Mark Fuller and Joe Valacich
Valacich, J.; Fuller, M.; Schneider, C. and Dennis, A., “Publication Opportunities in Premier Business Outlets: How Level is the Playing Field,” Information Systems Research, June, Volume 17, Number 2, pages 107-125 (2006).
Business schools, like any business, have the need to evaluate and motivate employees. Setting appropriate targets for performance is thus a critical component of establishing good performance evaluation systems. Further, keeping such performance evaluation systems equitable across different business disciplines plays a critical role in employee satisfaction, retention, and development. In order to provide an equitable performance evaluation system for faculty it is important to understand the relative opportunities to publish in such journals that each discipline provides. Disciplinary growth and publication trends were examined over a 10 year period. Results indicated that in many cases, assessment procedures regarding research productivity have failed to keep up with changes in discipline sizes. Suggestions are made for improving these performance evaluation systems.
Mark Fuller and Joe Valacich
Dennis, A.; Valacich, J.; Fuller, M. and Schneider, C., “Empirical Benchmarks for Promotion and Tenure in Information Systems,” Management Information Systems Quarterly, March, Volume 30, Number 1, pages 1-12 (2006).
The question of how research extensive universities evaluate their top performers is a critical component of their evaluation system. Granting faculty tenure is a substantial investment, and understanding what constitutes high-performance is valuable for colleges of business as they seek to reward and retain high-performing faculty. This research surveyed leading academic professionals at 49 leading US and Canadian universities to provide an understanding of what is truly considered “world-class” levels of scholarship. Results revealed a growing divergence between the research standards employed by universities, and the actual research performance of top scholars within the Information Systems discipline. Unless substantial changes are made, these differences will perpetuate a vicious cycle of increasing faculty turnover, declining influence on university affairs, and lower research productivity. Possible solutions to this issue are explored.
Dogan Gursoy
Emeksiz, M., Gursoy, D. and Icoz, O., “A yield management model for five star hotels. Computerized and non-computerized implementation,” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(4), 536-551 (2006).
The purpose of this study was to propose an enhanced yield management (YM) model that was developed based on the previous models and to test the applicability on five star lodging properties in Turkey to identify the related problems. The proposed model overcomes some of the limitations of previous ones. It was specifically developed for full service, upscale hotels, namely for five star lodging properties with or without a computerized yield management system (CYMS). Examination of the actual implementation stages provided useful insight in determining the applicability and the problems related to the application of the model. Findings indicted that the proposed YM model can be used by all upscale properties (with or without a CYMS) to manage their revenue and yield. Findings suggested that the application of the model is likely to improve the financial performance for both type of properties.
Dogan Gursoy
Gursoy, D. and Kendall, K. W., “Hosting mega events: Modeling locals’ support,” Annals of Tourism Research, 33(3), 603-623. (Lead article) (2006).
This study develops and tests a structural model to assess key factors on residents’ perceptions of the impacts of 2002 Winter Olympics as a mega tourism event and how these perceptions affect their support. The model developed and tested is based on previous literature, and uses data collected during the event. Community backing for mega events is affected directly and/or indirectly by five determinants of support: the level of community concern, ecocentric values, community attachment, perceived benefits and perceived costs. There are interactions between costs and benefit factors, and support relies heavily on perceived benefits rather than perceived costs. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Dogan Gursoy and Eric Spangenberg
Gursoy, D.; Spangenberg, E. R. and Rutherford, D. G., “The Hedonic and Utilitarian Dimensions of Attendees’ Attitudes Toward Festivals,” Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 30(3), 279-294. (Lead article) (2006).
This study examined the attendees’ attitudes toward festivals by utilizing a two-dimensional consumer attitude scale, the hedonic/utilitarian (HED/UT) scale, developed by Voss, Spangenberg and Grohmann (2003). The HED/UT scale was originally developed to measure the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of consumer attitudes toward product categories and different brands within categories. Findings suggested the scale has good reliability and validity and can be used successfully to measure attendees’ attitudes toward festivals or other events/services. Results indicated that people attend to festivals and other social events for both hedonic and utilitarian reasons. However, their hedonic attitudes have a stronger impact on attending the festival and other special events than their utilitarian attitude. Marketing and theoretical implications are discussed.
Dogan Gursoy and Nancy Swanger
Gursoy, D. and Swanger, N., “Performance-Enhancing Internal Strategic Factors: Impacts on Financial Success,” International Journal of Hospitality Management. (accepted, 2006)
The purpose of this study was to examine the internal strategic factors likely to influence company financial performance for service organizations from managers’ perspectives. It provides empirical evidence of the links between the internal strategic factors examined and financial performance of service organizations. Data for this study were collected from middle and upper managers of service companies using a self-administered survey questionnaire. The results of the study suggested that four of the seven critical internal strategic success factors examined had a significant impact on company financial performance. Those factors are sales, R&D and distribution, information technology, and human resources. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Jenny Kim
Lee, S.; Kim, W. G. and Kim, H. J., “The Impact of Co-Branding on Post-Purchase Behaviors in Family Restaurants,” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(2), 245-261 (2006).
Co-branding is increasingly becoming a popular strategy in the hospitality industry. In general, co-branding can be defined as several brands collaborating in technology development, marketing, or production while keeping their independence as separate business entities. This study is designed to examine the effects of co-branding cards on post-purchase behaviors such as customer loyalty and purchase patterns in family restaurants in Korea. This study further investigates how these effects are different by types of family restaurants (i.e., full-service versus buffet). The results indicate that co-branding cards can be an effective marketing tool that helps family restaurants to build both behavioral and attitudinal customer loyalty. It is also found that although co-branding cards may be a successful strategy to encourage more frequent visits, the strategy may not always lead to a higher profit margin per customer.
Dennis Reynolds
Reynolds, D., “To what extent does performance-related feedback affect managers’ self-efficacy?” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(1), 54-68 (2006).
This two-part study examines the effect of supervisors’ feedback—both negative and positive—on the job-specific self-efficacy of 296 subordinates. Analyses using pre- and post-treatment data collected during field experiments indicate, most notably, that negative feedback reduces subordinates’ self-efficacy regardless of managerial rank, a finding that supports this largely untested theory pertaining to negative feedback and its effect on self-efficacy. As predicted, positive supervisory feedback had a significant, positive effect on subordinates’ self-efficacy. The study’s implications for theory, research, and management practice are discussed, limitations and challenges are identified, and directions for future research are suggested.
Saonee Sarker and Suprateek Sarker
Sarker, Saonee; Sarker, Suprateek and Sidorova, A., “Actor-Networks and Business Process Change Failure: An Interpretive Case Study,” Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 23, No. 1, Summer 2006, pp. 51-86.
In this paper, we use concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to interpret the sequence of events that led to Business Process Change (BPC) failure at TELECO, a telecommunications company in the US. Through our intensive examination of the BPC initiative, we find that a number of issues suggested by ANT such as errors in problematization, parallel translation, betrayal, and irreversible inscription of interests (that later became irrelevant) contributed significantly to the failure. We provide nine abstractions capturing the essence of our findings. The larger implication of our study is that, for socio-technical phenomena such as BPC with significant political components, an ANT-informed understanding can enable practitioners to better anticipate and cope with emergent complexities.
Kalpathy Swaminathan
Coles, J. L.; Hertzel, M. and Swaminathan, K., "Earnings Management Around Employee Stock Option Reissues," Journal of Accounting and Economics v41 173-200 (2006).
Evidence in prior literature suggests that in certain corporate settings, financial market participants are unable to see through earnings management. In this paper we examine market behavior in a setting where managerial incentives to manipulate earnings and stock price should be quite transparent to market participants. In particular, with cancellations and reissues of executive stock options where the reissue dates are announced upfront, we find evidence that managers drive down earnings to benefit from lower stock option exercise prices. Nevertheless, based on stock price performance, we find no evidence that the market is misled by these attempts. Our evidence suggests that market participants possess some degree of sophistication in unraveling earnings manipulation.
Nancy Swanger
Swanger, N., “Visible Body Modification (VBM): Evidence from Human Resource Managers and Recruiters and the Effects on Employment,” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25 (1), 154-158 (2006).
The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptions of hospitality industry human resource managers and recruiters of interviewees with visible tattoos and body piercings. A questionnaire was sent via e-mail to 37 human resources managers and college recruiters, which contained a single open-ended question regarding tattoos and piercing, for the purpose of obtaining some baseline data on their impact on employment. Thirty (81.08%) of the human resource managers and recruiters responded with the majority (86.67%) saying that visible tattoos and body piercings on an interviewee would be viewed negatively by their organization.
Joe Valacich
Looney, C.A.; Valacich, J.S.; Todd, P.A. and Morris, M.G., “Paradoxes of Online Investing: Testing the Influence of Technology on User Expectancies,” Decision Sciences, 37(2), 205-246 (2006).
At an increasing rate, individual investors are taking personal control over their financial destinies by investing their money online. Compared to offline do-it-yourself approaches, evidence suggests that investors exhibit lofty expectations and perform significantly worse after going online. However, little is understood about the mechanisms fueling expectancies, the role technologies play in their formation, or how technologies shape investment decisions. Therefore, this article explores the paradoxical nature of online investing technologies, which can give rise to a heightened state of conviction in one’s capability to invest successfully. The results suggest that perceptions about what one can accomplish through online investing technologies can lead investors to exaggerate their capabilities, which, in turn, produces elevated expectancies of financial payoffs and nonmonetary rewards.
Joe Valacich
Valacich, J.S., Jung, J.H. and Looney, C.A., “The Effects of Individual Cognitive Ability and Idea Stimulation on Individual Idea Generation Performance,” Group Dynamics, 10(1), 1-15 (2006).
This study demonstrates that the performance of high cognitive ability individuals can be enhanced when given high quality stimuli or inhibited when exposed to low quality stimuli. The performance of low cognitive ability individuals, in contrast, is consistently meager regardless of stimuli quality. The findings clearly indicate that group composition, and the quality of ideas that emerge as a result, can influence ideational performance.