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This study investigated the fit between contingency variables (e.g. task uncertainty and decentralization) in accounting information systems (AIS); a good fit is assumed to improve user satisfaction. We divided task uncertainty into two dimensions: variability and analyzability. We chose information scope, timeliness, and aggregation as the AIS characteristics to be studied within each dimension. User satisfaction was adopted as a surrogate to measure the performance of AIS. The responses of 126 managers were drawn from a cross-industry sample in Taiwan. Multiple regression models were employed to test the hypotheses. The results of the empirical test led us to two results: (1) broad-scope information (external environment or future-oriented information) promotes user satisfaction in high task variability situations, and (2) in a highly decentralized organization, broad-scope, timely, and aggregated information will also facilitate user satisfaction.

Rising health care costs and customer dissatisfaction with services has prompted many hospital administrators to begin scrutinizing their operations. The initial challenge for administrators is to identify the critical processes of the hospital. Since the main purpose of a hospital is to improve the health of its patients, one of its core processes involves the procedures of the operating room (OR). Focusing on OR processes should prove to be one important lever for improving the overall quality of hospital services.

The Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy is rapidly being adopted by organizations that are concerned about remaining competitive in an intensely competitive global marketplace. As a result, Information Technology (IT) is being developed and deployed to foster these quality programs. However, little empirical research is available concerning implementation of technology in TQM environments. Research is needed to guide organizations toward a path of successful implementation of quality systems. The objective of this study is to devise a set of guidelines for organizations attempting to infuse total quality into their systems development efforts. The study draws upon data gathered from case studies of three organizations involved in total quality systems development. The three organizations were chosen based on their differences in size (total revenues). Contrasting the three organizations should add richness to the development of TQM guidelines. The study begins with a review of the quality research. The methodology is described in the next section. A synopsis of the case studies is then presented. Finally, a set of guidelines and theoretical implications synthesized from the literature and cases are introduced.

Executive information systems represent a significant departure from traditional computer-based information systems. Advocates of executive systems claim that their systems offer the leading-edge option for making computers truly effective for supporting key management functions. This paper examines the interaction between key characteristics of executive systems and fundamental features of human thinking drawn from the field of Behavioral Decision Theory. We examine the possibility that the operation of these systems may reinforce or intensify certain biases in human information processing. We present three examples of potential bias-intensification: availability, regression effects, and overconfidence. Next, the paper applies the concept of decisional guidance to develop design implications for executive systems. Lastly, the paper offers avenues for theoretical development and empirical research.

Examines the lack of availability of class action claims data and offers a set of solutions.

This is a pre-print of an article published in Computational Economics. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10614-019-09879-x In this paper, we develop a very flexible and comprehensive state-space framework for modeling time series data. Our research extends the simple canonical model usually employed in the literature, into a panel-data time-varying parameters framework, combining fixed (both common and country-specific) and varying components. Under some specific circumstances, this setting can be understood as a mean-reverting panel time-series model, where the mean fixed parameter can, at the same time, include a deterministic trend. Regarding the transition equation, our structure allows for the estimation of different autoregressive alternatives, and include control instruments, whose coefficients can be set-up either common or idiosyncratic. This is particularly useful to detect asymmetries among individuals (countries) to common shocks. We develop a GAUSS code that allows for the introduction of restrictions regarding the variances of both the transition and measurement equations. Finally, we use this empirical framework to test for the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle in a 17-country panel. The results show its usefulness for solving complexities in macroeconomic empirical research.

We examine the impact of a new mobile-based, dockless bike-sharing service on public transportation. In contrast to traditional rental bikes that are parked at fixed stations, the dockless bikes can be picked up and returned at literally anywhere. This dockless feature of the shared bikes likely provides a solution to the last mile problem, potentially making it a complement to public transportation. Assembling a unique panel data of shared-bike rides and subway traffic, we estimate the relationship between shared-bike ridership and public transportation. Our results show that increases in shared-bike rides lead to increases in subway traffic. This positive effect is stronger for peak hours during weekdays and non-peak hours during weekends. We argue this effect is most likely driven by shared bikes promoting public transportation use and substituting for private cars (substitution effect) and also stimulating new travel (stimulating effect). Overall, we find that dockless shared bikes, in contrast to most of the other sharing economy phenomenon, acts as a complement rather than a substitute for public transportation. In addition, increased use of dockless shared bikes has a positive societal impact, leading to less urban congestion and better environmental protection.

We examine empirically how different information types and information channels affect both the intention and the decision to adopt photovoltaic (PV) technology as affected by adoption stage. Analyzing data on a large European utility’s current and potential clients reveals how the effects of various drivers of adoption can change across phases of the adoption process. Our results challenge the common wisdom that information necessarily and homogeneously supports innovation adoption; instead, they strongly support the hypothesis that information types and channels have distinct effects on adoption rates. These results also highlight that, throughout the adoption process, the value of information changes. In addition, we clarify the effects of economic incentives on both the intention to adopt PV technology and actual adoption behavior. Our findings have critical implications for policy makers and for any technology manufacturing company that must optimize its marketing strategy and distribution channels to promote renewable energy systems.

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model and offer a first empirical test of how competitive dethronement affects managerial risk taking. Drawing on the mechanism of endowment effect and reference-dependent utility theory, we predict that former market leaders take more risks compared to, otherwise identical, competitors. We empirically test this prediction using two contexts allowing us to use different methods to operationalize risk. The first setting draws on field data from a two-month banking sales contest. The second, quasi-laboratory, data comes from an educational game. Consistent with model’s prediction, we find that dethronement is associated with increased risk taking but that the endowment effect leading to such response decays over time. In contrast, a mere decline in performance ranking does not have the same effect.

This article presents a summary of the Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) literature. In its first part, the article shows how authors define SMA (by its characteristics, its practices and methods) and compares SMA to Strategic Cost Management (SCM). The second part of the article discusses the empirical research work conducted in the SMA/SCM field and its main results. The article then questions the theoretical contribution of the SMA/SCM literature and its limitations before proposing a framework which relates the concepts of costs, value and price, and incorporates many of the practices usually connected to SMA.

This paper examines how accounting quality affects the degree of debt concentration in corporate capital structures (i.e., a firm’s tendency to predominantly rely on only a few types of debt). Motivated by theoretical and empirical research that supports a strong link between creditors’ coordination costs and debt concentration and the importance of accounting quality in reducing these coordination costs, we hypothesize that firms with low accounting quality have a more concentrated debt structure. Measuring financial reporting quality by the disclosure of material internal control weaknesses over financial reporting (ICWs), we find that ICWs lead to a significantly more concentrated debt structure. We also show that the effect of ICWs on the degree of debt concentration is stronger for more severe ICW disclosures and for firms with a higher credit risk, further reinforcing the importance of financial reporting quality in determining debt concentration.

Confronted by increasingly tight budgets and a broad range of alternative options, policy makers need empirical methods to evaluate the effectiveness of policies aimed at supporting the diffusion of renewable energy sources (RES). Rigorous empirical studies of renewable energy policy effectiveness have typically relied on panel data models to identify the most effective mechanisms. A common characteristic of some of these studies, which has important econometric implications, is that they assume that the contribution of RES to total electricity generation will be stationary around a mean. This paper reviews such assumptions and rigorously tests the time series properties of the contribution of RES in the energy mix for the presence of a unit root. To that end, we use both individual and panel unit root tests to determine whether the series exhibit non-stationary behavior at the country level as well as for the panel as a whole. The analysis, applied to a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 1990-2012, provides strong evidence that the time series of the renewable share of electricity output are not stationary in 17 of the 19 countries examined. This finding has important implications for energy policy assessment and energy policy making, which are discussed in the paper.

Managers like to think well of themselves, and of the firms that employ them. However, positive illusions can bias a manager's evaluation of market outcomes, self-servingly crediting success on the superior quality of one's own product but blaming failure on the aggressive price of a competitor's offering. These distorted attributions stem from the idea that product quality better serves the manager's motivation for self-enhancement and self-presentation than price: product quality is seemingly more central to the firm, less susceptible to external market forces, and more stable over time. We position our theory in the psychology of attribution, define self-serving behavior and provide experimental and survey evidence of this phenomenon, and develop a model of price-quality competition that incorporates the empirical findings. In particular, we first study the natural benchmark equilibrium provided by unbiased decision makers. We then introduce self-serving behavior in the presence of myopic principals, or of forward-looking principals who anticipate the limitations of managers and set first-period decisions accordingly.