Revisiting the expatriate failure concept: A qualitative study of Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong

This article advances the understanding of expatriate failure, which remains a contested social phenomenon in international work life as well as scholarly research. The study challenges the definition of expatriate failure and its inherent biases, i.e., the epistemological primacy of the firm level and the failure/success binary. We argue that this qualitative study of 51 Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong can contribute to advancing theory on the expatriate failure concept by asking individual expatriates what constitutes failure to them. By applying social constructionist and social anthropological ideas to the expatriate failure concept debate, we develop the internationality thesis which demonstrates a discrepancy between the expatriates’ perceptions of successful international assignments and the actual nature of their lived lives; many expatriates desire to enrich their lives through experiencing an international/intercultural and adventurous lifestyle, but, in fact, living lives with limited intercultural exposure and interaction. We conclude by proposing a reconceptualisation of expatriate failure in terms of offering both a new definition and approach to researching expatriate failure in which time/duration, context, and geographical location need to be taken into account. We believe the new approach can overcome some of the empirical unsoundness of mainstream definitions.     

Using the Pack‐and‐a‐Half Rule to Eliminate Backroom Inventories in Retail Operations

In the retail industry, backroom inventories are typically associated with higher labor costs and greater operational complexity. Thus, retailers look for ways to eliminate backroom inventories. A heuristic used for this purpose is the pack‐and‐a‐half rule which suggests that the shelf space allocated for a product should be at least 50% larger than the case pack quantity in which the product is delivered. Despite its popularity among retailers, the pack‐and‐a‐half rule has been ignored in the academic literature. We introduce the pack‐and‐a‐half rule, assess its impact on a retailer's profits, identify cost, demand, and product characteristics driving this impact, and propose a modification. Based on an analysis of data obtained from a retailer on 1,986 SKUs in 20 categories, we find that the pack‐and‐a‐half rule decreases a retailer's profits, on average, by 10% when applied uniformly across all SKUs. Further, this decrease is significantly affected by product depth, product width, demand elasticity, case pack quantity, and inventory carrying cost. Finally, we develop a set of modifications based on these variables where the pack‐and‐a‐half rule is applied selectively and in a stepwise fashion. These modifications limit the decrease in a retailer's profits to a range between 6% and 7%.     

Reconciling Alternative Theories for the Safety of Owner–Operators

Motor carrier safety is an important concern of shippers, carriers, policy makers, consignees, insurance providers, and the motoring public. One aspect of carrier safety that has garnered substantial attention is whether carriers making greater use of owner–operators are more or less safe vis‐à‐vis carriers making greater use of employee drivers. Currently, conflicting theoretical predictions exist regarding the direction of this relationship. In this article, we offer a reconciliation of the alternative theoretical predictions by developing a coherent theory that merges sociological rational choice theory and theory regarding motor carrier safety. We subject our theory to empirical testing by fitting a series of seemingly unrelated regression models to a vector of safety measures tracked as part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, and Accountability program. Our results are consistent with our proposed theory of owner—operator safety and provide meaningful theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.     

DO FIRMS SEEK A TARGET BOARD STRUCTURE? EVIDENCE FROM THE POST‐SOX PERIOD

We investigate whether firms restructure board composition to align with changes in their contracting environment. Board size and independence increase with firm complexity, consistent with theoretical predictions. However, the hypothesized negative relation between board independence and information costs is evident only for firms completing acquisitions. Furthermore, board independence increases to offset increases in CEO power in a sample of firms making acquisitions, but decreases when CEO power increases in a large cross‐section of firms. We conclude that after the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, firms face constraints adjusting to target board structure, but these constraints can be mitigated by a shock to the contracting environment via acquisition.     

Machine Learning and Expert Judgement: Analyzing Emerging Topics in Accounting and Finance Research in the Asia–Pacific

In this paper, we focus on the question to what extent machine learning (ML) tools can be used to support systematic literature reviews. We apply a ML approach for topic detection to analyze emerging topics in the literature—our context is accounting and finance research in the Asia–Pacific region. To evaluate the robustness of the approach, we compare findings from the automated ML approach with the results from a manual analysis of the literature. The automated approach uses a keyword algorithm detection mechanism whereby the manual analysis uses common techniques for qualitative data analysis, that is, triangulation between researchers (expert judgement). From our paper, we conclude that both methods have strengths and weaknesses. The automated analysis works well for large corpora of text and provides a very standardized and non-biased way of analyzing the literature. However, the human researcher is potentially better equipped to evaluate current issues and future trends in the literature. Overall, the best results might be achieved when a variety of tools are used together.     

The Impact of Employment on Parental Coresidence

We examine the extent to which parents use housing and shared living arrangements as a form of risk‐sharing for their adult children, using detailed data on children and parents in the Health and Retirement Study for 1998–2012. On average, a young man moving from full‐time to nonemployment raises the likelihood of coresiding with a parent by 1.5 percentage points; moving from full‐time employment to being part‐time employed raises the likelihood of coresiding with a parent by 2 percentage points. The implied elasticity of parental coresidence with respect to the son's income is ‐1.1; for daughters, the elasticity is ‐0.5.     

CEO internal experience and voluntary disclosure quality: Evidence from management forecasts

Internally‐promoted CEOs should have a deep understanding of their firm's products, supply chain, operations, business climate, corporate culture, and how to navigate among employees to get the information they need. Thus, we argue that internally‐promoted CEOs are likely to produce higher quality disclosure than outsider CEOs. Using a sample of US firms from the S&P1500 index from 2001 to 2011, we hand‐collect whether a CEO is hired from inside the firm and, if so, the number of years they worked at the firm before becoming CEO. We then examine whether managers with more internal experience issue higher quality disclosures and offer three main findings. First, CEOs with more internal experience are more likely to issue voluntary earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Second, CEOs with more internal experience issue more accurate earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Finally, investors react more strongly to forecasts issued by insider CEOs than to those issued by outsider CEOs. In additional analysis, we find no evidence that these results extend to mandatory reporting quality (i.e., accruals quality, restatements, or internal control weaknesses), perhaps because mandatory disclosure is subjected to heavy oversight by the board of directors, auditors, and regulators. Overall, our findings suggest that when managers have work experience with the firm prior to becoming the CEO, the firm's voluntary disclosure is of higher quality.