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Co‐branding is an often used marketing strategy within the theme park industry and it has existed in one form or another since the 1930s. Notwithstanding the growing interest for co‐branding in the theme park industry academic research in a theme park context has not been found yet. Empirical research on co‐branding is limited to a relatively few studies that have typically examined product concepts or fictitious products rather than real instances of co‐branding. This article aims to present results of an experiment on the effects of co‐branding from a real‐life theme park perspective.

The article is based on a classical field experiment in which the IBRA‐method of measuring brand associations was used. The IBRA‐method does not influence the brand associations like many other research techniques do (by giving certain cues). It is an unaided, unbiasing research technique. The objective of the study is to investigate whether the relationship between theme park Efteling and WWF, resulting in the co‐branded attraction PandaVision, could have a negative effect on the strong brand associations of theme park Efteling.

Through the field experiment an insight has been given into the possible effects a respondent's perceived brand fit within a co‐branding situation can have on the average evaluation of core associations of one of the constituent brands. Even strong brands (Efteling is the strongest brand in The Netherlands) can be harmed by a wrong co‐brand strategy. Results also showed that the brand fit manipulation has resulted in a more negative image of Efteling without affecting the evaluation of the co‐branded attraction PandaVision. Only measuring whether guests like or dislike your attractions is thus not sufficient.

This research is presented as a preliminarily study and the results should be interpreted with caution. The sample size was limited to 70 respondents and the experimental design with only students may not necessarily represent the typical visitor to the Efteling. Because of the crude manipulation of the treatment it is unclear what precisely caused the established effect. Is the effect caused by the degree of elaboration (meaning, because the respondent is triggered to think deeply about the matter at hand) or by the substantive guidance? Supplementary research with several experimental groups is needed to answer this question.

Theme parks should be aware of the dangers of co‐branding. Pairing with a wrong partner can damage the brand; negative spillover effects, erosion, brand dilution and even negative bottom line effects for the participating brands are possible. If the results occur for strong brands, weaker brands should be even more aware of the dangers.

This article presents the first application of the effects of co‐branding in a specific theme park setting. It is also the first article to use the unbiased IBRA‐method for measuring brand associations of a co‐brand strategy. Negative effects of co‐branding for strong brands in a real‐life situation were never reported before.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope of robust dispersion control charts in a distribution-free environment, which is a specific case of non-normal control charts. These control charts are skewness-based structures designed to monitor skewed-type processes whilst equally performing under symmetric processes. Moreover, the choice of a suitable control chart for a particular non-normal situation is also suggested.

The probability control limits approach is considered as an alternative way to determine the skewness-based structure of dispersion control charts. The proposals of five robust and two conventional Shewhart-type dispersion control charts are suggested as efficient competitors of skewness correction (SC) dispersion control charts. The evaluation of robust proposals and competing dispersion control charts is done through false alarm rate (FAR) and probability to signal (PTS) measures.

The proposed dispersion control charts are found robust and efficient alternatives of SC dispersion control charts in both normal and non-normal distributions. The FARs and PTS properties of proposed control charts are impressive in all studied cases, and a real-data example also verifies the dominance of proposed control charts.

Conventional dispersion control charts quickly lose their efficiency as underlying process distribution deviates from normality; however, robust control charts emerge as most suitable candidates in such situations. This paper proposes the idea of robust dispersion control charts under a distribution-free structure for the skewed-type process, which is not yet explored.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if and how firms approach debiasing and what determines its success. In particular, this study examines if debiasing is effective in reducing cognitive decision biases. This paper also investigates organizational characteristics that determine the effectiveness of debiasing.

This study uses survey data from German firms to answer the research questions. Target respondents are individuals in a senior management accounting function.

In line with the hypotheses, this paper finds that debiasing can reduce cognitive biases. Moreover, this study finds that psychological safety not only directly influences the occurrence of cognitive biases but is also an important factor that determines the effectiveness of debiasing.

This paper provides evidence that debiasing can serve as a powerful management accounting tool and discusses debiasing in the context of recent management accounting literature. This study also adds to the stream of research that investigates the role of psychological safety in organizations by highlighting its importance for successful debiasing.

This paper informs firms that use or intend to use debiasing about crucial determinants to consider when debating its implementation, i.e. psychological safety. This study also identifies risk management as a potential interface for the implementation of systematic debiasing.

While previous research primarily addresses specific cognitive biases and debiasing mechanisms using lab experiments, this is – to the best of the knowledge – the first study investigating cognitive biases and debiasing on a broad conceptual level using survey data.

Describes a probabilistic methodology for fracture assessments of flawed structures constructed of ferritic steels using the research code WSTRESS. The probabilistic formulation for cleavage fracture implements a multiaxial form of the weakest link model which couples the macroscopic fracture behavior with a micromechanics model based on the statistics of microcracks. The Weibull stress, σ_w, emerges as a suitable near‐tip parameter to provide a connection between the microregime of failure and remote loading (J). WSTRESS builds on an iterative procedure to incorporate a 3‐D finite element description of the crack‐tip stress field and measured values of fracture toughness to calibrate the Weibull modulus, m, and the scale parameter, σ_u. Specific features of the code include statistical inference of Weibull parameters based on uncensored and censored models (with maximum likelihood method), construction of confidence intervals, several definitions for the near‐tip fracture process zone and other general facilities such as spatial integration of the stress field (to incorporate the random orientation of microcracks) and stochastic simulation of fracture data using the Monte Carlo method. The code also includes a convenient free‐form command language and a seamless interface with finite element results files stored in Patran binary or ASCII format.

This study aims to examine the impact of CEO equity-based compensation (EBC) on employee wages. It also examines the impact of EBC on average employee wages in different industries and business cycles.

The authors use pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) to measure for CEO EBC and run OLS models with year and industry dummies. As many firms do not report labor expenses, the authors conduct the two-step analysis as in Heckman (1979) to overcome the potential selection bias.

The authors find that CEOs with higher EBC tend to pay their employees lower wages. They also find that such an impact is more evident in non-technology firms than in technology firms. Finally, they find that CEOs with higher PPS are more likely to depress employee wages when the business cycle shows a downturn.

No study examines the impact of EBC on employee wages directly to date. The authors add to the existing stream of literature regarding employee wages and managerial compensation. Hence, they purport that the findings support existing literature suggesting EBC contributes to, rather than alleviates, the classic agency conflict. Finally, the evidence suggests an unexplored manifestation of that agency conflict and an additional source of CEO rent extraction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of Shewhart methodology and other quality management principles to gain a deeper understanding of the observed volatility in stock returns and its impact on market performance.

The validity of quality management philosophy in the context of financial market behaviour is discussed. The technique of rational subgrouping is used to identify the observable variations in stock returns as either common or special cause variation. The usefulness of the proposed methodology is investigated through empirical data. The risk/return and skewness/kurtosis trade-offs of S&P 500 stocks are examined. The consistency of this approach is reviewed by relating the separated variability to “efficient market” and “behavioural finance” theories.

Significant positive and negative risk/return trade-offs were found after partitioning the returns series into common and special cause periods, respectively, while total data did not exhibit a significant risk/return trade-off at all. A highly negative skewness/kurtosis trade-off was found in total and special cause periods as compared to the common cause periods. These results are broadly consistent with the theoretical concepts of finance and other empirical findings.

The quality management principles-based approach to analysing financial data avoids the complexities commonly found in stochastic-volatility forecasting models.

The results provide new insights into the impact of volatility in stock returns. They should have direct implications for financial market participants.

The authors explore the relevance of Shewhart methodology in analysing variability in stock returns through reviewing financial market behaviour.

Financial accounting to assess stewardship: the case requires students to evaluate Thompson’s stewardship of McDonald’s, in part based on the company’s financial accounting information. Financial reporting performs an important societal role by helping control agency problems that arise from the separation of ownership and management. Since external stakeholders cannot “observe directly the extent and quality of managerial effort on their behalf […] the manager may be tempted to shirk […] blaming any deterioration of firm performance on factors beyond his/her control” (Scott, 2014, p. 23). However, although financial reporting helps hold managers accountable to shareholders, accounting information is not fully informative about managerial effort. For example, while net income provides useful information regarding the CEO’s stewardship, it is also “noisy,” due to recognition lags and other factors (Scott, 2014, p. 364). Efforts undertaken by Thompson in a particular period, such as marketing expenditures, might reduce current earnings, yet boost future profitability. Additionally, Thompson’s predecessor’s past efforts might have positive or negative effects on current earnings. Evaluating stewardship effectively involves considerable judgment, in addition to knowledge of financial accounting. The implication of poor firm performance is that the CEO is ineffective at formulating and implementing strategies and policies to enhance firm value (Dikolli et al., 2014). Specifically, it appears that missing earnings benchmarks matter more for relatively inexperienced CEOs. Don Thompson’s tenure of 33 months at McDonalds is 42 percent lower than median CEO tenure documented in academic research, where the median tenure of chief executives documented in large sample empirical studies is about 57 months (Dikolli et al., 2014). The evidence suggests that the longer a CEO serves, the less likely he is to be dismissed for performance-related reasons. This appears to be the result of the resolution of uncertainty about CEO’s ability and leads to subsequent declines in the level of monitoring by the Board of Directors. Performance evaluation and bias: a significant body of research explores the extent to which female managers are assessed differently than their male counterparts (Powell and Butterfield, 2002). For example, female CEOs face more threats from activist investors than male CEOs. Therefore, even after women achieve the highest managerial rank, they experience more professional challenges than their male counterparts (Gupta et al., 2018). However, the question of whether black CEOs are assessed differently is more challenging to answer empirically as a result of a smaller sample size (only one percent of S&P 500 companies are run by black CEOs). Our case attempts to develop the inference that if female CEOs are subject to bias, analogous forces are likely at work when black CEOs are assessed. Recent evidence further suggests that business students sometimes demonstrate bias in making assessments (Mengel et al., 2018). The authors discuss these findings – as well as strategies for including them in the case discussion – in the “Teaching Strategy” section herein below.

The case was written from the public record surrounding the appointment of Don Thompson and McDonald’s company filings. The record includes articles from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as local and industry publications.

The case examines the role of financial accounting in evaluating CEO performance in the context of the appointment of McDonald’s first African-American chief executive and his subsequent two-and-a-half years on the job. The case deepens students’ understanding of the link between financial reporting and stewardship, while highlighting the subjectivity inherent in assessing managerial performance, particularly over relatively short time periods. As students analyze the case, they must consider the extent to which a firm’s results are attributable to luck vs skill. We use “skill” to refer to CEO effort and other controllable factors, while “luck” refers to exogenous factors, such as macroeconomic conditions. Assessing stewardship is of practical significance. It allows pay to be better aligned with performance and empowers stakeholders to identify when a change of leadership may be warranted. The case may also be used to spur reflection, in an applied context, on the importance of being alert to unconscious bias, even when evaluating seemingly objective financial reporting data. Recent research, discussed herein, suggests that business students sometimes exhibit bias when making assessments.

The case should be included in discussions of corporate governance, executive compensation and the role of accounting information in efficient contracting. It is appropriate in intermediate financial accounting courses for undergraduates, introductory graduate accounting courses, or other courses with an element of financial statement analysis. Standard introductory accounting textbooks offer helpful supplementary reading for students. Horngren et al.’s (2014) book, Introduction to Financial Accounting (12th ed.), Pearson, London, provides an overview of the income statement and its role in assessing performance (see Chapter 2) as well as a useful discussion on evaluating the components and trends of a business (see Chapter 12). More advanced students may benefit from the in-depth discussion of earnings quality, operating income and non-operating income found in Chapter 4 of Intermediate Accounting (9th ed.), McGraw Hill Education, New York by Spiceland et al. (2018).