How culture shapes consumer responses to anthropomorphic products

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Eastern consumers respond more favorably to anthropomorphic products than their Western counterparts. In the present work, we examine the validity of this common intuition and uncover the specific cultural dimension underlying this difference in consumer response. Specifically, across a cross-national field study and three controlled experiments, we demonstrate that collectivistic consumers favor anthropomorphic products more than non-anthropomorphic products, whereas non-collectivistic consumers do not display this relative preference. This interactive effect holds across various product categories, regardless of whether collectivistic thinking is measured, manipulated, or operationalized based on nationality or ethnicity. We offer managerial and theoretical implications that stem from our findings.     

The Arab Spring,a setback for gender equality? Evidence from the Gallup World Poll

Combining a unique dataset from the Gallup World Poll for the period 2009–2018 with Wolfsfeld et al.’s (2013) protest index, we evaluate the impact of the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests on gender equality in eleven Middle Eastern and North African countries. We use a difference-in-differences approach and find a negative impact of mass protests on female access to labor markets and support for women’s rights in the years following the events. In particular, a one-standard-deviation increase in the protest intensity lowered female participation rates by 3.7 % points. Likewise, Arab Spring protests significantly lowered support for women’s legal rights, occupational rights, and divorce rights. Findings are robust to different samples, alternative model specifications, omitted variable bias, and an alternative protest measure from Steinert-Threlkeld (2017). Regarding potential mechanisms, we suggest that a shift in the Arab zeitgeist towards a less secular society might help explain our findings.     

Languages and dividends

We study whether languages are related to corporate dividend policies around the world. Users of languages with a weak future time reference (FTR), such as Japanese and Finnish, do not need to grammatically distinguish future and current events, while users of strong-FTR languages such as French and Italian do. Chen (2013) shows that people who use weak-FTR languages may perceive the future to be nearer and have less precise perceptions of the timing of future events than users of strong-FTR languages. We argue that these perceptions may result in a lower discount rate and a higher valuation of future dividends, leading to a weaker preference and demand for a dividend today. Using a large sample of firms from 19 markets, we find supporting evidence that firms in weak-FTR language markets pay lower dividends than firms in strong-FTR language markets. The results remain robust after a battery of robustness tests, including using a single market with multiple languages and using a difference-in-differences approach in a market with a change of official languages. Further evidence shows that weak-FTR languages are related to a lower implied cost of equity capital and stronger market reactions to dividend changes. Our results offer a new explanation for cross-country differences in dividend policies and add to the research on culture and financial markets.     

电子商务与商业文化重塑研究

由于电子商务依托互联网,变化快,机遇与挑战并存,需要企业、政府和社会多方协作,共同努力才能构建适合电子商务企业发展的、具有中国特色的商业文化体系,从而为中国电子商务发展提供养分。通过剖析国内外商业文化思想,分析电子商务对传统商业文化的影响因素,进一步提出重塑电子商务企业的商业文化体系路径。     

The social contract of work: Moving beyond the psychological contract

This paper develops the critique of psychologisation by going narrow and deep into the analysis of the concept of the psychological contract. In its early incarnation, the psychological contract literature explored key elements at the heart of the employment relationship. However, in the current mainstream psychological contract literature, there are four key problems. The paper shows that these problems match on to the wider problems associated with pyschologisation. The concept of the social contract of work is put forward as a way to return productively to the original focus of the field. The social contract of work is defined as workers' implicit, collective, and socially embedded understanding of the effort bargain at work.     

Reform Lessons From Investigative Journalism. Review Essay of ‘Beancounters’ by Richard Brooks

In 2021, the work of investigative journalists ICIJ and the accountants-founded global NGO Tax Justice Network had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This article reviews a recent bestselling research book by a multi-award-winning Private Eye investigative journalist: ‘Beancounters’ by Richard Brooks. Despite being a significant influence on global accounting practice, the culture, politics, services and practices of the Big 4 firms have hardly received serious forensic scrutiny by accounting academics. This paper discusses the methods, motives and breakthroughs of investigative journalists and how these can help advance our research and teaching in accounting. Their scoops and narratives can certainly make the classroom very interesting. Freed from the need to ‘prove’ scientific credibility and appease academic peer-review, investigative journalists can provide us with new concepts, linkages, data and evidence which we would not otherwise have seen. They force us to step out of our disciplinary boundaries and raise disturbing questions about our academic leadership, pedagogy, moral purpose and strategic direction. We provide suggestions for renewed academic courage, research and education reform in both accounting and finance and how the disciplines can be made more ethical, relevant and impactful.     

Confucian culture and the external pay gap

We examine the impact of Confucian philosophy on external pay gaps, and find that a Confucianist atmosphere is negatively associated with firms’ external pay gaps for both executives and employees. Mechanistically, the Confucian concept of “righteousness” reduces the self-interested motivation of management, in turn reducing executives’ external pay gap; “humaneness” causes management to focus on protecting employees’ rights and interests, benefiting employees’ compensation; and “honesty” improves information disclosure, reducing the external compensation gap for both executives and general employees. The inhibitory effect of Confucian culture on the external pay gap is greater in regions with weak formal institutions and non-state-owned firms, while foreign cultural shocks attenuate the Confucian influence. Finally, the Confucian culture-driven reduction of the external pay gap improves enterprises’ economic efficiency.