The differentiated effects of CSR actions in the service industry

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to attempt to explain why the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives may be different and/or more important in service firms compared to manufacturing firms. CSR is becoming a common strategy, hence its extensive research. Central to it is the analysis of the effect of CSR on a firm’s performance, whose outcome depends on firm-specific and industry-related factors. Design/methodology/approach – The event study methodology is applied to all the 248 companies that have ever traded on the Spanish Stock Market between 1990 and 2007. A regression analysis examines potential different effects of CSR on service and goods firms. Findings – The results show that CSR activities have a positive impact on firm performance that is higher for service firms than for manufacturing firms. Actions related to the environment, responsible labor relationships and good corporate governance are especially important in the service context. Research limitations/implications – This research is focused on shareholders’ performance, but it does not consider other stakeholders, such as real consumer behavior or employees’ commitment and productivity. Practical implications – Service firms are likely to gain from focusing on some CSR activities (environment, employees and good corporate governance) and should use their responsible behavior as a valuable tool for public relations and differentiation in the market. Originality/value – This article is the first attempt to empirically test and explain why the relationship between CSR and firm performance may be different (more positive) for service vs manufacturing firms.The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science for financially supporting this research under Contract No. ECO2008-05487

A MegaCam Survey of Outer Halo Satellites. VII. A Single S\'ersic Index v/s Effective Radius Relation for Milky Way Outer Halo Satellites

In this work we use structural properties of Milky Way's outer halo ($R_G > 25\,\mathrm{kpc}$) satellites (dwarf spheroidal galaxies, ultra-faint dwarf galaxies and globular clusters) derived from deep, wide-field and homogeneous data, to present evidence of a correlation in the S\'ersic index v/s effective radius plane followed by a large fraction of outer halo globular clusters and satellite dwarf galaxies. We show that this correlation can be entirely reproduced by fitting empirical relations in the central surface brightness v/s absolute magnitude and S\'ersic index v/s absolute magnitude parameter spaces, and by assuming the existence of two types of outer halo globular clusters: one of high surface brightness (HSB group), with properties similar to inner halo clusters; and another of low surface brightness (LSB group), which share characteristics with dwarf spheroidal and ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Given the similarities of LSB clusters with dwarf spheroidal and ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, we discuss the possibility that outer halo clusters also originated inside dark matter halos and that tidal forces from different galaxy host's potentials are responsible for the different properties between HSB and LSB clusters.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, 3 table

Fear of falling and postural reactivity in patients with glaucoma

Purpose To investigate the relationship between postural metrics obtained by dynamic visual stimulation in a virtual reality environment and the presence of fear of falling in glaucoma patients. Methods This cross-sectional study included 35 glaucoma patients and 26 controls that underwent evaluation of postural balance by a force platform during presentation of static and dynamic visual stimuli with head-mounted goggles (Oculus Rift). In dynamic condition, a peripheral translational stimulus was used to induce vection and assess postural reactivity. Standard deviations of torque moments (SDTM) were calculated as indicative of postural stability. Fear of falling was assessed by a standardized questionnaire. The relationship between a summary score of fear of falling and postural metrics was investigated using linear regression models, adjusting for potentially confounding factors. Results Subjects with glaucoma reported greater fear of falling compared to controls (-0.21 vs. 0.27P = 0.039). In glaucoma patients, postural metrics during dynamic visual stimulus were more associated with fear of falling (R-2 = 18.8%P = 0.001) than static (R-2 = 3.0%P = 0.005) and dark field (R-2 = 5.7%P = 0.007) conditions. In the univariable model, fear of falling was not significantly associated with binocular standard perimetry mean sensitivity (P = 0.855). In the multivariable model, each 1 Nm larger SDTM in anteroposterior direction during dynamic stimulus was associated with a worsening of 0.42 units in the fear of falling questionnaire score (P = 0.001). Conclusion In glaucoma patients, postural reactivity to a dynamic visual stimulus using a virtual reality environment was more strongly associated with fear of falling than visual field testing and traditional balance assessment.National Institutes of Health/National Eye Institute [EY021818]Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) [233829/2014-8]Alcon Laboratories (Fort Worth, TX)Bausch & Lomb (Garden City, NY)Carl Zeiss Meditec (Jena, Germany)Heidelberg Engineering (Heidelberg, Germany)Merck (White House Station, NJ)Allergan (Irvine, CA)Sensimed (Lausanne, Switzerland)Topcon (Livermore, CA)Reichert (Dewey, NY)National Eye Institute (Bethesda, MD)Novartis (Basel, Switzerland)nGoggle (San Diego, CA)Duke Univ, Duke Eye Ctr, Durham, NC 27708 USADuke Univ, Dept Ophthalmol, Durham, NC 27708 USAUniv Fed Sao Paulo, Dept Ophthalmol & Vis Sci, Sao Paulo, BrazilUniv Calif San Diego, Dept Ophthalmol, La Jolla, CA 92093 USAUniv Fed Sao Paulo, Dept Ophthalmol & Vis Sci, Sao Paulo, BrazilCNPq [233829/2014-8]Web of Scienc

Industry-specific effect of CSR initiatives: hotels and airlines

Purpose – This study aims to examine the relationships between a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and its performance and risk. The authors hypothesize that industry-level effects are highly determinant of the sign and magnitude of these relationships to establish a ranking of industries to identify the position of the most prominent tourism-related industries: hotels and airlines. Based on the cybernetic model of decision making and the heuristics thereof, shareholders base their investment decisions derived from CSR announcements on the idea that the industries behave differently; their fixed costs being a relevant factor. Design/methodology/approach – The authors estimate the industry-specific effects of CSR initiatives on firms' performance and risk using a sample of 583 announcements from the Spanish Stock Market. Findings – The results show that while CSR announcements have a positive effect on performance when the authors do not account for industry-specific factors, once the authors incorporate these factors into the analysis, the authors find that firm performance and risk vary quite substantially as a function of the industry to which the firm belongs. Interestingly, while the hotel industry presents an average behavior (standing at 9th position in returns, 15th in terms of risk, and 8th according to the ratio returns/volatility), the airline industry presents the worst situation of all industries: last in performance and last in risk. Practical implications – The results help managers assess their decisions and allocate CSR resources optimally. Originality/value – This article is the first attempt to empirically test and comprehensively detect the different relationships between CSR and firm performance across industries.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support (ECO0805487) provided by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

Consistency of expert product reviews: an application to wine guides

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to examine the internal consistency of wine guides by comparing the judgements of experts who taste and review wines. It further classifies the wines into categories to establish whether expert reviews of similar wines are coherent. Design/methodology/approach. Sentiment analysis based on natural language processing techniques was used to compare quantitative and qualitative reviews between experts. In addition, a finite mixture model was used to classify wines into categories to analyse internal consistency between ratings. Findings. The results for a sample of more than 200,000 Wine Enthusiast ratings reveal significant differences between the experts’ reviews, which shows that there are no standard criteria for reviewing the wines included in the guide. Originality. Wine guides are amongst the most widely used marketing resources in the wine industry. They provide a signal to consumers about the quality of wines, guiding their purchase decisions, whilst also influencing the reputation of brands and the performance of the companies producing these wines. Thus, the main contribution of this study is to improve comparisons of the assessments by wine guide experts in relation to the wines they taste. This analysis will make it possible to verify their effectiveness as a source of information for consumers and will allow wine producers to make more accurate assessments of the potential impact of experts on their performance

Metagenomics in Polluted Aquatic Environments

Metagenomics is defined as the culture-independent genomic analysis of biological assemblages providing access to the whole set of genes and genomes from a sample. It encompasses a variety of techniques that are based on (i) total DNA extraction from samples followed by PCR amplification of specific genes, (ii) library construction or amplification and sequencing of the whole genetic material. These methodologies have successfully been applied in studies of composition, dynamics, and functions of microbial communities in a variety of ecosystems including those subjected to anthropogenic modifications (Gilbert & Dupont, 2011). Culture independent methods allow the analysis of a set of metabolic genes from microbial communities, which can be used to determine how environmental conditions such as pollution can shape community composition and the diversity of genes associated with biogeochemical cycles such as those of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus (Singh et al., 2009). This approach is also useful for the discovery of novel environmental microorganisms and genes, with important applications for biotechnology, medicine, and bioremediation (Cardoso et al., 2011). This applicability has resulted in a recent sharp increase in studies focusing in the metagenomic analysis of polluted sites. Their aim is to characterize microbial communities from a diverse set of environments such as freshwater, marine sediments, open ocean, pelagic ecosystems, soil, and host-associated communities. An example of these initiatives is the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition (GOS), which assessed the genetic diversity of marine microbial communities around the Earth. Since 2003, an enormous amount of data has been generated by GOS helping scientists to reveal the microbial diversity and also allowing them to better understand microbial phylogeny and ecology (Gilbert & Dupont, 2011)

Back to the Future: Conserving Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity in the Amphibian-Climate Refuges

Climate refuges have been used by several species over historical climate change. Ectothermic species often display good models for climate change studies because they are highly sensitive to temperature. Analysis of species loss with ecosystem and evolutionary values helps to understand environmental processes and climate change consequences. We determined the functional and phylogenetic diversity of amphibians in the Atlantic Forest hotspot, using multiple models representing present and future conditions. Through a novel approach, we predict species’ threat status by 2080, following the IUCN’s criterion B1. Our results estimate a drastic reduction in species richness, ecosystem functioning and evolutionary history at low latitudes and altitudes. We show that species will tend to disperse to the areas with milder temperatures (i.e., high latitudes/altitudes). Some of these areas are the same climate refuges that have been suggested for the Late Pleistocene. We highlight that 60% of amphibians can become threatened under predicted-future conditions. This work advances the knowledge on climate refuges for amphibian ecology and evolution, supporting complementary tools for conservation strategies

A MegaCam Survey of Outer Halo Satellites. III. Photometric and Structural Parameters

We present structural parameters from a wide-field homogeneous imaging survey of Milky Way satellites carried out with the MegaCam imagers on the 3.6m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and 6.5m Magellan-Clay telescope. Our survey targets an unbiased sample of "outer halo" satellites (i.e., substructures having Galactocentric distances greater than 25 kpc) and includes classical dSph galaxies, ultra-faint dwarfs, and remote globular clusters. We combine deep, panoramic $gr$ imaging for 44 satellites and archival $gr$ imaging for 14 additional objects (primarily obtained with the DECam instrument as part of the Dark Energy Survey), to measure photometric and structural parameters for 58 outer halo satellites. This is the largest and most uniform analysis of Milky Way satellites undertaken to date and represents roughly three quarters ($58/81 \simeq$72\%) of all known outer halo satellites. We use a maximum-likelihood method to fit four density laws to each object in our survey: exponential, Plummer, King and Sersic models. We examine systematically the isodensity contour maps and color magnitude diagrams for each of our program objects, present a comparison with previous results, and tabulate our best-fit photometric and structural parameters, including ellipticities, position angles, effective radii, Sersic indices, absolute magnitudes, and surface brightness measurements. We investigate the distribution of outer halo satellites in the size-magnitude diagram, and show that the current sample of outer halo substructures spans a wide range in effective radius, luminosity and surface brightness, with little evidence for a clean separation into star cluster and galaxy populations at the faintest luminosities and surface brightnesses.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap