The motives and performance of cross-border acquirers from emerging economies: Comparison between Chinese and Indian firms

During the recent decade, the world has witnessed the rapid growth of MNEs from emerging economies. Their increasing participation in cross-border mergers and acquisitions has raised great attention in the extant literature. This study evaluates the value creation from these cross-border transactions from two representative emerging countries, namely China and India, and determines factors that result in the different performance of these international acquisition activities. Cross-border acquisitions conducted by these countries’ companies indeed lead to significant shareholder wealth creation. Furthermore, Indian shareholders are more likely to benefit from deals in small cultural distance countries, while Chinese investors gain from the cross-border expansion of manufacturing companies. Location also affects the performance of cross-border acquisitions, with acquisitions into developed countries generating higher returns to shareholders. Our sample consists of 203 Indian and 63 Chinese cross-border deals over the period 2000–2010 and our results hold after controlling for various deal-level and firm-level characteristics.     

Private Label Vendor Selection in a Supply Chain: Quality and Clientele Effects

We model a supply chain consisting of a national brand manufacturer and an independent manufacturer, both of whom are potential suppliers of store brand to a single retailer. The retailer serves two customer segments—a quality sensitive segment (high type) and a price sensitive (low type) segment. The retailer serves these two segments by targeting the national and store brands to the quality and price sensitive segments, respectively. When the national brand manufacturer supplies the store brand he internalizes the effect of store brand quality on the national brand's retail prices. This leads the national brand manufacturer to choose a lower store brand quality than the independent manufacturer. This decrease in store brand quality has the benefit of increased revenues from the high type customers along with an associated cost of decreased revenues from the low type customers. Thus, when the benefit outweighs the cost the retailer chooses the national brand manufacturer to supply the store brand. We show that the retailer will choose the national brand manufacturer to supply the store brand when (a) the size of the high type customer segment is large relative to the low type customer segment, (b) the valuations of the high type customer segment is large relative to the low type customer segment, and (c) the retailer's margin requirement on the store brand is not very high. Overall, these results suggest that retailers who serve a bigger sized quality (price) sensitive clientele would have the national brand (independent) manufacturer supply the store brand.     

A stronger version of Gautschi's inequality satisfied by the gamma function

Abstract

Let X be a random variable defined on a probability space, and E denote the expectation operator.     

高校考试管理模式改革探索

高等学校的考试是检验高校教学效果和人才培养质量的一个重要手段,高校考试管理工作是高校教务管理的一项重要内容.受到传统考试观念和考试管理模式一些弊端的影响,考试不能完全发挥其效能,阻碍了高校人才培养质量的提高.因此,要加强高校考试管理工作的力度,完善考试的管理措施,积极探索管理的新途径、新方法,以促进高校良好学风的形成,提高我国高等学校教育质量,促进高等教育的发展.     

西部地区政府对中小企业技术创新的投入——从博弈角度分析

本文从西部地区的现实情况出发,以博弈分析的方法讨论了政府与中小企业之间技术创新投入在完全信息与不完全信息条件下双方的行为,从一个特定的角度证明了西部地区政府建立中小企业技术创新投入制度安排的合理性。     

Development and validation of a measurement instrument for studying supply chain management practices

It is widely argued that competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. Effective supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable way of securing competitive advantage and improving organizational performance. This research conceptualizes, develops, and validates six dimensions of SCM practices (strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, information sharing, information quality, internal lean practices, and postponement). Data for the study were collected from 196 organizations and the measurement scales were tested and validated using structural equation modeling. It is hoped that this study will provide a parsimonious measurement instrument to assess the performance of the overall supply chain.     

Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert. A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal's Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492-1640

Studnicki-Gizbert, in this book, attempts to trace the historyof Portuguese Diaspora and the crisis that emanated in the Spanishempire. The book covers the period 1492–1640. The endof the fifteenth century is an important period in the historyof Portugal and Spain. It was in this century that the Portugueseand Spanish sailors had successfully found the trade routesthat revolutionized European trade and commerce, resulting     

On the “Invisible Inventory Conundrum” in RFID‐Equipped Supply Chains: A Data Science Approach to Assessing Tag Performance

Recent trade reports suggest that RFID implementation continues to lag lofty projections. A primary concern is that, despite the high cost of implementing RFID systems, realized read‐rates fall short of expectations. This results in the invisible inventory conundrum whereby tagged merchandise may still not be accurately represented in inventory records. Drawing from data science to address this issue, we ask: How can directed data mining models be used to identify laboratory test performance criteria for RFID tags that operate reliably across the idiosyncratic facilities (i.e., unique DCs, warehouses, and stores) that comprise apparel retailers’ supply chains? We investigate this question by advancing a methodology that integrates laboratory test performance data, field tests of RFID tags fixed to apparel items and scanned under normal operating conditions, and the application of five directed data mining models to the integrated data set of laboratory and field test results. Our analyses of 45,416 observations show that two directed data mining models may identify—with near‐100% accuracy—laboratory test criteria that discriminate tags having 99% or greater read‐rates in the field. Accordingly, our study validates a generalizable methodology for identifying technical performance standards for tags that operate reliably within apparel retailers’ supply chains.     

Firms’ reactions to public information on business practices: The case of search advertising

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - We use five years of bidding data to examine the reaction of advertisers to widely disseminated press on the lack of effectiveness of brand search advertising...     

Managing diversity: Impact of religion in the Indian workplace

Religious diversity in India stems from centuries of foreign traders and invaders ranging from the Mongols to the Mughals, French and British who came with their faiths. Religious diversity has created much political conflict and bloodshed in society at large (e.g. the recent blasts in Mumbai), but many differences have been reconciled in the workplace over time. MNCs seeking to engage in the Indian economy are attracted by the intellectual capital of this diverse nation. I examine the presence of religion in the Indian workplace through cultural values, beliefs and management practices and their impact on IHRM practices in managing diversity.