Has local informational advantage disappeared?

This study examines how changes in the information environment affect the informational advantage of geographically proximate agents. The long‐term advantage of local agents disappeared at the turn of the millennium. This is accompanied by the reduction in local bias of institutional investors and equity analysts. However, institutional investors continue to trade local stocks disproportionately more often than non‐local stocks; moreover, their local trades outperform non‐local trades in the short term—even for large and liquid stocks. Our results are consistent with improvements in the information environment shortening the horizon of proximity‐based informational advantage.     

民航地空通信自适应抗干扰系统设计与性能分析

在复杂电磁环境下，由于民航地空通信大频偏的要求，滤波器无法滤除波道内的干扰。针对此问题，提出了一种自适应抗干扰系统设计方法。对于落在波道内且与地空通信信号有效频带不重叠的干扰，首先对通信信号进行载波频率估计，然后使用自适应滤波方法进行干扰抑制；对于落在波道内且与地空通信信号有效频带重叠的恒包络干扰，首先重构载波信号，消除对恒包络信号估计的影响，然后根据恒包络信号的特性重构干扰信号并进行干扰分离。实验结果表明，该系统设计方法在不改变民航地空通信架构的前提下，抗有效频带外干扰的能力最大可以提升23.8 dB，抗恒包络干扰的能力最大可以提升39.4 dB，从而可以大幅提高航空飞行安全水平。     

The role of health,experience, and educational attainment in agricultural production: Evidence from smallholders in Burkina Faso

We apply parametric and nonparametric methods to data from smallholders in Burkina Faso and assess the role that human capital characteristics play in the agricultural production process. Our results point to the technology‐changing nature of health, education, and experience. However, effects are rather heterogeneous. The productivity elasticity of health is much larger for households in the lowest landholding quintiles, while returns to experience are larger for households in the upper quintile. In terms of policy implications, our results suggest that productivity can be stimulated through the allocation of expenditure to social services that enhance certain types of human capital. Interventions aimed at improving the health status of households with smaller landholdings could have particularly strong welfare effects.     

Intellectual capital reporting practices in an Islamic bank: A case study

Given the nature and importance of Islamic banks in recent times, we can expect them to have significant intellectual capital anchored in their Sharia‐based knowledge and expertise. However, we know very little or nothing about how and why intellectual capital‐related information is provided in their corporate reports. We fill this gap in our existing knowledge of the field with a view to enhance relevant literature. As far as we know, this article is one of the earliest exploratory attempts to examine intellectual capital reporting practices of an Islamic bank. We have undertaken a longitudinal (2001–2015) case study related to the intellectual capital reporting practices of an Islamic bank. Key results include significant rise of intellectual capital reporting over time, dominance of internal capital‐related items in intellectual capital reporting profile and the dynamics of changes in intellectual capital reporting practices over time. Through an institutional theory lens, we explain that this is due to the changes in the external institutional environment and various intra‐organisational factors such as strong ethical culture, unique knowledge base (Sharia), and corporate governance regime.     

Assessment of Current Training Program and Its Effectiveness in Hotels of Bhutan

The increasing number of tourist in Bhutan demands for more high-quality hotels to provide better services to guests. The objectives of the study are, (1) to assess the current training provided to the hotel employees; (2) to evaluate the training gap concerning training design and; (3) to examine relationship between the training factors affecting the training effectiveness in Bhutanese hotel industry. Findings showed mismatch of training provided to employees resulting in poor quality of service. Negative score was found between the importance and satisfaction level of hotel employees on contents of training design. However the results showed positive relationship between the training factors and training effectiveness, work environment has strong influence.     

“双低一代”的社会经济特征研究

由于即将退休与刚退休的这一代人拥有低赡养比与低抚养比，本文称其为“双低一代”。本文基于宏观统计数据与微观调查数据，利用分位回归等方法对“双低一代”的社会学特征与经济学特征进行研究，发现其具有人口总量较多、教育背景优良、社会阅历丰富、消费倾向明显等特征。此外，通过对“双低一代”的人力资本存量进行测算，提出充分发挥“双低一代”余热、缓解老龄化问题的政策建议。     

Career mentoring in context: A multilevel study on differentiated career mentoring and career mentoring climate

This study explores how supervisor career mentoring contributes to contemporary organizational career development, which strives to foster employees' promotability while strengthening their intention to stay. Specifically, we focus on the implications of career mentoring in team contexts. Applying a multilevel framework, we distinguish between individual‐level differentiated mentoring (i.e., an employee's mentoring perceptions as compared to those of other team members) and group‐level career mentoring climate (i.e., the average perception across all group members). In a workplace setting, we collected data from vocational job starters (N ranged from 230 to 290) and their company supervisors (N ranged from 56 to 68). We find that career mentoring climate positively relates to promotability, more so than differentiated career mentoring. Both career mentoring climate and differentiated career mentoring are positively related to the intention to stay. At the individual level, this relationship is mediated by job satisfaction. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of differentiated and group‐level mentoring.     

The internationalization of African firms: Opportunities,challenges, and risks

There has been a marked increase in the internationalization activities of African firms over the last two decades or so, resulting in the emergence of regional challenger firms that are aggressively competing with foreign multinationals in terrains historically dominated by the latter. However, our understanding of this phenomenon is limited, as empirical research examining the nature of internationalization of African firms is scarce, and research directly investigating drivers, outcomes, and boundary conditions of the internationalization of African firms is lacking. The goal of this special issue, therefore, is to contribute to the scholarly understanding of the increasingly prevalent internationalization of African firms. This guest editorial provides a summary of the six articles in this special issue, and highlights three broad thematic issues: internationalization opportunities for African firms (accelerated private‐sector development and regional integration, and ability to overcome institutional voids); internationalization challenges (global competitiveness challenges, limited management and cross‐cultural capabilities, and overcoming the liability of Africanness); and internationalization risks (losing focus on home markets and over‐internationalization).