Peter J. Ryan

The Organizational Performance of Learning Companies: A Longitudinal and Competitor Analysis Using Market and Accounting Financial Data.

Purpose – A growing body of literature on organizational learning suggests that companies or organizations with a learning capability can gain a competitive advantage. The argument is that learning organizations are better at knowledge transfer and generating new knowledge to solve problems. The objective of this study is to examine empirically if learning companies are more competitive and better performers than their competitors.Design/methodology/approach – This study examines a portfolio of learning companies and a set of their competitors, looking at their financial performance over a significant period. Learning companies were selected based on content analysis of the published literature. Competitors were selected from an existing top 500 companies listing matched to the learning companys business domain. This study compares their performance using both market and accounting financial data.Findings – The data show that learning companies demonstrate strong performance in financial markets over tim...

Progressive option bounds from the sequence of concurrently expiring options

Abstract Option bounds determined by the observed prices of the underlying security and a riskless bond are improved by the sequential addition of other observed prices. Each market-traded asset which can be functionally linked to the initial option imposes constraints on the set of state discount factors (SDFs) underlying financial asset prices. In the absence of arbitrage opportunities, all assets are consistently priced by the SDFs, whose values are limited by additional concurrently expiring options on the same security. Only the two options with exercise prices closest to the initial option provide binding information. Constructed examples demonstrate significant improvement in bounds. The unique structure of the formulation as a linear program is extendible to applications other than financial asset pricing in cases of similar constraint definition.

An Economic Analysis of the Tourism Industry - Implications of the Online Travel Intermediary

Informational asymmetry and fragmentation of capacity suppliers in the tourist industry provide travel intermediaries with market power. Market structure is characterized by over-capacity in off-peak seasons, high fixed costs and low variable costs, leading to product under-pricing. Forward sales of capacity at low contract prices surrender profits from consumer surplus to intermediaries enjoying oligopsony benefits. The creation of formal futures contracts in rooms and seats would permit operators to hedge demand uncertainty and retain more of the profits. Online intermediaries can serve the interests of domestic hotel operators through exploitation of databases to provide analytical solutions to capacity utilization and to develop demand balancing.