The effects of employee engagement and self-efficacy on job performance: a longitudinal field study

Abstract

Self-efficacy’s influence on individual job performance has been well documented in laboratory studies. However, there have been very few rigorous field studies of self-efficacy’s relationship with objectively measured individual job performance in organizational settings. This research history might account for the low take-up of self-efficacy within the business literature as well as within business itself. When it comes to studies of employee engagement, the same lack of rigorous individual studies applies, although several organizational-level studies link employee engagement to organizational performance, while its claimed benefits have been widely discussed in the business literature. Finally, the degree to which employee engagement and self-efficacy have independent and additive effects on individual-level job performance remains unknown. In order to address these issues, a longitudinal field study was undertaken within an Australian financial services firm. Using survey data linked to objectively measured job performance, we found the additive effects of self-efficacy and employee engagement explained 12% of appointments made and 39% of products sold over and above that explained by past performance. This finding suggests human resource management (HRM) practitioners should address both self-efficacy and employee engagement in order to boost job performance while encouraging HRM scholars to incorporate both measures when conducting job performance studies.     

Bankers on the Board,Market Competition,and Conflicts of Interest

Abstract

Bankers on the board are expected to act as a fund-raiser and to help lowering financial costs, but they can impose conflicts of interest between shareholders and creditors. We empirically analyse the impact of banker-directors on corporate leverage and investment, using Korean firm data during the period from 2000 to 2012. Bankers on the board turn out to play different roles depending on market competition and macroeconomic circumstance. In less competitive industries where banks are less concerned about financial distress as a creditor, the presence of bankers on the board has higher leverage and more active investment, which can align with the interest of shareholders. However, in more competitive environment where firms are more concerned about financial distress and external financing, bankers on the board do not always increase leverage and investment, which can be divergent from the interest of shareholders.     

Real Exchange Rate Dynamics in the Asian Economies: Can Regime Shifts Explain Purchasing Power Parity Puzzles?

Abstract

We show that the strong version of the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis holds in most of the US dollar real exchange rates using cointegration method that accounts for breaks in the models. The break dates in seven of the Asian currencies coincide with the two rounds of currency depreciation recorded during the 1997–1998 financial crises. We obtain a mean half-life estimate of about 10 months for PPP to converge to its long-run equilibrium level. Our confidence intervals based on persistence profile approach for the half-lives is much narrower than previous evidence might indicate. Taken together, these results show that mean reversion is stronger than commonly thought.     

Costs and Benefits of Export-Oriented Foreign Investment: The Case of China

The costs and benefits of export-oriented FDI have been discussed by Helleiner (1973, 1998), Watanabe (1972), Sharpston (1975), and others. Processed exports generated from FDI have constituted over half of the exports of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and China. Despite the importance of processed exports, empirical studies of their costs and benefits are difficult due to lack of data, especially on transfer earnings. Data on the division of benefits between the source and host countries are scarce and unreliable. This paper examines the costs and benefits of export-oriented foreign investment for China. China has been highly successful in exporting and in attracting FDI, especially export-oriented FDI from Hong Kong. Since 1993, China has become the second largest recipient of FDI in the world after the US, and Hong Kong has become the world's fourth largest source of FDI after the US, UK, and Germany. China's processed exports are largely re-exported via Hong Kong. As a result, good data on the total value-added of processed exports for Mainland China and for Hong Kong are available. It is found that the rate of value-added for Mainland China is relatively low compare with that for Hong Kong, indicating transfer pricing and absence of linkages in the mainland. This appears to be due to the rigidity of China's economic system which hampers backward and forward linkages. The mainland is thus dependent on Hong Kong for many services in the value-added chain. However, the rate of value-added for China has increased substantially since 1996, indicating an increase in both backward and forward linkages.     

Retail bank selection in developed and developing countries: A cross‐national study of students' bank‐selection criteria

This exploratory research article is concerned with students' selection of retail banks in the United States and Ghana. It is a comparative cross‐national study aimed at revealing the factors determining retail bank selection among students in different environmental settings. The key objective is to establish if there are any significant differences and/or similarities in students' selection of retail banks in developed and developing economies. A similar data‐collection method was employed in the United States and Ghana to facilitate constructive comparison. The results identified four key factors—convenience, competence, recommendation by parents, and free banking and/or no bank charges—to be consistent across the two economies. The recommendation of the study is that in the context of an open and liberalized market environment, retail bank marketing strategies should be standardized irrespective of the national development stage. It concludes that retail bank managers particularly in developing countries should learn to provide consistent and good customer care. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How foreign direct investment affects CO2 emission levels in the Chinese manufacturing industry: Evidence from panel data

This study explores how inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) affect a country’s carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission levels. To investigate this relationship, we use panel data (2002–2015) from the 28 subsectors of the Chinese manufacturing sector. We also perform panel framework analysis to verify the characteristics of the panel data before establishing the panel estimator meant to test the relationships between carbon dioxide emissions, FDI inflows, industrial GDP, industry openness, net domestic fixed capital stock and cleaner production. The results of the panel framework analysis suggest the need to eliminate dynamic panel bias and produce more efficient and consistent parameter estimates. To do so, we use System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators with time dummies. Ultimately, the results of the analysis show that FDI is a positive predictor of environmental quality in the host country, which serves as evidence of the halo effect that FDI reduces CO₂ emission levels. The study also finds evidence that industrial GDP and cleaner production improve environmental quality. However, the domestic capital stock has a negative effect on environmental quality. By showing that past carbon dioxide emissions significantly influence current emissions, our findings demonstrate the importance of consistency and persistence in efforts to reduce those emissions. Accordingly, we discuss some policy implications based on these results.     

Foreign currency borrowing surrounding the global financial crisis: Evidence from Korea

We present a complete profile of firms’ foreign currency borrowing surrounding the 2007 global financial crisis. Employing extensive data from Korean firms during 2002–2012, we find that foreign currency borrowing is significantly related to firm attributes of export revenues, firm size, tangible assets and asset growth, as well as to macro-level factors. These results offer two important implications. First, macroeconomic factors alone cannot fully explain firms’ foreign currency borrowing. Second and more importantly, these firm attributes are indicative of a lower default probability and larger collateral value, which would not only facilitate borrowers’ access to foreign currency debt markets but also offer lenders a better protective cushion from possible loan defaults in the face of exchange rate changes and information asymmetry on borrowers’ credits. Period wise, asset-related firm attributes have more pronounced effects in the post- than pre-crisis period. We further show that banking regulations following the crisis effectively limit the access to foreign currency borrowing by Korean firms, most significantly by those belonging to large business groups.     

Corporate social responsibility,credit rating,and private debt contracting: new evidence from syndicated loan market

We examine the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on loan spreads of syndicated bank loans, with a particular interest in how CSR and credit ratings are interrelated as a joint determinant of loan spreads. Focusing on private debt contracts, we show that both CSR strengths and concerns are related to their loan spreads. CSR strengths work to lower firm risk, hence reducing the loan spread, whereas CSR concerns increase firm risk, thus increasing the loan spread. Once we include detailed credit rating information in the models, however, CSR concerns lose significance, but CSR strengths remain significantly related to the loan spread. We also find that both CSR strengths and CSR concerns are related to loan spread for non-rated firms, but the CSR concern effect is stronger than the CSR strength effect for these firms. A further test shows that firm risk measured by stock return volatility plays as a direct channel through which a firm’s CSR activities affect loan spreads, whose result lends further support to our main results. Overall, our results provide strong evidence that CSR matters to the pricing of loan contracts beyond credit rating information and the results remain robust to the possible firm size effect and the endogeneity issues.     

Improving collaboration between large and small-medium enterprises in automobile production

ABSTRACT

Inter-organisational collaboration is important for achieving qualitative and quantitative performance improvement in the global competitive environment. In particular, the extent of collaboration between the mother company and its suppliers is important for the profitability and sustainability of a company in the automobile industry, which is carried out using a customisation and order production system. As a result of the empirical analysis in this study, the collaborative information sharing cycle is shortened and the collaborative information sharing scope is widened. Therefore, the level of collaboration is improved by constructing an IT collaboration system.