustments are associated with sustained earnings management over the three years before the grant, but not with transitory earnings management. Additionally, I show that firms with higher institutional ownership primarily drive the negative relationship between REM and AEM and risk-taking incentives from new equity grants. My results are consistent with firms altering compensation incentives to restrain managers’ value-reducing behavior, in part, due to the monitoring of institutional investors.

How Prepared Are US States for a Recession: An Update

Erick M. Elder — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Rainy day funds are a common tool that most US states use to help mitigate the fiscal stress caused by economic slowdowns that reduce state government revenue. Except for a very brief (but very severe) recession in 2020 caused by the pandemic, most states have generally experienced an economic expansion since the end of the Great Recession in 2009 giving them well over a decade to accumulate savings in a Rainy-Day Fund (RDF) to help weather an economic downturn. This paper examines how state RDF’s have changed over the past decade and how these changes have affected each state’s ability to weather an economic downturn.

Does Intellectual Capital Influence Firm's Financial Performance in Bangladesh?

Md. Sohel Rana, Syed Zabid Hossain — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This paper aimed to find the effects of intellectual capital and its components on firms’ financial performance in Bangladesh. A sample of 100 firms comprised of 48 manufacturing, 21 services, and 31 banking companies was studied for five years from 2017 to 2021, setting 500 firm-year observations. Data was collected purposively from secondary sources, such as annual reports of sampled companies. The robust fixed-effect regression model using STATA 14.2 software was applied to test the hypothesis due to autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity problems. The regression results documented that overall IC, human capital efficiency (HCE), and capital employed efficiency (CEE) positively and significantly enhanced the ROA and ROE of the firms. However, structural capital efficiency (SCE) and relational capital efficiency (RCE) negatively and insignificantly influenced the same. The study contributes to resource-based theory using econometric methods to extend the samples of both financial and non-financial companies. This study helps investors, managers, policy-makers, governments, and accounting regulatory bodies regarding the utilization pattern of invisible and tangible resources in Bangladeshi firms.

Quality Management and Higher Education: Big-Q, Little-q, Leadership, and Culture

Keith Luoma — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Quality management is a philosophy that seeks to improve excellence in products, services, processes, and people. Quality management is more than a collection of tools and techniques. At its heart, it offers a different way of thinking about the organization, one that offers a unifying culture. Quality management has been successfully applied in manufacturing, service, healthcare, and a host of other fields, but applications to higher education have been comparatively limited. In this paper we distinguish between Big-Q (characterized by an overarching quality management system) and Little-q (a projects-based approach). We apply Deming’s 14 points to higher education leadership and culture, and we report on a case study which illustrates these principles in action.

Non-Smoke Tobacco Consumption in India: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This study evaluates the economic and social impacts of non-smoke tobacco consumption in India and compares them with the tax revenue generated by the government from this industry. Non-smoke tobacco products, such as chewing tobacco and pan masala, are associated with various health and environmental problems, such as oral cancer and littering. The study uses the concept of externalities to analyse the costs and benefits of non-smoke tobacco consumption for the society and the government. Based on available data and assumptions, the study estimates the expenditure on oral cancer treatment and cleanliness, and the revenue from direct and indirect taxes on non-smoke tobacco products. The study finds that the government collects more revenue than it spends on mitigating the negative externalities of non-smoke tobacco consumption, but the social costs are still significant. The study suggests that the government should implement more effective tobacco taxation and control policies to reduce the consumption and harm of non-smoke tobacco products.

An Examination of Moderna

Hayden Cole Cunningham, Jessica Dunn, David Durr — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Understanding the COVID-19 response for Moderna, a biotechnology company based out of the United States, and compiling the current outlooks regarding vaccinations, development of a diversified product line, and garnering a competitive edge in the biotechnology space is a costly endeavor Moderna is attempting to transverse. Declining revenues, rising costs, and low sales of Moderna's current product have deteriorated the value base. The recent increase in share price is motivated by anticipation of a potential avian flu outbreak and response. This study attempts to shed light on the current financial condition of Moderna.

The Lived Experiences of Women Leaders in Nonprofit Organizations

Amy Smith, MD Haque, Angela Titi Amayah — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This qualitative study aims to explore and understand the leadership experiences of women in mid-level roles in nonprofit organizations. By employing role congruity theory and intersectionality as analytical frameworks, the study aims to identify the unique personal, professional, and organizational challenges these women face. The research also seeks to contribute to the literature by examining how gender intersects with other social identities to shape the leadership trajectories of women in educational settings. The study identifies self-confidence and gender, and racial stereotypes as major challenges experienced by women leaders in mid-level roles. The research highlights how these stereotypes can undermine women's leadership effectiveness and limit their opportunities for career advancement. Overall, this study adds to the existing body of knowledge by addressing gaps related to the intersection of gender with other identities.