The role of product type and country‐of‐origin in decisions about choice of endorser ethnicity in advertising

Two experiments examine the effects of endorser ethnicity and product country of origin on consumer responses toward ad and brand, and investigate the moderating role of utilitarian versus hedonic product type. In Experiment 1, for utilitarian products, participants showed more favorable responses when the endorser's ethnicity was incongruent with the product's country of origin compared to when it was congruent, supporting an attribution‐theory explanation. For hedonic products, however, participants preferred ads that featured an endorser whose ethnicity matched their own, irrespective of the product's country of origin. In Experiment 2, building on the attribution explanation, two endorsers of different ethnicities generated more favorable responses than two of the same ethnicity. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Comparison of benefits of radio frequency identification: Implications for business strategic performance in the U.S. and Korean retailers

This study explores a model to compare the benefits of RFID technology on supply chain management by focusing on retail industry. A path model was estimated to examine structural relationships among technological infrastructure, RFID benefits, and business strategic performance in the U.S. (n = 70) and Korean samples (n = 87). Result showed that technological infrastructure was required to more improve inventory management, store operation and demand management, leading to business strategic performance. Especially, data system automation was perceived as a prerequisite for improving inventory management for both countries. Hardware/software application was significantly related to the RFID benefit of inventory management for U.S. retailers, whereas, it was related to the benefits of efficient store operation and demand management for Korean retailers. Business strategic performance was significantly determined by RFID benefit factors (e.g., inventory management and demand management) for U.S. retailers and Korean retailers. The managerial implication for business to business strategic performance in the U.S. and Korean retail industries was discussed from a retailer's perspective.     

Creating New Relationships Through Tourism: A Qualitative Analysis of Tourist Motivations of Older Individuals in Japan

The current study is an exploration to examine older Japanese individuals’ motivations for travel. The study employed an open-ended survey and in-depth interviews in order to gain insight into the creation of human relationships through tourism. Our results show that tourism is perceived as offering extraordinary opportunities to meet new people, and to form and develop new relationships by Japanese older individuals, who experience fewer opportunities to interact with other people in their everyday lives compared to individuals in younger generations. In particular, distinct features of tourism settings, such as liminality and touristic communitas, allow older tourists to express themselves more freely by escaping from their existing relationships as well as from many social norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions.     

Predicting FDI inflows: Exploring a nonlinear relationship between peace years,oil wealth,and the rule of law

Despite previous studies investigating the impacts of various factors such as peace years, natural resources, and the rule of law on foreign direct investment (FDI), empirical findings remain inconclusive. Therefore, this study investigates the interplay between these factors in shaping host country conditions that facilitate FDI inflows. Using generalized additive models, we examine the simultaneous effects of peace years, oil wealth, and the rule of law on FDI inflows in a sample of non-OECD countries from 1970 to 2009. Our results reveal that established peace is a critical factor in attracting FDI inflows for both oil-exporting and non-oil-exporting countries. However, the effects of the rule of law vary depending on oil wealth. Oil-exporting countries receive more FDI inflows when they have a weak rather than a strong rule of law, while non-oil-exporting countries tend to receive more foreign investments when they have a moderately strong rule of law. We argue that countries with oil wealth combined with a moderately weak rule of law provide an environment that is conducive to multinational corporations (MNCs) in extractive industries seeking monopoly rents. Conversely, countries without oil wealth should create stable yet efficient environments that protect property rights and promote labor market flexibility to appeal to non-resource-seeking MNCs.     

Changes in the options contract size and arbitrage opportunities

We examine the impacts of changes to the options multiplier on market efficiency by analyzing their effects on arbitrage proxies based on the performance of options spread strategies. Despite the intentions of the reforms, both decisions to raise and reduce the multiplier significantly increase the frequency and probability of arbitrage opportunities. Whereas the increment in the multiplier also deteriorates market efficiency by increasing the duration and average size of the arbitrage opportunities in a day, the decrement does not affect these proxies. Our results overall provide evidence that reforms to the options multiplier do not enhance market efficiency and suggest that retail investors are not homogeneously noisy.     

Sectoral FTA gains,conflicts, and the role of interindustry factor mobility: Evidence from Korea's free trade agreement

Free trade agreements (FTAs) can ignite domestic conflicts between export- and import-competing industries over trade gains. However, if the factors of production, such as capital and labour, move freely across industries, the returns to factor owners will quickly converge. Then, sectoral conflicts over FTAs will be less likely to arise. We analyse the case of South Korea's FTAs to measure (a) sectoral FTA gains and (b) interindustry factor mobility and to examine (c) the role of interindustry factor mobility in mitigating sectoral conflicts over trade policies. South Korea is an ideal case study due to the low barriers to domestic geographic mobility and high trade dependence. Based on data on its trade with 252 countries and factor returns between 2002 and 2017, we find that export industries did not gain much from the FTAs, while the import-competing agricultural sector was the winner. Sectoral conflicts greatly decreased over 2008–2010. Interindustry capital mobility plays a significant role in weakening the sectoral conflicts, while the impact of interindustry labour mobility is limited.     

Expectations and the housing market: A model of house price dynamics

We examine the characteristics of housing markets under adaptive and heterogeneous expectations. Model agents have finite horizons, and their borrowings are constrained by the collateral value of housing stock. Our model shows that expectation-driven housing price dynamics constantly change the direction of movement. The steady-state process of housing prices follows an endogenous oscillation process, and the magnitude of the cycles can be amplified by external shocks. Our quantitative results imply that (i) short-term positive and long-term negative serial correlations in housing price changes are inherent, (ii) house prices and expected house price movements are positively correlated, and (iii) fluctuations in housing prices are not fully explained by fundamentals.     

E-commerce retail and reverse factoring: A newsvendor approach

This study builds a theoretical model to examine how supply chain finance (SCF) services using fintech can ease e-commerce suppliers' capital constraints. Despite the innovation in the logistics industry during the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the increasing online shopping in the post-COVID era, small e-commerce enterprises may fail to grow owing to their budget constraints. Reverse factoring is believed to ease such suppliers' capital constraints. We analyze the effect of reverse factoring using the capital-constrained newsvendor model, and we consider the impacts of additional funding from SCF services. Our results show that SCF services reduce e-commerce suppliers' initial orders and, thus, alleviate their budget constraints. This finding suggests that the discount factor of reverse factoring should be higher to ease small suppliers' budget constraints and allow the e-commerce industry to grow sustainably.     

How agglomeration affects alliance governance and innovation performance: The role of cluster size

We investigate how the size of the geographic cluster in which a firm is located influences its governance choice between equity and non-equity alliances and subsequent innovation performance. We argue that firms located in larger clusters tend to form non-equity alliances rather than equity alliances because the communication and control benefits of cluster membership, which increase with cluster size, reduce in-cluster firms' need to form equity alliances. We also claim that the effect of this preferential use of non-equity alliances on innovation becomes stronger when firms are located in larger clusters. Our arguments are supported by a panel analysis of alliances formed by US-listed semiconductor firms.     

Sentiment-dependent impact of funding liquidity shocks on futures market liquidity

We examine the effect of funding liquidity changes on futures market liquidity, depending on economic sentiment. Futures market liquidity improves following negative funding liquidity shocks, and economic sentiment is an important determinant explaining this relationship. While individuals' trading is most significantly affected by sentiment, its response to funding liquidity shocks remains independent of sentiment effects. Domestic institutions' reactions depend on the sentiment regime; they trade futures contracts more actively as funding liquidity becomes more abundant (scarcer) when sentiment is more pessimistic (optimistic). Foreigners, following negative funding liquidity shocks, generally increase their futures trading, whereas their trading decreases under the extremely pessimistic sentiment. Domestic banks and pension funds provide liquidity to the futures market even when sentiment is pessimistic.