Louis H. Amato

Does big-time success in football or basketball affect SAT scores?

Abstract This paper presents tests of the argument that a high-quality athletic program has a positive influence on the academic mission of its university. The results are based on a model of average scholastic aptitude test (SAT) scores that are a function of pigskin success, hoop success and key academic variables for the universities that engage in major intercollegiate athletics. The evidence presented indicates that academic variables rather than athletic success variables determine the level of average SAT scores of incoming freshmen students, but a highly ranked football team on campus boosts average SAT scores over time. In contrast, there is no evidence that a highly ranked basketball team on campus has an impact on either the level of or changes in average SAT scores.

Enhancing Student Team Effectiveness: Application of Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment in Business Courses.

This article examines the relationship between student perceptions of team learning experience and communication style. Student group learning perceptions were evaluated and team communication style was measured using dyads derived from Myers-Briggs personality profiles. Groups containing similar personalities were classified as compatible, whereas groups that blend individuals with different talents and preferences were deemed complementary. Our sample included two sections of Marketing Strategy and one Principles of Macroeconomics section. Macroeconomics students reported greater satisfaction when the group is compatible, whereas Marketing Strategy students preferred complementary groups. The number of group learning experiences and differences in group homogeneity provides likely explanations. Principles of Macroeconomics students, with little or no prior group experience, preferred the comfort of a compatible group. Alternatively, drawing on their considerable group experience, Marketing Strategy students preferred to blend the diverse talents available in a complementary group.

Corporate Commitment to Quality of Life: Evidence from Company Mission Statements

This paper examines the relationship between commitment to Quality of Life and firm size, profitability and industry. Mission statements were content analyzed for Day’s (1987) societal QOL goals and Maslow’s hierarchy. Including firms from Forbes Best Small Businesses and the Fortune 200 insured firm size diversity. Findings include significant (a=.05) relationships between firm size and several Maslow’s criteria. ROE is positively correlated (a=.05) with workforce well being, supporting literature regarding internal marketing. Industry effects suggest that financial services often include societal goals in mission statements, while ecological and safety goals are frequently mentioned in mining, metals and construction.

Changing retail power and performance in distribution channels

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between manufacturer profit rate and large retailer market share for five matched retailer‐manufacturer groupings.Design/methodology/approach – Basic structure‐performance modeling is used to relate manufacturer return on assets to large retail market share and a group of control variables. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Corporate Statistics of Income size class data provide a sample that covers the full range of firm sizes from the smallest to largest firms in the USA.Findings – Large retail share negatively impacts small manufacturer rate of return for shopping goods, while in convenience good markets large retail share has no impact on manufacturer return.Practical implications – Shopping goods retailers have opportunities to gain market power from expertise in merchandising, sales assistance, and product expertise. Strong private brands may offer leverage for convenience good retailers in negotiations with national brand manufacturers....

Firm size, strategic advantage, and profit rates in US retailing

Abstract Recent industrial economics and marketing strategy literature focuses on the importance of firm size in explaining cross-sectional variations in profit rate. Porter (Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Free Press, New York, 1985; and Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, Free Press, New York, 1998) argues that advantages accrue to large and small firms, while mid-sized rivals often find themselves “stuck in the middle”. For the general merchandize, apparel and restaurant industries, estimation of a cubic relationship between firm size and return on assets reveals the positive, negative, positive pattern for the linear, squared and cubed firm size terms that is consistent with Porters hypothesis. Moreover, model coefficients indicate an increased dominance of large firms in certain retail markets.

Firm and Industry Effects in Industrial Economics

The traditional view in industrial economics suggests that high concentration leads to tacit collusion, poor performance, and elevated profit. Followers of the traditional view relied upon the empirical relationship between profit rates and market concentration to justify the highly activist antitrust policy of the 1945-1980 period. The activist antitrust era reached its zenith with the nearly per se prohibition of horizontal mergers as outlined in the 1968 merger guidelines issued by the Justice Departments Antitrust Division. The 1980s have witnessed the emergence of the revisionist school as the dominant view in the field of industrial economics. The revisionists contend

Corporate Commitment to Global Quality of Life Issues: Do Slack Resources, Industry Affiliations, and Multinational Headquarters Matter?

Global markets challenge multinational corporations to harmonize quality of life (QOL) commitments across a broad spectrum of stakeholders with different corporate responsibility perspectives. Few studies have examined strategic planning issues associated with international quality of life (IQOL). This research investigates the importance of slack resources, industry affiliation, and multinational headquarter location (U.S. or non-U.S.) on commitment to societal and individual QOL for Fortune U.S. and global companies. Content analysis of corporate mission statements provides the vehicle for assessing QOL commitment. Models are estimated using logistic regression with instrumental variables included to address potential problems with simultaneity between QOL commitment and return on assets, a proxy for slack resources. Findings include a positive and significant relationship between environmental QOL commitment and slack resources as well as industry and cultural differences in QOL commitment issues.

The Impact of High Tech Production Techniques on Productivity and Profitability in Selected U.S. Manufacturing Industries

This paper examines the impact of high technology onmultifactor productivity and price-cost margins. Principal components obtained from five technologyvariables are related to multifactor productivityand price-cost margin. A negative and significantrelationship between price-cost margin and hightechnology methods when industry effects areexcluded, becomes insignificant in the industryeffects specification. The price-cost marginequations suggest that prior findings of a negativerelationship between profitability and hightechnology may result from omitting industryeffects. For multifactor productivity, there is apositive impact from high technology regardless ofwhether the specification includes industry effects.

Alternative profitability measures and tests of the structure-performance relationship

This paper compares the inferences gained when alternatively specifying Census-based price-cost margin and IRS-based accounting rate of return as the dependent variable in conventional structure-performance models. We find important differences between the structure-performance inferences of the alternative specifications of the profit measure. Further, the alternative profit measures are not highly correlated.

The Effects of Global Competition on Total Factor Productivity in U.S. Manufacturing

This paper utilizes an instrumental variables approach to investigate the relationship between growth in total factor productivity and growth in imports and exports. Empirical models are based on a sample of Census years covering the period 1977–1992, with 1986 substituted for Census year 1987. The most important finding is that export growth positively impacts growth in total factor productivity for the pooled model and for every year of the sample. Growth in imports has a positive impact on TFP for the pooled model and in two of four sample years.