Differences in perceptions about food delivery apps between single-person and multi-person households

The growth in mobile communications is a significant reason attributed to the O2O commerce explosion in China. Mobile applications have seized this opportunity adapting it to restaurants and food delivery services, recognized as an alternative strategy to increase sales revenue and for consumers to conveniently receive products and services. This study was designed to specifically explore five salient quality attributes representing convenience, design, trustworthiness, price, and various food choices associated with food delivery apps in consideration of their impacts upon user-perceived value, attitudes and intention to continuously use. Results determined that user trustworthiness was the most important quality attribute of the food delivery app business. Additionally, this study found that single-person households placed most importance upon quality attributes for ‘various food choices,’ ‘price’ and ‘trustworthiness.’ Comparatively, multi-person households placed most importance upon ‘design,’ ‘convenience,’ and ‘trustworthiness.’ Managerial implications, limitations and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Is it U.S. GAAP or IFRS? Understanding how R&D costs affect ratio analysis

While financial reporting standards under U.S. GAAP and IFRS are fundamentally similar, differences do exist that may affect our analysis of company financial statements. This is particularly true when comparing a U.S. company following U.S. GAAP to a firm that uses IFRS. To illustrate, we compare research and development (R&D) accounting methods under both sets of standards and illustrate how they affect the analysis of financial results of firms in a specific industry—automotive manufacturers. Our results provide insight into settings in which differences in R&D accounting may have the greatest impact on financial analysis.     

Change within purchasing and supply management organisations – Assessing the claims from maturity models

It is a wide-held assumption that professional development and change within purchasing and supply management (PSM) organisations can be explained and guided by a maturity model. In this paper the guidance which the maturity model concept offers to understand a PSM organisation's performance is assessed. The methodology is based on the outcomes of a literature review of PSM maturity models, development of an organisational change framework and the learning from three qualitative case studies. An alternative understanding of the development of the PSM organisation is offered through an organisational change framework, composing 1) movement transitions, 2) scalability of change, 3) acceptability of change, and 4) the substantive element of change. The research found that extant PSM maturity models are too rigid for PSM managers to apply, and although maturity models are commonly accepted in PSM literature, in practice, they may produce the opposite effect of what is promised. The PSM maturity models suggest that their application will lead to increased status and influence of PSM within the organisation; expectations that may not be met. PSM organisations’ change processes are subjected to a range of situational and contextual power relations which must be considered in order to advance the specific PSM organisation roles and responsibilities.     

Reward meritocracy or nepotism: The case of independent financial advisors appointed by Chinese listed companies

As independent financial advisors, securities firms are the core intermediaries in major asset reorganization (MAR) of listed companies. Furthermore, they play the dual roles of transaction and authentication. Based on this institutional background, this paper studies how listed companies choose between industry experience (“meritocracy”) and relationships (“nepotism”). Using the MAR of A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2013 as the sample, this paper shows that higher transaction costs (i.e., greater demand for the transaction function of advisors) are related to the higher possibility of advisors with weaker relationships and more industry experience being hired. It also shows that higher suspicion of tunneling (i.e., greater demand for the signal of fairness associated with advisors’ authentication function) is related to the higher possibility of advisors with weaker relationships being hired, but it is not significantly related to whether advisors have more or less industry experience. This paper also shows that reputation has a certain governance effect on the negative consequences of relationship. For the most part, listed companies reward meritocracy but not nepotism when appointing independent financial advisors.     

Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

稻鳅共生种养模式试验研究

[目的]稻鳅共生是典型的稻田综合利用模式,符合生态农业发展方向。通过对稻鳅共生生态系统的生理生态学机制开展试验研究,为进一步推广稻鳅共生种养模式提供科学依据。[方法]采用田间试验方法,以水稻单作为对照,研究了不同泥鳅养殖密度下的稻鳅共生对水稻农艺性状、土壤理化性质、水稻产量构成的影响,并对稻鳅共生种养模式进行了经济效益分析。[结果]与对照处理相比,水稻长势在株高、有效分蘖率、根长等方面有一定提高。养殖田水稻株高增高了3%,有效分蘖率提高了8%~11%,根长提高了8.8%~31.3%。在土壤理化性质方面,与对照相比,土壤容重降低了7.1%~21.2%,孔隙度增加了4.1%~14.7%。实验前后养殖田内土壤有机质增加了3.5%~26.5%,对照田降低了2.5%~5.8%。土壤肥力(氮、磷、钾)减少,但减少幅度小于对照处理。稻鳅共生种养模式下水稻产量提高了5%~25%,同时稻田增收泥鳅1 725~3 375kg/hm2,净收入为1.836 0万~2.307 0万元/hm2,经济效益提高了3.65~4.84倍。稻鳅共生种养模式中泥鳅的养殖密度为30万尾/hm2时稻田的生态效益和经济效益最佳。[结论]稻鳅共生有效改善了土壤理化性质,促进了水稻的生长,提高了稻田产量和产值。     

成渝经济区生态农业对区域经济影响分析

[目的]区域经济发展反映经济各个方面的综合发展状况,探讨其影响因素以确定区域未来经济的发展方向,为进一步规划发展提供科学依据。[方法]先构建生态农业评价指标体系再采用层析分析法确定权重,结合线性加权和函数计算生态农业评价指数,通过相关分析法分析生态农业各个指标与区域经济的关系,最终确定生态农业对成渝经济区经济的影响程度。[结果]生态农业指标中评价指数大于0.9是森林覆盖率,介于0.8~0.7的包括投入产出比、土地生产率、农业科技贡献率、万人拥有的科技人员、劳动生产率、化肥施用量。且生态农业中各个指标与GDP都正相关,其中森林覆盖率、人均收入增长率、农业科技贡献率和万人拥有的科技人员与GDP显著相关,对区域经济的影响最大。[结论]成渝经济区经济受生态农业的影响,进一步选取更多生态农业相关因素,对于全面促进区域经济持续发展具有十分的重要现实意义。     

Influence of livelihoods on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta Vietnam

Farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta face a wide range of climate-related and hydrological factors which threaten rice production. Smallholder farmers must adapt to climate change to sustain rice production as their central and most important livelihood activity. A sample was stratified across agro-ecological areas in the Delta affected by flooding, alluvial soils, acid sulphate soils, and saline water intrusion and by derived farmer typologies. A rural livelihoods approach was used in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to identify and enumerate enabling and constraining adaptation factors. Smallholders experienced diverse natural hazards such as floods, abnormal rains, high temperatures, water scarcity, and salinity intrusion specific to the agro-ecological areas. Adaptation was constrained by labour shortages, water quality, topography, access to combine harvesters, transportation infrastructure, dryers and household savings. Adaptation was enabled by farming techniques and experience, cooperative groups, water quantity, access to information, and ability to purchase agro-chemicals through credit. Small farmers (< 1?ha) were more constrained than large farmers (> 1?ha) who had an expanded livelihood asset base. A range of policy implications are discussed, but adaptation is not just about technological fixes but requires overall improvements in a range of human, social and financial components.     

A Multicriteria Approach for Modeling Small Enterprise Credit Rating: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

As the engine of China’s economy, small enterprises have been the central to the country’s economic development. However, given the characteristics of the small enterprises loan (i.e., short borrowing period, large volume, small amount and incomplete information), it is extremely challenging for financial institutions to assess their creditworthiness. Thus, it seriously delays and restricts the financing access for small enterprises. In an attempt to relieve the financing difficulty of small enterprises, this article makes use of 687 small wholesale and retail enterprises in a regional commercial bank in China, to establish a credit rating indicator system composed of 17 indicators by using both partial correlation analysis and probit regression. It then utilizes TOPSIS together with fuzzy C-means to score the credit ratings of our sample of small enterprises. With the dual test of default discrimination and ROC curve, the prediction accuracy of the established indicator system has reached 80.10% and 0.917, respectively, indicating the robustness and validity of our credit rating system.     

The German labor market during the Great Recession: Shocks and institutions

This paper analyzes Germany's unusual labor market experience during the Great Recession. We estimate a general equilibrium model with a detailed labor market block for post-unification Germany. This allows us to disentangle the role of institutions (short-time work, government spending rules) and shocks (aggregate, labor market, and policy shocks) and to perform counterfactual exercises. We identify positive labor market performance shocks (likely caused by labor market reforms) as the key driver for the “German labor market miracle” during the Great Recession.