Estimating emissions based on the integration of microscopic traffic simulation and vehicle dynamics model

This study proposes an integrated simulation approach, which consists of a microscopic traffic simulation model, a vehicle dynamics model, and an emission estimation model, in order to estimate emissions based on more reliable vehicle performance measures. The vehicle performance measures such as engine power and engine speed significantly relate to the amount of emissions, and road curvatures and inclinations are the core inputs affecting these vehicle performance measures. Therefore, providing reliable vehicle performance measures reflecting the road geometric attributes is critical for a reliable emission estimation. This study proposes to use the microscopic traffic simulation model for generating vehicle trajectories, which is advantageous in modeling various traffic situations, and the vehicle dynamics model for producing the vehicle performance measures based on the vehicle trajectories. Finally, the outputs from the vehicle dynamics model are fed into the emission estimation model to compute emission measures. This study conducted a case-study using two road sections, one is a hypothesized road section, including various curvatures and inclinations with regular variations, and the other is a Kesselberg road section, which is an actual geometry in Bayern, Germany. The emission measures are estimated in these case-study road sections using both an existing simulation approach and the proposed integrated simulation approach. The difference between these two emission estimation approaches is discussed in terms of the emission measures, including fuel consumption, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matters.     

Corroborating social media echelon in cancer research

Worldwide medical facilities differ, and for this reason, the causes of death can vary. Cancer is considered the second leading cause of death after heart disease worldwide, and the same causes of death are observed in the United States (US). Therefore, the purposes of this study are to explore worldwide research levels in the field of cancer and the social collaboration of researchers and institutions in this field. This article examines the structural patterns of international co-authors and co-institutions in science citation index papers in cancer research. The study uses measures from the social network analysis method, including degree centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and effectiveness, to investigate the effects of social networks in the area of cancer research. Empirical analysis results identify the US is the most central country, followed by Germany, Italy, France, and China, in terms of co-authored networks in this research field. Institutional analysis results indicate that the University of Milan is at the top in terms of degree centrality. The Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus in France and German University of Düsseldorf occupy the second and fourth positions, respectively. The University of California in Los Angeles and Harvard University, both in the US, are at third and fifth positions, respectively.     

Business Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility

We present an analysis of over 400 comments about complying with tax obligations extracted from online discussion forums for freelancers. While the topics investigated by much of the literature on taxpayer behaviour are theory driven, we aimed to explore the universe of online discussions about tax in order to extract those topics that are most relevant to taxpayers. The forum discussions were subjected to a qualitative thematic analysis, and we present a model of the ‘universe’ of tax as reflected in taxpayer discussions. The model comprises several main actors (tax laws, tax authority, tax practitioners, and the taxpayer’s social network) and describes the multiple ways in which they relate to taxpayers’ behaviour. We also conduct a more focused analysis to show that the majority of taxpayers seem unconcerned with many of the variables that have been the focus of tax behaviour research (e.g. audits, penalties, etc.), and that most people are motivated to be compliant and are more concerned with how to comply than whether to comply. Moreover, we discuss how these ‘real-world’ tax discussions question common assumptions in the study of tax behaviour and how they inform our understanding of business ethics more generally.     

Congruence Effects in Post-crisis CSR Communication: The Mediating Role of Attribution of Corporate Motives

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown on the corporate agenda and is at the heart of today’s corporate culture. While much research has examined CSR strategies and effects, the effects of post-crisis CSR communication have received relatively little academic attention. Therefore, this paper uses two experimental studies to examine several key contingency factors that influence consumers’ responses to post-crisis CSR initiatives. Results suggest that consumers demonstrate more favorable responses when a company launches a CSR initiative congruent with the crisis issue, or when the crisis is the result of an accident rather than a transgression. Further, the congruence between the crisis issue and the pre-crisis CSR initiative moderates the consistency effects between pre- and post-crisis initiatives. Such findings should be understood by considering the mediating role of corporate CSR motives’ consumer attributions, which was evidenced in this study. This study theoretically contributes to an improved understanding of the underlying mechanism of the post-crisis CSR information process and managerially contributes to the strategic development of effective post-crisis CSR initiatives given a particular situation.     

Dress for success: the effect of exhibitors’ dress conformity and self-construal on attendees’ approach behavior

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the current study is to investigate how attendees’ approach behavior is influenced by exhibitors’ dress conformity. A 2 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design was utilized for this study. Our results showed that conforming dress for exhibitors can lead to a higher level of approach behavior of trade show attendees as compared with nonconforming dress, and the effect of exhibitors’ dress styles on approach behavior is moderated by attendees’ self-construal. Findings of this study provide significant insights for trade show exhibitors and attendees.     

Exploring antecedents of customer citizenship behaviors in services

Social exchange theory explains how a party in social interaction provides the other party with reciprocal rewards. Applying this concept to the customer context, this study empirically investigates determinants of customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs) in services. For the generalizability of the study across various service providers, the data were collected based on Bowen’s (1990) classifications of services. With a total of 665 usable customer responses, structural equation modeling was adapted to test the theoretical research model. This study reveals that customers’ perceived support and justice from the service provider positively influence affective commitment toward the organization, resulting in CCBs. The results show that customers’ perception of organizational support has the partial mediation effect between customers’ perception of organizational justice and their affective commitment. Furthermore, customers’ affective commitment partially mediates the relationship between customers’ perceived organizational justice and CCBs, but fully mediates the effect of customers’ perceived organizational support on CCBs.     

Hyperbolic normal stochastic volatility model

For option pricing models and heavy-tailed distributions, this study proposes a continuous-time stochastic volatility model based on an arithmetic Brownian motion: a one-parameter extension of the normal stochastic alpha-beta-rho (SABR) model. Using two generalized Bougerol's identities in the literature, the study shows that our model has a closed-form Monte Carlo simulation scheme and that the transition probability for one special case follows Johnson's distribution—a popular heavy-tailed distribution originally proposed without stochastic process. It is argued that the distribution serves as an analytically superior alternative to the normal SABR model because the two distributions are empirically similar.     

Mitigating the Challenges of Partner Knowledge Diversity While Enhancing Research & Development (R&D) Alliance Performance: The Role of Alliance Governance Mechanisms

This article explores the answers to the following unresolved research question: How do firms mitigate the collaboration challenges associated with partner knowledge diversity and enhance alliance performance? The study provides an alliance performance enhancing framework by identifying two types of partner knowledge diversity: (1) technology base diversity and (2) R&D process experience diversity, and links them with R&D alliance performance. Additionally, the moderating effects of the two types of alliance governance mechanisms (i.e., interactive and contractual mechanisms) were examined to investigate which alliance governance mechanism is conducive to mitigate the collaboration challenges and enhance alliance performance. Using a data set of 316 alliances in the biopharmaceuticals industry, the study found that a moderate degree (not too low or high) of technology base diversity between alliance partners contributes more to R&D alliance performance. Similarly, there was also an inverted U-shaped relationship between R&D process experience diversity and alliance performance; too much diversity in R&D process experience may increase the likelihood of partner opportunism, and therefore negatively affect alliance performance. Additionally, the results showed that alliance governance mechanisms played different roles in alliance collaboration; while the contractual alliance mechanisms help reduce relational uncertainty (e.g., opportunism), the interactive mechanisms promoting a more intensive interaction between partners mitigates task difficulty and facilitates complex technology activities. These findings extend the knowledge-based view (KBV) of strategic alliance and advance research on alliance governance design.     

Bertrand versus Cournot competition in a downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership

Focusing on foreign ownership in the private firm, we examine the Cournot-Bertrand comparison in a mixed oligopolistic market with vertical market structure. We have found that if public and private firms were charged with uniform price for their inputs, then Cournot-Bertrand ranking in market outcomes confirms those obtained by Ghosh and Mitra (2010). This implies that under uniform pricing in the upstream sector, the vertical market structure does not have substantial influences on Cournot-Bertrand ranking. However, if discriminatory pricing is adopted, firm's profits, output, and social welfare are often reversed to those obtained from uniform pricing in the upstream sector. Given the closeness of products, if the share of foreign ownership is sufficiently low, social welfare in Cournot competition can exceed that of Bertrand competition, contrasting with the standard welfare ranking that Bertrand welfare is strictly higher than Cournot. This implies that Cournot competition can be more socially desirable than Bertrand in mixed oligopoly with vertical market structure if discriminatory pricing scheme is adopted by foreign upstream monopolists.     

Short-sale constraints and informational efficiency to private information: A natural experiment

Exploiting a regulatory change in short-sale constraints (Regulation SHO) as a natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of short-sale constraints on informational efficiency of stock prices to private information. I find that short-sellers act as informed traders prior to forthcoming analyst news and trade on negative private information. When short-sale constraints are relaxed for pilot stocks (treatment group), both trading volume and stock price sensitivity increase prior to the analyst announcement for bad news but not for good news, relative to that of nonpilot stocks (control group). The findings are consistent with the Diamond and Verrecchia model that predicts that short-selling increases the speed of adjustment of stock prices to private negative information. In the cross-section, the effect of Reg SHO is stronger in stocks of firms with weak and uncertain information environments (i.e., small firms and firms with high analyst forecast dispersion).