Assessing cost‐effectiveness when environmental benefits are bundled: agricultural water management in Great Barrier Reef catchments

Using economic analysis to prioritise improvements in environmental conditions is particularly difficult when multiple benefits are involved. This includes ‘bundling’ issues in agricultural pollution management, where a change in management action or farming systems generates multiple improvements, such as reductions in more than one pollutant. In this study, we conceptualise and compare two different approaches to analysing cost‐effectiveness when varying bundles of benefits are generated for a single project investment. Each approach requires data to be transformed in some way to allow the analysis to proceed. The index approach requires the transformation on the benefits side so that the effects of multiple pollutant changes can be combined into a measure for each project which can then be compared to costs. By comparison, the disaggregation approach requires the transformation on the costs side where costs for each project have to be apportioned across the different pollutants involved. The paper provides novel insights with an application to agricultural water quality improvements into the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, demonstrating that while both approaches are effective in prioritising projects by cost‐effectiveness, the disaggregation approach provides more insightful results and values that may be relevant for use as upper value guidelines in future project selection.     

审计师地理距离对客户公司股价信息含量的影响

从地理经济学视角分析审计师的地理区位特征对上市公司股价信息含量的可能影响，利用2004—2013年中国A股上市公司的数据，实证检验了审计师与客户间的地理距离对客户公司股价信息含量的经验影响关系，并进一步考察了证券分析师与审计监督两种中介组织间的交互效应。研究发现：（1）审计师与客户公司间的地理距离越小，客户公司的股价信息含量越低，因为在中国当前经济社会背景下，地理邻近对审计师独立性的消极影响要强于其对审计师专业胜任能力的积极影响，这导致审计师审计质量降低，影响客户公司股价信息含量；（2）证券分析师对客户公司的关注程度越高，审计师的地理邻近性对客户公司股价信息含量的负面影响越弱，表明证券分析师与外部审计之间主要呈现一种相互替代的关系，证券分析师可以作为一种有效的补充监督机制。     

异常审计费用、审计质量与IPO定价——基于A股市场的分析

以A股市场2006—2012年IPO公司为研究对象，探讨异常审计费用与审计质量的相关性及其在IPO定价中的作用。结果发现：对全样本，异常审计费用与IPO抑价水平显著负相关，与可操纵性应计利润的绝对值和股票上市后的长期市场表现不相关；当考虑异常审计费用的方向时，正的异常审计费用与IPO抑价水平、可操纵性应计利润的绝对值显著负相关，与股票上市后的长期市场表现显著正相关，而负的异常审计费用与三者的相关性均不显著。这表明作为会计师事务所努力程度的体现，正的异常审计费用不会损害审计质量，相反在一定程度上能提升审计质量。因此，监管部门应更多地关注审计收费不足所存在的风险。     

结构性去杠杆下的中国宏观经济*——2018年中期中国宏观经济分析与预测

2018年以来中国经济平稳运行，物价水平稳定，就业形势整体向好，经济增长质量稳步提升。不过，当前中国经济仍然面临一定的下行压力，尤其需要警惕消费增速过快下滑、宏观税负进一步加重、民间投资复苏乏力、部分企业效益状况显著恶化、去杠杆过程中金融体系不稳定性加剧等主要风险点。此外，杠杆率高企是现阶段中国经济面临的突出问题，而且中国的杠杆率在不同部门之间以及各部门内部均体现出明显的结构性特点。为此，中央在2018年专门提出了“结构性去杠杆”的新思路。在“结构性去杠杆”稳步推进的大背景下，宏观政策既要积极应对经济下行压力，谨防去杠杆带来的经济增速超预期下滑风险，又要激发经济内生增长动力，促使经济实现长期可持续发展和“高质量发展”。     

Co-creation with clients of hotel services: the moderating role of top management support

Hotels can strengthen their competitiveness by expanding their innovation process beyond the boundaries of the firm to exploit the valuable knowledge and skills of their customers. This study examines the effects of new service (NS) co-creation with customers in the hotel industry on NS performance, as well as the moderating role of top management support. The research also explores the main barriers faced by hotels to co-create service innovations. Partial least squares structural equation modelling results indicate that Customer co-creation exerts a direct impact on NS market outcomes and NS development (NSD) speed, which in turn favours NS quality. NS quality translates into better NS customer-related outcomes as well as in improved NS market outcomes. Top management support enhances the effect of Customer co-creation on the NSD speed. The main barrier to NS co-creation in hotels is to find customers interested in devoting time to this activity or with the appropriate knowledge and experience.     

The moderating role of nationality on destination experience

ABSTRACT

Differences in tourists’ cultural values are significant factors in their product and service choices, yet they have generally been neglected in the literature. Therefore, this study examined how tourists’ nationalities influence their perceptions of service quality, affective image perceptions, and revisiting intentions. Activities were found to be more determinant on a destination’s affective image for Russian tourists, whereas accommodation, hospitality, and language communication services had a larger effect on German tourists.     

Effects of individual resources and team-member exchange on service quality

While workplace resources are generally viewed as positively affecting performance, some studies indicate that not all resources increase performance. This study addresses the controversial disparate effects of workplace resources on performance by exploring functionally classified workplace resources in self-managing service teams and their relative impacts on team service quality. Considering membership dynamics and consequences between members, a field experiment was conducted in a cafeteria, with data collected through a working diary for workplace resources and a customer survey to evaluate service quality. Results suggest that efficacy-resources in self-managing teams should be controlled with caution as they may adversely affect team service quality. Supporting the person–situation interactionism perspective, workplace resources interact dynamically with individual employees and with situations. Esteem-resources were found to increase team service quality, while team-member exchange not only improved team service quality but also moderated the impact of esteem-resources on team service quality.     

Empirical study on Chinese tourists’ perceived trust and intention to use biometric technology

This paper presents a theoretical model based on the Technology Acceptance Model combined with a perceived trust model. SPSS 23 and Amos 22 were used to analyze Chinese tourists’ responses regarding use of biometric technology in hotels and to assess whether their perception of trust – measured through five potential factors – affected their intention to use it. Chinese tourists traveling in Macau were recruited, and three types of biological identification technology were discussed. A total of 600 questionnaires were sent out, and 583 effective questionnaires were recovered. The results that in addition to perceived ease of use, other factors affected visitors’ perceptions of trust. The degrees of effectiveness, however, differed between the three biological identification technologies. Fingerprint technology was revealed to be the most trusted and accepted biometric technology.     

Measuring benefits from spatially-explicit surface water quality improvements: The roles of distance,scope, scale,and size

Programs to improve water quality do not improve all water bodies equally. Evaluation of the benefits of such programs must account for where improvements occur and the relative magnitude of improvements that occur in different places. This study uses a choice experiment survey to explore how the value to a household of a surface water quality improvement varies as a function of (i) the distance between the household and the affected streams and rivers, (ii) the degree to which the quality of the water has been improved, (iii) how many stream and river miles have been improved, and (iv) the sizes of the affected streams and rivers. Results show evidence that value declines with distance in an approximately linear way, weak evidence that large rivers are worth more than small rivers, and no evidence that willingness-to-pay is nonlinear in either the degree of water quality improvement or the number of stream miles improved. These results indicate that it may be defensible in applied work to value small, spatially-explicit water quality improvement projects independently and then sum over projects.     

Client Importance and Audit Quality at the Individual Audit Partner,Office, and Firm Levels

We investigate whether audit partner level data provides a more powerful measure than office or firm level measures of client importance. We find that the likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion (any and first-time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of audit fees to the total audit fees received by audit partners from all their clients. We also find that the likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion (any and first-time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of non-audit services fees from a client to total non-audit service fees, and the proportion of total audit and non-audit service fees from a client to total fees from all their clients at the office and firm levels. Our findings provide evidence to regulators, audit clients, and stakeholders that audit partners do not succumb to pressure from economically more important clients as audit quality has a positive association with client importance.