Search results

To explain and analyze two Enforcement Advisories that set forth the factors the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Division of Enforcement may consider in assessing cooperation by companies and individuals in the context of CFTC enforcement proceedings.

Explains the background, including the 2007 Enforcement Advisory for Companies. Explains the 2017 Enforcement Advisory for Companies and the parallel Enforcement Advisory for Individuals, including policy-based considerations and factors such as the materiality, timeliness, nature, and quality of a company’s cooperation; the value of a company’s cooperation to the Commission’s broader law enforcement interests; and the company’s culpability, culture and other relevant factors. Provides examples of uncooperative conduct. Discusses a broader trend among enforcement authorities in the US and abroad of setting higher cooperation standards.

The new Advisories make clear that merely complying with requests for information from the CFTC staff will not be sufficient; a company or individual seeking cooperation credit as part of a resolution with the CFTC must go above and beyond its legal obligations in order to qualify for such credit.

Practical guidance from experienced white collar defense, regulatory enforcement, civil litigation and arbitration lawyers.

To discuss and analyze the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) FY 2017 Annual Report, which details its priorities for the coming year and evaluates enforcement actions that occurred during FY2017.

Summarizes key shifts from FY 2016, outlines the Enforcement Division’s current priorities, and, in view of its stated focus on the conduct of investment professionals and protection of retail investors, provides guidance to the investment management industry as it gears up for the coming year.

The Report provides insight into changes in the SEC’s approach to enforcement actions, including a general shift in tone suggesting a more measured approach to enforcement and remedies and a move away from a statistics-oriented approach, and a glimpse into its priorities for the coming year, including five core principles guiding the Division’s enforcement decisions.

As those in the asset management industry consider revisions to their policies and procedures for FY 2018, as well as their risk profile more generally, they should keep in mind key insights into the Commission’s enforcement strategy offered by the Report.

Practical guidance from experienced securities enforcement, litigation, compliance and anti-corruption lawyers.

Mental illness presents a huge individual, societal and economic challenges, currently accounting for 20% of the worldwide burden of disease. There is a gap between the need for and access to services. Digital technology has been proven effective in e-mental health for preventing and treating mental health problems. However, there is a need for cross-disciplinary efforts to increase the impact of e-mental health services. This paper aims to report key challenges and possible solutions for cross-disciplinary and cross-sectorial research teams within the domain of e-mental health.

The key challenges and possible solutions will be discussed in light of the literature on effective cross-disciplinary research teams.

Six topics have been key challenges in our cross-disciplinary and cross-sectorial research team: to develop a shared understanding of the domain; to establish a common understanding of key concepts among the project participants; to involve the end-users in the research and development process; to collaborate across sectors; to ensure privacy and security of health data; and to obtain the right timing of activities according to project dependencies.

This study focuses to increase knowledge and training in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectorial research, as this is often referred to as an important tool when developing sustainable solutions for major societal challenges.

This study needs to include theory and skills training in cross-disciplinary research in research training.

Cross-disciplinary teams have the potential to address major societal challenges, including more perspectives and more stakeholders than single disciplinary research teams.

Major societal challenges require complex and sustainable solutions. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how cross-disciplinary and cross-sectorial research teams may work productively to solve these challenges. This paper shares experiences regarding the challenges and possible solutions for productive collaboration in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectorial research teams within the domain of e-mental health services.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the extent to which evidence‐based practices and computer systems for managing chronic illness are used within Swedish primary health care.

The methodology was a replication of a similar national USA survey study and an interview study.

The findings show large variations and an under‐use of a number of evidence‐based care management practices and of IT for managing depression, heart disease, asthma, and diabetes in Sweden. Follow‐up interview studies with heads of primary care centres gathered their views about the factors which helped and hindered improving care and prevention for these patient groups.

The study data identify actions which would significantly improve the quality of care for people suffering from chronic illnesses. Effective prevention and management of chronic illness in primary care can reduce unnecessary patient suffering and lower costs of care.

Evidence of effective methods for managing these illnesses has been reported, but it is not known how widely these methods or information technology are used in primary care outside the USA. The paper gives the first comprehensive nation‐wide data on the use of evidence‐based practices and computer systems for managing chronic illness in primary care in a European public health care system. It provides information allowing targeted actions which would improve quality of care which are low cost and high cost saving in the long term.

In the present study a model based on trust relations and transaction cost analysis has been applied to explain the make‐or‐buy decision for accounting services. The present model of efficient boundaries, which combines the focus on trust relations with the transactional focus on frequency and asset specificity, has predictive power of the governance of accounting services. The effects of asset specificity on the make‐or‐buy decision of accounting services were substantially overshadowed by the relational attribute of trust and the transactional attribute of frequency. The study reveals strong support for the hypothesized positive link between trust and the buy alternative and the negative association between frequency of accounting transactions and the buy alternative. The present model has predictive power for an overall correct classification of the make‐or‐buy decision for accounting services.

There has been a steady increase in the amount of research and theorising in the area of interorganisational research, especially with regard to buyer‐seller arrangements in marketing channels (Andersen and Narus 1990, Bergen et.al., 1992, Boyle et.al., 1992). Alternative interorganisational governance models, such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, and sole‐sourcing are the reality of modern business management (Borys and Jemison 1989, Buckley and Casson 1988), and so interfirm governance has become a strategic management issue. The much‐cited work of Porter (1985, 1991) has focused on the optimal linkage of interfirm activities, and regards the planning and governance of interfirm relations as an important competitive strategic issue, a point reiterated by Heide (1994). The issue of channel relationships has been one of concern for both practitioners and academics, and theories such as those of transaction cost analysis (TCA), agency theory, and relational norms have on the one hand shed much light on the problems, and on the other provided a fruitful backdrop to much empirical research. Less attention has been given to the effects of time on these notions, both in the literature and in empirical research. In this article we provide an overview of the theories, and attempt an integration. The purpose of this article is to focus on transaction cost economics (TCE) and relational exchange theory to provide an overview of the areas of interorganisational research where relationships play a role. A number of areas where the theories diverge and converge are outlined. More importantly, we endeavour to bring the effects of time into consideration, and to develop propositions for further research.

Although recent years have seen heavy investment in management education programmes, relatively little effort has been made at evaluation. Kane, however, has noted that the time when training and development activities are no longer questioned “appears to be well on its way to passing from a reality to a memory”.

Previous studies that examined the role of empathy and nonverbal immediacy on business-to-business (B2B) salesperson performance is limited in scope and yielded inconclusive evidence. Grounded in Plank and Greene’s (1996) framework of salesperson effectiveness, this paper aims to empirically investigate the mediating role of adaptive selling behavior through which empathy and nonverbal immediacy influence sales force performance and the form of empathy (cognitive or affective) that has the most beneficial role in improving relationship (versus outcome) salesperson performance.

Using cross-sectional data that were collected from 422 pharmaceutical sales representatives, this study used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.

Adaptive selling behavior mediates the effect of perspective taking empathy and empathic concern on relationship performance. However, the impact of empathy on outcome performance is not significant through adaptive selling behavior, but perspective taking empathy has a direct influence on outcome performance. Contrary to expectations, nonverbal immediacy is not mediated by adaptive selling behavior but has a direct and positive impact on relationship performance.

The results of this study have several implications for recruitment, training and assessment of salespeople in a B2B context. Based on the empirical evidence, it is highlighted that firms may use different forms of empathy and nonverbal cues to promote adaptive selling behavior that impact sales force performance (i.e. outcome or relationship).

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which simultaneously examines the mediating role of adaptive selling behavior in the relationship between three antecedent variables that relate to sales force empathy and nonverbal communication (i.e. perspective taking empathy, empathic concern and nonverbal immediacy) and two aspects of B2B sales performance (relationship and outcome).

This paper aims to present a meta‐analysis to test the competing hypotheses that arise from structural contingency theory (SCT) and transaction cost analysis (TCA) about how environmental uncertainty affects the strategic marketing policy of forward vertical integration (VI).

The meta‐analysis focuses on directional hypothesis tests rather than effect sizes in a set of 84 tests drawn from 29 published studies. It employs the C‐OAR elements of Rossiter's C‐OAR‐SE framework to validate construct definitions and their measures within these studies.

Although the results confirm the TCA hypothesis that asset specificity favours forward VI, the results for the effect of environmental uncertainty on forward VI do not favour either of the two competing hypotheses, but instead show that methodological orientation, international context, and historical time period moderate effects across studies and tests.

The findings imply that the relative ability of SCT and TCA to predict the effect of environmental uncertainty on forward VI in marketing may reflect real historical patterns of integration activity as a response to uncertain environments. In particular, in a new economy characterised by globalisation and rapid technological change, an increasing number of industries may face levels of uncertainty so high that they are increasingly less manageable through forward VI, a situation that broadly though tentatively favours the SCT prediction.

Since no single empirical study has explicitly tested the implied competing uncertainty hypotheses from SCT and TCA, and since published meta‐analyses of VI have only considered the TCA hypothesis and never the competing SCT hypothesis and have in every instance pooled studies of backward and forward VI, this study develops a meta‐analysis for this purpose.