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This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.

Long‐run corporate success requires engagement in two types of innovative activities: exploitation and exploration. However, earlier research has focused on exploration and exploitation concerning a firm's technologies. The purpose of the present article is to explicitly examine exploration and exploitation related to customers and markets.

The article is conceptual in nature, based on marketing, strategic management, and organization literatures.

The article explains the logic of exploration‐exploitation with respect to two market‐related resource classes – the firm's knowledge of markets and customers (market/customer intelligence) and market actors' knowledge of and bonds to the firm (brands/bonds) – as viewed in combination with the resource class of technologies, processes, and products (technologies/processes). The distinction of these three resource classes enables a three‐dimensional conceptualization of the ideal types of a firm's business development projects, which are seen as combinations of exploration and exploitation of resources across the three classes. The article also introduces the notions of multidimensionality of exploration‐exploitation within the resource classes and relativity of resource newness.

The article explicates how firms can orient their exploration and exploitation strategies not only on the technology dimension but also on the dimensions of market/customer intelligence and brands/bonds.

The purpose of this paper is to address the problems of interaction of tensile stress-waves with polyurea/fused-silica and fused-silica/polyurea interfaces, and the potential for the accompanying interfacial decohesion.

The problems are investigated using all-atom non-equilibrium molecular-dynamics methods and tools. Before these methods/tools are employed, previously determined material constitutive relations for polyurea and fused-silica are used, within an acoustic-impedance-matching procedure, to predict the outcome of the interactions of stress-waves with the material-interfaces in question. These predictions pertain solely to the stress-wave/interface interaction aspects resulting in the formation of transmitted and reflected stress- or release-waves, but do not contain any information regarding potential interfacial decohesion. Direct molecular-level simulations confirmed some of these predictions, but also provided direct evidence of the nature and the extent of interfacial decohesion. To properly model the initial state of interfacial cohesion and its degradation during stress-wave-loading, reactive forcefield potentials are utilized.

Direct molecular-level simulations of the polyurea/fused-silica interfacial regions prior to loading revealed local changes in the bonding structure, suggesting the formation of an interphase. This interphase was subsequently found to greatly affect the polyurea/fused-silica decohesion strength.

To the authors’ knowledge, the present work is the first public-domain report of the use of the non-equilibrium molecular dynamics and reactive force-field potentials to study the problem of interfacial decohesion caused by the interaction of tensile waves with material interfaces.

This paper reviews methods of quality control for the ultrasonic wire bonding process. It also covers the basic principles of the process, a model for the bonding mechanism, and the criteria which determine bond quality. In practice, quality control in production is mainly by batch destructive testing and by ensuring consistent performance of the bonding machine by, for example, periodic calibration. A more desirable approach is that of in‐process monitoring and control of every joint made. Although in‐process techniques have been extensively studied, they are currently little used because of the lack of a universal system, doubts on reliability and access problems. The in‐process monitoring and control techniques which have been studied have concentrated on methods which involve the detection of variations in the mechanical impedance of the bond zone; these are reflected back into the excitation system of the equipment during bond formation. It is believed that further development of these techniques, coupled with simultaneous monitoring of associated parameters, e.g., bonding wire deformation, offers hope of improved process control.

The Obama Administration has proposed reinstatement of the BABs program created as part of the 2009 ARRA legislation to put state and local governments on a fiscally sustainable path by supplementing their capacity to access the bond market. However, it is cost prohibitive to issue BABs and purchase municipal bond insurance. The research questions raised in this study are specific to the lower rated municipalities: 1) did they experience an increase in issuance during the BABs program and 2) what is the effect of BABs on the re-emergence of municipal bond insurance in facilitating access to the capital markets? G.O. debt issuance for years 2001-2011 and BABs data provided by Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters are used to develop a comparative analysis. Results suggest 1) highly rated issuers significantly benefitted and 2) G.O. insured debt issued during the BABs program was down 30% for lower rated issuers when compared to the pre-BABs period.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of January sentiment on investors’ asset allocation decisions in the US corporate bond market during the rest of the year. Specifically, the study evaluates if the shift in January sentiment is a predictor of corporate bond spreads from February to December.

Using corporate bond trades reported in TRACE between 2005 and 2014, the authors examine the ability of the Index of Consumer Sentiment and the Index of Investor Sentiment to predict bond spreads over the 11 months following January. The study evaluates both the sign of the change in sentiment and the magnitude of the change in sentiment using two generalized linear models, controlling for industry, bond and firm fixed effects. Portfolios are analyzed based on yield, firm size and firm leverage. Additional analysis is performed to ensure results are robust to the impacts of the subprime financial crisis.

This paper finds that the changes in the sentiment measures in January predict bond spreads associated with bond trades in the subsequent 11 months, and this phenomenon, which the authors label as the “January sentiment effect,” has opposing impacts on risky and less risky bond portfolios.

This paper adds to the literature on the relationship between sentiment and investor’s allocation decisions. The evidence documented in this study is the first known to find that investors’ allocation decisions in a year are driven by their sentiment in January.

The purpose of this paper is to show that numerous studies have advanced social capital research over the past decade. Most studies have accepted the theoretical distinction between bonding and bridging social capital networks. Many, however, tend to agglomerate empirical research under the one catch‐all social capital concept, rather than classifying it according to the bonding/bridging distinction. Furthermore, most studies make little distinction on the basis of methodology, between qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigating social capital. These omissions need to be addressed.

This paper reviews definitions and applications of bridging and bonding social capital, classifies empirical studies according to each network type, and produces a further breakdown according to methodological approach.

The result is a four‐part “grid” of social capital research, encompassing bonding and bridging, and quantitative and qualitative aspects. This paper finds that most qualitative research examines non‐excludable and excludable goods and is relevant to bonding social capital, whilst most quantitative analysis looks at civic networks and norms of trust, and relates to bridging social capital.

Results advance the task of clarifying and measuring social capital.

Further development of the bridging/bonding social capital conceptual pair should allow for a more precise measurement of a community, or region.

No review paper to date captures the above empirical and methodological “grid” clearly.

The purpose of the paper is to show that research on the internet's impact on B2B inter‐firm relations is limited, while findings are anecdotal and sometimes contradictory. This study investigates inter‐firm relations amongst Business Travel Management (BTM) firms and their clients by examining the impact of online BTM solutions on the creation and reinforcement of relational bonds.

The paper shows that two major approaches were combined for examining inter‐firm relations: economic (transaction costs economics) and socio‐psychological (social exchange; inter‐organisation; and industrial network) theories. A model illustrating the interrelations amongst the use of online BTM solutions, two structural (communication, dependence) and two social bonds (trust, satisfaction) was proposed for investigating the impact of online BTM solutions on BTM‐clients relations. Data were gathered from a convenience sample of BTM managers in the UK, Greece, and Cyprus and 194 usable responses were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The paper finds that the impact of online BTM solutions on trust, satisfaction and dependence was not confirmed. However, the hypotheses reflecting the interactions between structural and social bonds were supported, which confirmed the mediating impact of internet‐enabled communication on fostering inter‐firm relations.

In this paper the sample is convenient, while data are gathered only from the buyer‐traveller perspective. Larger scale, cross‐industry studies that also combine buyers' and sellers' perspectives are required.

The paper shows that the internet's ability to foster relational bonds was found to be dependent on its exploitation for enhancing inter‐firm communications. When using the internet for enhancing clients' relations and satisfaction, firms should exploit the internet's communication tools and identify clients' information needs for customising the communications' content.

The paper sees that the internet's impact on forming relational bonds and building B2B relations in the BTM context has not been previously researched.

This article examines how reinsurance coupled with new financial instruments can expand coverage to areas exposed to catastrophe losses from natural disasters, and demonstrates how reinsurance and the catastrophe‐linked financial instruments can be combined to lower the price of protection from its current level. A simple example illustrates the relative advantages and disadvantages of pure catastrophic bonds and pure indemnity reinsurance in supporting a structure of payments contingent on certain extreme events occurring. The authors suggest ways to combine these two instruments using customized catastrophe indices to expand coverage and reduce the cost of protection. This article states six principles for designing catastrophic risk transfer systems and discusses practical issues for implementation, and then concludes with suggestions for future research.

The use of social networking sites (SNSs) can promote life satisfaction mainly because of their social relationship benefits. Although prior studies examined the roles of different types of social capital (SC), the association between online and offline SC is ignored. This research addresses this gap by uncovering a mechanism of transformation between online and offline SC in terms of bonding and bridging types when linking SNSs usage and life satisfaction.

Categorizing the concept of SC into four sub-types from bonding/bridging and online/offline dimensions, the paper establishes a theoretical framework based on the transformation mechanism among these four kinds of SC. A component-based approach, partial least square method, is chosen for hypothesis testing with a survey-based sample collected from WeChat users.

First, SNSs usage is positively related to life satisfaction and four types of SC (i.e. online/offline and bonding/bridging SC). Second, both online bonding SC and offline bridging SC are positively related to life satisfaction and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and life satisfaction. Third, offline bonding SC is positively related to online bonding SC and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and online bonding SC; on the contrary, online bridging SC is positively related to offline bridging SC and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and offline bridging SC.

In the environment of SNSs, users can take vigorous strategies to better balance online and offline spaces and improve life satisfaction by adapting to the characteristics of SNSs in developing different types of SC. Specifically, it is encouraged for users to transfer online bridging SC into offline space and offline bonding SC into online space.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study exploring the association between online and offline SC when linking SNSs usage and life satisfaction. Instead of the single transformation direction from online to offline in prior Internet research, this research has revealed different transformation directions between online and offline SC in terms of bonding and bridging types in the context of SNSs.