I Feel Your Pain: The Effect of Regulator as a Minority Shareholder on Merger and Acquisition Performance

We examine the effect of a regulator-led advocate for minority shareholders on merger and acquisition (M&A) performance in China. In recent years, the China Securities Regulatory Commission established the China Securities Investor Services Center (CSISC), which began its ownership of 100 shares of public firms in 2016. The CSISC advocates for the interests of minority shareholders proactively. Focusing on abnormal stock returns in M&A announcements, we find that acquirers that have the CSISC as a shareholder (CSISC acquirers) exhibit higher positive abnormal stock returns than non-CSISC acquirers. Cross-sectional analysis suggests that the core results are mainly driven by firms with severe agency problems and weak external/internal monitoring, and those not controlled by the state. In addition, we find that CSISC acquirers have better long-term performance and encounter more M&A failures than non-CSISC acquirers. Our findings indicate that although the CSISC only holds 100 shares of listed companies, it plays an effective role in monitoring and driving firms to make appropriate M&A decisions.     

Overcoming the “Solow paradox”: Tariff reduction and productivity growth of Chinese ICT firms

This paper examines the phenomenon of the “Solow paradox” in China using the Annual Survey of Industrial Production database and the China Customs Records dataset from 1998 to 2007. We find that China likely fell into the Solow paradox in the period 1998–2002, but the total factor productivity of information and communication technology (ICT) enterprises has achieved rapid growth since 2003. Accession to the World Trade Organization is the key reason for China to overcome the Solow paradox, that is, input tariff reduction significantly promoted the productivity of ICT firms. A series of validity and robustness checks confirmed the results. Mechanism analysis shows that input liberalization promotes the productivity of ICT firms through optimizing factor structure, importing more and high-quality inputs, and increasing research and development investment. The conclusions provide strong empirical evidence for developing countries to overcome the Solow paradox through trade liberalization.     

Doing more and doing better are two different entities: Different patterns of family control and environmental performance

Family firms bear two types of agency costs, including type I and type II agency problems, in corporate environmental practices: (1) Outside executives at family firms hesitate to engage in environmental strategies, which can lead to drops in profits; (2) Controlling families employ opportunistically environmental management to achieve their interests. We argue that a primary cause for the agency problems lies on ineffective internal corporate governance at family firms, which can cause loss of managerial (or power) balance between outside executives and family executives. Our findings show that family firms with ownership and strategic control (FSC), which family executives and outside executives monitor and constrain each other, can achieve the highest environmental performance. Moreover, external controls, including product market competition and provincial environmental regulations, substitute effective internal control of FSC. The environmental performance premium of FSC is more prevalent when the production market competition is lower. Family firms with ownership, operational, and strategic control (FOSC) can achieve higher environmental performance within a province with more stringent environmental regulations.     

Environmental proactivity,competitive strategy,and market performance: The mediating role of environmental reputation

This article examines the impact of small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) proactive environmental strategy on market performance through the mediating mechanism of environmental reputation. In addition, we investigate the potential moderating role of competitive strategies on the environmental reputation-market performance nexus. Data were collected from 223 SMEs. Using the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the results show that a proactive environmental strategy positively enhances environmental reputation. Also, the influence of proactively environmental strategy on market performance is mediated by environmental reputation. In addition, our findings show the relationship between environmental reputation and market performance is greater for firms that adopt the differentiation strategy but not significant for firms adopting the low-cost and integrated strategies. Our study offers several theoretical and practical implications.     

Understanding sustainable development flexibility: An information perspective

Although flexibility has been considered critical in responding to uncertainty in a business environment, few studies have explored firms' flexibility in sustainable development. To understand the nature of firms that can respond better to uncertainty in their sustainable development practices, this study defines sustainable development flexibility and investigates the mechanism underlying its formation. The study proposes a conceptual framework on the interactions of managers' environmental attitude and cognitive style, as well as firms' information integration on sustainable development flexibility. A questionnaire survey was developed to test the corresponding hypotheses, and 241 valid responses were received from middle- and top-level managers in Chinese firms. The results show that (a) the higher the manager's environmental attitude, the higher the firm's information integration and greater sustainable supply chain flexibility, and (b) the more intuitive the manager's cognitive style, the greater the impact of environmental attitude on sustainable development flexibility.     

基于SWOT-AHP模型的西塘古镇旅游产业发展策略研究

西塘古镇素有"生活着的千年古镇"之名,其旅游产业的发展存在众多优势的同时也面临严峻内外部挑战。对影响西塘古镇发展的各因素进行SWOT定性分析,并在此基础上采用AHP定量模型分析限制和促进古镇旅游业发展因素,按照AHP分析结果,从域内景点布局升级优化、区位优势挖潜、过度商业开发控制以及文化与产业融合等角度提出了对应的改进策略建议。     

Enhancing environmental information transparency through corporate social responsibility reporting regulation

This research aims to contribute to the scientific debate about the lack of interlinkages between mandatory non-financial reporting and sustainable business models. For our purposes, a counter-accounting analysis was conducted on the non-financial reports of a sample of 145 Italian firms interested by the Directive 2014/95/EU effects. Specifically, the study adopts an empirical approach to evaluate environmental information transparency, which represents one of the main critical issues concerning the non-financial declarations prepared by European Italian Public Interest Entities (PIEs) to comply with Directive 2014/95/EU. The results highlight that corporate governance and report characteristics affect environmental transparency. Furthermore, the results confirm the overall attitude to avoid the disclosure of unfavourable or unavailable environmental information through impression management strategies. Finally, the analysis underlines the opportunities for policymakers to rethink mandatory non-financial reporting to sustain the ecological transition of European PIEs.     

Coopetition strategies for competitive intelligence practices-evidence from full-service hotels

Our study investigates how coopetition strategies can influence hotels’ competitive intelligence (CI) practices to achieve a stronger competitive advantage. In-depth interviews were conducted with 39 hoteliers from 22 hotel groups in Hong Kong. Participating hotels employed different kinds of CI activities, though they were unaware of this concept. In particular, internal customer intelligence was added to integrated intelligence to better describe CI in the service sector. Still, investing in CI can be expensive and time-consuming since it requires hoteliers to align all insights from their respective intelligence pools toward building a holistic understanding of the results. We propose coopetition as a strategic approach allowing hotels to construct collective actions around CI without losing individual competitiveness. Actual coopetition in CI was only found between sister properties. Hence, we propose a coopetition model in which hotels can collaborate and compete in CI at an inter-organizational level via focusing on sharing open-source information and knowledge.     

突发公共事件对电影行业影响的量化研究

人工收集和整理2012—2018年在中国市场上映的首轮院线电影信息数据，构建电影需求的嵌套logit回归模型，以新冠肺炎疫情为准自然实验，来量化突发公共事件对电影行业复产复工的影响。结果显示：第一，关于上映时间选择，在恢复营业后，如果所有因为疫情尚未上映的电影选择顺延上映能有效避免过度竞争的局面。第二，关于上映节奏控制，控制好未定档电影的上映节奏，保持适当的竞争能促进经济效益提升。其中，从11月份开始以每周两部的频率上映未定档电影的经济效益最佳。第三，关于上映方式选择，与线下播放相比，疫情期间选择线上播放能及时收回成本并有利于经济收益最大化的实现。研究结论为电影行业制定复产复工策略提供依据，为未来应对突发公共卫生事件提供参考。