London Business School

About: London Business School is a education organization based out in London, England, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Portfolio & Equity (finance). The organization has 1138 authors who have published 5118 publications receiving 437980 citations. The organization is also known as: LBS.

Taste or reputation: what drives market prices in the wine industry? Estimation of a hedonic model for Italian premium wines.

Abstract: The aim of this article is to provide new evidence on the factors affecting wine prices on both methodological and factual grounds. On the methodological ground, this study is the first to apply a general Box–Cox transformation within the context of hedonic models which exploit all the variables (objective and sensorial characteristics, reputation) pointed out by previous literature as relevant in driving market prices. On the factual ground, the article fills the lack of empirical evidence on the issue for Italy, one of the leading wine producers, by using a large data set on two premium quality wines (Barolo and Barbaresco) covering the 1995–1998 vintages. Our results support the evidence obtained using data from other countries, showing that sensorial traits, the reputation of wines and producers, as well as objective variables are all important factors influencing the consumers' willingness to pay. More importantly, by resorting to a nonnested statistical test (Vuong, 1989) we compare two alternative ...

Developing Top Managers: The Impact of Interpersonal Skills Training.

Abstract: Some organizations invest a great deal of time and effort in elaborate training programmes designed to improve the so‐called “soft” skills of managing. Yet assessing the effectiveness of such initiatives has been rare. Indeed, some trainers have argued that such assessments are misleading. Recent developments in the use of survey feedback have provided a technique for pre‐ and post‐training assessments. A study, at a leading business school, was designed to assess the impact of interpersonal skills training on top managers. The evaluation of the training was based on subordinate feedback of 252 executives from 48 organizations, conducted before, and six months after, the training programme took place. The results indicate significant impact on some, but not all, of the competencies and skills under study.

Structuring front office and back office work in service delivery systems: An empirical study of three design decisions

Abstract: Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate how the distinction between contact and non‐contact activities influences the design of service delivery systems and to identify key design decisions for structuring front office and back office work.Design/methodology/approach – Building on current literature, the paper identifies three design decisions and associated performance trade‐offs. The design decisions regard the degree of customer contact in the process, the decoupling of activities and the grouping of employees. The design decisions and the trade‐offs are empirically validated in five case studies of 15 service delivery systems in the financial services sector.Findings – Distinguishing between the three design decisions is more suitable for describing today's practices than traditional front office – back office thinking. For each design decision a trade‐off was observed consisting of several design considerations. However, the trade‐offs do not involve the weighing of one set of performance o...

Corporate Bond Valuation and Hedging with Stochastic Interest Rates and Endogenous Bankruptcy

Abstract: This paper analyzes corporate bond valuation and optimal call and default rules when interest rates and firm value are stochastic. It then uses the results to explain the dynamics of hedging. Bankruptcy rules are important determinants of corporate bond sensitivity to interest rates and firm value. Although endogenous and exogenous bankruptcy models can be calibrated to produce the same prices, they can have very different hedging implications. We show that empirical results on the relation between corporate spreads and Treasury rates provide evidence on duration, and we find that the endogenous model explains the empirical patterns better than do typical exogenous models. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

Men's facial width-to-height ratio predicts aggression: a meta-analysis.

Abstract: Recent research has identified men’s facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a reliable predictor of aggressive tendencies and behavior. Other research, however, has failed to replicate the fWHR-aggression relationship and has questioned whether previous findings are robust. In the current paper, we synthesize existing work by conducting a meta-analysis to estimate whether and how fWHR predicts aggression. Our results indicate a small, but significant, positive relationship between men’s fWHR and aggression.