What Factors Drive Analyst Forecasts?

A firm's competitive environment, its strategic choices, and its internal capabilities are considered important determinants of its future performance. Yet there is little evidence on whether analysts' forecasts of firm performance actually reflect any of these factors and which are considered most important. We use survey data from 967 analysts ranking 837 companies to judge how their forecasts are related to evaluations of firms' industry competitiveness, strategic choices, and internal capabilities. Forecasts are generally associated with many of the factors that money managers rate as important in their assessments of analyst contributions, including industry growth and competitiveness, low-price strategy, strategy execution, top management quality, innovation, and performance-driven culture. We also find wide variation across variables for ratings consistency among analysts covering the same firm. On average, consistency is higher for sell-side than buy-side analysts, consistent with sell-side analysts facing greater incentives to herd

The value and challenges of collegiality in practice

The ability to work optimally with colleagues is considered to be a valuable determinant of success, but collegiality is a challenge to assess. Could you be more collegial, and what might be the benefits and drawbacks for clinical practice? How could you be more collegial and foster more collegiality amongst those you work with? What is collegiality and what does it mean to be collegial? Collegiality can be defined as the relationship between individuals working towards a common purpose within an organisation. The concept has its origins in the roman practice of sharing responsibility equally between government officials of the same rank in order to prevent a single individual from gaining too much power. In contrast, managerialism does not provide opportunities for exploring democratic consensus because it promotes being responsive and obedient to implementing the wishes of authority (Dearlove, 1997, King, 2004). Collegiality emphasises trust, independent thinking and sharing between co-workers. This encourages both autonomy and mutual respect and can impact on organisational efficacy (Donohoo, 2017). In modern day practice, the focus is less on sharing responsibility between officials of the same rank and more on ensuring that all employees within an organisation are treated with equal respect as individual people (Lorenzen, 2006)

Denial at the top table: status attributions and implications for marketing

Senior marketing management is seldom represented on the Board of Directors nowadays, reflecting a deteriorating status of the marketing profession. We examine some of the key reasons for marketing’s demise, and discuss how the status of marketing may be restored by demonstrating the value of marketing to the business community. We attribute marketing’s demise to several related key factors: narrow typecasting, marginalisation and limited involvement in product development, questionable marketing curricula, insensitivity toward environmental change, questionable professional standards and roles, and marketing’s apparent lack of accountability to CEOs. Each of these leads to failure to communicate, create, or deliver value within marketing. We argue that a continued inability to deal with marketing’s crisis of representation will further erode the status of the discipline both academically and professionally

The Effect of Salsalate Therapy on Endothelial Function in a Broad Range of Subjects

Background: Inflammation is fundamental to the development of atherosclerosis. We examined the effect of anti‐inflammatory doses of salicylate on endothelium‐dependent vasodilation, a biomarker of cardiovascular risk, in a broad range of subjects. Methods and Results: We performed a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled crossover trial evaluating the effects of 4 weeks of high‐dose salsalate (disalicylate) therapy on endothelium‐dependent flow‐mediated and endothelium‐independent vasodilation. Fifty‐eight subjects, including 17 with metabolic syndrome, 13 with atherosclerosis, and 28 healthy controls, were studied. Among all subjects, endothelium‐dependent flow‐mediated vasodilation decreased after salsalate compared with placebo therapy (P=0.01), whereas nitroglycerin‐mediated, endothelium‐independent vasodilation was unchanged (P=0.97). Endothelium‐dependent flow‐mediated vasodilation after salsalate therapy was impaired compared with placebo therapy in subjects with therapeutic salicylate levels (n=31, P0.2). Conclusions: Salsalate therapy, particularly when therapeutic salicylate levels are achieved, impairs endothelium‐dependent vasodilation in a broad range of subjects. These data raise concern about the possible deleterious effects of anti‐inflammatory doses of salsalate on cardiovascular risk. Clinical Trial Registration URL: www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique Identifiers: NCT00760019 and NCT00762827

Water and Sodium in Heart Failure: A Spotlight on Congestion.

Despite all available therapies, the rates of hospitalization and death from heart failure (HF) remain unacceptably high. The most common reasons for hospital admission are symptoms related to congestion. During hospitalization, most patients respond well to standard therapy and are discharged with significantly improved symptoms. Post-discharge, many patients receive diligent and frequent follow-up. However, rehospitalization rates remain high. One potential explanation is a persistent failure by clinicians to adequately manage congestion in the outpatient setting. The failure to successfully manage these patients post-discharge may represent an unmet need to improve the way congestion is both recognized and treated. A primary aim of future HF management may be to improve clinical surveillance to prevent and manage chronic fluid overload while simultaneously maximizing the use of evidence-based therapies with proven long-term benefit. Improvement in cardiac function is the ultimate goal and maintenance of a ‘‘dry’’ clinical profile is important to prevent hospital admission and improve prognosis. This paper focuses on methods for monitoring congestion, and strategies for water and sodium management in the context of the complex interplay between the cardiac and renal systems. A rationale for improving recognition and treatment of congestion is also proposed

Office Productivity in Computerized Settings: The Role of Machine Statistics, Performance Feedback and Job Experience

This paper develops and tests a model of the determinants of productivity in twenty computerized offices of the Internal Revenue Service. The results suggest first, that management's focus on machine monitoring statistics is misguided; second, that performance feedback has a significant effect on productivity; and third, that job experience plays a central role in productivity even in entry-level positions

Imbalance of Power: Social Service Entrepreneurs’ Experiences of Entrepreneur-Municipality Relationship

We investigate the complex dynamics between social service entrepreneurs and social sector managers through the lens of network metaphor, utilizing our data on social service entrepreneurs’ experiences of cooperation with municipalities. We examine what kinds of dependencies exist in the entrepreneur–municipality relationships and what kind of consequences these dependencies have on social service businesses run by entrepreneurs. Basing on the social service entrepreneurs experience, our findings suggest that while the cooperation with the municipality represents a prerequisite for success, their business represent only one alternative for the renewal of social service structures from the point of view of municipalities. In addition, the existence of legally enforced supervisory duties incorporates a considerable amount of power that influences areas of the entrepreneur–municipality relationships and interaction other than just those defined by the supervisory and regulatory rights.W naszej pracy badamy złożoną dynamikę między przedsiębiorcami oferującymi usługi społeczne a menadżerami sektora społecznego za pomocą metafory sieci, używając danych dotyczących doświadczeń, jakie mają tacy przedsiębiorcy we współpracy z władzami lokalnymi. Badamy jakiego rodzaju zależności istnieją w relacji przedsiębiorca – władza lokalna oraz jakie konsekwencje zależności te mają na firmy prowadzące działalność w sektorze usług społecznych. W oparciu o doświadczenia przedsiębiorców z tego sektora, wyniki naszych badań sugerują, że o ile współpraca z władzami lokalnymi jest warunkiem niezbędnym powodzenia działalności, ich przedsiębiorstwa stanowią tylko jedną alternatywę dla odnowienia usług społecznych z punktu widzenia władz lokalnych. Ponadto, istnienie narzuconych przez prawo obowiązków nadzorowania zawiera w sobie znaczny ładunek władzy, która wpływa na relacje między przedsiębiorcami a władzami lokalnymi oraz interakcje inne niż te zdefiniowane prawami nadzoru i regulacjami