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While prior research finds evidence of significant performance persistence in banking, the issue of the determinants of such persistence has rarely been examined. In light of a liberalized thrift takeover market, this study tests for persistence and then attempts to identify its determinants for U.S. thrifts operating during 1989 to 1994. A moral hazard hypothesis for losing persistence is examined, as well as the effectiveness of the takeover market in disciplining persistent losers. Results indicate significant performance persistence, with firms in the sample 16 times more likely to remain in an initial position as a winner, or loser, than to switch. Consistent with moral hazard, persistent losers exhibit low charter values and greater risk‐taking behavior, with the opposite relations for persistent winners. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, persistent losers generally had a significantly higher probability of subsequent takeover, indicating the effectiveness of the takeover market in disciplining poor performers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how board tenure affects the compensation of CEOs using a sample of 93 publicly traded US banks.

The paper proposes a CEO allegiance hypothesis whereby long‐term relationships with executives and other directors will shift allegiance from shareholders to executives vs a more traditional expertise hypothesis that predicts superior monitoring of executives by directors with longer tenure. A generalized least squares regression methodology is used to examine the relationship between CEO compensation and outside director tenure.

For the full sample, board tenure variables were found to be insignificant. However, when examining a subsample of firms with CEO tenure of greater than six years or more, the relationship between CEO pay and the median tenure of outside directors becomes positive, supporting a CEO allegiance hypothesis.

On a caveat, since this study relies on data for large bank holding companies over a short period of time, further research is needed to determine if the results carry over to a broader sample of firms and across time.

The results suggest that the independence of outside directors may be compromised when they serve for longer tenure periods together with the same CEO; an important consideration for better corporate governance.

The study provides a unique examination of outside director independence from the perspective of board tenure and the long‐term relationships with executives and other directors that may result in allegiance shifts away from shareholders and towards managers.

The purpose of this research is to understand how low-income, ethnically diverse, Medicaid recipients read, interpret and use culturally tailored health communications, specifically health plan report cards and health intervention/wellness program recruitment materials.

The paper reports two exploratory studies on message design. Researchers considered 12 focus groups for Study 1, consisting of 51 African-American, Hispanic and non-Hispanic White men and women who were enrolled in Medicaid and had a behavioral health diagnosis and a chronic disease. Researchers considered 22 focus groups for Study 2, consisting of 102 Hispanic, African-American and non-Hispanic White women enrolled in Medicaid.

The paper provides qualitative insights into how underserved populations interpret the visual and verbal aspects of health communications. Key findings include problems with cultural tailoring and monetary incentives for health improvement program participation, message components that show respect and are more likely to be read, how visuals can expand verbal messages and provide symbolic models and specifics on the desired image content.

Because of the qualitative approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Thus, researchers suggest conducting quantitative studies to test these findings.

The paper includes implications for the development of powerful verbal and visual messaging for underserved populations. Additionally, the findings suggest a need to include emotional response in health communication theories and to incorporate visual communication theories in message design studies.

Research on health communication with underserved populations is limited, yet these populations have higher incidences of death and disability from disease. This paper fulfills a need to discover best health communication practices with underserved populations.

We outline an economic theory of choice of organizational form, concentrating on explaining the selection of contractual relations within employee-owned firms. We then test the theory on a new database of U.S. producer cooperatives and find that the theory is largely supported by the data. Our principal conclusion is that producer cooperative formations have been rather strongly responsive to variations in economic conditions. While procyclical theories are clearly rejected, countercyclical theories receive considerable support. Neither political motivations nor legal institutions, especially the existence of cooperative incorporation laws, appear to have accounted for a portion of cooperative formations on a systematic basis. Support organizations have significant positive impacts on the formation rate of new cooperatives.

The purpose of this review is to summarize the available literature on the effect of vitamin and mineral supplements, especially in doses exceeding recommended daily allowances.

A comprehensive search and analysis of original, peer‐reviewed literature on supplementation studies was conducted.

High doses of vitamins and minerals can be harmful instead of beneficial. Supplementation of vitamins and minerals, in general, may be most beneficial, and perhaps only beneficial, to individuals with a nutrient‐deficient diet. Consumers thus need to be weary of the safety and efficacy of their supplements. While vitamins and minerals are vital to life, the optimal doses of each required nutrient are currently not known.

Lack of standardization between studies makes it difficult to compare the results from different studies.Practical implications – Based on this review, a recommendation can be made to avoid high dose supplements and obtain vitamins from foods to the greatest extent possible.Originality/value – This review is unique in its comprehensive nature that allows the identification of common underlying problems with the supplementation of different groups of vitamins.

An appreciation of the legal environment becomes more important with each passing year for anyone involved in corporate finance. A casual glance at the morning newspaper will usually provide a quick reminder of just how much the two areas are interrelated. The current debate in the United States concerning health care legislation may well result in a package that has a tremendous impact on many companies and industries. Tax issues have been in the news recently as well. There have been a number of significant changes in tax regulations during the past decade, including the legislation just passed by the U. S. Congress in 1993. Smoking continues to generate considerable controversy, and one result has been courtroom battles between tobacco companies and local governments over antismoking ordinances. During the last year, the DuPont Corporation has been defending itself in court over charges that one of its products caused substantial damage to farm crops. Guilty or not, the risk and expense from product liability is an enormous problem confronting almost all companies today. Texaco settled a lawsuit with Pennzoil in 1988 for $3 billion in damages stemming from a battle for the control of Getty Oil. Texaco won that battle, but suffered a very serious setback in the courtroom.

The pace of new regulation has been quite rapid in the United States during the past fifteen years. Consider the number of major pieces of legislation that have been passed during this time span and you immediately gain insight into this fast‐paced regulatory climate. It has been argued by some that oversight during the 1980s was lax and that regulations were much less enforced than in previous decades. This may be true in certain areas such as antitrust enforcement, but there can be no doubt that the total body of regulation has been expanding continuously.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the crisis communication strategies used by the Caribbean medical tourism industry in the 2017 hurricane season, and also evaluate the quality of the disaster communication messages delivered via digital mediums.

This study includes a comprehensive, qualitative content analysis of 149 risk and crisis messages from 51 healthcare organizations distributed through digital media. The medical tourism providers (MTPs) include hospitals, medical tourism facilitators, practitioners/private physicians, specialty clinics, and dental and cosmetic providers.

Nearly half of the MTPs included in the data set delivered no post-disaster information to external audiences. The most prominent post-disaster message strategy utilized was conveying operational messages. Furthermore, an unexpected finding was the sheer magnitude of unrelated health-oriented and promotional destination marketing content disseminated before, during and after these events.

This analysis excludes internal organizational channels of communication which may have been used to communicate risk and crisis messages during these events (i.e. employee e-mails, announcements made through intercom systems, etc.). Our analysis does not include content disseminated through medical tourism forums (i.e. Realself.com, Health Traveler’s Forum, FlyerTalk Forum).

Small-scale MTPs can improve on any weaknesses through proactive planning and preparation by creating organizational goals to complete basic crisis communication training courses and in doing so support the applied professional development of disaster and crisis responders in the Caribbean region. Second, MTPs exposed to similar risks of natural disasters may use these findings for comparative analysis purposes to support their own organizational planning. Finally, this study supports the continued utility of the National Center for Food Protection & Defense guidelines for analyzing and evaluating organizational performance.

Currently much of the academic scholarship of applied disaster communication narrowly focuses on the response strategies of one organization, or analyzes one social media platform at a time (i.e. Twitter). A strength of this analysis is the inclusion of an organizational sector (i.e. Caribbean medical tourism providers) and the range of platforms from which the content was captured (e.g. websites, org. blogs and social media networks).

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the off‐balance sheet (OBS) behavior of a sample of small commercial banks in the USA in 2006. In particular, it aims to study the impact that monitoring intensity has on bank OBS usage.

The paper uses a two‐stage least squares regression methodology and splits the sample by supervisory bank ratings to ascertain the impact that monitoring intensity has on OBS activity.

Certain board characteristics and executive compensation schemes do influence the extent of OBS usage in banks only when the bank is poorly rated. When the bank is strong and monitoring is less extreme, these variables have limited relationship with OBS usage.

Findings are consistent with the idea that monitoring intensity increases when ratings decline and this leads to more risk‐averse behavior on the part of bank managers.

These results lend support to the argument of stronger regulation in the banking industry since monitoring does impact on bank management behavior and decision making.

Because of the current financial crisis, research on OBS usage is extremely relevant and important. Here, the paper looks at small private commercial banks that engage in OBS activity. This phenomenon is not as well studied or understood.