Leadership & Organizational Behavior

This article asserts that any theory or research on fads or fashions in science has to answer three questions clearly and unambiguously. What defines "science"? What defines a "scientific fad" or a "scientific fashion"? What might facilitate the occurrence of scientific fads or fashions so defined? To illustrate this argument, this article critically examines the answers to three questions suggested by Starbuck's article: [Starbuck, W. H. (2009)] The constant causes of never-ending faddishness in the behavioral and social sciences. Scandinavian Journal of Management].

This chapter discusses Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based methods for estimating continuous-time asset pricing models. We describe the Bayesian approach to empirical asset pricing, the mechanics of MCMC algorithms and the strong theoretical underpinnings of MCMC algorithms. We provide a tutorial on building MCMC algorithms and show how to estimate equity price models with factors such as stochastic expected returns, stochastic volatility and jumps, multi-factor term structure models with stochastic volatility, time-varying central tendancy or jumps and regime switching models.

Financial openness is often associated with higher rates of economic growth. We show that the impact of openness on factor productivity growth is more important than the effect on capital growth. This explains why the growth effects of liberalization appear to be largely permanent, not temporary. We attribute these permanent liberalization effects to the role financial openness plays in stock market and banking sector development, and to changes in the quality of institutions. We find some indirect evidence of higher investment efficiency post-liberalization.

The diffusion of an innovation is governed by, among other things, word of mouth. In social systems, growth processes are considered strongly influenced by people who have large number of ties to other people. In the social network literature, such people are called influentials, opinion leaders, mavens, or sometimes hubs. Furthermore, when the marketing literature addresses such people, the focus is typically not on how they influence the overall market but rather on either assessing their influence on people they are in direct contact with or identifying their characteristics.

In December 2004, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) mandated the use of a fair value-based measurement attribute to value employee stock options (ESOs) via Financial Accounting Standard (FAS) 123-R. In anticipation of FAS 123-R, between March 2004 and November 2005, several firms accelerated the vesting of ESOs to avoid recognizing existing unvested ESO grants at fair value in future financial statements.

Accumulating evidence suggests that targets' displays of emotion shape perceivers' impression of those targets. Prior research has highlighted generalization effects, such as an angry display prompting an impression of hostility. In two studies, we went beyond generalization to examine the interaction of displays and behaviors, finding new evidence of augmenting effects (behavior-correspondent inferences are stronger when behavior is accompanied by positive affect) and discounting effects (such inferences are weaker when behavior is accompanied by negative affect).

Two leading scholars of business and finance introduce a bold idea for the world's poorest countries. Over the past twenty years, more citizens in China and India have raised themselves out of poverty than anywhere else at any time in history. They accomplished this through the local business sector—the leading source of prosperity for all rich countries. In most of Africa and other poor regions, the business sector is weak, but foreign aid continues to fund government and NGOs.

This important handbook explores new and emerging directions in both brand management research and practice and encompasses a diverse set of approaches. These include the latest academic research to offer new frameworks for understanding brand management. Contributors offer the researcher's perspective on current tools in practice by brand managers today and new research and conceptual frameworks for understanding and managing customer experiences.

Past work on interpersonal assertiveness and organizational effectiveness paints a mixed picture: some research suggests a positive link, other work highlights negative effects. This article reviews recent research and an account that stems from a different perspective, looking at assertiveness as a factor in leadership shortcomings and failure. This approach suggests that interpersonal assertiveness is a major factor and has a curvilinear, inverted-U-shaped relationship with leadership effectiveness. I review evidence for this effect as well as social and instrumental outcome mediators.