From original equipment manufacturing to branding: entrepreneurship,strategic leadership,and Taiwan’s firm transformation

This paper investigates firm transformation from original equipment manufacturing (OEM) to original brand manufacturing (OBM) based on variant experiences of Taiwan’s top global brands. Taking the competitive advantage of practicing OEM for multinational corporations (MNCs), latecomer firms can generate capital and accumulate capabilities by engaging with the global production network. Rarely does every firm transform into a global enterprise. We propose that only entrepreneurs with strategic leadership competence, which serves to manage a delicate balance between stability and change in a firm, are capable to facilitate firm transformation from OEM to a global enterprise practicing OBM. We provide an analytical framework that combines the research fields of entrepreneurship, strategic management, and leadership to analyze firm growth and firm transformation of Taiwanese firms. In light of possible branding dilemma when straddling dual-track businesses, successful transforming firms can alleviate this problem either by separating their OBM units from their OEM units or by creating a symbiotic relationship with their MNC customers. How Taiwanese firms first took advantage of initiating OEM to create capital and capabilities and later transformed into OBM provide useful experiences for other latecomer firms.     

Examining human resource management outsourcing in Hong Kong

This study explored the state of human resource (HR) outsourcing in the Asian context, a particularly important subject given its rapid proliferation in Europe and North America, the inconsistent and limited evidence from prior research, and its strategic importance to the human resource management (HRM) function. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data and the transaction cost, resource-based, and institutional perspectives, we found that although respondents were generally favourable towards outsourcing, that in practice its adoption and diffusion were in a nascent stage in Hong Kong. Decisions to outsource were, by and large, incremental and experimental and influenced by a range of contextual factors (e.g., availability of in-house expertise, skills and creativity, strategic priorities, legislation (coercive), availability of external service providers, and industry and peer (mimetic) influence). Despite considerable pressure to cut costs, instead of outsourcing in the first instance, firms placed greater emphasis on maximising internal resource utilization (insourcing). Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are also provided.     

Why and when organizational culture fosters affective commitment among knowledge workers: the mediating role of perceived psychological contract fulfilment and moderating role of organizational tenure

Drawing on Denison and Mishra (1995)’s framework of organizational culture, this study examines why and when organizational culture is related to knowledge workers’ affective commitment. Data were collected from 640 employees working in three high-technology companies in China. The findings indicate that the relationship between organizational culture and affective commitment is mediated by perceived psychological contract fulfilment. In addition, organizational tenure moderates the relationship between two external dimensions (i.e. adaptability and mission) of organizational culture and perceived psychological contract fulfilment. This study extends the current theoretical framework of organizational culture by demonstrating the underlying mechanism and the boundary condition of the relationship between organizational culture and affective commitment. The findings also provide practical implications for international managers to design appropriate human resource management policies and practices in China.     

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.     

The willingness of heritage tourists to pay for perceived authenticity in Pingxi,Taiwan

Authenticity plays an important role in heritage tourism. Previous studies have employed secondary data to assess the value of authenticity. This study goes further and empirically measures the intrinsic value of authenticity directly by integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study was conducted in Pingxi, Taiwan and used open-ended questions to guide respondents to construct their own perceived authenticity. The respondents were asked whether they were willing to pay for what they had described. Four hundred and three valid responses were obtained. By using the dichotomous choice method and logistic distribution function, the willingness to pay (WTP) was estimated as NT$233. The study compiled 15 items to measure perceived authenticity based on previous literature and on-site visitor surveys. Three factors were derived by employing exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analyses. Discriminant analysis showed that intra-personal authenticity has a greater impact on WTP than object-related and inter-personal authenticity. This study might be the first empirical study to propose three independent concepts of authenticity, and to estimate the intrinsic value of perceived authenticity. The paper concludes suggestions that contribute both to theories of authenticity and applications by heritage management agencies.     

Influences of price,service convenience,and social servicescape on post-purchase process of capsule hotels

A capsule hotel is a new affordable type of hotel that attracts backpackers and young tourists. This study proposes a research model to verify the influences of perceived price, service convenience, and social servicescape on functional and experiential values, and then on repurchase intention and electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM). Research results show that tourists’ perceived price and service convenience affect functional value. Service convenience and social servicescape influence experiential value. Functional value and experiential value encourage guests to repurchase capsule hotels and share positive eWOM. This study aims to inspire research interest in capsule hotels and to provide practical implications for hotel operators.     

AN ANALYTICAL MODEL OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATURITY AND BONDS RISK DIFFERENTIALS

This paper extends previous analyses of bond risk differentials by relaxing the key assumption of a constant probability of firm survival. Under the less restrictive assumption that firm income is stationary and independent over time, it is shown that risk differential clearly varies with maturity even with a flat term structure. Because the payoff possibilities of multi-period bonds are interdependent even though income in each period is independent, risk differentials must depend on maturity, even if term structure is flat. This conclusion is more compatible with empirical findings than were conclusions of previous analyses.     

Tax Timing Options on Futures Contracts and the 1981 Economic Recovery Act

This study utilizes foreign currency futures contracts to evaluate the tax timing options created by the 1981 Economic Recovery Act. Our findings suggest that the act had an impact on contracts with less than six months to maturity and that the marginal trader in those contracts is a long-position holder. Similarly, the results suggest that the option of tax year selection for foreign currency futures in valuable.     

Perceived organizational change in the hotel industry: An implication of change schema

A schema, first proposed by Fiske and Taylor (1984), is a cognitive structure that represents organized knowledge on a given concept or type of stimulus. Lau and Woodman (1995) further explained that when an organization experiences changes, its members have various interpretations of and expectations for those changes. The cognitive understanding of change is guided by a mental map that represents the knowledge structures of the attributes of change and relationships between different events of change. This mental map refers to the so-called change schema (Lau and Woodman, 1995). The objectives of this study are to apply this change schema to organizational change in hotels, and to examine the antecedents and consequences of organizational change.     

Service guarantee and optimal payout models

This paper evaluates both the optimal service level and optimal economic payout in service payout models. A service guarantee level is explicitly taken into consideration to obtain the optimal payout. In this study, we consider a generic model to provide insights into the dynamic interaction between the service guarantee and optimal payout levels. Parametric analyses show that when the demand payout coefficient is high, the impact of the payout is positive only if the payout rate is high enough.