Entry and capital structure mimicking in concentrated markets: The role of incumbents’ financial disclosures

We examine whether the public availability of product market incumbents' financial disclosures leads to greater capital structure mimicking of incumbents by entrants. Exploiting a change in disclosure enforcement for German private firms in the mid-2000s, we find entrant-incumbent mimicking rises substantially in concentrated markets once incumbents' financial statements are publicly available. Additional tests exploring potential mechanisms are more consistent with interfirm learning underlying the effect than alternative channels. Our findings shed light on the effects of competitor financial statement disclosure on private firms’ initial financing decisions and highlight how capital structure dependencies among peer firms arise.     

Does distance matter in foreign direct investment sub-national location choice? Evidence from China

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) make investment decisions according to the distance factors at a sub-national level. This paper made estimates using the gravity model with provincial foreign direct investment (FDI) data from 2000 to 2012 and employed three concepts of distance. Our empirical results indicate that geographic distance and cultural distance have significant negative effects on FDI flow, whereas economic distance has a significant positive effect. It suggests that FDI prefers to locate in regions that are geographically and culturally close but economically distant from the home country, which further implies that FDI in China is dominated by vertical FDI. Our findings suggest that Chinese provincial governments should place emphasis on attracting FDI from culturally close countries and provide institutional support to encourage and promote horizontal FDI.     

Does reputation of sponsors matter in IPO? Evidence from Hong Kong

Contrary to other markets where underwriters perform a combined role of underwriting and sponsoring in an Initial Public Offering (IPO), IPO issuers in Hong Kong must appoint at least one sponsor in addition to the underwriters. The splitting of the single role of underwriters into two separate ones offers an ideal setting to disentangle the effects of the two roles and to examine which of the two roles—sponsor or underwriter—is more important in explaining IPO underpricing and initial volatility in the Hong Kong equity market. Interestingly, our findings provide supportive evidence that the sponsor reputation does matter in an IPO and it is even more significant than the underwriter reputation in explaining the IPO underpricing phenomenon. Given the recent high-tech fervor, our research goes deeper to examine specifically the role of sponsors on high-tech firms, with results indicating that the reliance on sponsors is higher for traditional issuers than for technology firms. We further discover that sponsors and underwriters are playing substitution roles rather than complementary roles. In order to examine the regulatory policy impact, our research also compares the role of IPO sponsors before and after the launch of the new sponsor regulatory regime in 2013. The empirical findings lend support to our argument that after the launch of the new regulations, public awareness of sponsors is raised, respect towards more reputable sponsor increases, and thus, the role of sponsors becomes more important than before.     

Home purchase restriction,real estate investment,and corporate innovation

It is ubiquitous for non-real estate firms to conduct real estate business in China. Home purchase restriction (HPR) affects corporate innovation by dampening the real estate investment of non-real estate firms. The extant literature has examined the impact of HPR on corporate innovation, but it has not focused on the expectation of HPR and the endogeneity problem. Employing a dataset of 1830 listed non-real estate firms over the period 2009–2016, this research explores the expectation of HPR on corporate innovation based on the motivations for real estate investment in non-real estate firms. We demonstrate that HPR facilitates the enhancement of research and development (R&D) investment in non-real estate listed firms by hindering real estate investment, particularly for non-high-tech firms. The effects of HPR arrive at the crest in the third implementation year and remain steady thereafter. The real estate investment of non-real estate firms rebounds and the R&D investment declines along with the cancellation of HPR. Tackling the selection bias and endogeneity problems, the baseline results are also robust. Hence, HPR should serve as a long-term vehicle to improving corporate innovation, in addition to preventing housing speculation.     

Environmental sustainability practices and exports: The interplay of strategy and institutions in Latin America

We integrate institutional economics with stakeholder theory to examine the antecedents and outcomes of Environmental Sustainability Practices (ESP) for small and medium enterprises in Latin America. We find that these firms primarily engage in ESP to succeed in export markets. We also find that this is especially true when firms demonstrate organizational agency by adopting complementary strategies such as obtaining international quality certifications to develop credibility among stakeholders. Lastly, their cause receives a further boost when they are based in institutional environments that are known for strong democratic voice and accountability mechanisms. In elucidating the interplay of strategy and institutions, we suggest the need to better integrate organizational agency into institutional theory and institutional environment into stakeholder theory.     

Cognitive foundations of firm internationalization: A systematic review and agenda for future research

Managerial cognition has a fundamental role in the internationalization of firms. However, there exists no coherent understanding of how prior research has examined and captured the cognitive foundations of internationalization. This paper provides a systematic review of this body of literature. The review identifies three main streams of research that, overall, consists of nine more specific research areas. We show that especially the areas addressing (1) managerial learning, (2) characteristics of upper echelons, (3) intra-organizational perceptions, and (4) external actors’ perceptions provide opportunities for the further advancement of internationalization literature. For harnessing these opportunities, we find that the microfoundational approach could support the empirical examination of the cognitive foundations and would notably contribute to the Uppsala model-based theorization of the firm internationalization process.     

Multinational enterprises and corporate tax planning: A review of literature and suggestions for a future research agenda

Corporate tax planning by the multinational enterprise (MNE), that is, the MNE’s ability to plan its tax affairs by using a multitude of strategies to reduce its tax bills legally, is a central research question in the literatures of international business, public economics, tax, finance, law and accounting. Underlying theoretical assumptions, approaches to empirical testing, profit shifting estimation strategies and findings are varied. Thus, it is important to conduct a critical literature review. In this paper, we offer new insights by studying the phenomenon from the international business (IB) perspective. We survey the academic literature on the MNE and corporate tax planning to examine the extent of knowledge on this topic and identify areas that we hope will stimulate interest among IB scholars for further research. We find materials across disciplines that are relevant to IB readers. We examine 120 articles in 51 scholarly journals and classic books published during the period 1966-2017. We identify the key mechanisms and the firm characteristics that may influence corporate tax planning. We suggest a research agenda where IB research can make clear contributions.     

Does parasocial interaction with weight loss vloggers affect compliance? The role of vlogger characteristics,consumer readiness,and health consciousness

Drawing on the notion of parasocial interaction (PSI) and the social comparison theory, this experimental research examines how nutritionist video bloggers (vloggers) influence consumer compliance intentions toward healthy, weight-loss diets. Drawing on two samples (Mexican Americans and White Caucasians) and using structural equation modeling and mediation analysis, this research highlights vloggers’ credibility and physical attractiveness, but not homophily, as salient source characteristics that influence PSI, which in turn reinforces compliance intention. Moreover, consumer readiness, consisting of role clarity, ability, and motivation, serves as a partial mediator of the PSI–compliance intention relationship. Lastly, consumer health consciousness emerged as a significant moderator of the PSI–compliance intention relationship among White Caucasians, but not among Mexican Americans. The findings and their implications are discussed.     

Forecasting artificial intelligence on online customer assistance: Evidence from chatbot patents analysis

The main goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the actual progresses in artificial intelligence, with emphasis on chatbots as emerging forms of customer assistance in online retailing. Drawing upon an analysis of the chatbot patents in the past 20 years, our findings show the increasing technology push towards the adoption of new conversational agents based on natural language. Findings also highlight the extent to which the research and development efforts are attempting to improve artificial intelligence systems that characterize chatbots. To this end, technology advancements are mainly focusing on: (i) improving chatbot ability to automatically draw inferences on users starting from multiple data sources, and (ii) using consumers’ knowledge adaptively to provide more customized solutions. Finally, results show the tight relationship between the digital assistants’ analytical skills and their ability to automatically interact with the users.     

基于显著区域提取的红外图像舰船目标检测

针对复杂海面背景下红外图像舰船目标由于灰度不均匀、海杂波干扰大等因素造成的自动检测虚警率高、准确率低的问题，提出了一种显著区域提取和目标精确分割相结合的红外舰船目标检测方法。首先，利用基于图论的视觉显著性(Graph-based Visual Saliency ,GBVS)模型计算待检测图像的显著图，使得目标区域信息增强；其次，结合舰船目标先验信息（长短轴、面积等），利用多级阈值划分算法提取关注的显著区域，并确定原图中候选目标区域；最后，利用空间约束模糊C均值(Fuzzy C-Means,FCM)算法对候选区域进行分割，结合目标先验知识对分割区域筛选并输出目标位置。所提方法在公开数据集IRShips上与相关方法进行比较，结果表明，相比直接进行全图目标搜索的方法，所提方法不仅准确率高、执行速度快，且检测目标的位置更加精确。