Exchange rate volatility and bilateral exports of Malaysia to Singapore,China, Japan,the USA and Korea

This study examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on bilateral exports of Malaysia to Singapore, China, Japan, the USA and Korea. Exchange rate volatility is estimated by an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model. The Johansen cointegration method and the dynamic ordinary least squares estimator are used in the estimations. There is some evidence of exchange rate volatility to have significant impact on real total exports in the long run, but more evidence of exchange rate volatility is found to have significant impact on sub-categories of real total exports in the short run. The impact of exchange rate volatility differs across bilateral exports. The impact of exchange rate volatility on exports can be negative or positive. Generally, exchange rate volatility is not harmful to bilateral exports of Malaysia.     

Effects of extent and diversity of alliancing on innovation: the moderating role of firm newness

The purpose of this paper is to show the varying effects of alliance portfolio size and heterogeneity on innovation in biotechnology firms. Previous literature has indicated that the number and heterogeneity of partners in an alliance portfolio might have positive effects on innovativeness. Yet, engaging in multiple and heterogeneous collaborations also raises managerial costs and complexity levels disproportionally, potentially causing detrimental performance effects. Analysis of a unique panel dataset suggests that engaging in many alliances generally has a positive influence on a firm’s innovation output. Furthermore, maintaining diverse alliance portfolios and a high extent of alliancing jointly affects a firm’s innovation output ?negatively. By additionally showing that younger firms benefit disproportionally from both alliance portfolio diversity and size, this study provides a more nuanced view of alliancing effects.     

Financial investor sentiment and the boom/bust in oil prices during 2003–2008

From both theoretical and policy perspectives, it is important to understand if financial speculation contributes to the boom/bust in oil prices during 2003–2008. In this paper, we disentangle the effects of financial speculation from those of economic fundamentals by focusing on exogenous changes of financial speculation in oil markets identified by changes in financial investor sentiment. Furthermore, we focus on a quasi-experiment setting, and investigate both sentiment-driven overvaluation of oil prices and subsequent mispricing correction. Our findings suggest that financial speculation might have contributed to the 2003–2008 boom/bust in oil prices.     

Model misspecification effects for biased samples

The model misspecification effects on the maximum likelihood estimator are studied when a biased sample is treated as a random one as well as when a random sample is treated as a biased one. The relation between the existence of a consistent estimator under model misspecification and the completeness of the distribution is also considered. The cases of the weight invariant distribution and the scale parameter distribution are examined and finally an example is presented to illustrate the results.     

Internationalisation at home: The internationalisation of location-bound service SMEs

This study explores how location-bound service small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—such as tourism companies—internationalise. We suggest that key dimensions in the internationalisation of these firms are the available resource base, the company network and its embeddedness and entrepreneurial capabilities, particularly entrepreneur’s language skills, global mindset and cultural awareness. We propose an internationalisation framework model supported by three illustrative case examples from Finland. The framework differentiates between passive developers, emerging developers and international entrepreneurs. The study makes several contributions. First, it provides an advanced view on the internationalisation of service firms and challenges in previously applied theories in a novel context. Second, it highlights the significance of location-bound resources in the process. Third, the findings indicate that the interplay between the resource base, company network and entrepreneurial capabilities is decisive for internationalisation. We also suggest managerial implications for both the industry and policymakers, supporting the internationalisation of location-bound service firms.Diese Studie untersucht, wie ortsgebundene Dienstleister, wie zum Beispiel KMUs in der Touristikbranche, international expandieren. Wir schlagen vor, daβ die verfügbaren Ressourcen, das unternehmerische Netzwerk, die Sprachkenntnisse des Unternehmers, die unternehmerischen Fähigkeiten, eine globale Denkweise und kulturelles Bewusstsein zu den wichtigsten Dimensionen der Internationalisierung gehören. Durch drei anschauliche Fallbeispiele aus Finnland entwickeln wir ein Internationalisierungsmodell, welches wir vorschlagen. Das Rahmenmodell, welches zwischen passiven und aufstrebenden Entwicklern, sowie internationalen Unternehmern unterscheidet, macht eine Reihe von Kontributionen. Erstens, es erweitert unser Verstehen der Internationalisierung von Dienstleistern und fordert etablierte Theorien durch einen neuen Kontext heraus. Zweitens, es hebt die Bedeutung der ortsgebundenen Ressourcen hervor, die zum Internationalisierungsprozess beitragen. Auβerdem zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, daβ das Zusammenspiel von Ressource-Basis, Firmennetzwerken und unternehmerischen Fähigkeiten von entscheidender Bedeutung für die Internationalisierung sind, Ergebnisse, die uns veranlassen, praktische Implikationen für Unternehmen, wie für Gesetzgeber vorzuschlagen, damit die Internationalisierung ortsgebundener KMUs im Dienstleistungssektor unterstützt wird.     

Financialization and Society’s Protective Response: Reconsidering Karl Polanyi’s Double Movement

Financialization challenges Karl Polanyi’s thesis of double movement, the thesis that efforts to extend the market evoke efforts to protect humans, nature, and means of production from market forces. Financialization refers to the increased power of financial institutions. The government protects the incomes and assets of financial institutions, but it does little to protect the incomes and assets of households, which are necessary for people to afford healthcare, education, emergencies, retirement, and so on. Polanyi criticized nineteenth-century civilization for transforming land, labor, and the means of production into commodities, using economic insecurity to motivate humans. The development of intangible property allowed business to expand the market in two ways: (i) restricting output to drive up profits and (ii) liquefying consumer assets to provide credit to consumers to increase spending. The implications of that process manifested themselves in the financial crisis of 2008. Market capitalism represented the attempt to organize commodities based on economic rationality. Similarly, the twentieth- and twenty-first-century capitalism represents the effort to “rationally” organize society according to the value of intangible assets. Both efforts failed, indicating the continued relevance of Polanyi’s thesis.     

Want to make me emotional? The influence of emotional advertisements on women’s consumption behavior

A wide difference of opinion exists about the content and composition of emotions. Advertising may influence an audience and their buying decisions about products and services. The objective of this study is to better conceptualize how women emotionally respond to emotional advertisements (EAs). The variant views are integrated into an ACE model, composed of subordinate levels of emotions (E), celebrity endorsements (C), and appeal drivers (A). This empirical study examines women’s emotional response using data from 240 Chinese women respondents. The study participants were invited to develop ACE mix based advertisements and fill out questionnaires. PLS-SEM analysis, a novel approach in ACE advertisement development and its applicability to consumer behavior, was used. The results show that showbiz celebrities expressing the emotion of happiness with music and color make the most effective ACE mix to influence the consumption behavior of women. The results are significantly mediated by attention levels and are widely applicable in the burgeoning advertising industry. The study also calls for further research with different ACE mixes in different contexts and on different audiences. It also opens doors for policy making and an appropriate understanding of women’s consumption behavior in the Chinese context.