How do successful scholars get their best research ideas? An exploration

We interview 24 marketing professors to ask how they got the ideas for 64 of their papers. More than three-quarters of the papers were inspired by holes in the literature, by a “stylized fact” that the current literature cannot explain, or by an interaction with a manager. The rest fall into several smaller categories that to a large extent can be seen as special cases of the three big ones. We describe how papers from each of the three big categories help move the literature forward. We also illustrate the range of situations contained in each category by way of several examples. Among the authors we interview, most do not use a single source. As these authors become more senior, managerial contacts play an increasing role, while the balance between literature and stylized facts appears to be unchanged.

     

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.     

Supplier Development Practices for Sustainability: A Multi‐Stakeholder Perspective

Supplier development for sustainability is a critical element of sustainable supply chain management and requires extensive multi‐stakeholder collaboration. This article establishes a conceptual four‐stage framework to analyse the collaborative mechanisms of supplier development practices, and presents an exploratory, qualitative analysis to identify the major contributors of sustainable supplier development practices, such as NGOs, industrial associations, consulting firms etc. Based on semi‐structured interviews about 63 organizations from different regions and industries, this article identifies three types of contributor: drivers, facilitators and inspectors. Instead of traditional stakeholder engagement processes, these contributors actively collaborate with buying firms and suppliers to design, implement and evaluate sustainable supplier development programs. The article then provides a matrix to describe the supply chain coverage and supplier performance of supplier development practices, given the absence or positive involvement of facilitators and inspectors. We conclude our study by suggesting future research directions as well as discussing managerial implications. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Big data driven cycle time parallel prediction for production planning in wafer manufacturing

Cycle time forecasting (CTF) is one of the most crucial issues for production planning to keep high delivery reliability in semiconductor wafer fabrication systems (SWFS). This paper proposes a novel data-intensive cycle time (CT) prediction system with parallel computing to rapidly forecast the CT of wafer lots with large datasets. First, a density peak based radial basis function network (DP-RBFN) is designed to forecast the CT with the diverse and agglomerative CT data. Second, the network learning method based on a clustering technique is proposed to determine the density peak. Third, a parallel computing approach for network training is proposed in order to speed up the training process with large scaled CT data. Finally, an experiment with respect to SWFS is presented, which demonstrates that the proposed CTF system can not only speed up the training process of the model but also outperform the radial basis function network, the back-propagation-network and multivariate regression methodology based CTF methods in terms of the mean absolute deviation and standard deviation.     

How is Benevolent Leadership Linked to Employee Creativity? The Mediating Role of Leader–Member Exchange and the Moderating Role of Power Distance Orientation

Previous research has shown that virtuous leader behavior in the form of benevolent leadership has considerable impact on employee creativity. However, little is known as to how and under what conditions these constructs are linked. In the current research, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model positing leader–member exchange (LMX) as a mediator, and employee power-distance orientation as a moderator of this relationship. Two studies were conducted to test our hypothesized model. In Study 1, repeated measured data collected from 284 Chinese employees in an information technology company demonstrated that benevolent leadership had a lagged effect on LMX. In Study 2, analyses of multisource and lagged data from 391 Chinese employees in 42 research and development teams, and their direct supervisors indicated that benevolent leadership was positively related to supervisor-rated employee creativity via LMX. In addition, the relationship between benevolent leadership and LMX was stronger for employees high in power-distance orientation. Theoretical implications of benevolent leadership’s research and practical contributions concerning promoting creativity in organizations where benevolent leaders prevail are also discussed.     

Option pricing based on hybrid GARCH-type models with improved ensemble empirical mode decomposition

The exploration of option pricing is of great significance to risk management and investments. One important challenge to existing research is how to describe the underlying asset price process and fluctuation features accurately. Considering the benefits of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) in depicting the fluctuation features of financial time series, we construct an option pricing model based on the new hybrid generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (hybrid GARCH)-type functions with improved EEMD by decomposing the original return series into the high frequency, low frequency and trend terms. Using the locally risk-neutral valuation relationship (LRNVR), we obtain an equivalent martingale measure and option prices with different maturities based on Monte Carlo simulations. The empirical results indicate that this novel model can substantially capture volatility features and it performs much better than the M-GARCH and Black–Scholes models. In particular, the decomposition is consistently helpful in reducing option pricing errors, thereby proving the innovativeness and effectiveness of the hybrid GARCH option pricing model.     

Prioritising alternatives for sustainable end-of-life vehicle disassembly in China using AHP methodology

The projection on Chinese increasing end-of-life vehicle (ELV) volumes indicates that the volume in 2020 will be about threefold that in 2015. The issue of scrapping vehicle upsurge relative to capacity crunches and environmental impacts perplexes Chinese dismantlers and it is intractable and urgent to choose an appropriate dismantling mode. The purpose of this study is to prioritise four potential dismantling modes and provide decision-making reference for dismantlers with a view to such criteria as environmentally sustainable considering constraints involving economy, technique, ecology and flexibility over changing condition. The conducted evaluation by the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methodology takes sensitive and problematic aspects into account through questionnaires. The whole evaluation process supported by expert preferences, provides a simple and intuitive knowledge to construct arguments for ELV decision-making process. Results show that disassembly line involves the highest global weight of 0.363 and is concluded to be the best compromised ecological alternative.     

海南岛休闲农业布局现状的实证分析

[目的]全面分析海南岛休闲农业布局现状,为海南岛休闲农业科学合理规划和均衡协调发展提供决策参考。[方法]文章利用海南岛259家休闲农业企业的地理数据,采用比较、缓冲、密度分析工具,从数量、类型、密度、距离衰减方面实证分析海南岛休闲农业的布局特征,并提出相应的优化对策。[结果](1)海南岛东部、中部和西部休闲农业数量分布比重分别为51%、29%和20%,其中国家级示范点数量分布比重分别为83%、17%和0%;(2)休闲农业主要类型有休闲农庄、观光农园、市民农园和农家乐,除休闲农庄在东部、中部、西部分布较均匀外,其他类型分布较不均衡;(3)距离市县中心越远,休闲农业分布密度越小,95%的休闲农业分布在距离市县中心30km以内,距离市县中心10~15km是休闲农业的高峰集聚区;(4)海南岛休闲农业已在海口、保亭、三亚、澄迈、琼中、琼海、定安、儋州形成8个高度集聚带。[结论]海南岛休闲农业无论在数量、类型和密度上都是东部地区最多,中部次之,西部最少。应积极推进具有农业发展优势的地区,因地制宜拓展产业休闲功能;休闲农业产品类型单一的地区,深度挖掘特色资源和文化内涵;加强休闲农业点与旅游景区、生活服务中心之间的跨区域联系,形成和谐发展的有机旅游整体,使休闲农业真正成为农业转型、农民增收的引擎。