Despite the growing recognition of industrial design's value in creating sustainable competitive advantage, few studies have attempted to quantify the contribution that design makes to company financial performance. This article examines the relationship between industrial design and company financial performance in order to assess industrial design's contribution to this performance. Effective industrial design was evaluated by asking a panel of 138 industrial design experts to rank the industrial design effectiveness of publicly traded firms within nine selected manufacturing industries; the ranking process yielded 93 firms. Based on the rankings, firms within each industry were divided into two groups: those judged as exhibiting high design effectiveness versus those judged as low in design effectiveness. Audited financial data reported to the SEC across a seven-year period from 1995 to 2001 were used to evaluate financial performance.Using traditional financial ratios senior managers consider essential performance measures, those firms with high design effectiveness were hypothesized to have higher returns on sales, returns on assets, and growth rates of sales, net income, and cash flow than firms with low design effectiveness. High design effectiveness firms further were hypothesized to have higher stock market returns. These comprehensive, corporate financial measures incorporate expenditures made on industrial design (industrial designers' salaries, design consultants' fees, computer-aided industrial design equipment) and expenditures that designers influence through their design choices (material costs, manufacturing equipment).This analysis reveals that firms rated as having ''good'' design were stronger on all measures except growth rate measures. These results provide strong evidence that good industrial design is related to corporate financial performance and stock market performance even after considering expenditures on industrial design. Further, the patterns of financial performance over the seven-year horizon suggest that these effects are persistent.

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Classroom discussion is perhaps the most frequently used “active learning” strategy. However, instructors are often concerned about students who are less inclined to participate voluntarily. They worry that students not involved in the discussion might have lower quality learning experiences. Although instructors might consider whether to call on a student whose hand is not raised (“cold-call”), some instructors resist cold-calling fearing that the student will feel uncomfortable. This study examines the impact of cold-calling on students’ voluntary participation in class discussions and their comfort participating in discussions. The results demonstrate that significantly more students answer questions voluntarily in classes with high cold-calling, and that the number of students voluntarily answering questions in high cold-calling classes increases over time. Furthermore, students in classes with high cold-calling answer more voluntary questions than those in classes with low cold-calling; this also increases over time. Finally, in classes with high cold-calling, students’ comfort participating in class discussions increases while in classes with low cold-calling, students’ comfort participating does not change. Research findings show that cold-calling can be done fairly extensively without making students uncomfortable. Thus, the research reported here provides support for using this instructional strategy to engage more students to participate in discussions.

An exploratory study was conducted to examine management control issues in new product development (NPD). The study focused on three management control aspects that NPD managers considered important: (1) position of NPD in the firm's organizational structure; (2) NPD process; and (3) NPD performance measures. Primary data were collected from NPD managers via interviews, workshops, and a questionnaire. For each management-control aspect studied, we examined current practice, recent changes, and how the control links to strategy. The NPD function reported fairly high in the organization. The need to integrate NPD and strategy encouraged higher reporting levels, and shifts in reporting from engineering to marketing. The need to integrate NPD and strategy also drove the addition of NPD/strategy steps into already well-defined, phased NPD processes. However, NPD/strategy integration was not well reflected in performance measures. The firms studied used varied financial and nonfinancial performance measures, yet relatively few firms reported that their performance measures reflected key aspects of their strategies. NPD managers generally expressed dissatisfaction with the performance measurements, and firms appeared to be searching for more effective alternatives.

Class discussion is frequently used in accounting education. Prior research indicates that preparation for and frequency of participation in class discussion is positively related to students’ comfort participating. This study extends this literature by examining the relationship between class participation and learning. In this study, 323 sophomore business students enrolled in accounting courses and completed pre- and post-course surveys concerning their perceptions about class discussion; in addition, instructors provided students’ grades for our use in this study. Path model results indicate that preparation is positively related to frequency of participation, which, in turn, is positively related to students’ comfort participating in class discussion. Furthermore, students’ comfort participating in class discussion is positively related to learning. A practical implication of this finding on the learning-comfort relationship is that instructors’ efforts to foster student comfort with class discussion—especially efforts directed at increasing their preparation and participation frequency—should lead to increased student mastery of course content.