Politically connected directors and firm value: Evidence from forced resignations in China

The Central Committee of the Communist Party in China issued the No. 18 Document on Oct 30, 2013 to ban government officials from taking any positions in Chinese firms. Using this decision as a unique natural experiment, we examine the causal relation between political connections and firm valuation. We find that the value of firms with politically connected directors drops significantly upon the announcements of the new rule and the resulting director resignations. Furthermore, the decline in valuation is more pronounced when a firm is in a regulated industry, and when a departing director is of vital importance for building and maintaining political connections. Moreover, non-state-owned enterprises suffer more loss of value than their state-owned peers following the resignations of politically-connected directors. Finally, firms exhibit insignificant value loss when their departing directors are of less political importance in allocating resources. These results suggest that hiring politically connected directors has a positive effect on firm valuation in China.     

Managing the foreign investment portfolio: How industry and governance diversity influence firm performance

Foreign investment has been seen as an important strategy for learning about new technologies and markets. However, the link between the characteristic of a foreign investment portfolio and firm performance has not been examined in detail. Using panel data from 199 Taiwanese firms, this study examines how the foreign investment portfolio in terms of industry and governance diversity influences firm performance. This study finds that governance diversity has an inverse U-shaped relationship to firm performance, whereas industry diversity does not. In addition, this study also finds that their relationships are affected by R&D capability and industry profitability. The empirical findings of our study are useful for firms that invest in emerging economies.     

The effect of firm scale and CSR geographical scope of impact on consumers' response

The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in shaping consumer perception and attitude has received many attentions both in the academia and practitioner world. While this domain has invited numerous research, but research highlighting how consumers react toward learning the size of a firm conducting CSR and geographical scope of the CSR impact is still scarce. We investigate how consumers shape their attitude and consumption behavior after knowing that the CSR action is done by a small, locally-owned business that brings impact to the local community through an experimental study. Our study adds a shade in understanding how the effect of a firm size and geographical scope of CSR impact might increase consumers' favorable attitude and behavior toward the business and its products. Our findings show that when consumers learn that the firm conducting CSR is a small, locally-owned (in coffee shop business) that directs its action toward local beneficiaries, they demonstrate more favorable attitudes toward the action and the firm, which manifest in the form of better intentions to acquire the product as well as willingness to pay premium prices for it. Our findings confirm the US consumers' love affair with local businesses, in particular. While the findings generally benefit small, locally-owned businesses, they also suggest recommendations for large, multinational businesses to design their marketing strategy in an attempt to increase favorable reactions from consumers.     

When does a service guarantee work? The roles of the popularity of service guarantees and firm reputation

Despite substantial research on service guarantees in the literature, little study has examined how the popularity of service guarantees (SG) in a particular industry affects the effectiveness of SGs. Through four studies, the authors demonstrate an interactive effect between the market-level factor (the popularity of SGs) and the firm-level factor (firm reputation) in affecting consumer's responses to a travel agency's actions in (not) offering an SG. When offering SGs is popular in a given market, consumers perceive a loss from the absence of SGs, and a high-reputation agency will outperform a low-reputation agency in consumer service evaluation when neither agencies offer SGs. However, if both agencies provide guarantees, the SG offered by the high-reputation agency does not necessarily lead to greater service evaluation than that offered by the low-reputation agency. The results reverse when offering SGs is rare in the market, as consumers perceive a gain from the presence of SGs.     

Exporting,R&D investment and firm survival in the Indian IT sector

This paper examines the effect of exporting and R&D investment on firm survival for a panel of Indian IT firms. We show that exporting has competing effects on firm survival. On the one hand, exporting and investing in productivity are complementary activities, while, on the other, exporting activity is an additional source of uncertainty for the firm. We show that both effects influence survival, but operate at different points in time. Specifically, the hazard facing exporters is higher than non-exporters in the initial phase following entry into the export market, reflecting the fact that exporters are particularly vulnerable to shocks in the start-up phase. However, over time, exporters benefit more from productivity gains than non-exporters and the hazard facing exporters falls below that confronting non-exporters.     

改善民生是中国城乡统筹改革实践的原动力

民生是中国城乡统筹改革实践的原动力。改革起始期,是民生呼唤下的自发改革与政策调整;改革深入期,是民生推动下的体制转轨与制度创新;改革攻坚期,是民生引导下的统筹发展与新农村建设。30年农村改革历程,致使民生问题的不断解决与改革的渐进式节奏相互吻合,推动着"人本"式的农村改革健康有序地发展。     

哲学视域下的我国现阶段公共性问题研究

文章从哲学关注公共性的必然性和可能性的角度出发,结合我国公共性事业的发展,揭示了现阶段公共性问题,提出了解决问题的基本途径：重视公共性理念建设;推进有关法律制度建设;理顺政府、公共性组织与公众之间的关系等。     

What is a multinational corporation? Classifying the degree of firm-level multinationality

The degree of firm-level multinationality is a key dimension that spans all theoretical frameworks, levels of empirical analysis and domains of investigation in international business research. There is, however, no agreed approach to defining or measuring firm-level multinationality. This is reflected in inconsistent approaches to sample selection and empirical testing, and it has curtailed the advancement of the discipline. We propose that instead of searching for the elusive, all-encompassing definition of an MNC, international business scholars should instead agree on a classification system for the degree of firm-level multinationality. We illustrate the advantages of this approach by constructing a simple classification system that takes into account the firm's breadth and depth of multinational engagements. We illustrate our matrix of firm multinationality by classifying a novel sample of over 1000 firms from seven countries, and we demonstrate how it can guide theory development and empirical testing. We also provide examples of potential future research directions.     

央企的公司绩效更优吗?——来自2007-2009年中国证券市场的经验证据

鉴于央企近几年来表现的出色业绩,本文选取2007-2009年沪深两地A股上市公司作为研究样本,按企业性质的不同将其分为央企公司、非央企国有公司和私人公司三类,通过对其盈余能力、盈余管理水平、市场反应及在职消费的比较,实证检验了企业性质是否直接影响了公司绩效。结论表明:在所有上市公司中,央企公司绩效最差,非央企国有公司次之,私人公司绩效最好。最后对此结论进行了初步的分析,并指出:只有始终不渝地加快市场化改革进程才是提高包括央企在内的国有企业绩效的必由之路。     

商业银行风险管理模型的性质及启示

随着新资本协议的实施,各种估值定价和风险计量模型开始在我国商业银行大量应用。本文对商业银行风险管理模型的五大基本性质及其衍生性质进行了研究,并进一步给出了有效防范模型风险的若干建议。