Determinants of China's bilateral trade balance in global value chains

This paper identifies the determinants of China's bilateral trade balance using a new measure based on international input–output data, the so-called ‘trade in value-added’ (TiVA), which can prevent double counting in the estimation of bilateral trade balance. Our results show that using a measure based on gross exports, rather than TiVA, causes relatively large overestimation of the impact of the RMB exchange rate on China's bilateral trade balance. This overestimation is mainly because that the increasing production of exports may require increasing intermediate imports as a consequence of international fragmentation of production in global value chains. In addition, our results also show that the impact of FDI inflows on China's bilateral trade balances depends on the position and role of China and its trading partners in GVCs.     

Integrating uncertain user-generated demand data when locating facilities for disaster response commodity distribution

This paper presents a new facility location problem variant with application in disaster relief. The problem is unique in that both verified data and unverified user-generated data are available for consideration during decision making. The problem is motivated by the recent need of integrating unverified social data (e.g., Twitter posts) with data from more traditional sources, such as on-the-ground assessments and aerial flyovers, to make optimal decisions during disaster relief. Integrating social data can enable identifying larger numbers of needs in shorter amounts of time, but because the information is unverified, some of it may be inaccurate. This paper seeks to provide a “proof of concept” illustrating how the unverified social data may be exploited. To do so, a framework for incorporating uncertain user-generated data when locating Points of Distribution (PODs) for disaster relief is presented. Then, three decision strategies that differ in how the uncertain data is considered are defined. Finally, the framework and decision strategies are demonstrated via a small computational study to illustrate the benefits user-generated data may afford across a variety of disaster scenarios.     

Dual boundary spanning: Toward a typology of outside‐in open innovation in the Canadian context

The extant literature runs short in understanding openness of innovation regarding and the different pathways along which internal and external knowledge resources can be combined. This study proposes a unique typology for outside‐in innovations based on two distinct ways of boundary spanning: whether an innovation idea is created internally or externally and whether an innovation process relies on external knowledge resources. This yields four possible types of innovation, which represent the nuanced variation of outside‐in innovations. Using historical data from Canada for 1945–1980, this study unveils different implications of these innovation types for different levels of innovation novelty. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Applying the counseling-learning approach to a tourism-related massive open online course

ABSTRACT

This study discusses how to apply counseling-learning (CL) principles to a particular e-learning solution for teaching a tourism-related subject via a massive open online course (MOOC). Several effective caring patterns in achieving learning-related goals and being part of a community according to the CL principles are presented and discussed using the MOOC “eTourism: Communication Perspectives” as a case study. The study underlines how the MOOC platform can act as a place for contents enjoinment and active learning. Moreover, the active role of social media for increasing the engagement of learners in the proposed activities and for developing a sense of the community is identified. In particular, Facebook and Twitter can act as places for community building and informal social interactions among learners that last beyond the completion of the course, which in turn can be a valid aid for continuing the relationships among instructors/learners and learners/learners, and for reaching new ones.     

Hotel school alumni’s intentions to use communication channels – a cross-generational comparison study

ABSTRACT

Alumni communication is vital in sustaining the relationship between alumni and their alma maters. This research investigated four cohorts of alumni, and their intentions to use a range of traditional and digital communication channels, including social media. An online questionnaire was sent to 8060 alumni and resulted in 595 usable responses, yielding a 7% response rate. The research results showed that alumni have the highest intentions to use the alumni e-newsletter and the alumni Website and the lowest intentions to use social media, e.g., Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Among alumni cohorts, significant statistical differences in their intentions to use these communication channels were identified. Given our findings, alumni communication staff are encouraged to leverage different communication channels targeting alumni in different age groups.     

Understanding the motivation of museums,galleries and cultural exhibition visits – evidence from Taiwan internet use types

Are museums, galleries and cultural institutions (MGC) educational institutions or accommodations of leisure market? The aim of the present study is to understand why people visit MGCs through analysing a potential link between internet use types and MGC visits. Internet use is categorized into three types: independent activities, recreational activities and social activities. The empirical results indicate that internet use for recreational activities is negatively related to MGC visits, while internet use for independent activities is positively related to MGC visits. The findings suggest that MGCs are expected to provide visitors with educational experience rather than with social or recreational experience.     

Effects of state-sponsored human capital investment on the selection of training type

Since the 1990s, firms in Japan have reduced their human capital investment in the workplace to minimize costs. Moreover, in response to the increase in the number of non-regular employees and turnover rates, workers need to have greater incentive to make the self-motivated investment in themselves for their self-protection. In this study, we first estimate the effects of workers’ self-motivated investment in themselves on wage rates. Next, we explore who is likely to participate in which training type and accordingly estimate the effects of the self-motivated investment on wage rates by training type. Our estimates controlling for individual-level fixed-effects indicate that the return is significantly positive and particularly high for practical training related to workers’ current jobs, and regular workers tend to self-select these higher-returns programs, while non-regular workers are more likely to enroll in lower-returns programs, such as schooling. This trend in investment in oneself could potentially increase the wage inequality between regular and non-regular workers through the self-selection of training types. Our estimates reveal that receiving the training and education benefit raises the likelihood for workers to participate in a high-return training program regardless of whether they are non-regular or regular workers. This suggests that government benefits on self-investment change workers’ self-selection of training type and serve to promote practical trainings that lead to high returns.     

Death spiral PIPEs: a reconsideration of the evidence

We challenge the view that PIPEs lead to unfavourable outcomes for issuing firms. We show that structured PIPEs do not have significant negative CARs when a matched firm benchmark is used for computing CARs and when sample selection bias is taken into account. Indeed, structured PIPEs have significantly higher positive skewness, indicating superior optionality, consistent with the real option argument. We also show that the 2002 intervention by the Securities and Exchange Corporation (SEC) has led to unintended consequences, with the substitution of ‘mom and pop’ investors for hedge fund investors in the structured PIPE market.     

The role and impact of professional accountancy associations on accounting education research: An international study

This paper explores the relative influence of the accounting academy and accountancy professional associations in the debate concerning the profile and quality of accounting education research. This research analyses 13 semi-structured interviews undertaken with members of key accounting professional associations in Australia, New Zealand (ANZ) and the United Kingdom and Ireland (UKI). The paper makes a theoretical contribution by the novel application of the institutional logics theory to the literature concerning professional accounting associations (PAAs) demonstrating the dominant commercial logic of the education function and the more traditional fiduciary logic of the technical function. The research finds that the primary stakeholders in the professional accounting curriculum development model are the PAAs and employers, whilst the accounting academy is relatively absent. The relative independence of the education and research and technical functions within PAAs is also identified: academic research and technical activity has little influence on professional education and vice versa. However, PAAs’ funding of academic research is common across all four countries for brand recognition and in some instances to influence policy rather than informing the professional curriculum.