Past,present, and future of green product innovation

Firms are under constant pressure from various governmental and nongovernmental agencies to switch from conventional environmentally polluting products to green product innovations (GPIs). However, the relevant research pertaining to GPI has been published in a diverse set of journals that vary in their scope and readership and, therefore, the scholarly contribution to the topic remains largely fragmented. This study has utilised a systematic literature review approach to examine the literary corpus on GPI to paint a holistic picture of its different aspects. The content and thematic analysis of 85 studies resulted in the extraction of seven key research themes: organisational capabilities, organisational learning, institutional pressures, barriers, structural changes, benefits of GPI, and methodological choices. This study's findings further highlight the various gaps in the GPI literature and raise some research questions that warrant scholarly investigation in the future. Likewise, our study has important implications for practitioners who are likely to benefit from a holistic understanding of the different aspects of GPI. Similarly, policymakers can use this study's findings to introduce policy interventions, especially in countries where GPI adoption is low.     

Airports’ managerial human capital,ownership, and efficiency

Airport performance differences require a better understanding of the sources of efficiency and competitive advantages. Globalization drives the air transport industry into a more market-orientated business questioning the relationship between managerial decisions and airport performance. Aviation management studies do not consider managerial capabilities and skills since they are intangible exogenous factors that are difficult to assess. In this study, a stochastic frontier analysis is performed accounting for top managers' theoretical knowledge and experience enclosed as exogenous drivers of airports' efficiency. The model analyses 12 Polish airports from 2009 to 2017. The results show a diversity of airports with a different number of passengers as efficient. The top managers' experience, when gained in the same airport, has a positive impact on airports' technical efficiency. Airports having unstable management are more technically inefficient. Independently of the efficiency level, some airports change their management after the national elections, suggesting that managers are chosen by political interest rather than by their specialised knowledge or their prior experience in aviation management. The results suggest that more practical knowledge improve airports’ performance. Airports with a majority of government ownership that are the largest ones increase their efficiency significantly, suggesting that political decisions may be discriminatory in detriment of airports managed by regional and city authorities.     

Pricing,greening, and transparency decisions considering the impact of government subsidies and CSR behavior in supply chain decisions

In this paper, we analytically model different government subsidy strategies in a supply chain manufacturing and selling a green product. We model the interaction between greening degree and transparency level set by a manufacturer and its impact on not only the supply chain, but also consumers and the government. The supply chain is composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer can choose two different strategies. First, he only cares about his production profit; and second, he concerns with CSR in addition to his production profit. We develop a new transparency-based index of consumer satisfaction to model how the market reacts to manufacturer CSR decisions. The government decide three different subsidy strategies. A three-stage Stackelberg game model is developed and solved to analytically derive managerial insights. As a result, if the transparency cost coefficient is sufficiently high, the greening degree and transparency level in CSR concerns strategy are higher than when the manufacturer is not concerned with corporate social responsibility. In addition, when the transparency cost coefficient is sufficiently high, the profit of supply chain members and government are equal in both strategies. We give a real-world example of Iranian brick industry.     

茭簰考释--兼及江汉平原湖区人水关系

明清时期长江中游地区地方文献记载的茭簰,并非漂浮种植性质的葑田,而是漂浮居住性质的水上居家设施。“随波上下”且“不时迁移”是其基本特性,实质是借水之力以避水之害,乃湖区居民应对洪涝灾害的居住创举。茭簰不同于为众熟知的舟船,亦有别于水上航行的排筏,茭簰居民并非渔民,而是备有“种莳牲畜”的农民。茭簰与葑田,虽然一耕一居,却具有共同的指向。茭簰是湖区农家适应环境变化,根据生产生活需要而做出的相对选择,堪称湖区居民趋利避害、协调人水关系的代表性举措。     

The capital market spillover effect of product market advertising: Evidence from stock price synchronicity

We analyze whether product market advertising has a spillover effect on stock price synchronicity by transmitting firm-specific information to the capital market and attracting more investor attention. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2017, we find that firms with greater advertising expenditures have lower stock price synchronicity. The results are robust after we address endogeneity concerns. In accord with our hypothesis that product market advertising increases the amount of firm-level information capitalized into stock prices through the information channel, we find that the impact of advertising on synchronicity is more pronounced for firms with a higher degree of information asymmetry and firms in the consumer-product industry. Further tests show that product market advertising enhances the ability of current period returns to reflect future earnings, and thus rules out that the negative relationship between advertising and synchronicity is driven by noise trading. Our results imply that product market advertising plays an informative role and improves information efficiency in a capital market.     

Does distance matter in foreign direct investment sub-national location choice? Evidence from China

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) make investment decisions according to the distance factors at a sub-national level. This paper made estimates using the gravity model with provincial foreign direct investment (FDI) data from 2000 to 2012 and employed three concepts of distance. Our empirical results indicate that geographic distance and cultural distance have significant negative effects on FDI flow, whereas economic distance has a significant positive effect. It suggests that FDI prefers to locate in regions that are geographically and culturally close but economically distant from the home country, which further implies that FDI in China is dominated by vertical FDI. Our findings suggest that Chinese provincial governments should place emphasis on attracting FDI from culturally close countries and provide institutional support to encourage and promote horizontal FDI.     

Does reputation of sponsors matter in IPO? Evidence from Hong Kong

Contrary to other markets where underwriters perform a combined role of underwriting and sponsoring in an Initial Public Offering (IPO), IPO issuers in Hong Kong must appoint at least one sponsor in addition to the underwriters. The splitting of the single role of underwriters into two separate ones offers an ideal setting to disentangle the effects of the two roles and to examine which of the two roles—sponsor or underwriter—is more important in explaining IPO underpricing and initial volatility in the Hong Kong equity market. Interestingly, our findings provide supportive evidence that the sponsor reputation does matter in an IPO and it is even more significant than the underwriter reputation in explaining the IPO underpricing phenomenon. Given the recent high-tech fervor, our research goes deeper to examine specifically the role of sponsors on high-tech firms, with results indicating that the reliance on sponsors is higher for traditional issuers than for technology firms. We further discover that sponsors and underwriters are playing substitution roles rather than complementary roles. In order to examine the regulatory policy impact, our research also compares the role of IPO sponsors before and after the launch of the new sponsor regulatory regime in 2013. The empirical findings lend support to our argument that after the launch of the new regulations, public awareness of sponsors is raised, respect towards more reputable sponsor increases, and thus, the role of sponsors becomes more important than before.     

Home purchase restriction,real estate investment,and corporate innovation

It is ubiquitous for non-real estate firms to conduct real estate business in China. Home purchase restriction (HPR) affects corporate innovation by dampening the real estate investment of non-real estate firms. The extant literature has examined the impact of HPR on corporate innovation, but it has not focused on the expectation of HPR and the endogeneity problem. Employing a dataset of 1830 listed non-real estate firms over the period 2009–2016, this research explores the expectation of HPR on corporate innovation based on the motivations for real estate investment in non-real estate firms. We demonstrate that HPR facilitates the enhancement of research and development (R&D) investment in non-real estate listed firms by hindering real estate investment, particularly for non-high-tech firms. The effects of HPR arrive at the crest in the third implementation year and remain steady thereafter. The real estate investment of non-real estate firms rebounds and the R&D investment declines along with the cancellation of HPR. Tackling the selection bias and endogeneity problems, the baseline results are also robust. Hence, HPR should serve as a long-term vehicle to improving corporate innovation, in addition to preventing housing speculation.     

Environmental sustainability practices and exports: The interplay of strategy and institutions in Latin America

We integrate institutional economics with stakeholder theory to examine the antecedents and outcomes of Environmental Sustainability Practices (ESP) for small and medium enterprises in Latin America. We find that these firms primarily engage in ESP to succeed in export markets. We also find that this is especially true when firms demonstrate organizational agency by adopting complementary strategies such as obtaining international quality certifications to develop credibility among stakeholders. Lastly, their cause receives a further boost when they are based in institutional environments that are known for strong democratic voice and accountability mechanisms. In elucidating the interplay of strategy and institutions, we suggest the need to better integrate organizational agency into institutional theory and institutional environment into stakeholder theory.     

Multinational enterprises and corporate tax planning: A review of literature and suggestions for a future research agenda

Corporate tax planning by the multinational enterprise (MNE), that is, the MNE’s ability to plan its tax affairs by using a multitude of strategies to reduce its tax bills legally, is a central research question in the literatures of international business, public economics, tax, finance, law and accounting. Underlying theoretical assumptions, approaches to empirical testing, profit shifting estimation strategies and findings are varied. Thus, it is important to conduct a critical literature review. In this paper, we offer new insights by studying the phenomenon from the international business (IB) perspective. We survey the academic literature on the MNE and corporate tax planning to examine the extent of knowledge on this topic and identify areas that we hope will stimulate interest among IB scholars for further research. We find materials across disciplines that are relevant to IB readers. We examine 120 articles in 51 scholarly journals and classic books published during the period 1966-2017. We identify the key mechanisms and the firm characteristics that may influence corporate tax planning. We suggest a research agenda where IB research can make clear contributions.