The Mean May Not Mean What You Think It Means: The Use and Misuse of Measures of Central Tendency

Analysis of business studies often involves the quantification of qualitative data to derive meaningful insights and making informed decisions. One such challenge is the inappropriate use of the arithmetic mean in economic and financial modeling. The arithmetic mean is a widely used statistical measure of central tendency that sums up a set of values and divides it by the total number of observations. While the arithmetic mean is simple and intuitive, its appropriateness in financial and economic modeling highly depends upon the nature of the data and the specific research question being addressed. This creates a dilemma. Despite the business community traditionally emphasizing quantitative research modeling, the growth of artificial intelligence and big data make qualitative research more desirable, particularly in areas such as ESG scorecards and financial literacy surveys. This paper discusses the challenges presented with analyzing studies after quantifying qualitative data and provides examples of how ordinal regression and other techniques could be used to analyze qualitative variables. This is especially applicable in undergraduate education

Supply chain management practices and agribusiness firms’ performance: Mediating role of supply chain integration

Background: Globally, there have been a dramatic upward surge in the total number of agribusiness firms serving as a chain in strengthening of their activities. Interestingly, the impact of supply chain integration (SCI) on agribusiness firms is deficient in a developing country like Ghana. Aim: The study looks into the nexus between supply chain management practices (SCMP) and agribusiness firms’ performance. The study further examines the mediating role of SCI on the relationship between SCMP and agribusiness firms’ performance in Ghana. Methods: A research framework was proposed and subjected to tentative assessment using data amassed from selected agribusiness firms from the Northern Region of Ghana. Statistical Package for Social Sciences 22.0 version and LISREL 8.0 were used to test hypotheses on the nexus between supply chain management practices and agribusiness firms’ performance, as well as the role of SCI. Results: The findings revealed that SCMP relates positively to both financial and internal process performance. Also, it was discovered that SCI completely or partially mediates the effects of SCMP on the two variables of the firms performance, and this difference could be attributed to the different cultural settings. Conclusion: In support of management theories, this study justifies that using SCI as an organisational core strategic tool will help boost agribusiness performances to remain and sustain competitive edge over rivals. Therefore, agribusiness managers, policymakers, governments and other interested bodies are encouraged to broaden the scope of advocacy in streamlining SCI culture to ensure effectiveness and speedy attainments of organisational objectives

Two Essays On Executive Compensation

This doctoral dissertation examines the effect of an exogenous event on Executive compensation and the relationship between executive compensation and earnings management undertaken by the firm. My first essay presents evidence that natural disasters have an effect on CEO compensation. Our main findings are that option compensation is lower for CEOs in counties where a natural disaster occurred. Furthermore, in the year of the disaster, stock compensation is higher among CEOs in natural disaster counties when compared to those in non-disaster counties. When considering liquidity, option compensation levels are lower for firms with below average liquidity levels but stock compensation is higher for firms with above average liquidity levels. This suggests that the occurrence of natural disasters and liquidity positions of firms, which experienced natural disasters, have an effect on the type and level of compensation a CEO receives. My second essay shows that Chief Financial Officers pay-for-performance sensitivity (Delta) is negatively associated with a firm\u27s probability of engaging in real earnings management. Furthermore, it is also negatively associated with the levels of earnings inflating abnormal discretionary expenses, abnormal cash flows and abnormal production costs. This is even the case when the sample is restricted to those firms who are likely to have used real earnings management to reach earnings benchmarks. This suggests that the pay-for-performance of the Chief Financial Officer is not the primary factor driving firm real earnings management