2003 RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

Accounting Issues
“Intangible Assets and Firms’ Disclosures: An Empirical Investigation,” by David Gelb of Seton Hall University.

This study presents evidence on how intangible assets affect firms’ disclosures. Investment in research and development (R&D) and advertising often leads to new and improved products and brand recognition which may benefit the firm for several years. Current generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), however, require that these expenditures be immediately expensed in financial reports. Prior studies argue that current GAAP severely reduces the value-relevance of traditional accounting reports and valuation models of these firms. The results suggest that firms that appear to rely on more informal and flexible disclosures, such as voluntary publications and investor relations, tend to have higher levels of intangible assets.

Competitive Marketplace
Activity-Based Benchmarking in the Health-Care Industry,” by Bea Chiang of The College of New Jersey.

Benchmarking is a strategic approach used widely in the manufacturing sector to monitor costs. It is a continuous process of measuring products, services and activities against the best levels of performance. This is an approach that can also benefit non-profit organizations such as a hospital where the close monitoring of resources is critical to ensure the organization’s effectiveness. There are several external industry benchmarks such as total margin, average length of stay and total cost per case that a hospital can use to compare itself with other healthcare providers. These eternal benchmarks, however, confound direct cost comparisons as costs may be aggregated in different ways by different hospitals. Thus, the benchmarking process should also use internal procedures data that facilitates direct cost comparisons among physicians or staff so that these groups can see clearly how their practices need to be improved when compared to the benchmark. This paper presents a case of internal benchmarking of activities in the healthcare setting.

Financial Investments
“The Antecedents of Institutional Investor Activism,” by Marguerite Schneider of New Jersey Institute of Technology.

In the most recent decades, equity ownership in the U.S. has become increasingly concentrated due to the prevalence of mutual funds, pension plans, and other institutional investors. The degree to which these institutional investors serve to monitor corporate managers and their performance, and function as a check on managerial power, is dependent upon the ability and willingness of institutional investors to wield their power as large investors. While some institutional investors are activist with the managers of their portfolio firms, pressing for performance improvements and better corporate governance, others continue to prefer to sell the stock of a portfolio firm rather than press its management for improvements. Why are some institutional investors activist, and others not? In this paper, we identify several variables that influence investor activism, such as fund size, fund type, and investment time horizon. The practical impact of this model is significant. First, corporate managers can use the model to evaluate their current institutional investors, and estimate the degree of activism that might occur among them should performance and governance issues occur. Second, corporate managers may try to attract those institutional investors who fit the firm’s desired activism profile. Third, given the wave of performance and governance scandals that have occurred in the last few years, greater institutional investor activism may well emerge in the near future, so that the salience of the model is currently significant and may well increase.

Financing Pediatric Dentistry Healthcare
“Who Shall Care for the Children of the Poor and Uninsured?: Pediatric Dentistry in the United States,” by David Paul, III of Monmouth University.

Although Medicaid was established at least in part to help alleviate dental problems for children of the indigent, the program has not been particularly successful. Some possible solutions to the problem of disparities in access to pediatric dental care are suggested, including access and workforce approaches. Whatever approaches are undertaken, cost-benefit analyses should be done to demonstrate economic value.

Labor Management
“A Labor Management Paradox: Unexpected Consequences from Churning Personnel,” by Maryann J. F. DiLiberto of Bloomfield College.

This paper demonstrates a labor management paradox. Churning personnel by laying off old-tech workers and simultaneously hiring new-tech workers can have unexpected consequences for a firm that causes it to be worse off. The paper addresses two problems of the late 1990s: the retention of top talent in a tight labor market and the rapidly changing technology that caused firms to churn personnel in order to maintain up-to-date skills.

Pharmaceutical Marketing
“Primary Care Physicians’ Attitudes Toward Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs: Still Crazy After All These Years,” by David Paul III and Amy Handlin of Monmouth University.

Based upon a national random sample of primary care physicians, this study updates earlier investigations of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription pharmaceutical drugs, in light of the explosive growth of such advertising since the late 1990s. The attitudes of the majority of primary care physicians surveyed remain strongly negative, with particular concern about the overstatement of efficacy / exaggerated benefit claims and inadequate risk information. There is, however, a minority of primary care physicians who might be favorably disposed toward DTC prescription drug advertising, provided the pharmaceutical industry addresses the expressed concerns of the medical profession.

Product Marketing
“The Direct and Moderation Influences of the Industry Environment on Industrial Sales Force Consulting Behaviors and Consulting Effectiveness,” by Alfred Pelham of The College of New Jersey.

Despite growing interest in relationship marketing and market orientation, there is little research on how sales management programs might influence sales-force consulting behaviors and outcomes. The results of this study suggest that industry customer/product differentiation, market growth, and selling firm size have much stronger positive influences on sales-force non-buyer consulting time, compared to consulting oriented sales training,. The opposite is true for influences on sales-force involvement in internal selling firm product modification efforts. Industry customer differentiation and company size have significant negative moderating influences on the relationship between non-buyer consulting time and consulting effectiveness. The author discusses possible reasons for these results and discusses implications for sales managers in commodity and specialty industries.

Strategic Information Technology
Information Technology Strategies, by William V. Rapp of New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Marketing dominating firms from the United States, Japan and Europe have concluded that to own the future of their industries they must use IT strategically. These leading IT users do not reorganize or reengineer to adopt IT but rather use IT to enhance existing core competencies, organizations and procedures. The implications and results of this strategic approach are presented. The book describes and analyzes how major non-information technology companies have used IT to gain an advantage as well as the strategic principle they employ to achieve significant competitive outcomes. The author explains how firms have combined specific industry consideration with information technologies into their organizations; routines and business strategies to achieve definite business purposes that spill over into their long-term competitiveness. A key strategic goal of these sophisticated IT users is to make the specifics of what they are doing difficult to emulate. Fast following will thus not work as a competitive response. Rather, to profit from the experience of leading IT strategists, it is essential to understand the why and how of what they do as well as why it works.

Taxation
“Many Unhappy Returns: Estate Tax Returns of Married Decedents,” by Jay A. Soled of Rutgers University – Newark and New Brunswick.

High on any American’s list of tax-related annoyances is the process of completing and filing tax returns. In most cases, however, the return is an essential part of revenue collection; without it, the Internal Revenue Service would have difficulty verifying that the computation and declaration of tax liabilities were accurate. Occasionally, however, the Internal Revenue Code compels a taxpayer to file a return that has little or no connection to the payment of a tax. Where clear instances of the phenomenon can be identified, they should be closely reviewed because they may impose heavy burdens pointlessly. This article demonstrates that the imposition of an automatic estate tax return-filing requirement, based exclusively on the size of the gross estate, imposes such pointless burdens in many cases. In particular, because the use of the unlimited marital deduction is so extensive, and so effective in eliminating estate tax liabilities for married decedents, the estates of such decedents should only be required to file estate tax returns in the relatively unusual case in which the estate actually has an estate tax liability.

Technology Sharing
“A Data-Drive Software Tool for Enabling Cooperative Information Sharing Among Police Departments,” by Alok Baveja of Rutgers University – Camden.

Police departments utilize information technology for combating crime, however, mostly for tactical purposes. This paper presents Artificial-Intelligence software, Crime Similarity System (CSS) that helps police departments develop a strategic viewpoint toward decision-making. CSS utilizes socioeconomic, crime and enforcement profiles of cities to generate a list of communities that are best candidates to cooperate and share experiences. By providing a list of relevant similar communities form whom past experience and learnings can be shared, this tool offers the potential for proactive management. CSS provides a user-friendly front-end enabling easy usage. Camden, NJ and Philadelphia, PA police departments were partners in this development effort. Feedback from these two police departments has validated the benefit of this software in uncovering opportunities for police departments to cooperate. An evaluation using human subjects showed that the CSS software provided significantly better support than a conventional database. The modeling framework developed in this work is versatile, potentially useful for applications beyond law enforcement.