How best to respond to the iniquities uncovered within the financial sector in recent years? Better communication, harsher punishments and stronger regulation have been touted as ways to hold banks to account - but it is important to look more deeply to achieve real and lasting change. Professor André Spicer assesses the options.

One of the great, unanswered questions in business is how much a leader needs hands-on, nuts-and-bolts knowledge of the core business. Who would most likely lead the company to success - the technical expert or the polished generalist? This research examines how much genuine expertise is an advantage in the succsesful running of a business, and how simply being a capable manager may not be sufficient.

Financial services companies wishing to increase their sales may look to their existing customer base for cross-selling opportunities. Information on customer behaviour can be analysed to assess whether or not more products should be offered. In particular, data on past claiming history and information on payment defaulting can be useful in determining how an individual customer is likely to act with another type of product. This study demonstrates a method for using historical information to both identify potential customers for cross-selling and assess their 'risk profile'. It may help companies improve their marketing to existing customers, and ultimately lead to higher profits.

Managers are acknowledged to have their own style when taking corporate decisions. Personal characteristics of CEOs are empirically important determinants of a large range of corporate variables. However, there are still a number of unexplored research questions. One of these is to what extent the corporate risk management policies of non-financial firms departs from textbook hedging.

In this paper, Cass researchers study to what extent CEO personal beliefs and individual characteristics explain the time-series variation of foreign currency derivatives beyond industry, firm, and market fundamentals.