Utilization of family-friendly policies in Hong Kong

Employees in Hong Kong, like those in many other industrialized societies, face the competing demands of work and family. Long working hours and the associated problem of work–family conflict is a serious problem for the workforce. Although a number of family-friendly policies, such as the five-day working week, paternal leave and so on, have been introduced, they are not necessarily used to their fullest extent. This paper examines the utilization of family-friendly incentives using a telephone survey of 661 employees in Hong Kong with access to such measures. Its major strength is the use of a well-established model of health care utilization, the Andersen model, to conceptualize the factors associated with the uptake of family-friendly policies. The results indicate that the Andersen model works very well in this context, and further demonstrate that access to family-friendly policies in Hong Kong is not equitable. The study makes a number of significant contributions to the literature on work–life balance and the uptake of supportive measures, and shows that enabling (such as perceived effectiveness) rather than need factors explain most of the variance in such use.     

ARE POLICY RULES BETTER THAN THE DISCRETIONARY SYSTEM IN TAIWAN?

This article investigates whether the Central Bank of China in Taiwan (CBC) would have had a more successful monetary policy during the period 1978:3 to 1999:4 if it had followed an optimal rule rather than the discretionary policies that were actually employed. The article examines the use of three different instruments—the rediscount rate, M2, and reserve money—with several different targets—the growth rate of nominal output, inflation, the percentage change in the exchange rate, and the growth rate of a monetary aggregate. Only 4 of 64 rules considered resulted in a statistically significant improvement in the performance of the Taiwanese economy. Given that this study analyzes the economy of Taiwan with revised data that were not available to the CBC in real time, and given that so few of the rules would have improved the economy's performance, it is concluded that the performance of the CBC has been very good.     

Factors Causing Design Schedule Delays in Turnkey Projects in Taiwan: An Empirical Study of Power Distribution Substation Projects

Because of its benefits, the turnkey project delivery method has received much global attention; however, turnkey contractors often have difficulty completing projects within the contract schedule. Through case studies, expert interviews, questionnaire surveys, and statistical data analysis, this study revealed that, of 27 delay factors that affect design schedules in power distribution substation projects, the most common delay factors are “public contending or political involvement” and “tedious review processes of government agencies.” Furthermore, the study proposes assorted strategies from the perspectives of the owner, turnkey contractor, and designer that can be used to help prevent delays in similar turnkey projects.     

Investor preferences and portfolio selection: is diversification an appropriate strategy?

This paper analyzes the relationship between diversification and several distributional characteristics that have risk implications for stock returns. We develop a flexible three-parameter distribution to model the stock returns. Using data on the current 30 DJIA stocks, we show that an investor's strategy on diversification depends on the measures of risk for particular concerns. For example, investors who desire to increase positive skewness would hold a less diversified portfolio, while those who care more about extreme losses would hold a more diversified portfolio. Experimenting with a more general pool of stocks yields the same conclusions.     

Gender differences in social cognitive learning at a technological project design

This study aims to investigate the differences between male and female students in technology project design. The major gender differences discussed in this study include the problem discovering and solving abilities, maneuverability, and inquiry attitude among middle grade students. In the project design, students were required to design and complete a wooden robot with limited materials in a restricted timeframe. Data was collected through field study during the project making. The results of this study indicated that some differences existed between male and female students. For example, power tool manupulation was more appealing to boys than girls. On the other hand, girls were better at resource management than boys. Through social learning, female students have an overtime improvement. Pedagogical considerations are suggested to strengthen gender-specific problem solving skills, so that all students can realize their design potential.     

AN ANALYSIS OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S COVERAGE OF CORPORATE NEWS AND THE RESEARCH DESIGN OF EVENT STUDIES

The typical event study of corporate news restricts its sample of announcements to events reported in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and listed in the WSJ Index. In this paper we examine whether such samples are representative of the events omitted from the WSJ. Focusing on convertible calls in the 1980s, we analyze possible differences between a sample based only on the WSJ Index and a larger but similarly constructed sample of calls reported in the Dow Jones News Service but not in the WSJ Index. Numerous parametric and nonparametric tests reveal no significant cross-sample divergences in key attributes of the calling firms and called bonds, or in the distributions of risk-adjusted returns around announcements. This evidence suggests that WSJ-based samples for other corporate news items can be representative of cases not covered by the WSJ. Further, the evidence indicates that the results of event studies using WSJ-based samples may support inferences about events not reported in the newspaper.     

Profit or principles: Why do restaurants serve organic food?

Dining organically has become a popular trend globally, but is still a niche concept in New Zealand. This exploratory study presents a small sample of restaurateurs’ views on the concept of organic dining, and their motivations for entering the organic food service sector. The study employs a qualitative approach, using data from five semi-structured interviews with Auckland restaurateurs offering organic menus.     

Chinese Offshore RMB Currency and Bond Markets： The Role of Hong Kong

This paper discusses the role of Hong Kong in China’s grand scheme to build up the RMB as a global reserve currency.We highlight the economic importance of Hong Kong to China in terms of channeling foreign direct investment into China,some of which,in the future,will be denominated in the RMB.We discuss the development of China’s RMB currency swap and deposit markets in Hong Kong.These offshore markets enable the RMB to trade freely, setting the stage for the RMB to become fully convertible and allowing market forces to play a role in pricing the value of the RMB,and help in the development of the RMB-denominated bond(or dim sum bond)market in Hong Kong.Finally,we present evidence of the phenomenal growth of the dim sum bond market in Hong Kong,which can further enhance and strengthen the use of the RMB outside China.