Ownership discrimination and private firms financing in China

This study examines the financing/funding of private firms in China. Our results show that private firms are significantly less funded through formal financing channels such as bank loans than state-owned firms, and hence have to resort to alternative financing such as trade credit. Consistent with the theoretical expectation and literature, there is a substitution effect between trade credit and bank loans for private firms, but this effect is much weaker compared to that of state-owned firms. Moreover, while the univariate comparisons indicate that private firms obtain more notes payable than state-owned firms, the multivariate regression analyses show that the relation between bank loan and notes payable is positive and indifferent between private and state-owned firms.     

企业边界人员的私人关系与企业绩效——基于中国市场数据的元分析检验

企业边界人员与外部利益相关者发展私人关系是新兴市场中的普遍现象，但是“私人关系”是否真的会提升企业绩效？当前文献对此问题并未给出一致结论。文章基于105篇使用中国市场数据的中英文文献，运用元分析技术（Meta-Analysis)考察了私人关系对企业绩效的影响，并分析了企业所处的制度环境和市场环境，企业的生命周期、规模、所有制形式等内部特征对上述影响的调节作用。通过对392个效应值的集成分析，文章发现，尽管私人关系确实能提升企业绩效（ｒ=0.167），但是不同层面的私人关系（政治联系和商业联系）对不同类型的企业绩效（财务绩效、运营绩效和战略绩效）所产生的影响存在差异。同时制度环境、市场环境、企业特征均会显著地调节私人关系对企业绩效的影响。上述结论为新兴市场中的企业如何将私人关系转化为企业绩效提供了指导。     

江苏省农田保护经济补偿政策绩效评价与空间差异研究

［目的］分析评价江苏省现有农田保护经济补偿政策绩效与空间差异对建立完善长效的农业生态补偿机制和推动我国农业生态环境的可持续发展具有重要意义。［方法］以江苏省为研究区域，运用熵权-TOPSIS法，选取2010—2017年全省及苏北、苏中、苏南三个区域内11个指标，计算江苏省及三大区域农田保护经济补偿政策综合绩效值与经济、生态和社会效益单项绩效值，进行比较分析。［结果］（1）江苏省农田保护经济补偿政策在2010—2017年8年综合绩效值由0189波动增长到0841，效果初现且具有较强推广价值。（2）经济效益绩效值以年均257%的增长率由0增长到1，效果最为显著，社会效益次之，生态效益自2013年后为绩效值中最低值，与前两项最大差距在05左右，反映出环境改善、农田质量提高效应远低于农户创收、社会公平效应，政策拟合度不高。（3）江苏省农田保护经济补偿政策效果存在空间差异，综合来看政策效果表现为苏南>苏中>苏北，苏南凭借经济优势在2016年和2017年的综合绩效值上比苏中苏北高出01、在经济与社会绩效值以002的差距领先且生态绩效值没有下降拐点，具有长效可持续性。［结论］现阶段农田保护经济补偿政策效果依赖地方政府经济实力，尚未形成良性长效机制，需从制度体系、环境经济手段、差别化补偿措施、农业补贴结构和宣传等5方面着手，推进农田保护经济补偿政策更好地服务生态环境。     

Social aspirations in European banks: peer-influenced risk behaviour

We test a sample of 3,586 banks from 33 European countries to determine whether performances above or below a social aspiration level (median performance of peer banks) influence banks’ aggregate risk levels. Our results are consistent with the behavioural theory of the firm and prospect theory in that we find that bank performance below a bank’s social aspiration level is followed by increased aggregate risk, i.e. risk-taking behaviour in the subsequent year. Although under-performing banks tend to be risk-takers, large banks and banks with high aggregate risk levels tend to limit the increase in their aggregate risk levels.     

Institutions as constraints and resources: Explaining cross‐national divergence in performance management

This article compares performance management practices in call centres from four telecommunications firms in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, and Germany. Findings show that different combinations of institutional constraints, such as strong job security protections, and participation resources supporting worker voice were influential in shaping choices among policies to motivate and discipline workers. Performance management most closely approached a high‐involvement model where both constraints and resources were high, where worker representatives were able both to restrict management's use of sanctions and to establish procedures that improved the perceived fairness of incentives. Findings contribute to debates concerning the role of contextual factors in the design and effectiveness of HRM.     

Does it pay off for museums to foster creativity? The complementary effect of innovative visitor experiences

This paper aims to explore the link between creativity orientation, investment in visitors’ experience and operating and funding performance in tourist attractions, taking museums as a case study. The empirical work is based on an analysis of the information provided by a sample of Spanish, French, German, British and American museums. The findings highlight the positive impact of creativity orientation on museums’ operating performance, but show a curvilinear effect on funding performance. The use of new technologies and adaptation to the audience proves positive when seeking to attract visitors.     

Hotel performance: Rigor and relevant research topics

Academic research (rigor) in alignment with practitioners’ challenges (relevancy) has been advocated as a way of overcoming the ivory tower syndrome. Performance measurement is at the heart of strategic management processes, as it provides a mechanism of demonstrating outcomes. Given the importance of this topic for both theory and practice, this article explores the contribution of academic outputs in terms of academic research outputs (rigor) and current practitioners’ needs (relevancy).Using network analysis and cross-citation bibliometric approaches, a sample of 1155 articles is examined and fourteen clusters are identified. The emergent topics and subtopics from the academic literature are compared to ten insights proposed by Ernst Young to the hotel sector. The findings suggest a good fit between the two approaches together with some gaps. Based from empirical results, nine propositions are articulated.     

Managerial optimism: New observations on the unifying theory

Managerial optimism theory is behavioral finance's greatest achievement. It explains two prominent features of corporate financial behavior – over‐investment and pecking‐order capital structure preferences – that otherwise require two different theories with mutually incompatible assumptions about managerial loyalties to shareholder‐value maximization. After reviewing the development of managerial optimism as a unifying theory, I use a simple change of measure to transform risk‐averse optimism to risk‐neutral probabilities that can be pessimistic or optimistic depending on wealth changes. This unexplored feature has implications for, among other things, pay for performance when managers are excessively optimistic.     

The importance of consumer multihoming (joint purchases) for market performance: Mergers and entry in media markets

Consumer “multihoming” (watching two TV channels, or buying two news magazines) has surprisingly important effects on market equilibrium and performance in (two‐sided) media markets. We show this by introducing consumer multihoming and advertising finance into the classic circle model of product differentiation. When consumers multihome (attend more than one platform), media platforms can charge only incremental value prices to advertisers. Entry or merger leaves consumer prices unchanged under consumer multihoming, but leaves advertiser prices unchanged under single‐homing: Multihoming flips the side of the market on which platforms compete. In contrast to standard circle results, equilibrium product variety can be insufficient under multihoming.     

"利剑斩污"行动下石家庄市挥发性有机物的污染特性变化研究

为研究石家庄市在"利剑斩污"行动管控期和非管控期挥发性有机物(VOCs)的污染特性变化,在2个时间段内对石家庄市3个国控点进行采样分析。通过苏玛罐(SUMMA罐)进行样品采集,利用气相色谱/质谱联用(GC/MS)仪对石家庄市区3个国控点的VOCs进行定性定量检测分析。结果表明,监测期间主要的特征污染物是二氯甲烷、二氯丙烷、苯和甲苯。与非管控期间相比,管控期间各污染物的质量浓度均有所降低,总VOCs平均质量浓度降低45.107μg/m~3,二氯甲烷质量浓度降低8.796μg/m~3,二氯丙烷质量浓度降低3.750μg/m~3,苯质量浓度降低18.285μg/m~3,甲苯质量浓度降低16.895μg/m~3。大气环境调控策略的实施,有效降低了VOCs浓度,减少了空气污染程度,空气质量改善效果显著。"利剑斩污"行动期间采取的相关举措,对于制定常态化下VOCs的防治对策具有一定的参考价值。