Can investors time their exposure to private equity?

Private equity performance, both for buyouts and venture capital, has been highly cyclical: periods of high fundraising have been followed by periods of low performance. Despite this seemingly predictable variation, we find modest gains, at best, to pursuing realistic, investable strategies that time capital commitments to private equity. This occurs, in part, because investors can only time their commitments to funds; they cannot time when commitments are called or when investments are exited. There is a high degree of time-series correlation in net cash flows even across commitment strategies that allocate capital in a very different manner over time.     

Impact of the timing of receipt of an inherited explanation on auditors' analytical procedures judgements

The present study extends prior research relating to auditors’ analytical procedures (AP) processes in two ways. First, it examines whether the timing of receipt of an inherited explanation (before or after self‐generating explanations) affects auditors’ hypothesis generation. Second, responding to calls to address how the auditors’ performance of the earlier stages of the AP process affects their performance in later stages of that process ( Koonce, 1993 ; Cohen, Krishnamoorthy and Wright, 2000 ) the present study concurrently addresses the hypothesis generation, information search, hypothesis evaluation and final judgement stages of the AP process. Consistent with a facilitation effect, more non‐error explanations were generated by auditors initially inheriting a non‐error explanation. Further, consistent with a recency effect, the initial likelihood assessed for the inherited explanation was higher when it was received after self‐generation of alternatives. Despite these initial differences, the timing of the inherited explanation did not significantly affect the auditors’ information search, evaluation processes or outcome performance (in terms of cause selection). Results relating to the receipt of an inherited explanation were similar, except that significantly fewer subjects not inheriting an explanation selected a cause the same as the inherited explanation. These results suggest that although inheriting an explanation from management does affect the outcome of the AP process, it does not lead to fewer correct outcomes, and highlight the importance of examining the AP process in its entirety rather than in a piecemeal manner.     

Discontinuous innovation and supply relationships: strategic dalliances

The authors address the need for supply relationships to generate, support, and respond to discontinuous innovation (DI), noting that established ways of working appear insufficient. The peculiarities of DI are explained and contrasted with well-known concepts within innovation. The need for customer firms to be both closely collaborative with suppliers while also exploring potential, unpredictable DI elsewhere is proposed, by means of strategic dalliances . A model is presented for understanding and exploring this emerging management challenge.     

Service procurement in manufacturing companies: Results of three embedded case studies

An increasing part of companies' purchasing expenditures is being spent on (business) services. At the same time, the interactive character of business services has so far largely been neglected in purchasing and supply management studies. The success of a service purchase is however established during the ongoing production and consumption of that service, which takes place in continuous interaction between buyer and seller.This paper investigates these ongoing interactive processes between buyer and seller after the purchase decision has been made. The specific focus is on services buying by manufacturers, since manufacturers' services spend increasingly encompasses services that eventually become part of the final offering to customers. This is expected to pose specific challenges for manufacturing companies, who have traditionally been involved with purchasing goods.Case studies into ongoing buyer-seller interaction are conducted at three manufacturing companies. Starting from a usage-based classification which contains four types of business services, four services are studied at each manufacturing company. The results show that indeed the different types of services can be associated with distinct patterns of ongoing interaction. Furthermore, the results provide initial support for the idea that having differentiated patterns of interaction contributes to successful ongoing service exchange.     

Evaluating flood risk management options in Scotland: A participant-led multi-criteria approach

The characteristics of flood risk management include complexity, large spatial scales, inter-temporal issues, plural values and conflicts of interests. It is argued that issues with such characteristics require public participation in the decision making process. This study builds on existing deliberative processes to develop a new participant-led multi-criteria method to evaluate flood risk management options in Scotland. The results show that participants preferred regeneration or planting of native woodland to other flood management options, and least preferred building flood walls and embankments. The design of the workshops allowed a rich dataset to reveal the thinking behind such results and provided a deeper understanding of why participants came to these conclusions.     

The Influences of Teacher Knowledge and Authentic Formative Assessment on Student Learning in Technology Education

Students involved in holistic technological practice need to develop an understanding of technological practice outside the classroom and to participate in tasks set as close as practicable to actual technological practice. This paper investigates the context of assessment and its relationship to achievement and the importance of teacher knowledge to student technological practice. I argue that ‘out of context’ assessment tasks do not give an accurate indication of achievement levels of the children assessed. Introduced is the Model of Student Technological Practice, which identifies four constraints that influence student technological practice. A significant factor is teacher knowledge, as it impacts greatly on the quality of feedback given to students by their teachers. Timely teacher intervention and formative assessment feedback will alter student technological practice and should improve the students’ likelihood of developing successful outcomes.     

Sustainable Entrepreneurship and B Corps

Sustainable entrepreneurship contributes to solving social and environmental problems through the means of successful for‐profit businesses. This paper contributes to understanding how sustainable entrepreneurship is implemented by exploring an emerging new form of business, ‘B Corps’, that employs market tactics to address social and environmental issues. Through interviewing 14 B Corps, the exploratory research study found that B Corps treat profit as a means to achieve positive societal ends, they regard the B Corp model as a tool for change, the B Corp model provides a common collective identity for internal and external validation, they are focused on societal impact rather than maximizing profits and they attempt to legitimate this form of sustainable entrepreneurship by influencing the business community and government officials. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Managerial Commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain Management Projects

Most companies are under pressure to improve the environmental sustainability of their supply chains. However, there is considerable variance in companies' ability to successfully deploy environmental management projects. One important factor, according to articles in the academic and business press, is the ability of champions of sustainable supply chain management (SCM) projects within organizations to gain the commitment of colleagues (e.g., other managers from a variety of functions) to help these projects succeed. Therefore, this paper examines variables that affect a project champion's ability to gain this commitment from colleagues. In particular, building on existing research, this research employs a video‐based experimental design to examine the effect of the influence approach that the project champion employs, the values of the person the champion is trying to influence, and the organizational climate. The results suggest that organizational climate and certain individual values directly affect commitment. There are also interactions between values and influence tactics. The research adds to the field's growing knowledge on the antecedents of sustainable SCM within companies while providing valuable guidance for environmental champions and for top managers.