The emergence of Zipf's Law in a system of cities: An agent-based simulation approach

This paper develops a spatial agent-based model to generate a system of cities that exhibits the statistical properties of the Zipf's Law. The numerical results suggest that the combination of bounded rationality and maximum heterogeneity of agents can produce a generic power-law relationship in the size distribution of cities, but does not always generate the Zipf's Law. We found sufficient conditions on the probability distribution of spatial reach to generate the Zipf's Law associated with unit power coefficient. Our model also indicates that the Zipf's Law breaks down unless the extent of agglomeration economies overwhelms the negative disagglomerating forces.     

上市公司变更会计师事务所对会计稳健性的影响研究

伴随着我国证券市场的逐渐发展和完善,上市公司发生会计师事务所变更的现象日益普遍,这逐渐引起监管部门、媒体以及社会大众的高度关注。目前国内外有大量关于上市公司发生会计师事务所变更和会计稳健性的研究,但大都没有将两者结合起来。基于此,将2010—2014年所有深沪A股上市公司作为研究对象,考察会计师事务所变更对会计稳健性的影响,并区分不同变更类型进行研究。研究发现,上市公司发生会计师事务所变更会降低其会计稳健性。     

Market Entry and Investment in Vietnam: Long Term Enticements and Short Term Hurdles: Evidence from British Investors

SUMMARY

Following the promulgation of a relatively progressive foreign investment law in late 1987-aimed at attracting western capital, technology, know-how and gaining access to global (and convertible currency) markets–Vietnam has gained a significant degree of interest amongst foreign companies. This paper profiles Vietnam's host country business environment, depicts the character of foreign direct investment so far undertaken (and its legislative background) before assessing the perceived attractions of the Vietnam host market, and the problems encountered by those intrepid firms that have entered this relatively uncharted new market. The empirical evidence emanates from a survey conducted into the experiences of British companies operative in Vietnam between 1988 and 1993.     

A Statistical Illusion of Large‐firm Conformity to Gibrat's Law

When mean growth rates decline across large size classes of firms, the differences can become too small to achieve statistical significance, creating an illusion of proportionate size‐independent growth (Gibrat's law). Thus, a final confirmation of the law requires a lognormal size distribution with a secularly increasing variance (growing firm size inequality). An empirical test on the less‐than‐truckload trucking industry demonstrates the illusion. The growth rate mean and variance between the two largest classes are statistically indistinguishable, despite an actual decline in both. Their combined size distribution gives a poor fit to lognormal, however, so large‐firm conformity to the law is rejected. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Organizational differences in managerial compensation and benefits in Chinese firms

More than two decades of economic reforms have brought profound changes in human resource management practices in both the state and non-state sectors in China. This study focuses on the impact of organizational factors on compensation and benefits for Chinese managers in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), publicly listed firms (PLFs), and foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs). The empirical investigation of 465 firms located in three major Chinese cities, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou, provides evidence that organizational factors, such as ownership, firm size, firm age, location and industrial sector, have significant impacts on the variances in Chinese managers' compensation levels, compensation structures and benefits. The trends in the development of compensation and benefits for Chinese managers are also discussed as the Chinese economy moves closer to a more globalized, highly dynamic economy after China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.     

Environmental,Sustainable Behaviors and Innovation of Firms During the Financial Crisis

In this paper, we analyze the relation between sustainable and environmental behaviors and performance and innovation. Altogether, 1032 observations are divided into specific groups according to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Global 500 report and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for 2008 and 2009. Based on legitimation theory and stakeholder theory, we regard the voluntary activities of firms as having long‐run effective characteristics that can be applied to industry in general. The environmental behavior of firms is represented by CDP activity, while the DJSI represents their sustainable activities. Based on the assumption that corporate environmentalism is a bilateral agreement between policymakers and firms, we answer four specific research questions. (i) What is the relation between voluntary activities and performance of firms? (ii) Do firms' voluntary activities in environmental and sustainable implementations induce innovation? (iii) How does the nature of innovation depend on voluntary type of the firms? (iv) What is the link between firm characteristics and innovation according to voluntary types? From the presented empirical analysis, we find positive relations between corporate environmentalism and innovative activities. We then classify environmental and sustainable issues and propose an empirical model of the links between environmental and sustainable behaviors and innovation activities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The competitive determinants of a firm's environmental management activities: Evidence from US manufacturing industries

Environmental management (EM) issues have received substantial attention in operations management. While the link between EM practices and firm performance has been well studied, little is known about the competitive drivers of a firm's EM activities. In this research, a Schumpeterian economics perspective is adopted to investigate competitive interactions among leader and challenger firms in the domain of EM, with a particular focus on operational EM activities. Using econometric methods, the empirical analysis of panel data from a broad cross-section of US manufacturing firms reveals that such rivalry does exist and that the effect of a rival's past EM activity on a focal firm's EM activity is greater for more profitable and smaller firms. In addition, firm characteristics such as market leadership, firm size and firm profitability are found to significantly affect the magnitude of a firm's EM activities. This study presents theoretical and empirical evidence of rivalrous behaviors in the domains of EM and OM and, thus, has interesting implications for operations management research and practice.     

Using human resource management to enhance competitiveness: Lessons from four excellent companies

Recent research has emphasized the strategic focus that human resource management must have in order for an organization to fully utilize its human resources in a competitive market. However, few empirical studies have been done to date regarding how human resource planning should be linked to strategy. An extensive in-depth study of four large, complex, and very successful companies supports the widespread belief that human resource management can be a powerful tool to enhance competitiveness when policies and practices are logically driven by a firm's strategy and by the key environmental factors it faces. This article describes that study and looks at how the areas of selection, appraisal, reward, and development are handled by these firms. Based on both the specific policies and the actual practices as perceived by middle managers (those that implement the policies), the article presents a contingency framework which offers guidelines as to how certain HRM practices should be implemented to gain competitive advantage.     

Human resource management and early internationalization: is there a leap-frogging in international staffing?

The present study focuses on the international staffing of early internationalizers by linking the Ethnocentric, Polycentric, Regiocentric, and Geocentric (EPRG) concept with the Process Theories of Internationalization. On a dataset of 116 (N) German medium-sized companies, we test whether the determinants which allow firms to internationalize shortly after their inception, namely prior international experience, technological intensity, and networks, influence the firms' international staffing. We further elaborate whether this influence differs between early and late internationalizers. The empirical results show that prior international experience is not associated with the firms' international staffing at all, and thus, does not allow conclusions. Technological intensity increases the probability of the choice of an ethnocentric staffing policy, especially for early internationalizers. In contrast, networks enable firms, especially early internationalizers, to pursue regiocentric or geocentric staffing policies.     

Company Characteristics and Environmental Policy

This paper investigates the relationship between various firm characteristics and environmental disclosures. Our findings evidence that firms with higher environmental ratings present a statistically significant larger size, belong to more environmentally sensitive industries as compared with firms with lower environmental ratings and disclose environmental information according to GRI guidelines. However, neither profitability nor listing status seems to explain differences in environmental disclosure practices between Greek companies. The most influential variable for explaining firms' variation in environmental ratings is size, followed by GRI reporting and industry membership. This study adds to the international research on environmental disclosure by providing empirical data from a country, Greece, where empirical evidence is still relatively unknown, extending the scope of the current understanding of the environmental reporting practices. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The Internationalisation Process of Danish Firms -Gradual Learning or Discrete Rational Choices?

Abstract

The Uppsala Internationalisation model has greatly influenced Nordic research on the internationalisation process of firms. In this article, the Uppsala model is tested on Danish empirical material. The Danish firms largely follow a sequential development as regards the geographical dimension, where, typically, they set up in culturally close markets first and later set up in the more distant markets. On the other hand, the firms seem to follow to a less extent a pattern of sequential expansion of market commitment on the single foreign markets, just as a surprising number of establishments are set up without previous activity on the market. Crucial differences cannot be found between the establishment pattern abroad of large and small firms. The Uppsala model in itself cannot explain the internationalisation pattern of the Danish firms, which is why the article advocates that the internationali-sation process should be understood as an interaction between internal conditions in the firm (“learning” processes), external competitive conditions and more basic economic factors (assessment of market potential).     

中国城市规模分布实证研究

选择1994-2004年中国城市规模位于前200住的地级及地级以上城市,分剐采用人口和建成区面积来表征城市规模,借助于分形理论进行研究发现,无论是从人口规模还是从用地规模来看,中国城市规模的分布符合"位序一规模"法则;外来人口的增加和2000年之后城市规模的加速增长使城市发展表现出向高位次城市集聚的倾向;但由于中国城市体系规模结构比较成熟,其基本特征并没有因时间、外来人口和城市规模的变化而改变;高位次城市仍有较大的发展空间.认为如何更好地识别城市的实际规模,促进城市的理性增长和城市规模结构的健康优化,是中国城市发展亟待解决的问题.     

Co‐determination and strategic integration in German firms

Looking at the economic development and importance of German companies in Europe, one might expect that an important aspect of a good economic performance is a well‐functioning HR system. Although a number of scholars claim this, the empirical evidence seems to point to the opposite. Several comparative studies have found that HRM in German companies is less strategically integrated and proactive than that of comparable firms in other countries. This article argues that the empirical results reported fail to grasp the essence of HRM in German firms. This lacuna is partly due to the co‐determination structure. HRM in large German firms has to be evaluated within the co‐determination structure, with the Betriebsrat (works council) being an important actor. For German firms co‐determination might even be a strategic resource. By examining this issue within such a framework, a more favourable picture of HR integration in German firms emerges.     

融资约束与企业并购——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

利用2010—2018年中国沪深A股上市公司的并购数据,采用Logistic回归和双重差分估计法研究融资约束对企业并购的事前选择效应及并购对目标方融资约束的事后处理效应。研究结果表明：（1）在融资能力方面具有优势的企业更有可能成为潜在的收购方,且其更偏好于收购融资约束程度与自身存在差异（高于自身）的中等规模企业;（2）并购后,目标方的融资约束程度总体上显著降低,但不同成长能力和所有权性质的企业存在异质性,对于非国有企业和成长能力较高的企业,并购带来的融资约束缓解效应更显著。研究结论表明,通过缓解目标方融资约束获得协同效应是企业并购的重要驱动力。     

实际控制人法定代表人身份转出与审计师风险应对——基于民营上市公司的分析

基于中国特色的法定代表人制度,以2006—2021年沪深A股民营上市公司为样本,探究了民营企业实际控制人法定代表人身份转出是否引发审计师的风险应对行为。研究发现,实际控制人转出法定代表人身份的企业,审计师会收取更高的费用。机制检验发现,实际控制人转出法定代表人身份后,公司的关联交易和大股东资金占用显著增多,使得审计师提高审计收费以应对企业风险。进一步分析发现,内部控制质量、非控股大股东、审计委员会独立性以及会计师事务所行业专长负向调节法定代表人身份转出与审计师风险应对行为之间的正相关关系。本研究对资本市场投资者识别民营企业法定代表人身份变动产生的风险变化具有借鉴意义。     

智力资本要素对企业价值影响之实证研究

本文以台湾信息电子产业为研究对象,先从理论及实证两方面文献选取智力资本之财务及非财务量化指标,再以2000至2007年共8年之数据利用线性回归方式检验相关指标对台湾信息电子业企业价值之贡献程度,尝试找出智力资本各构面之重要项目,以供企业做为未来提升自身智力资本项目之改进参考方向。实证结果显示员工年龄、员工教育程度、人力资本运用效率、前一年度研发密集度、以及主要顾客数皆对企业价值造成显著之影响。     

Corporate Carbon and Financial Performance: The Role of Emission Reductions

This article uses econometric techniques to examine the effect of corporate carbon performance on corporate financial performance. I extend the existing literature in this research field by differentiating between two measurement perspectives: carbon performance expressed as annually reported carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission equivalents and improvements in carbon performance over time. Thereby, the article re‐addresses the research question ‘when and how does it pay to be green?’ in the context of carbon emissions and climate change mitigation. Using a nonlinear modeling technique, the findings indicate that it pays to be green for companies with superior carbon performance but not for companies with inferior carbon performance. The results also show that carbon emission mitigation is linearly and significantly positive related to return on sales (ROS) but negatively related to Tobin's q . These contradictory findings help us to understand why – in spite of growing regulatory pressure – companies have been slow to respond with effective action to tackle climate change beyond marginal efficiency improvements that correspond to ‘low‐hanging fruits’. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced sample of 7625 firm‐year observations covering carbon emission data (Scope 1 and Scope 2) for 1640 international firms from 2003 to 2015. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Multinationals and human resource practices in Ireland: a rejection of the 'new conformance thesis'

In a previous edition of this journal, Turner et al. (1997a) claim that the industrial relations and human resource management practices of multinational companies operating in Ireland bear a close resemblance to those of indigenous firms. The advancement of this (new) conformance thesis stands in stark contrast to much recent work on Irish industrial relations. In this paper we criticize Turner et al.'s argument for its failure to appreciate and acknowledge the weight of evidence both internationally and in Ireland which points to the predominance of 'country-of-origin effects' over 'hostcountry effects', especially in countries characterized by weak industrial relations systems. We are also critical of the empirical basis of the 'new conformance thesis'. In analysing data from a recently conducted national workplace survey our doubts as to the empirical validity and generalizability of Turner et al.'s results are confirmed. In brief, the 'new conformance thesis' is refuted and the employment relations practices of foreign- and particularly US-owned establishments are shown to be very different from those of Irish workplaces.     

客户重要性与会计信息可比性 ——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

审计师的执业特征对被审计单位的会计信息质量有一定的影响。以审计师客户重要性为经,以会计信息可比性为纬,运用2005—2014年我国A股上市公司数据实证分析审计师客户重要性与会计信息可比性之间的相关性。实证结果表明：会计师事务所对某一客户的经济依赖越强,该客户的会计信息可比性越差;同样地,签字注册会计师的客户重要性与会计信息可比性呈现显著负向关系;并且,会计师事务所和签字注册会计师的客户重要性在对会计信息可比性的作用过程中存在互补关系。     

HRM in project‐intensive firms: Changes and challenges

One of the most profound organizational changes currently under way is the application of project‐based structures within and between firms. This change is happening in both growth and mature industries. Several management scholars have taken interest in the reasons why firms adopt proj‐ect‐based ways of working. However, the effect of project‐based organizing on the firm's HRM is a recurrent problem and a challenge to many companies. We develop a framework for the analysis of HRM in project‐intensive firms. Based on a study of four companies and the transformation of their organizational structures and processes, we identify four managerial issues and a number of questions that must be addressed to improve HRM in proj‐ect‐intensive firms. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.