The new ecological paradigm and responses to climate change in China

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a Chinese-Mandarin version of the revised new ecological paradigm (NEP-R) scale. In a sample of 515 Mandarin-speaking Chinese nationals, we first assessed the factor structure and internal consistency of the NEP-R and assessed its validity by examining associations with global warming risk perceptions and mitigation behavior. Respondents completed the NEP-R scale, together with measures of risk perception and mitigation behavior. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a two-factor solution, reflecting ecocentric and anthropocentric worldviews, best fit the data. Multi-group path analysis revealed that respondents with stronger ecocentric and weaker anthropocentric worldviews perceived more risks associated with global warming. In turn, respondents who perceived more risks reported engaging in more global warming mitigation behaviors. But importantly, the path between risk perceptions and behavior was significantly stronger for highly educated respondents than for less educated respondents, suggesting that education may represent an important strategy for bridging the gap between perceived risks about global warming and action.     

Workplace deviance and human resource management relations: A case study of Turkish hotel employees

The main purpose of this study is to examine the negative associations between employees' perception of the effectiveness of performance appraisal practices and deviant workplace behavior. This study also tests the mediating effect of the forms of organizational justice in the relationship between performance appraisal practices and deviant workplace behavior. Moreover, it also investigates how line managers' performance appraisal politics may influence the relationship between perceptions of performance appraisal practices and employee deviant workplace behavior. In order to facilitate this study, the research team employed a survey design. A total of 193 service employees from different service establishments attended the forum where the study was conducted in the capital city of Turkey, Ankara. The results of this study strongly support the premise that effective performance appraisal practices influence employee deviance behavior, and especially that interactional justice is an important predictor of employee violative behavior. Moreover, the findings indicate that there is no evidence regarding the moderating effect of employees' perception of managers' appraisal politics in the negative relationship between performance appraisal effectiveness and employee deviance.     

Blockchain for tracking serial numbers in money exchanges

Money exchange is one of the most common day‐to‐day activities performed by humans in the daily market. This paper presents an approach to money tracking through a blockchain. The proposed approach consists of three main components: serial number localization, serial number recognition, and a blockchain to store all transactions and ownership transfers. The approach was tested with a total of 110 banknotes of different currency types and achieved an average accuracy of 91.17%. We conducted a user study in real‐time with 21 users, and the mean accuracy across all users was 86.42%. Each user gave us feedback on the proposed approach, and most of them welcomed the idea.     

The intertemporal risk-Return relation,investor behavior,and technical trading profits: evidence from the G-7 countries

The intertemporal risk-return relation and investor behavior are both important pricing factors that jointly determine the expected market risk premium. Using the price adjustment process as a control variable, we find that the intertemporal risk-return relation is positive conditional on bad market news, but is non-positive conditional on good market news. This implies that good (bad) market news weakens (strengthens) the positive risk-return relation. The pattern in the distortion of the risk-return relation is consistent with short-term mispricing in which investors overvalue (undervalue) the stock market in reaction to good (bad) market news. We also show that ignoring the price adjustment process in the estimation of the risk-return relation leads to model misspecification and induces an upward (downward) bias in estimates of the relative risk aversion parameter conditional on good (bad) news. Our model of the asymmetric risk-return relation along with the price adjustment process is capable of generating the return dynamics that is attributable to technical trading profits. We suggest that the profitability of technical trading rules is not a violation of market efficiency, but a consequence of trading rules exploiting the asymmetric effect of price changes on the risk-return relation, along with the persistence property of price changes.     

Rationality of weather predictions and insurance purchases: testing the gambler’s and hot hand fallacies

Deviations from the rational behaviour assumed in many economic models have been found in a variety of settings. Two such deviations, the gambler’s and hot hand fallacies have been found in lab settings, as well as in consequential real-world decisions. Previous economic experiments have shown that the behaviour of professionals can differ from that of the general population. In this paper, we use data from two experiments conducted with a particular group of professionals who make yearly high-stakes decisions in the face of uncertain weather and market conditions: agricultural producers. In the experiments, participants were asked to make predictions about the coming year’s weather and market conditions and make decisions in a familiar decision context. Results indicate evidence of the gambler’s fallacy, such that participants were less likely to predict a good outcome if the previous outcome(s) were good. We also observe that participants were more likely to gamble if a previous gamble was successful, but find no impact on two successful gambles. These combined results indicate that even professionals with many years of experience can exhibit behaviours that deviate from those assumed by classical models.     

农户生物菌肥购买意愿及行为的影响因素研究*——基于山东省设施菜农的调研数据

[目的]生物菌肥对于土壤改良、环境改善、食品安全具有重要意义,但目前生物菌肥在整个肥料产业中所占份额较小,迫切需要探讨如何从农户角度提高生物菌肥的施用比例。[方法]基于设施蔬菜农户的数据,构建Bivariate Probit模型,对农户生物菌肥的购买意愿和行为的影响因素进行比较研究。[结果]农户的生物菌肥购买意愿和行为总体上呈现一致性,愿意购买的农户中有97. 77%的农户具有实际的购买行为;但两者的影响因素有所差异,从差异因素来看,质量安全检测对购买意愿具有显著的正向影响,但对购买行为的影响并不显著;农户文化程度、种植年限、对无公害、绿色、有机蔬菜的了解程度,经销商推荐,施肥指导对购买行为具有显著的正向影响。从共同因素来看,生态环境认知变量对购买意愿和购买行为影响不显著。[结论]要推广生物菌肥,需要进一步加强质量安全检测体系对农业行为的约束性,提升经销商的规范经营意识,采用集中招标等灵活的价格政策,提升农户的生态技能,并在保护生态环境方面出台更完善的农业绿色发展政策。     

Orchestrating corporate social responsibility in the multinational enterprise

Research Summary: Multinational enterprises (MNEs) invest significant resources in corporate social responsibility (CSR), but their attempts to build a global “social brand” may clash with the execution of operational strategies at a subsidiary level. Using a game-theoretic model, this research addresses the complex interplay of different contingencies that shape the coordination and control challenges facing MNEs when they implement global CSR strategies, including brand spillovers, the risk of public scandals caused by irresponsible behavior, the size of the MNE network, as well as the roles played by nongovernmental organizations and altruistic managers. Challenging the view of CSR as insurance against lapses of responsible conduct, our model shows that investment in social brands helps avoid irresponsible practices across the MNE network, thereby inducing subsidiaries to “walk the talk.” Managerial Summary: Global social brands are increasingly valuable to multinational enterprises (MNEs), which makes the control and coordination of responsible behavior across their network of foreign subsidiaries a relevant managerial challenge. Indeed, lapses of responsible conduct at the subsidiary level often generate reputational damage at the multinational level. This research explores several mechanisms that help MNEs manage this coordination and control challenge. First, it shows under what conditions MNEs can leverage their investments in social brands to induce responsible practices across their global network. Second, it illustrates how MNEs can exploit collaborations with nongovernmental organizations to reduce the costs of coordinating and controlling their subsidiaries. Finally, it identifies conditions under which MNEs benefit from hiring altruistic managers to run their subsidiaries.     

Estimating effects of cooperative membership on farmers’ safe production behaviors: Evidence from pig sector in China

This research studies the determinants of pig farmers’ participation in farmers’ cooperatives and the effects of farmers’ cooperatives on pig farmers’ behaviors in adopting safe production practices using data from a household survey of 540 cooperative farmers and 270 non-cooperative farmers from four main pig production provinces in China. The propensity score matching (PSM) method was adopted to deal with possible self-selection bias associated with farmers’ participation in farmers’ cooperatives due to observables, which is further supplemented by a sensitivity analysis to assess the degree to which the PSM results are robust to the presence of unobservables. The PSM results show that the cooperative membership has significant and positive influence on farmers’ propensity to adopt safe production practices and the effects are heterogeneous across a number of key cooperative, farm and household attributes. Specifically, the membership effects tend to be bigger for cooperatives led by Investor-owned firms (IOFs) and farms of small production scale. And the effects tend to be greater for households (1) of medium and high level of education, (2) of less than 10 years of pig production experience, (3) of no off-farm job experience, and (4) that are specialized in pig production. The sensitivity analysis further increases our confidence in the results for the feed use and the breed use, however, the results for vaccination, drug use and waste disposable are more sensitive to the influence of unobservables, therefore should be interpreted with caution.     

Determinants of students’ entrepreneurial intention to compete in a fast-pitch competition

Despite the heightened popularity of entrepreneurship education, there remain open questions regarding best practices in co-curricular programs. Using the theory of planned behavior, the authors examine how students’ intention is shaped to increase the likelihood of participation in entrepreneurship co-curricular programs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relation between entrepreneurial identity and entrepreneurial intention theory. They find the popular personality trait, openness, is related to ambition, which reveals the interaction between personal elements (personality/identity) and contextual elements (aspirations to success/intention), a novel finding in the literature. This further illustrates the interconnectedness between the theory of planned behavior and the entrepreneurial event model