Sensory Aspects of Retailing: Theoretical and Practical Implications

Sensory elements are an important aspect of both offline and online retail stores and can non-consciously influence consumer judgments and purchase behavior. In offline settings, ambient factors like scent, lighting, and music have been shown to influence customers’ shopping experiences and their buying behaviors. For online retail outlets, sensory factors related to color, display patterns, and layouts can have significant effects on consumer behavior. Sensory elements have strong managerial relevance since they can non-consciously influence behaviors and because they are relatively easy to change; for example, it requires minimal effort to change the lighting or the music at a physical retail store or the display pattern for an online store. The eight papers in this special issue address theoretical and practical issues related to how different sensory elements can strongly influence retail practices. These papers focus on underexplored topic areas and also on emerging technologies, which stimulate thoughts for further research in these areas.     

Arena-based events and crime: an analysis of hourly robbery data

This article makes use of hourly crime counts to model the relationship between events that take place at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ and robberies, an arena that has caused local controversy regarding the costs and benefits of hosting such an entertainment venue. Results from the econometric model suggest that the NHL’s New Jersey Devils ice hockey games, concerts, and Disney-themed events are all associated with increases in robbery, while various other event categories such as the NBA basketball games played by the Nets and boxing, and mixed martial arts (MMA) matches are not associated with an increase. These findings support two complementary ecological theories of crime that focus on how events provide additional opportunities for crime by increasing the associated benefits while simultaneously decreasing the cost for economically motivated offenders to take advantage of.     

Obesity of politicians and corruption in Ukraine in 2000–2020– Reply

We collected 469 frontal face images of Ukrainian cabinet ministers who were in office in 2000–2020. For each image, the minister's body mass index was estimated using a computer vision algorithm. The time series of median estimated body mass index of cabinet ministers co-moves over time with two existing measures of corruption – World Bank worldwide governance indicator Control of Corruption, and the discrepancy between the quantity of luxury wristwatches exported from Switzerland to Ukraine (reported by Swiss statistics) and the corresponding quantity imported by Ukraine from Switzerland (reported by Ukrainian statistics).     

“强监督”还是“搭便车”：自然人大股东如何影响企业专利质量

通过构建改进的知识宽度法测算企业专利质量，并以2007—2016年中国沪深A股上市公司为样本，分析自然人大股东对企业专利质量的影响以及在不同类型企业中其作用的差异性。结果表明，作为“强力监督者”，自然人大股东能够促进企业专利质量提高。但因为其角色由“强监督”转变为“搭便车”，故这种促进作用在国有企业和具有政治关联的企业中并不存在。进一步研究表明，促进作用是通过加强对经理人和研发人员的监督，减少其控制权下投机性创新策略，提升其工作努力程度实现的。研究结论为促进国有企业与民营企业创新能力提升提供相应的政策启示。     

How and when do prior international experiences lead to global work? A career motivation perspective

While research suggests a link between individuals' prior international experiences and their future participation in global work, we know little about how and the conditions under which this relationship occurs. Drawing on career motivation theory, we conceptualize global identity as a mediator between individuals' density of prior international experiences—defined as the extent to which time spent in culturally novel countries has provided individuals with developmental opportunities—and their global work aspirations, which in turn leads to their global work involvement. Further, this multi-stage mediation model holds mainly when individuals receive positive feedback regarding their intercultural competencies (i.e., cultural intelligence) from their peers. We test our model using a multi-wave multi-source dataset spanning 6 years. We discuss implications for the literatures on prior international experiences and global careers.     

东部地区十省市规模以上工业企业研发投入绩效评价

选取2021年度数据，采用数据包络分析（DEA）方法对中国东部地区10个省份规模以上工业企业的研发投入绩效进行评价，并采用灰关联分析方法分析确定各项研发投入产出指标相对于DEA效率的灰色关联度。研究结果表明，80%的省份规上工业企业研发投入产出处于非DEA有效状态，存在不同程度的投入冗余或产出不足；规上工业企业发明专利申请数与研发投入产出效率的关联度最高，其次是新产品销售收入和R&D经费内部支出。     

经济政策不确定性与企业投资趋同行为

文章以2003-2017年A股非金融类上市公司为研究样本,考察经济政策不确定性对企业投资趋同行为的影响。研究发现,经济政策不确定性的升高会显著增强企业投资趋同行为,该影响效应在信息优势企业有所减弱,在资产不可逆程度较高企业有所增强。分行业检验发现,在管制性行业以及景气度较低行业中,经济政策不确定性对企业投资趋同行为的影响减弱。进一步研究发现,在经济政策不确定性不断攀升的背景下,实体投资趋同性会带来更为严重的金融化,特别是在行业实体投资总体趋于放缓的情况下,企业金融化现象更加严重。该研究为宏观经济波动下企业投资趋同行为提供了经验证据。     

Time-varying inter-urban housing price spillovers in China: Causes and consequences

The spatial spillovers of housing prices across regions are well documented by a large body of previous studies. This paper tries to investigate the dynamic (time-varying) evolution of spatial interactions and their underlying driving factors intensively. Using a recently developed Generalized Autoregressive Score (GAS) model, this paper examines the time-varying spatial spillovers of housing prices in 70 major and median cities of China from 2006 to 2019. We find that the GAS model can well capture the impact of time-varying critical events of Chinese real estate market on the whole. However, different regions display heterogeneous variation patterns over time. Further investigation shows that inter-regional labor mobility and trades are two major channels, accounting for 1.25% and 2.58% of the monthly standard deviations of spatial spillover effects from one city to another, respectively. We also characterize and distinguish between three time-varying patterns of spatial spillovers within different regions of China. Our results shed lights on the understanding of spatial spillovers across regional real estate markets across different city network structures within China.     

Influence of acquirer boards on M&A value creation: Evidence from Continental Europe

We examine how the size and the composition of acquirer boards are associated with shareholder abnormal returns for 2,230 M&As made by listed firms in Continental Europe. Although board size proves insignificant, our findings do offer some evidence as to a beneficial effect of board diversity on M&A value creation. Gender diversity appears marginally positively associated with acquirer shareholder abnormal returns. The fraction of foreign directors is in general not significantly positive, unless the rule of law in the acquirer country is weak. Nonetheless, nationality diversity in the board turns out harmful in purely domestic takeovers. The influence of age diversity is marginally positive, yet only in domestic and horizontal takeovers. Next, the fraction of independent directors has a robust positive effect on the acquirer CAR, while directors with multiple board appointments prove valuable especially through preventing firms from pursuing poor takeovers. Finally, CEO duality is detrimental only in industry‐diversifying deals initiated by acquirers that are not controlled by an individual or a family shareholder. Any negative CEO‐duality effect is mitigated when the acquirer‐country rule of law is strong.     

Drivers of management control systems in tourism start-ups firms

This study examines the use of Management Control Systems (MCS) in travel and tourism start-ups. The study empirically examines 176 European tourism start-ups; data are collected via an online survey of start-up CEOs, and supplemented by financial statements of early-stage tourism firms. The results show that travel and tourism start-ups use formal systems for management control. We observe a relationship between the usage of these systems with specific internal and external environment characteristics. Finally, the results show that the historical financial performance of travel and tourism start-up firms affects MCS usage.