Managerial Effort Research Articles

Integrating marketing and information services functions: a complementarity and competence perspective

Integrating two disparate functions in organizations—marketing and information services (IS)—has become a critical business concern due to the increasing use of information technology (IT) to find and open new markets, deliver improved services to customers, and streamline internal marketing processes. This study appears to be the first to empirically examine the dynamics of bringing these distinct groups of specialists together. We investigate potential antecedents, consequences, and contingencies of IS-marketing integration, drawing on theories of complementarity and competence. Through a survey of IS and marketing executives, we learn that integration is facilitated by trust between the two functions and the interaction between IT strategic intent and customer orientation; it is impeded by a gap in top management knowledge of IT versus marketing. We also find that integration fosters the much-coveted capabilities of developing and introducing innovations (innovativeness) as well as responding flexibly, swiftly, and adroitly to opportunities (strategic responsiveness). Additionally, we determine integration is bounded by market dynamism. In sum, integration between marketing and IS can be enhanced via managerial efforts, and the relationship is profoundly beneficial to businesses.

Operational complexity and supplier–customer integration: case study insights and complexity rebound

The main contribution of this paper is the demonstration that, contrary to conventional thinking, a measurable increase in the operational complexity of the production scheduling function between two companies can occur following closer supply chain integration. The paper presents the practical application of previous work carried out and validated by the authors in terms of (a) methodology for measuring operational complexity, (b) predicted implications of Supplier–Customer integration and (c) derivation of an operational complexity measure applied to before and after Supplier–Customer integration. This application is illustrated via a longitudinal case study. The analysis is based on information theory, whereby operational complexity of a Supplier–Customer system is defined as the amount of information required to describe the state of this system. The results show that operational complexity can increase when companies decide to integrate more closely, which is a fact likely to be overlooked when making decisions to pursue closer Supply-Chain integration. In this study, operational complexity increases due to reduced buffering arising from reduction in the Supplier's inventory capacity. The Customer did not change their operational practices to improve their schedule adherence post-integration, and, consequently, suffered an increase in complexity due to complexity rebound. Both the Supplier's and Customer's decision-making processes after the case study reported in this paper were enhanced by being able to quantify the complex areas to prioritise and direct managerial efforts towards them, through the use of the operational complexity measure. Future work could extend this study (in the ‘low product customisation’ and ‘low product value impact’ quadrant) to investigate Supplier–Customer integration in other quadrants resulting from further combinations between ‘product customisation’ and ‘product value impact’ levels.

EFFECTS OF ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION WITHIN A FIRM ON OLIGOPOLISTIC MARKET OUTCOMES

I analyze the implications of the Laffont–Tirole type agency problems on oligopolistic market outcomes. In the model, a firm’s marginal cost is decreasing in managerial effort and is subject to an additive shock. Both managerial effort and the realization of the shock are a manager’s private information. A firm first offers a menu of contract to its manager, and then competes in the product market. As in the model of single principal and single agent, the incentive contracts implement efforts that are distorted downward relative to full information. In this model, with multiple agency relationships, an additional source for upward distortion of effort emerges as a result of the interaction in the product market. The results are robust to whether firms compete in price or quantity.

Formal, Informal, Meta-Formal Inter-Relations within Economics

This article presents briefly the main types of communication methods at the organizational level, included in the general framework of micro-economics. The mechanisms of economics at micro is indispensable based on communication as a complex and multidimensional process.We are focused discussing the formal, informal and meta-formal communications, which are more often used within an organization, whenever they are needed. These types of inter-human relationships are considered the base of the functioning of all entities, because they are linked to the human being and only labor is capable to transform the goods and products from the nature in economic goods and add value.It's not only a managerial effort, but also employees and working people actions which, nowadays, can be seen in the economic efficiency of companies and in the way that managers handle the complexity of information and the crisis situations.

Endogenous Accounting Bias when Decision Making and Control Interact*

This paper analyzes how accounting biases endogenously arise as firm owners’ optimal response to balance different stewardship uses of accounting information systems. Specifically, we identify conditions under which the nature of the stewardship use affects whether the accounting system exhibits conservative or liberal bias. We distinguish two types of stewardship uses of accounting information: one is to motivate the (standard) managerial efforts that affect the first moment (mean) of the firm output, and the other is to motivate the managerial efforts that facilitate the principal’s decision making by affecting the second moment of the firm output (we refer to such efforts as the decision-facilitating efforts). We find that, while conservative bias may be optimal when accounting information is used only to motivate mean-increasing efforts (Kwon, Newman, and Suh 2001; Kwon 2005), liberal bias is necessary when decision making and control interact in the sense that accounting information is also used to motivate decision-facilitating efforts. We illustrate the above idea in a simple model where an accounting system provides information relevant both for making decisions and for evaluating an agent. As a first benchmark, we demonstrate that, in the absence of evaluation considerations, an unbiased accounting (classification) system is preferred for providing useful decision-making information, thus establishing an endogenous need for an information system. As a second

Managing market entry in Oman: The case of Nawras

AbstractThis article focuses on the challenges faced by the mobile operator Nawras when entering the Omani telecom market in 2005. The source material consists of auto‐ethnographic accounts of two European managers who worked at Nawras during the launch period. The result is a rich and highly personal account of market‐entry challenges and managerial efforts to overcome such challenges in a newly deregulated Gulf country. The Nawras story suggests that entrants into a Gulf market such as Oman need a great deal of flexibility and improvisation capabilities in order to become successful. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Tournaments and managerial incentives in China's listed firms: New evidence

Abstract The promotion tournament as a potentially important incentive mechanism for top management in transition economies has not been examined by the literature on managerial incentives. This paper attempts to fill this important gap in the literature. The paper begins with modifying the empirical predictions previously-derived from the tournament theory to the context of transition economies in which state ownership still plays a significant role in publicly-traded firms. Specifically, we test the following two hypotheses. First, the winner's prize will need to increase in order to prevent each contestant from lowering his/her effort level in the face of a larger contestant pool. Such an optimal response of the winner's prize to the size of the contestant pool is more evident for China's listed firms that are less controlled by the state. Second, the winner's prize will also need to rise in order to prevent each contestant from reducing his/her effort level in the face of greater market volatility (or more noise in the performance measure used to determine the tournament winner). Using comprehensive financial and accounting data on China's listed firms from 1998 to 2002, augmented by unique data on executive compensation and ownership structure, we find evidence in support of both hypotheses. Finally, we also find evidence suggesting that an increase in the winner's prize will result in improved firm performance due to enhanced managerial effort, and that the performance effect of the winner's prize is greater for China's listed firms that are less controlled by the state. As such this paper provides yet another piece of evidence that ownership restructuring may be needed for China to successfully transform its SOEs to efficient modernized corporations and reform its overall economy.

Nonfinancial Performance Measures and the Incentive Intensity of CEO Bonus Contracts

Firms add nonfinancial measures to their CEO bonus contracts when a sole reliance on financial measures would not be informative about managerial effort. In this paper, we argue that adding nonfinancial measures to CEO contracts may not resolve the congruence problems that would originate from a sole reliance on financial measures. Thus, this paper investigates the assertion that companies optimally provide weak incentives if they lack undistorted performance measures (Baker, 2002). Using a sample of 164 Dutch firms listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and explicitly taking into account the joint nature of decisions to assign a weight to nonfinancial measures and to select the appropriate incentive intensity through a 2SLS model, we find that firms that seek to provide strong incentives decrease the relative weight of nonfinancial measures in CEO bonus contracts. This coincides with prior literature that suggests that firms adjust for items in their reported earnings to improve their financial summary performance measure.

Voluntary Disclosures as a Mechanism for Defining Entity Status in Australian Not‐for‐Profit Organisations

This study examines managerial efforts to portray an entity's not‐for‐profit (NFP) status based on voluntary disclosure practices. The annual report text of 61 NFPs are analysed in accordance with Salamon and Anheier's (1997) NFP definitional framework. Results indicate a predominant application of the structural‐operational definition. Furthermore, the ‘organised’ attribute of this definition prevails over the ‘non‐profit‐distributing’ criterion that has been advocated by various parties. Standard‐setting bodies may want to consider: (1) NFP management perspectives in any revised NFP definition; and (2) greater clarity in conceptual framework and standard‐setting arrangements to improve overall transparency in NFP reporting practices.

Equipping managers to assist employees in addressing work-family conflict: Applying the research literature toward innovative practice.

Although there is a great deal of research documenting that work-family conflict is a problem, the literature offers much less in the way of practical managerial guidance. Equipped with the well-documented premise that support from the immediate supervisor or manager is associated with diminished work-family conflict, the authors aimed to bridge the science–practice gap by articulating (a) the effective ways in which a manager can demonstrate support and (b) what can be done to equip and encourage managers to be supportive. The authors' review draws on leader-member exchange theory and empirical research as well as the emerging work on idiosyncratic deals to derive five recommendations for managerial practice. Recommendations address managerial training, empowerment, and motivation, in addition to the type of context (i.e., supportive work-family culture) and tools (i.e., work-life job analysis) expected to be most useful to a manager's efforts to address employees' work-family conflict.

건설 사업관리 DAT 활용분야 및 적용방법 분석

건설 사업관리의 자료 수집 및 분석에 있어 아직도 많은 부분이 현장관리자의 수작업에 의존하고 있다. 이런 수작업에 의한 관리 방법의 대표적인 문제점으로서는, 자세한 현장자료의 획득이 어려울 뿐만 아니라, 가능하더라도 이를 위해서는 상당한 비용과 노력이 소요된다. 따라서 효율적인 사업관리를 위한 첨단 DAT(Data Acquisition Technology) 기술이 적용을 통한 자료수집 자동화가 시도되고 있으나, 대부분 기존 연구가 단일 공종이나 혹은 일부 주요 관리만을 대상으로 한 DAT 적용 연구로 이루어져 프로젝트 전체관점에서 분석한 종합적 연구는 전무한 상태이다. 따라서 본 연구는 DAT를 건설 사업관리와 관련하여 포괄적으로 분석함으로써 활용분야를 살펴보고 대체 활용 방향을 제안한다. The managerial effort to acquire and maintain detailed construction control data has been the major barrier to improving the effectiveness of construction project management. Therefore, utilizing data acquisition technologies (DAT) can greatly improve the construction management processes by automating the data collection. Even though many researches attempted to explore the DAT utilization in construction, there has been no comprehensive study that examine the viability of DAT usage from a comprehensive perspective. In this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate the current efforts and future recommendation of DAT implementation in the construction industry.

The adoption of university library Web site resources: A multigroup analysis

AbstractUniversity libraries invest a massive amount of resources in digitizing information for the Web, yet there is growing concern that much of this information is being underutilized. The present study uses the technology acceptance model (TAM) to investigate university library website resources (ULWR) usage. We categorize users based on academic roles and then analyze them as subgroups in order to observe different adoption patterns across groups. A total of 299 usable responses was collected from four different universities and across three populations: undergraduate, master, and doctoral student/faculty groups. The findings show that different library users indeed access ULWR for different reasons, resulting in a need for tailored managerial efforts. Overall, the extended TAM explains undergraduate students' usage best; the explanatory power of the model is significantly lower for the doctoral student/faculty group. Some of the findings challenge results reported in TAM research in other fields. The unexpected findings may result from the application of the model to a different context. Detailed theoretical implications and managerial guidance are offered.

CEO Incentives and Institutional Trader Monitoring are Substitutes: Theory and Evidence

We show that stock price signals of future value that are extraneous “noise” from the perspective of inferring managerial actions from stock price movements are ameliorated by informed trading. Managerial actions are now reflected in more informative stock price inducing higher managerial productivity and pay, even though we show that only a limited form of complementarity is possible and that substitution occurs with the sum of equity and bonus incentives falling. Our theoretical predictions are supported by empirical evidence from the top 1500 U.S. companies over the period, 1992-2007. Aggressive “swing” trades by institutional investors result in subsequent reductions in the use of CEO’s equity-based and bonus pay allocations but nevertheless raise total pay due to induced higher managerial effort.

On the benefits of allowing CEOs to time their stock option exercises

This article examines the costs and benefits of permitting executives to use inside information to time their stock option exercises. Whereas prior research has focused on the negative effects of timing discretion, I show that such discretion can have beneficial incentive effects in that it leads to improved project abandonment decisions. This result follows because at-the-money options used to induce managerial effort tilt the CEO's preferences toward project continuation. When the CEO is free to unload stock options at will, he will do so exactly in those states where the continuation bias is most detrimental (i.e., in the event of bad news), making the CEO willing to abandon the project.

Effect of Corporate Economic Performance on Firm-Level Environmental Performance in a Transition Economy

This paper analyzes the effect of corporate economic performance, as measured by value added, on firm-level environmental performance in a transition economy. In particular, it analyzes this economic performance effect using an unbalanced panel of Czech firms for the years 1995–1998. It assesses whether successful economic performance begets or undermines good environmental performance. This connection seems especially important in transition economies since firms are dramatically restructuring their economic management approaches during transitional periods. A majority of the analytical results indicate that successful economic performance undermines good environmental performance, possibly indicating that more focused managerial efforts to improve economic outcomes may distract efforts to manage environmental matters better.

Earnings Management, Time Preferences, and Long Term Decisions

This paper studies the impact of tightening accounting standards on an impatient manager's long-term investment decisions under earnings based performance evaluation. We analyze how the manager's possibility to influence current earnings will affect his investment decision-making. We examine a two-period agency model in which the manager's efforts during the first period have short- and long-term consequences. We find that tighter accounting regulation intensifies underinvestment problems. Tighter accounting standards increase the manager's personal costs of bringing forward investment project benefits, which results in reduced incentives for the manager to supply effort on investment activities. In turn, discretion in accounting standards allows managers to anticipate the future benefits of their investment decisions in their current performance measure. This result holds valid even when compensation contracts additionally include other performance measures than regulated accounting numbers.

Asset Returns with Earnings Management

The paper investigates stock return dynamics in an environment where executives have an incentive to maximize their compensation by artificially inflating earnings. A principal-agent model with financial reporting and managerial effort is embedded in a Lucas asset-pricing model with periodic revelations of the firm's underlying profitability. The return process generated from the model is consistent with a range of financial anomalies observed in the return data: volatility clustering, asymmetric volatility, and increased idiosyncratic volatility. The calibration results further indicate that earnings management by individual firms does not only deliver the observed features in their own stocks, but can also be strong enough to generate market-wide patterns.

Disaster case management and individuals with disabilities.

To examine the case management and disaster recovery needs of individuals with disabilities following Hurricane Katrina. The case managers and supervisors in this study provided case management to individuals with disabilities as part of the largest coordinated disaster case management program in U.S. history, the Katrina Aid Today consortium. This study provides an account of the disaster case management needs of individuals with disabilities as well as a picture of their long-term recovery process two years following the disaster. Forty-two case managers and 12 case management supervisors from this program provided services to a collective caseload of 2,047 individuals with disabilities and their families. Interviews and telephone surveys were conducted with these participants 20-24 months after the disaster. The qualitative data were analyzed using grounded theory methodology, and descriptive statistics summarize the demographic data. Findings suggest that the disaster recovery process is typically more complex and lengthy for individuals with disabilities and requires negotiation of a service system sometimes unprepared for disability-related needs. Barriers to disaster recovery for individuals with disabilities included a lack of accessible housing, transportation, and disaster services. Supports to disaster recovery included the individual effort and advocacy of a case manager, connecting with needed resources, collaboration with other agencies, and client motivation and persistence. Results suggest that disaster recovery is facilitated by case managers with disability expertise, including knowledge about the needs of individuals with disabilities and about disability-related services.

Retention Priorities for the Intergenerational Nurse Workforce

Retention of senior, Gen-X, and Millennial nurses is influenced by manager interactions and efforts to create a satisfying work experience. The purpose of this project was a generational assessment of job satisfaction, work environment, and desired characteristics of managers in an effort to improve nurse retention. Data from staff nurses at 22 southern hospitals collected by online survey included measures of job satisfaction and perceptions of safety, the Nurse Manager Desired Traits survey, and the Nursing Work Index-Revised. The satisfaction with work environment scores for the whole group (n = 1,773) were high. Subscale scores showed highest satisfaction with nurse/physician relationships; lowest was nurse control of practice. A specific satisfaction question showed the younger nurses were less satisfied than those over age 40. Nurse safety concerns were expressed by 40% of the sample. One third of Millennial nurses plan to leave their job within the next 2 years. Over two thirds plan to be gone within the next 5 years. Especially alarming is the fact that 61% of the nurse group stated they plan to leave their current jobs within 10 years. (a) Create model managers; (b) empower staff nurse councils; (c) stabilize staffing; (d) revamp incentives; and (e) focus on safety.

Resource Allocation and Organizational Form

We develop a theory of firm scope and structure in which merging two firms allows the integrated firm's top management to allocate resources that are costly to trade. However, information about their use resides with division managers. We show that establishing truthful upward communication raises the cost of inducing managerial effort compared with stand-alone firms. This effect dominates a positive effect on effort driven by competition for the firm's resources. We derive predictions about optimal firm scope and structure. In particular, we show why it is optimal to separate the tasks of allocating resources and running a division. (JEL D21, D23, D82, G34)