Quantitative analysis of modularization in the automobile and PC industries

Much research has been done on modularizing the PC industry and automobile industry. In the analysis of the effect of modularization in the PC and automobile industries, however, very little of this research has been quantitative. In this paper, we use the number of patent applications for PC and automobile components to analyze the modularization in the PC and automobile industry. We calculated a ratio of the number of patents applied for by PC/automobile manufacturers vis-à-vis the total number of patent applications for the components, and used it to quantitatively judge whether PC/automobile manufacturers still hold the initiative with respect to R&D. The analysis indicates that PC manufacturers no longer hold the R&D initiative but that automobile manufacturers still do for engine control systems. On the other hand, it indicates that automobile manufacturers no longer hold the R&D initiative on the safety and communication control systems. The paper finally verifies the correlation between modularization and R&D initiative by means of regression analysis.     

“Women cannot lead”: empowering women through cultural tourism in Botswana

To rebalance the safari-tourism led tourism development policies in Botswana, the government has initiated a community-based cultural tourism policy, providing opportunities for women to become leaders and entrepreneurs. After reviewing the multifaceted, deeply contextualized and contested concept of women's empowerment, this paper examines perceptions of empowerment in Botswana and how far villagers felt that the new tourism policy has facilitated female agency and opportunity. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with female and male key informants in villages in southern Botswana. The new policy was found to have contributed significantly to a sense of female empowerment expressed in terms of freedom from economic dependency on men and society, and from depravity, emptiness and familial dependency. Women have progressed from passive involvement to active participation in culture-related tourism ventures. They also experienced vocational education but deferred formal educational opportunities to their offspring. Men were seen as facilitators and partners in women's involvement in tourism. However, barriers remain, including lack of startup capital, low levels of education, centralized control of protected tourism sites and low potential earnings. Ways are suggested to enhance the objectives and policies for women's participation in tourism in Botswana and other developing countries.     

The Roles of Some Key Stakeholders in the Future of Accounting Education in Australia

This article explores the role of institutional and systemic leadership in changing higher education in accounting in Australia. In particular, it discusses the roles of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, the Australian Business Deans' Council Teaching and Learning Network, and the professional accounting bodies in meeting the challenges confronting accounting education in the tertiary sector today and in the coming years. The intersection of these leadership roles is exemplified in an accounting discipline research project that explores the critical non-technical skills stakeholders require in graduate students and discusses stakeholders' roles and responsibilities in their development .     

Using managers' expectations for ex-ante policy evaluation: Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis

Evaluation of the impacts of government policies during an economic crisis is often delayed until the outcomes are realized. Policies can be better guided if they can be evaluated amid a crisis, before the realization of outcomes. This study examines whether survey data on the expectations of small business managers can help evaluate two high-stake subsidies for firms amid the COVID-19 crisis in Japan, namely, Subsidy Program for Sustaining Businesses (SPSB) and Employment Adjustment Subsidy (EAS). We evaluate the accuracy of managers' expectations, estimate the impact of subsidies on the expected firm survival, and compare it with the estimated impact on realized survival. We find that the managers' expectations on their future sales, survival rate, and the possibility of receiving these subsidies predict the realized outcomes, although they were highly pessimistic about their survival rates. We find that the estimated impacts of the SPSB on the expected survival rates have the same sign as the estimated impact on the realized survival rates, but the size is more than twice because of the pessimism on survival. The estimated impacts of the EAS are both insignificant. Therefore, although its impact may be overestimated, managers' expectations are useful for selecting an effective policy.     

Risk premia in the term structure of crude oil futures: long-run and short-run volatility components

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This paper studies how volatility affects the risk premium in crude oil futures through a discrete-time term structure model with long-run and...     

The importance of morality for collective self-esteem and motivation to engage in socially responsible behavior at work among professionals in the finance industry

Public comments criticizing the honesty and trustworthiness of Professionals in Finance (PIFs) are commonly seen as a way to motivate them towards engaging in more socially responsible business practices. However, the link between public views of this professional group, the self-views of individual group members, and their motivation to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities has not been empirically examined. In this research, we draw on Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the Behavioral Regulation Model for social evaluation (BRM) to examine how the self-views of individual group members relate to perceived characteristics of their professional group, indicating Competence and Morality. In two studies (N = 123, 191) we examined whether the self-views of high-profile and general PIFs are affected by other people's perceptions of the honesty and trustworthiness of this professional group. The results offer support for our reasoning derived from SIT and the BRM. In both studies, we first demonstrate that public concerns about the group's lack of honesty and trustworthiness impact on the moral self-views of financial professionals. Subsequently, we employ an experimental design to reveal that reinforcing moral criticism leveled at the group only reduces the motivation of individual group members to engage in CSR activities, while group-level moral affirmation enhances this motivation. The results of both studies converge to demonstrate how public critique on the moral behavior of their professional group relates to the self-views and behavioral motives of PIFs. We consider the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.