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The purposes of this study were to investigate components of apparel Web sites and to examine whether differences existed among the types of Web retailers in their components. Thirty‐six apparel Web sites were classified into four categories: virtual e‐retailer, catalog company, bricks‐and‐mortar retailer, and multi‐channel retailer. The Web sites were content analyzed according to the components of the apparel Web including merchandise, promotion, and customer service. Significant differences were found among the four types of Web retailers as to the components (product description, product price information, advertising, catalog service promotion, placing order, and returns policy) included on the Web sites. Currently, competition among Web sites is not based on what information is available, but how information is provided. Therefore, to differentiate themselves from competitors, each type of Web retailer should take advantage of their unique Web strategy within their own retail channel.

This chapter examines the effect of creditors’ monitoring role on the profitability of firm acquisitions. We use the shares retained by the lead arranger of a syndicated loan as a proxy for monitoring level. We find that acquirer announcement returns are positively related to the shares retained by the lead arranger. The effect of the lead arranger’s shares on the acquirer’s return becomes pronounced in cash acquisition deals, and when there exist financial covenants. Our results suggest that lead arrangers are important not only for monitoring loans but also for successful acquisitions by borrowers. An important policy implication of the main findings of this chapter on bank monitoring is that policy makers should design financial covenants to improve the efficiency of monitoring activities by lead arranging banks in syndicated bank loan deals.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the effectiveness of systems for ensuring cooperation in online transactions is impacted by a positivity bias in the evaluation of the work that is produced. The presence of this bias can reduce the informativeness of the reputation system and negatively impact its ability to ensure quality.

This research combines survey and experimental methods, collecting data from 1,875 Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers in five studies designed to investigate the informativeness of the MTurk reputation system.

The findings demonstrate the presence of a positivity bias in evaluations of workers on MTurk, which leaves them undifferentiated, except at the extremity of the reputation system and by status markers.

Because MTurk workers self-select tasks, the findings are limited in that they may only be generalizable to those who are interested in research-related work. Further, the tasks used in this research are largely subjective in nature, which may decrease their sensitivity to differences in quality.

For researchers, the results suggest that requiring 99 per cent approval rates (rather than the previously advised 95 per cent) should be used to identify high-quality workers on MTurk.

The research provides insights into the design and use of reputation systems and demonstrates how design decisions can exacerbate the effect of naturally occurring biases in evaluations to reduce the utility of these systems.