Corporate sustainability strategies in institutional adversity: Antecedent,outcome, and contingency effects

This study examines (i) how top-level managerial institutional ties drive corporate sustainability strategies of emerging market firms operating under conditions of institutional adversity; (ii) the impact of corporate sustainability strategies on market performance; and (iii) the moderating role of financial resource slack on the relationships between corporate sustainability strategies and market performance. The study builds from institutional development logic and the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. Primary data are collected from 300 firms operating in a major sub-Saharan African market. Findings show that top-level managerial institutional linkages with regulatory national governmental officials, local community leaders, and top managers at other firms drive corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies, which in turn influence market performance. In addition, the findings reveal that financial resource slack strengthens the path between corporate proactive sustainability strategies and market performance, but not the path between corporate responsive sustainability strategies and market performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

黑龙江森工林区林业产业结构演变趋势及优势产业选择

采用灰色预测方法对黑龙江森工林区2018—2027年林业三次产业产值进行预测,并在此基础上利用动态偏离-份额分析方法对此阶段黑龙江森工林区的林业优势产业进行选择。结果表明:2019年黑龙江森工林区林业产业结构将演变为"三、一、二"模式;林业第一产业中的林木育种和育苗、经济林产品的种植和采集业可作为优势产业进行重点发展和管理。因此,提出优化黑龙江森工林区林业产业结构的相关建议:继续巩固发展林木育种和育苗、经济林产品的种植和采集这两个优势产业;推动加工制造业向深加工、精加工的方向转变;加强林业旅游与休闲服务业的竞争力。     

Covariance breakdowns and connectedness of crude oil futures markets with non-synchronous data

ABSTRACT

This article identifies the breakdowns in the covariance of three benchmark crude oil futures markets (WTI, Brent and Dubai) and investigates the changes of market connectedness across the breakdown periods. As the crude oil futures are traded in different regions, this article eliminates the non-synchronous trading data by employing the Vector Moving Average structure and the Bayesian data augmentation approach, which keeps the integrity of original data without changing its properties. The results show that there are significant breaks in the covariance structure of crude oil futures markets. The breakdown periods are consistent with the periods when the market volatilities are at high level and the returns are volatile. The changes of market connectedness are independent of the covariance states, which supports the globalization hypothesis for the crude oil market. The results also suggest that there is more information flow out of the WTI than to the WTI during the sample period, particularly during the breakdown periods in 2008–2009.     

Estimating yield curves of the U.S. Treasury securities: An interpolation approach

Following the approach of interpolation, this paper proposes the multiple exponential decay model to fit yield curves for both the U.S. TIPS market and the conventional Treasury security market. Several estimation methods, including the unconstrained/constrained nonlinear minimization, quadratic programming, and the iterative linear least squares, are applied to estimate the unknown parameters according to different curve‐fitting purposes. Comparisons between the proposed model and the alternatives show that the multiple exponential decay successfully (1) adapts to a variety of shapes associated with yield curves, (2) (partially) keeps in line with the economic interpretations of Nelson–Siegel summarized by Diebold and Li ( 2006 ), and (3) dominates the competing models in curve‐fitting performance measured by mean fitted‐price errors over the sample period. In addition, the exact specification of a nonparametric interpolation model is pinned down by applying three statistical tools, which enable us to jointly take into account validity, optimality, and parsimoniousness of the proposed model.     

健全我国企业环保信用评价法律制度的正当性面向

《环境保护法》等环境法律体系日渐趋同的多元共治理念，渗透并引发环境法律制度体系的结构性转型；国内环境信息公开制度保障公众环境知情权的核心功能不能容纳企业环保信用评价制度的制度功能；信用制度与信息制度错序产生的国内外法治及社会环境迥异等，决定了我国企业环保信用评价制度健全的正当性面向。     

Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: A developing country perspective

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted wider research interests over recent decades. While some studies have examined the impact of CSR activities on firm competitive advantage (CA), the findings so far remain contradictory. Moreover, the role of export orientation, firm strategy, and structure on the association between CSR and CA has not been explicitly examined. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of export orientation, firm strategy, structure, and firm size on the association between CSR and CA. Using a sample of 179 responses from management staff in organizations across five sectors in a developing country context of Ghana, the study found positive effects of CSR on CA. The study contributes to the resource‐based view (RBV) scholarship by confirming the important complementary effect of export orientation and organizational structure as important resources and capabilities on the CSR–competitiveness relationship. However, no evidence of a moderating effect of firm strategy, or firm size on the CSR–CA relationship was found. These findings are instructive, impactful, and enrich the existing literature on CSR and strategy. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.     

How hospitality brands grow: What hospitality marketers should know about Andrew Ehrenberg’s work (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

Andrew Ehrenberg’s work challenges the emphasis that hospitality marketing practitioners, educators and academic researchers place on segmentation, targeting (especially of heavy users), positioning, and meaningful brand differentiation. However, few marketing practitioners and scholars in hospitality appear familiar with this work. This invited paper attempts to increase awareness and appreciation of Ehrenberg’s work as well as its relevance to and implications for hospitality marketing. Topics covered include the NBD Law, Law of Double Jeopardy, Duplication of Purchase Law, and Law of Natural Monopoly as well as the evidence of weak brand segmentation, low perceived brand uniqueness, and the generalizability of the brand belief-usage relationship.     

Testing commodity futures market efficiency under time-varying risk premiums and heteroscedastic prices

We propose a novel test to measure market efficiency while estimating the time-varying risk premiums of commodity futures, given that the prices are heteroscedastic. The risk premium is estimated using a state-space model with a Kalman filter modified for heteroscedasticity. Using 79 commodity futures traded on 16 exchanges during the period 2000–2014 and a Monte Carlo simulation, we demonstrate that the proposal produces robust results compared with conventional approaches. The global financial crisis has improved the efficiency and affected the trading volumes of commodity futures, but it has had no effect on the average or the volatility of risk premiums.     

家庭结构对农地流转意愿的影响——基于结构方程模型的实证分析

研究目的:分析家庭结构对农民流转土地意愿的影响,并揭示其内部机理的形成,以期为土地流转政策的完善提供参考。研究方法:因子分析法和结构方程模型。研究结果:(1)家庭人口特征、土地使用特征、户主个体特征及家庭决策特征4类外源潜变量会显著影响农地流转意愿;(2)可观测变量对外源潜变量的解释能力较强,其中,家庭总人口、实际经营及流转土地面积、户主年龄、家庭内部矛盾解决方式分别对这4类外源潜变量的解释能力相对较好,即家庭总人口越多、实际经营及流转土地面积越小、户主年龄越大、依赖于内部解决矛盾的家庭更愿意流转农地。研究结论:家庭结构主要通过主动依赖、扶养压力、收入偏好、农地保障、决策信息5种机理对流转意愿产生影响,未来土地流转政策的完善应重视解决这些问题。