HEC Montréal

About: HEC Montréal is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Vehicle routing problem & Corporate governance. The organization has 1221 authors who have published 5708 publications receiving 196862 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal & HEC Montreal.

For better, for worse? What to do when celebrity endorsements go bad

Abstract: This experimental study examined what is the optimal decision for a company whose brand is endorsed by a celebrity immersed in a scandal (revoking versus continuing the endorsement) as a function of brand/endorser fit (congruence versus incongruence) and of the veracity of the negative event created by the celebrity's reaction (denying versus admitting the facts). In the case of congruence, revoking the endorsement is suboptimal with respect to brand attitude and purchase intention. Furthermore, denying lowered the endorser's trustworthiness which, in turn, hampered attitude and intention. Managerial and theoretical implications, as well as directions for further research, were also considered.

Capital Structure and Asset Prices: Some Effects of Bankruptcy Procedures

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of the U.S. bankruptcy procedures on the valuation of corporate securities and capital structure decisions. We provide closed-form solutions for the values of corporate debt and equity when defaulting firms can either liquidate their assets or renegotiate outstanding debt under the Court protection. The paper shows that the possibility to renegotiate the debt contract (i) has an ambiguous impact on leverage choices and (ii) unambiguously increases credit spreads on corporate debt. The analysis also reveals that the sharing rule of cash flows during bankruptcy has a large impact on optimal leverage. By contrast, credit spreads on corporate debt show little sensitivity to this very parameter.

A Hybrid Monte Carlo Local Branching Algorithm for the Single Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands

Abstract: We present a new algorithm that uses both local branching and Monte Carlo sampling in a multidescent search strategy for solving 0-1 integer stochastic programming problems. This procedure is applied to the single-vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands. Computational results show the effectiveness of this new approach to solving hard instances of the problem. This paper was accepted by former Editor-in-Chief Hani Mahmassani.

Adolescents' perceptions of family communication patterns and some aspects of their consumer socialization

Abstract: This study examined the effects of family communication patterns (FCP) on adolescent consumers' decision-making styles and influence in family purchase decisions. Two underlying dimensions of FCP (concept-orientation and socio-orientation) were measured separately for mother–child communication and father–child communication and regressed on adolescents' use of the selected decision-making styles and influence in purchase decisions involving durable products and nondurable products for their own use. Results show that only mother–child communication patterns have significant associations with adolescents' decision-making styles and family purchase influence. Specifically, mothers' concept-oriented communication was positively linked to children's use of utilitarian decision-making styles (e.g., careful and deliberate decision making) and social/conspicuous decision-making styles (e.g., recreational and hedonic decision making) as well as to children's influence in family purchase decisions involving both durable and nondurable products for themselves. On the other hand, mothers' socio-oriented communication was linked positively to children's use of undesirable decision-making styles (e.g., confusion by overchoice) and negatively to children's influence in family purchase decisions. This study also investigated the presence (or absence) of a same-gender effect in the relationships between parent–child communication orientations and children's consumer socialization outcome. If present, a same-gender effect would be indicated by a greater influence from the same-sex parent's communication orientations on the adolescent's decision-making styles and influence in family decisions relative to that of the opposite-- sex parent's communication orientations. Comparisons of the two gender-group regression results revealed no systematic pattern that suggests the presence of such an effect. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.