Incentive Mechanism Design Aiming at Deflated Performance Manipulation in Retail Firms: Based on the Ratchet Effect and the Reputation Effect

Store managers in retail firms are often offered a performance-based compensation scheme accompanied with a performance target by the headquarters. The headquarters adjusts the performance target based on store managers’ historical performance and therefore generates the ratchet effect. Consequently, store managers may downward manipulate performance, that is, deflated performance manipulation, so as to weasel out of target growth and smooth performance growth. However, the reputation effect that seeks fame by store managers can restrain deflated performance manipulation. We model a dynamic agency setting in which both the ratchet effect and the reputation effect are related to the store manager’s compensation scheme, and the store manager has to balance her effort and deflated performance manipulation. Our findings reveal that the ratchet effect and environmental volatility jointly determine the existence of deflated performance manipulation, yet the reputation effect can restrain it with increasing environmental volatility. In addition, deflated performance manipulation is inevitable when environmental volatility is large enough, and explicit incentives may promote deflated performance manipulation

Di-μ-chlorido-bis­{aqua­chlorido[3-ethyl-4-phenyl-5-(2-pyrid­yl)-4H-1,2,4-triazole-κ2 N 1,N 5]manganese(II)}

In the centrosymmetric dinuclear title compound, [Mn2Cl4(C15H14N4)2(H2O)2], the MnII atom is coordinated by an N,N′-bidentate ligand, a water mol­ecule, a terminal chloride ion and two bridging chloride ions in a distorted MnN2OCl3 octa­hedral geometry. The Mn⋯Mn separation is 3.6563 (9) Å. In the crystal structure, O—H⋯N and O—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds help to establish the packing

Bis[4,5-dimethyl-2-(2-pyrid­yl)-1H-imidazole-κ2 N 2,N 3](1H-imidazole-κN 3)copper(II) bis­(perchlorate)

In the title complex, [Cu(C3H4N2)(C10H11N3)2](ClO4)2, the CuII cation has a distorted trigonal-bipyramidal geometry defined by a CuN2N′2N′′ donor set. The imidazole ligand is disordered over two orientations of equal occupancy. Two of the perchlorate ion sites are located on a twofold rotation axis, and one of is disordered over two sites of equal occupancy. In the crystal structure there is a two-dimensional infinite network of hydrogen-bonded mol­ecules parallel to the ab plane

Infinitely many solutions for the prescribed boundary mean curvature problem on BN\mathbb B^N

We consider the following prescribed boundary mean curvature problem in $\mathbb B^N$ with the Euclidean metric $-\Delta u =0$, $u>0$ in $B^N, \frac{\partial u}{\partial\nu} + \frac{N-2}{2} u =\frac{N-2}{2} K(x) u^{N/(N-2)}$ on $S^{N-1}, where$K$is positive and rotationally symmetric on$\mathbb S^{N-1}$. We show that if${K}$has a local maximum point, then the equation has {\bf infinitely many positive} solutions, which are non-radial on$\mathbb S^{N-1}$.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0804.4030 by other author

Research on the performance and application of low traffic hardened lime-fly ash pavement materials in rural areas

By means of curing agent hardening technology applied for lime-fly ash road surface, the performance of unconfined compressive strength, water stability and freezing stability of hardened fly ash mixture has been tested, and the feasibility of the technology has been verified. At the same time, combined with the indoor test results, the test road has been paved which achieved good results, and the construction technology is simple, economical and reasonable, so it has a good value of popularization and application