Regulatory Uncertainty: A Reason to Postpone Investments? Not Necessarily

There is a polarity in the literature as to whether companies do or do not postpone investment decisions in the light of regulatory uncertainty. In the case of flexible regulation characterized by a high degree and discontinuous resolution of uncertainty, we show that companies do not necessarily postpone investment decisions. We trace this observation back to three motivations: securing competitive resources, leveraging complementary resources, and alleviating institutional pressure. We connect these motivations to fundamental principles of the resource-based view and institutional theory and further show the existence of a regime where institutionally motivated and resource-based actions are not necessarily decoupled. We base our research on a case study covering 80 per cent of the German power generation industry which faces regulatory uncertainty from the European CO₂ Emission Trading Scheme.     

Obtaining collaboration benefits: the role of collaboration-specific investment and absorptive capacity in China

This study examines the role of collaboration-specific investment and absorptive capacity on the attainment of interorganizational collaboration benefits. Grounded in the extended resource-based view, and using survey data from Chinese executives, we study the driver for, and test the impacts of, collaboration-specific investment and organizational learning on collaboration performance. Our findings indicate that resource similarity between the collaborative partners affects the level of collaboration-specific investment and learning, and demonstrate an approach that firms can use to obtain both abnormal common and private benefits from participation in an interorganizational collaboration. Specifically, the findings suggest that collaboration-specific investment has a direct effect on the enhancement of absorptive capacity and attainment of common and private collaboration benefits. Furthermore, due to the direct effect of absorptive capacity on attainment of collaboration benefits, commitment of collaboration-specific investment has an indirect effect on the attainment of common and private collaboration benefits. This study is the first to apply both the competence-capability framework and extended resource-based view to study interorganizational collaboration. In fact, this study aims to determine mechanisms for a collaboration-participating firm to obtain more benefit, whether common or private. Our findings provide support for the importance of learning capability as a factor in the acquisition of collaboration benefits.     

公司治理、环境不确定性与债务资本成本

以2011—2014年深沪A股上市公司为研究对象，实证分析公司治理与环境不确定性对债务资本成本的影响，结果显示环境不确定性和债务资本成本显著正相关，这说明企业面临的外部环境不确定性越高，其所承担的债务资本成本也随之增加。同时，公司治理水平对环境不确定性与债务资本成本的关系具有一定的抑制作用。研究结果表明，高的公司治理水平可以在一定程度上缓解环境不确定性对债务资本成本的冲击。因此，提高公司治理水平具有必要性。     

资源型企业增长过度吗？——兼对可持续增长理论的评价与检验

本文以包钢稀土、西山煤电等四家资源型企业为研究对象,建立理论分析框架,用传统的可持续增长理论进行评价,并对评价结论进行检验,结果发现：虽然资源型企业近10年来的实际增长率高于可持续增长率,表现为超速增长状态,但是使用财务杠杆水平、Z记分模型与经济增加值检验分析,样本企业并没有出现财务资源约束、产生财务危机以及毁损企业价值等状况。说明传统的可持续增长理论不能解释目前资源型企业是否可持续增长。本文对其原因做了进一步的分析,同时结合资源型企业的实际财务状况,提出可持续增长政策建议。     

Testing for unit roots in the presence of uncertainty over both the trend and initial condition

In this paper we provide a joint treatment of two major problems that surround testing for a unit root in practice: uncertainty as to whether or not a linear deterministic trend is present in the data, and uncertainty as to whether the initial condition of the process is (asymptotically) negligible or not. We suggest decision rules based on the union of rejections of four standard unit root tests (OLS and quasi-differenced demeaned and detrended ADF unit root tests), along with information regarding the magnitude of the trend and initial condition, to allow simultaneously for both trend and initial condition uncertainty.     

以发展旅游业为重点 加快资源型城市转型——山西省晋城市旅游业发展的调查与思考

尽管有早转或迟转、主动或被动转、效果好或效果差的区别,但是资源型城市转型发展是资源型地区经济和社会发展到一定阶段的必然选择.本文从山西省晋城市这个典型资源型城市的旅游资源独特优势入手,研究了他们主动将煤炭资源和旅游资源双优势结合,创新机制、加大投入、保护生态,在转型中逐步走出一条全面、协调、可持续发展道路的做法,还针对加快晋城旅游发展提出了一些建议,意在对其他资源型城市转型发展以启示和借鉴.     

A discussion on international assignments performance and the constructing mechanism of career success development

With the trend of globalization, international human resource management has become more important than ever. In the globalization process, enterprises apply the approach of international assignment to firmly command the operating development of multinational enterprises and to improve operating performance. Therefore, how to select the core employees to carry out the international assignments for them is crucial. In addition, whether the international assignments succeed or not depends on the existence of a well-developed mechanism of career development in the organization, which is able to provide commitment to the employees before implementing international assignments; support the employees during international assignments; and have an arrangement for the employees after completing international assignments. This article adopts the resource-based viewpoint, systematic development viewpoint, and qualitative research method to discuss the dynamic cause-effect relationship between career development and international assignment performance. A career development mechanism is constructed for the international assignment personnel who can be used as a reference to draft and plan related practical operations for enterprises or conduct related research. This research aims to explore the cause-and-effect relation between career development and the performance of international assignments through resource-based view, system dynamics and case study. After a literature review, we construct three hypotheses and the successful mechanism of career development of international assigners. The mechanism can function as a reference for the business community to assist in the selection process and for further related academic study.     

Forecasting (aggregate) demand for US commercial air travel

We analyze whether it is better to forecast air travel demand using aggregate data at (say) a national level, or to aggregate the forecasts derived for individual airports using airport-specific data. We compare the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) practice of predicting the total number of passengers using macroeconomic variables with an equivalently specified AIM (aggregating individual markets) approach. The AIM approach outperforms the aggregate forecasting approach in terms of its out-of-sample air travel demand predictions for different forecast horizons. Variants of AIM, where we restrict the coefficient estimates of some explanatory variables to be the same across individual airports, generally dominate both the aggregate and AIM approaches. The superior out-of-sample performances of these so-called quasi-AIM approaches depend on the trade-off between heterogeneity and estimation uncertainty. We argue that the quasi-AIM approaches exploit the heterogeneity across individual airports efficiently, without suffering from as much estimation uncertainty as the AIM approach.     

Uncertainty in Integrated Regional Models

This paper examines the nature of uncertainty in integrated econometric+input–output (ECIO) regional models. We focus on three sources of uncertainty: (a) econometric model parameter uncertainty; (b) econometric disturbance term uncertainty; and (c) input–output coefficient uncertainty. Through a series of Monte Carlo simulations we analyse the relative importance of each component as well as the question of how their interaction may propagate through the integrated model to affect the distributions of the endogenous variables. Our results suggest that there is no simple answer to the question of which source of uncertainty is most important in an integrated model. Instead, that answer is conditioned upon the focus of the analysis and whether the industry specific or macro level variables are of central concerns.     

Long-term forecasting and evaluation

Looking ahead thirty years is a difficult task, but is not impossible. In this paper we illustrate how to evaluate such long-term forecasts. Long-term forecasting is likely to be dominated by trend curves, particularly the simple linear and exponential trends. However, there will certainly be breaks in their parameter values at some unknown points, so that eventually the forecasts will be unsatisfactory. We investigate whether or not simple methods of long-run forecasting can ever be successful, after one takes into account the uncertainty level associated with the forecasts.     

The Effects of Consumption Variability on Saving: Evidence from a Panel of Muscovite Households**

Due to the high uncertainty characterizing them, transition economies provide an extraordinary opportunity to test the precautionary saving hypothesis. This paper represents an attempt to exploit this opportunity. We use a panel of 2,346 Muscovite households, over the 12 months of 1996, to construct two time‐varying measures of consumption growth variability, which we use as proxies for households’ perceived uncertainty. We then regress household saving on these uncertainty variables using a GMM‐system estimator. We find that both uncertainty measures generally have a positive and statistically significant effect on saving. This result, which is robust to the use of different measures of saving, supports the precautionary saving hypothesis.     

资源视角下的企业法律战略选择——以雅芳为例

本文从资源基础理论的视角出发对已有理论难以解释的外国公司法律行为进行了探索性研究,构建战略选择模型,将企业法律战略的选择分为防御型、机会型和参与型三种,认为企业可以根据不同的内部资源和法律环境选择单独的某种法律战略或者多种法律战略的组合。     

Uncertain information structures and backward induction

In everyday economic interactions, it is not clear whether each agent’s sequential choices are visible to other participants or not: agents might be deluded about others’ ability to acquire, interpret or keep track of data. Following this idea, this paper introduces uncertainty about players’ ability to observe each others’ past choices in extensive-form games. In this context, we show that monitoring opponents’ choices does not affect the outcome of the interaction when every player expects their opponents indeed to be monitoring. Specifically, we prove that if players are rational and there is common strong belief in opponents being rational, having perfect information and believing in their own perfect information, then, the backward induction outcome is obtained regardless of which of her opponents’ choices each player observes. The paper examines the constraints on the rationalization process under which reasoning according to Battigalli’s (1996) best rationalization principle yields the same outcome irrespective of whether players observe their opponents’ choices or not. To this respect we find that the obtention of the backward induction outcome crucially depends on tight higher-order restrictions on beliefs about opponents’ perfect information. The analysis provides a new framework for the study of uncertainty about information structures and generalizes the work by Battigalli and Siniscalchi (2002) in this direction.     

MNC practice transfer: institutional theory,strategic opportunities and subsidiary HR configuration

Human resource (HR) practice transfer is an important topic in the domain of strategic international human resource management (SIHRM). Previous research in practice transfer has emphasized the challenges arising from the institutional distance between the home and host countries. However, potential opportunities due to this distance have been largely overlooked. Shifting the focus away from looking at institutional distance as a constraint, we examine the possibilities of strategic opportunities that exist because of institutional distance. We argue multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries can exploit these opportunities to gain competitive advantage. Building upon SIHRM literature, institutional theory and the resource-based views, we propose a conceptual framework explaining how institutional environments present strategic opportunities. We argue that these strategic opportunities are most abundant in the case of moderate institutional distance between the two countries. Building upon the conceptualization of strategic opportunities, we propose a model of subsidiary HR configuration, and then we explain how an HR configuration could be a source of competitive advantage. Further, we examine the role of MNCs' overall SIHRM orientation in relation to the identification and exploitation of strategic opportunities.     

Quasi ex-ante inflation forecast uncertainty

We propose a measure of the effects of monetary policy based on an analysis of the distribution of the ex-post inflation forecast uncertainty. We argue that the difference between the distributions of the ex-ante and ex-post uncertainties reflects the impact of monetary policy decisions. Using the theoretical background of the New Keynesian model with imperfect information and a monetary policy rule, we derive a proxy for ex-ante inflation uncertainty called quasi ex-ante forecast uncertainty, which is free to a certain extent of the effects of monetary policy decisions. Furthermore, we introduce the compound strength measure of monetary policy, as well as the uncertainty ratio, which approximates the impact of monetary policy on the reduction of the inflation forecast uncertainty. Our empirical results show that the greatest policy effect in reducing the inflation forecast uncertainty occurs for countries which conduct either a well-established or a relatively pure inflation targeting policy.     

Information Frictions in Uncertain Regulatory Environments: Evidence from U.S. Commercial Banks

Information frictions between firms and regulators are typically seen as a means by which firms evade enforcement. In contrast, we argue that information frictions between firms and regulators can reduce the efficiency of firms’ compliance efforts when the interpretation of regulatory standards is uncertain. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in distance between firms and their regulators to demonstrate this for a panel of community banks in the US. We find that banks located at greater distance from regulatory field offices face significantly higher administrative costs, at a rate of 20% of administrative costs per hour of travel time. These differences do not come with reduced compliance, are not driven by endogenous regulator choice, and are stable over time. Further, the costs borne by distant firms are negatively related to the scale of the jurisdiction in which they operate, suggesting that information spillovers between firms limit uncertainty about regulatory expectations.     

To be or not to be unionized? A social dilemma perspective on worker decisions to support union organizing

A worker's decision whether or not to support union organizing remains a critical and timely issue for American workers. We draw on the union organizing, organizational psychology, and social dilemma literatures to offer new insight into a worker's decision whether or not to support union organizing efforts. In particular, we highlight three specific conditions – social uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, and exposure – that make the decision whether or not to support union organizing a social dilemma, and describe how these should be expected to vary by union organizing stage. We also examine the effects of key contingencies: management opposition that exacerbates, and strategic union efforts that counteract, the effects of social dilemmas. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of viewing union organizing from a social dilemma perspective.     

Raising Rivals' Costs Through Political Strategy: An Extension of Resource-based Theory

In this paper, we extend the resource-based theory of the firm to show that it can be used to analyse the effectiveness of competitive strategies. Specifically, we demonstrate that political strategies aimed at raising rivals' costs by blocking the use of substitute resources may create the opportunity for a firm to capitalize on resources that are valuable, rare, and costly to imitate. The uses of political activity to block the availability of substitute resources are discussed in detail and examples are provided to demonstrate how such strategies are used and to illustrate how successful they may be. This is an important extension of the resource-based theory because it demonstrates how the theory can be applied by researchers and practitioners.     

Resource Configuration in Family Firms: Linking Resources, Strategic Planning and Technological Opportunities to Performance

abstract    We apply the resource-based view of the firm to the study of family firms by investigating how a family specific resource (reciprocal altruism) and a firm specific resource (innovative capacity) contribute to family firm performance. We then examine how the impact of these resources is moderated by strategic planning and technological opportunities. Our findings suggest that family firms can benefit from emphasizing the positive aspects of kinship and from developing innovative capacities. As such, we demonstrate that not only do firm specific resources contribute to family firm performance, but also that family relationships can be a source of competitive advantage for a family firm. In addition, we found a heightened importance of reciprocal altruism in environments rich in technological opportunities, and that strategic planning is more important for those family firms that lack innovative capacities.