The Advertising Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Corporate Reputation and Brand Equity: Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry in Taiwan

This study investigates the persuasive advertising and informative advertising effects of CSR initiatives on corporate reputation and brand equity based on the evidence from the life insurance industry in Taiwan. The study finds, first, policyholders?? perceptions concerning the CSR initiatives of life insurance companies have positive effects on customer satisfaction, corporate reputation, and brand equity. Second, the advertising effects of the CSR initiatives on corporate reputation are only informative. Third, the impacts of CSR initiatives on brand equity include informative advertising and persuasive advertising effects. This study contributes the literature by explicit defining the advertising effects of CSR initiatives. Following the first step made by McWilliams et al. (Journal of Management Studies 43(1):1?C18, 2006), the hypotheses of this study crystallize their conceptual framework. The obtained results in this research first identify the informative advertising effects and persuasive advertising effects of CSR initiatives.     

A model of junior high school students’ attitudes toward technology

The purposes of this study were to develop and verify a model that contributes to our understanding of the attitudes toward technology held by students in junior high school, as well as to explore relationships among the factors in this model. We distributed questionnaires to research participants selected on the basis of stratified random sampling. A total of 1,437 questionnaires were distributed, and 1,330 valid questionnaires were collected, reflecting a valid return rate of 92%. Structural equation modeling was used to construct and verify a model of student attitudes toward technology. The results of the study included (1) a complete model of student attitudes toward technology and (2) identification of the main factors influencing the pursuit of careers in technology, identification with technology, and experiences with technology-related curricula.     

Timing of Sale,Pricing, and Cost Information: Evidence from the Airline Industry*

This study examines the association between when an airline sells its passenger seats and the pricing method (marginal cost or full cost) it employs. Prior literature suggests that when firms are able to change prices during the selling period, the optimality of full cost pricing or marginal cost pricing depends on when demand information is revealed during the period between capacity commitment decisions and time of sale. Full cost‐based pricing is appropriate in determining capacity commitment and prices simultaneously, while marginal cost provides more relevant information for pricing when capacity has been committed. Using the price and cost data from a sample of four U.S. domestic airlines, we find that full cost explains price variations of first‐day sales robustly. The adjusted R² of the marginal cost pricing model is larger in the sample of sales two days prior to departure than in the sample of first‐day sales. In the analysis of the sample of sales two days prior to departure, we find that, based on the adjusted R² of the full cost pricing and marginal cost pricing models, the explanatory power of marginal cost pricing is relatively weaker than full cost pricing. Our results document the use of different cost information along the dynamic change of price and provide implications in understanding the role of cost information in setting prices.     

Corporate social responsibility programs choice and costs assessment in the airline industry—A hybrid model

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has taken an increasingly important role in business. Here we develop a technique for operationalizing CSR programs for air transportation within the context of limited physical resources. A hybrid model for selection and costs assessment is proposed to address inter-relationships among CSR criteria using trial and evaluation laboratory methods, analytical network processes and zero–one goal programming. The activity-based costing approach is applied to estimate costs of the chosen programs and an example looking at China Airlines is presented.     

Target‐Setting,Pay for Performance,and Quality Improvement: A Case Study of Ontario Hospitals’ Quality‐Improvement Plans

This study examines whether difficult targets and quality indicators in executives' pay‐for‐performance (P4P) plans affect performance. The impact of target‐setting and P4P plans on quality improvement in the public sector is unclear. The Ontario government initiated the Quality Improvement Plan (QIP), which requires hospitals to set targets for quality indicators annually and link executive pay to target achievement since 2011. Analyzing Health Quality Ontario's database and hospitals' 2012–2013 QIPs, this study shows greater quality improvement in hospitals with difficult targets than hospitals with easy targets or without assigned targets; however, the positive impact disappears for high‐performance hospitals relative to their peers. We find no significant effect of the use of quality indicators in executives' P4P plans on quality improvement. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why do stock repurchases change over time?

Recent studies have shown the time trends of firm stock repurchase behavior. We examine these time changes for stock repurchase through the lens of real activities earnings management. Managers appear more likely to manipulate earnings through stock repurchases since the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002. Furthermore, suspect firms that just missed analyst earnings per share forecasts have higher incentives to manipulate earnings through stock repurchases. The results are not driven by changes in corporate governance associated with the passage of SOX. Overall, our results suggest earnings management can be a significant determinant of the dynamics of stock repurchases.     

Is there Causal Relationship between Money Supply Growth and Inflation in China? Evidence from Quantity Theory of Money

This study examines the causal relationship between Chinese money supply growth and inflation, using the bootstrap Granger full‐sample causality test and sub‐sample rolling‐window estimation test to determine whether such a relationship in China supports the quantity theory of money. The result indicates that there is a unidirectional relationship from inflation to money supply growth. However, considering structural changes in two series, we find that short‐run relationships using full‐sample data are unstable, which suggests that full‐sample causality tests cannot be relied upon. Then, we use a time‐varying rolling‐window approach to revisit the dynamic causal relationship, and the results show that money supply growth has both positive and negative impacts on inflation in several sub‐periods, and in turn, inflation has the same effects on money supply growth for China. These findings are basically consistent with the modern quantity theory of money from the perspective of money supply and price level. When money supply growth does not outweigh output growth, inflation should not be curbed only by decreasing money supply. It notes that a stable money supply growth is critical to price level stability and economic development in China.     

The Optimal Timing of Open Market Stock Repurchases

Using a continuous-time real options approach we determine the conditions under which a value-maximizing company would conduct an open market stock repurchase to exploit the undervaluation of shares. We find the optimal timing of such repurchases as well as the optimal amount a company should repurchase and analyze how it depends on market parameters. Obtaining the announcement returns from the authorization of stock repurchases from our model allows us to derive testable empirical implications.     

The overconfidence of investors in the primary market

We analyze the investment performance of 6993 investors bidding in 77 discriminatory IPO auctions in the Taiwan stock market between January 1996 and April 2000, and find that frequent bidders in these auctions have lower returns than infrequent bidders. The frequent bidders bid too aggressively and evaluate the IPO firms too optimistically, resulting in inferior performance. Despite being quite successful in their first few auction bids, the returns for frequent investors are gradually reduced in subsequent auctions. The multivariate model and the analysis of the possibility of perverse incentives of brokerage firms suggest that our findings cannot be explained by rational hypotheses, whereas in contrast, the theories on overconfidence and self-attribution bias can explain the increase in bidding frequency and the deterioration in return performance for bidders in IPO auctions.