An Exploratory Study of Company Turnaround in Australia and Singapore Following the Asia Crisis

There has been little research into company turnaround practices in Asia. This paper investigates the role of retrenchment, replacement of chairman or chief executive and ownership change in the turnaround process, using a sample of 60 listed companies in Australia and Singapore. Conclusions are drawn that overall, transparency of the regulatory environment and other governance issues are a stronger influence on turnaround practices than are cultural issues. This may make Singapore, which has transparency and governance risk indicators at similar low levels to Australia, a unique business environment in Asia.     

对华油集团转变发展方式的思考

华油集团过去主要靠要素投入拉动收入和利润的逐年攀升,企业规模和发展速度增长较快,但内在品质、质量和结构没有及时提升和优化,造成公司的抗风险能力较差.当前国内外经济形势给华油集团转变发展方式带来了机遇.公司要把经营作为第一要务,把建设成一个国际化的后勤服务公司作为目标定位,寻求技术、体制机制等方面的支撑,逐步调整业务结构,走协同发展之路.     

Globalization and Industrial Relations in East Asia: A Three-Country Comparison

Globalization enhances competitiveness, both at the level of the firm and at the level of the nation. As observed in China, Malaysia, and Korea, this leads management and the state to adopt strategies designed to increase labor effectiveness to the benefit of capital. However, the effect of globalization on industrial relations procedures and substantive outcomes is contingent. Pressure for greater flexibility in the use of labor is ubiquitous, but the outcome is constrained by cultural norms valuing hierarchy and security. State strategies vary by historical circumstance, resource endowments, and internal political dynamics, including the influence of trade unions. While Malaysian industrial relations is heavily constrained by the discipline of high exposure to international capital, in China and Korea, major struggles are shaping the future of workplace and national labor market governance. Thus the extent and impact of globalization vary between countries, resulting in similar preoccupations by policymakers yet leading to variable responses and industrial relations outcomes.     

Guest Editors' Introduction to Special Issue. Turnaround in Asia: Laying the Foundation for Understanding this Unique Domain

Turnaround is a subject that is receiving increasing attention from researchers, managers and consultants. However, the subject has received minimal examination in Asia, with studies usually focusing more on the external environment or macroeconomic issues and less on the management of Asian firms themselves. This lack of examination has persisted despite the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, which pushed many firms into significant decline. Thus, this special issue will provide a baseline for examining this topic more closely. This introduction presents ten papers of this special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management on firm turnaround in Asia. This paper also suggests key research questions for future examinations of the topic of firm turnaround in and around Asia.     

扎根华夏沃土光播四海五湖——访乐凯集团第二胶片厂唐承奎厂长

记者:多年来,二胶一直是国内印刷用感光材料生产、销售的龙头.近几年,国内PS版制造业一方面在大叫市场已经饱和,另一方面却是不断有人往这个圈子里跳.根据您的分析,国内PS版市场现在究竟是个怎么样的情况?具有多大的生产能力,才能真正称为饱和? 　　……     

国有大型煤炭企业集团财务危机生成研究

从企业发展战略、内部资本配置及外部环境变化3个方面研究了国有大型煤炭企业集团财务危机生成的机制。研究发现,一方面国有大型煤炭企业集团对规模导向发展战略形成了路径依赖;另一方面,由于其内部资本市场的失效,资金配置于无效或低效资产,造成债务的积累和无效或低效资产的积累。当市场和金融等外部环境发生改变时,将极有可能爆发财务危机。最后提出了解决以上问题的相关政策建议。     

Catching-up Crisis and Industrial Upgrading: Evolutionary Aspects of Technological Learning in Korea's Electronics Industry

This paper address a puzzle: How is it possible that a country that has established a broad, export-oriented industrial base at record speed, remain vulnerable to the vicissitudes of international finance and currency markets? We argue that the Korean model that was tremendously successful for catching-up has now reached its limits. The focus is on the role of technological learning for development of the electronics industry, a main carrier of Korean's successful late industrialization. It is shown that a heavy reliance on credit and an extremely unbalanced industry structure have given rise to a narrow knowledge base, and a sticky pattern of specialization. Catching-up has focused on capacity and international market share expansion for homogenous, mass-produced products; very little upgrading has occurred into higher-end and rapidly growing market segments for differentiated products and services. Such truncated upgrading is one important reason for Korea's vulnerability to the financial and currency crisis.     

Determinants of Monitoring Capabilities in International Franchising: Foodservice Firms within East Asia

This paper undertakes an exploratory study on determining capabilities of international franchising within East Asia. There is a need to develop a deeper understanding in franchising within East Asia as much of the franchising literature is based on the U.S. experience. Findings from this paper indicate that international franchisors use a combination of mechanisms to prevent franchisee opportunism in East Asia. They include ex-ante bonds, performance schedules and formal controls in brand management. However, the effectiveness of these mechanisms depend on the capabilities of the franchisor to negotiate a high initial franchise fee, select the right franchisee and make adaptation but still maintain brand integrity.     

Persistence of informal social networks in East Asia: Evidence from South Korea

This study investigates the nature and influence of informal social networks in South Korea (yongo) by analyzing trust levels and network cohesion. Predominantly based on studies on Chinese guanxi, it is widely believed that the further a nation develops stable formal institutions the more the influence of informal relations decreases. Given South Korea’s position as a strong economic powerhouse with established rule of law and democratic institutions, the influence of yongo should play an insignificant role today. We find significant evidence that network cohesion of yongo is still strong in South Korea, despite its economic rise. Contrary to expectation, we observe a higher-than-expected degree of general trust and a continuous commitment to yongo ties at the same time. These findings document recent changes in South Korea such as the beginning of its multicultural opening, whereas informal yongo ties, characterized by emotional interpersonal bonds, still remain pronounced. Foremost, we recommend current beliefs about the correlation of institutional development and decreasing informal transactions to be reconsidered. We propose further studies to better understand how informal social networks evolve over time.     

中原城市群软实力的对策研究

中原城市群地区对承东启西、拉动中部崛起具有重要作用。论文在有关城市软实力研究现状基础上,分析了城市软实力的含义,提出了城市软实力的基本要素,并进一步提出了提升中原城市群软实力的策略在于增加以信任为核心的城市社会资本和大力发展中原城市的文化产业。     

A conceptual review of human resource management research and practice in Taiwan with comparison to select economies in East Asia

Human resources are increasingly crucial to the growing economies of East Asia, which are striving to diversify economically toward higher value-added product-markets to continue their growth. Human resource management (HRM) in Taiwan, based on Confucianism and influenced by Western management research and practice, has been experiencing a major paradigm shift of sorts in recent years. With Taiwan’s rapid economic growth followed by its industrial and institutional transformation, HRM in the region has been developing to cope with the increasingly competitive and fast-changing business world. As such, this study reviews HRM’s development in Taiwan over the recent decades. The reviewed studies were gathered from work published from 1990 to 2016 appearing in the Social Sciences Citation Index or Taiwan Social Sciences Citation Index Chinese journals. A detailed discussion of HRM development in Taiwan is made, along with a summarizing scheme and some comparison to HRM in other select economies in East Asia, including those of Mainland China and Hong Kong which share the same cultural lineage and values.     

企业社会责任与企业价值的相关性研究--来自沪市上市公司的经验证据

作者以我国上海证券交易所2003年521家上市公司为样本，研究了企业社会责任活动与企业价值的相关性问题。结果表明，从当期看。承担社会责任越多的企业。企业价值越低；但从长期看，根据关键利益相关者理论与社会资本理论。承担社会责任并不会降低企业价值。同时，本文的研究也表明资产规模、负债比率、重污染行业因素与企业承担社会责任活动显著正相关；财务状况或其他状况异常的ST类公司、前一年的盈利能力与企业承担社会责任活动显著负相关。     

Mainframes and mandarins: The impact of internet use on institutional trust in East Asia

The roles of contextual determinants such as culture and political regime in existing studies of Internet use and institutional trust remain underexplored. Adopting a cultural-institutional perspective, we ask: How does Internet use relate to institutional trust? Under what conditions is the impact of Internet use on institutional trust most potent? Do authoritarian orientation and perceived institutional responsiveness mediate the relationship? Is this mediating process moderated by the degree of democratic freedom? A total of 20,667 respondents from 14 East Asian countries/territories completed questionnaires. Our results show that the indirect effect of Internet use on institutional trust via authoritarian orientation was stronger for countries/territories with a low degree of democratic freedom, while the indirect effect of Internet use on institutional trust via perceived institutional responsiveness was stronger for countries/territories with a higher degree of democratic freedom.     

互联网时代的品牌危机分析及对策

互联网的出现使得企业所面临的品牌危机呈现出新的特点。同时也为企业借助互联网建立品牌提供了契机。因此，互联网时代品牌危机研究具有一定的理论与实践意义。文章阐述了互联网时代品牌危机的内涵，指出了互联网时代品牌危机的特点。结合品牌危机的特点进行危机成因分析。提出了品牌危机的预防、处理和形象重塑对策。     

Corporate reputation in the People’s Republic of China: A B2B perspective

How B2B firms in the People's Republic of China [PRC] view, value and manage their corporate reputation has received little research attention. Drawing on multiple case studies, our findings confirm that firms are utilizing certain Western conceptualizations of corporate reputation, including the leveraging of intangible forms of corporate reputation. However, many of the firms were also using the hitherto underemphasized elements of firm-government relationships and government regulatory policies to create positive assessments of a firm's reputation among key stakeholders. Notwithstanding our findings that corporate reputation is valued as a means of gaining competitive advantage and dispelling perceptions that Chinese products/services are low-cost and low-quality, concern remains that building reputation capital among stakeholders may result in a loss of price competitiveness. Finally, unlike the framework proposed by Barnett, Jermier, and Lafferty (2006), our results suggest that B2B firms in China do not impose clear boundaries between reputation and ‘corporate reputation capital’. Nor does there appear to be an emphasis on disaggregating the constructs of identify and image from that of reputation.     

Food transfers to Asia: A Delphi forecast of required levels

The authors obtained the views of a number of agricultural economists on the desirability and feasibility of future food transfers from rich to poor countries. The consensus view which emerged was that food aid will still be needed in the 1980s but that practical institutional arrangements for it are more likely to come from the political than the economic arena.     

应对台风灾害华东沿海的电网建设策略分析

分析了华东沿海地区电网和台风灾害的特点,指出了沿海地区各级电网的薄弱环节,从规划角度研究了增强华东电网抵抗台风等自然灾害能力的方针和策略,并提出了电网建设的具体措施.为增强沿海地区抵御台风灾害的能力,建议加快加强华东沿海地区电网建设,进一步加强大范围资源优化配置能力,并适当提高沿海地区电网设计标准.     

Firm capabilities and technology ladders: sequential foreign direct investments of Japanese electronics firms in East Asia

This paper investigates how investments in capabilities offer platforms for the upgrading or downgrading of overseas subsidiaries' activities along a ‘technology ladder’ in response to macroeconomic changes. By analyzing panel data on Japanese electronic firms in East Asia from 1988 to 1994, the empirical results confirm the importance of capabilities at host country, parent company, and local subsidiary levels in sequential foreign investment decisions. The results show that subsidiary capabilities offset macroeconomic factors influencing location decisions of multinational corporations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.