Privacy in AI and the IoT: The privacy concerns of smart speaker users and the Personal Information Protection Law in China

In recent years, the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of things (IoT) has attracted a lot of attention. One IoT device is the smart speaker that is equipped with an integrated assistant controlled by spoken commands. In the global smart speaker market, Chinese brands account for a significant share. Since smart speakers have a natural advantage when collecting user data in diverse scenarios, privacy and personal information protection have become crucial issues for both smart speaker manufacturers and users in China. This paper applies the socio-technical system (STS) framework to portray the technology subsystem, the industry/market subsystem and the regulators, law/regulation subsystem that are related to smart speakers in China, and how they interact with each other. It also uses focus group discussions to understand the smart speaker users' privacy concerns and the smart speaker industry's implementation of personal information protection. By employing the document analysis method, this study analyzes the laws and regulations related to privacy and personal information protection in the context of AI and the IoT. In particular, the potential impacts of the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) on smart speakers are discussed in detail. With its goal of balancing personal information protection and technological development, this paper provides recommendations for the regulatory bodies and the smart speaker industry players in China that can shed light on other countries and regions.     

Chinese institutions and standardization: The case of government support to domestic third generation cellular standard

There are unique and distinct institutional processes associated with the Chinese government's support of the domestically developed third generation (3G) cellular standard, TD-SCDMA. After postponing several times, China awarded three third generation cellular licenses in January 2009: a TD-SCDMA license to China Mobile, a CDMA 2000 license to China Telecom and a WCDMA license to China Unicom. The Chinese government has demonstrated a clear bias in favor of TD-SCDMA. This article examines the role of formal and informal institutions in shaping the Chinese 3G landscape. This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, this work extends studies on institutional theory focusing on standardization to the context of China. Second, unlike most ICT research which deals with standards originated in the West, this paper's focus on developing country-originated standard provides novel and unique insights related to institutional processes.     

The use of e-government services and the Internet: The role of socio-demographic,economic and geographical predictors

This article explores the use of e-government services from the perspective of digital divides. First, it aims to find out which socio-demographic, economic and geographical factors predict the use of e-government services. Second, the article aims to show whether these factors moderate the way in which the time spent on the Internet is associated with the use of e-government services. The article is based on survey data (N=612) collected in Finland in May–June 2011 and is analysed by using a logistic regression modelling. Results show that gender and income moderate the link between the Internet and e-government service use. The more that women use the Internet, the more they use the government's electronic services. However, among men, the use of e-services does not increase similarly with the use of the Internet. Regarding income indicators, results imply that e-service use increases with Internet use but only among the respondents with low income levels. Additionally, the article shows that education, children, income and the size of the place of residence have major effects on the use of the government's e-services. Lastly, the empirical results are briefly discussed in relation to the digital divide discussion and some policy implications are presented.     

Toward a legitimacy‐based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China

Traditional political risk theories often focus on a developing host country government's ability to intervene in the activities of foreign multinationals in the extractive or infrastructure sectors. This results in inadequate understanding of (1) how a government's motivation to intervene is influenced by the broader societal context, (2) the importance of multinationals' political risk at home, and (3) the increasing political risk faced by high‐tech and service firms. We argue that there is a need to update the bargaining power and political institutions theories and further develop a legitimacy‐based view of political risk. Then, we examine the political risk experienced by Google and Yahoo at home and abroad due to their activities in China to illustrate the benefits of a holistic approach to political risk. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reaching through the fog: Institutional environment and cross‐border giving of corporate foundations

Research Summary : Corporate philanthropy has long been recognized as an important part of multinational strategy, yet we know relatively little how charitable giving is allocated across countries. Using a sample of 208 U.S.‐based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, we find that the foundations give more in countries with opaque institutional environments, but they do so through international intermediaries. They also give more when the funding firms have new entries in countries with weak institutions—hence greater needs for the social license to operate—or when their operations require stronger connections with local suppliers or customers. These findings point to the use of corporate philanthropy as part of corporate diplomacy when the local institutions are ineffective and the importance of reaching out to local constituents is high. Managerial Summary : Corporate foundations play an important role in firms' charitable giving across countries. This article analyzes how foundation giving is associated with the funding firm's need to navigate the local business environments. Using a sample of 208 U.S.‐based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, we find that foundations give more in countries characterized by weak rule of law and high levels of corruption, and when the funding firms have newly established subsidiaries or stronger need to connect with local stakeholders there. However, donations to countries with weak institutions are more likely to go through international intermediaries to avoid potential liabilities. The results are consistent with the view that corporate foundations support corporate diplomacy and help obtain the social license to operate in the host countries.     

Government's green grip: Multifaceted state influence on corporate environmental actions in China

Research summary: Emerging economies such as China enjoy economic expansion, but also face dramatic environmental challenges. China's government is a central actor in both stimulating economic activities and pursuing environmental protection. Drawing on panel data and in‐depth interviews, we examined the influence of the Chinese state at multiple levels on the environmental actions of publicly listed firms. The results show that corporate environmental actions follow an inverted U‐shape as control of environmental practices moves from the central government to the most decentral administrative level. This curvilinear relationship is positively moderated by the stringency of environmental regulation and negatively moderated by environmental monitoring capacity. We conclude that state influence on corporate environmental actions in China is multifaceted and subject to “policy‐policy decoupling.” Managerial summary: As China's environmental awareness is growing, the country's government is increasingly concerned with the question as to how it can improve the environmental performance of the firms it controls. Our evidence shows the concurrence of two contravening government influences on corporate environmental practices: a performance‐enhancing effect of the regulatory pressure by multiple authorities and a performance‐diminishing effect of the autonomy enjoyed by local governments. Both the most centrally and the most decentrally controlled firms in China show significantly weaker environmental performance than those controlled by intermediary levels of government. The stringency of sectorial environmental regulation and environmental monitoring capacity affect the strength of the Chinese government's green grip.     

开放条件下中国货币政策对国际石油价格的影响——基于SVAR模型的实证研究

本文先引入IS-LM-BP模型和AD-AS模型说明中国货币政策因素通过影响石油市场的供需,从而影响石油价格。再采用SVAR模型、脉冲响应函数和方差分解,选择国际石油价格、中国工业增加值、狭义货币供应量、广义货币供应量和利率的月度指标对2005年7月～2015年5月国际油价波动的中国货币政策因素进行实证分析。研究发现：五变量间存在均衡关系,同时中国经济发展对油价的影响程度和时效性最大,其次是货币供应量,M1在短期内对油价的影响比M2显著,利率的影响贡献相对较小。在此结论的基础上,结合中国开放度、石油供需市场、供给侧改革等,提出相关政策建议。     

Pioneering Advantages and Entrepreneurs' First‐mover Decisions: An Empirical Investigation for the United States and China

New ventures are often launched for the purpose of pioneering an innovative new product or service in the marketplace. Entrepreneurs or founders of new ventures thus often have to make the decision whether to be the market pioneer or the first mover. While being a first mover potentially is advantageous, it also involves taking risks and facing uncertainties. Entrepreneurs must assess the benefits and risks of pioneering in the first‐mover decision‐making process to realize the potential competitive advantages associated with being a pioneer. Previous research has shown how entrepreneurs perceive potential gains and losses associated with exploring opportunities as the key defining element of entrepreneurial decision‐making. Past studies have also indicated that cultural and business environmental factors affect both perceptions and decision‐making. However, studies to date have insufficiently addressed the relationship between entrepreneurs' perceived pioneering advantages/disadvantages and their first‐mover decisions, with little attention to cross‐national differences. This study includes hypotheses postulating how entrepreneurs' perceived advantages and disadvantages of pioneering affect the number of first‐mover decisions made by entrepreneurs in two different cultural contexts, the United States and China. We collect data from 152 U.S. entrepreneurs and 140 Chinese entrepreneurs over a four‐year period and carry out empirical tests on the hypotheses using Poisson regression models. Our results provide insight on how culture affects perceptions of advantages and disadvantages of pioneering, and how these perceptions impact the likelihood of making a first‐mover decision. We find that a higher level of perceived advantages will drive first‐mover decisions, whereas perceived disadvantages will deter first‐mover decisions. The negative effect of perceived erosion disadvantages on the number of first‐mover decisions was higher for Chinese entrepreneurs, consistent with the high risk‐aversion culture in China. However, this effect was not found for perceived uncertainty disadvantages, suggesting that the risk‐averse characteristics of Chinese entrepreneurs is an oversimplification, and that the Chinese cultural, business, and legal environment helps offset uncertainty disadvantages. We also find an interesting positive moderating effect of perceived advantage on the relationship between perceived disadvantages and the number of first‐mover decisions in China only. That is, if perceived advantages are low, Chinese entrepreneurs are more risk averse than U.S. entrepreneurs; but if perceived advantages are high, Chinese entrepreneurs are more risk‐seeking than U.S. entrepreneurs. This finding again challenges the risk aversion conclusion found by previous studies of Chinese managers.     

The Internet of Things as an accelerator of advancement of broadband networks: A case of Thailand

The advanced development of broadband access is an inevitable step toward supportive daily lives and sustainable economic growth. However, the decisive outcome of the development relies heavily on the demand side. Consumer choice among advanced Internet broadband technologies will determine the achievement of the development. This study aims to illustrate that consumer decisions on choices of advanced Internet access are influenced by the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications. A bivariate probit model is applied to examine the effects of IoT, consumer's individual characteristics, and their current use of networks on their decision pertaining to the choice of advanced Internet access. Using Thailand as a case study, the result indicates that the emergence of IoT applications accelerates the adoption of both advanced mobile broadband (5G) and advanced fixed broadband (FTTH). This finding may help policy makers to optimize the future direction of the Internet infrastructure development in Thailand, and also countries in a similar stage.     

How national systems differ in their constraints on corporate executives: a study of CEO effects in three countries

Do CEOs matter more in some countries than in others? Based on a theoretical consideration of three fundamental national‐level institutions—national values, prevailing firm ownership structures, and board governance arrangements—we argue that CEOs in different countries face systematically different degrees of constraint on their latitudes of action, and hence they differ in how much effect they have on firm performance. To test these ideas, we apply a variance components analysis methodology to 15‐year matched samples of 100 U.S. firms, 100 German firms, and 100 Japanese firms. Results provide strong, robust evidence that the effect of CEOs on firm performance—for good and for ill—is substantially greater in U.S. firms than in German and Japanese firms. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The evolution of cyber-insurance industry and market: An institutional analysis

The cyber-insurance (CI) market is at a nascent stage. This paper investigates how the contexts provided by formal and informal institutions affect the development of the CI industry. It highlights the nature, origin, and implications of CI-related institutions and provides insights into the mechanisms and forces that can lead to institutional changes. It offers an explanation as to how different institutional pillars related to CI progressively evolve and reinforce one another. Such a mechanism is likely to influence a range of demand and supply side factors and create a system that can accelerate the growth of the CI industry and market. The paper also investigates how contradictions generated by CI, the formation of dense networks and changing power dynamics can trigger regulative normative and cognitive changes. Since the current analysis of the causes and consequences of institutions and institutional change is mainly concerned with more established economic sectors, this paper is expected to provide insights into institutions surrounding to this new and rapidly evolving industry.     

中国纺织品服装在美国市场的竞争力分析

本文采用WTO官网统计数据和中国海关统计数据,运用TC指数、RCA指数以及RSCA指数三个国际竞争力主要测量指标来反映中国纺织品服装在美国市场的竞争力。结果表明,中国纺织品服装在美国市场有很强的竞争优势。最后结合目前全球经济危机下中国纺织品服装出口疲软现状,提出我国对美纺织品服装出口的相应建议。     

The Role of Public and Private Protection in Disruptive Innovation: The Automotive Industry and the Emergence of Low‐Emission Vehicles

In the automotive industry, the need to move toward more sustainable trajectories of innovation has received much attention. Car manufacturers have started to develop lower emission alternatives for the internal combustion engine, particularly electric, hybrid, and fuel‐cell vehicles. They face the challenge, however, of how to make a potentially disruptive, systemic, and societally embedded technology such as a low‐emission vehicle attractive to mainstream customers. While literature has suggested that companies can empower the initial stages of disruptive innovation by creating protected spaces themselves and/or by taking advantage of such spaces created by public actors, the specific role of these different types of protection levers—private and/or public—has remained unclear. This article therefore investigates to what extent and how private and public protection levers affect firm‐level strategies to increase the attractiveness of disruptive and systemic innovations to mainstream customers. This is explored empirically through a multiple case study of the emergence of low‐emission vehicles within three car manufacturers—Daimler, General Motors, and Toyota—in the context of European, Japanese, and U.S. policies. The empirical analysis is conducted on a data set consisting of more than 9000 articles from two trade magazines, a car magazine and a financial newspaper for the period of 1997–2010. As main findings, the article identifies regulation, tax incentives, and public–private partnerships as the public protection levers that impose or stimulate “new” performance metrics such as fuel economy and vehicle emissions. It also finds that resource allocation, niche occupation, and collaboration‐integration act as the main private protection levers. In addition, two protection levers emerge from the data that are rather prominent in this context: the use of regulation imposing large‐scale commercialization of low‐emission vehicles and dumping of products in the market below cost price. The article concludes with two different protection trajectories—a public protection trajectory and a private protection trajectory—which explain how car manufacturers leverage the various protection levers to deal with disruptive technology. The main implication of the two trajectories is that while the public protection trajectory stalled due to the systemic, socially embedded technological impediments of electric vehicles and fuel‐cell vehicles, the private protection trajectory picked up the remains of the public protection trajectory and has gained momentum, continuing until today.     

环保生意经

"保护全球气候是一项神圣和崇高的事业,因此必须跨越自私、自利和唯利是图,少一些美丽的词藻,多一些实实在在的行动。"2007年12月12日,在联合国气候变化大会的部长级会议上,     

The evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT): A computational text analysis

There is increasing interest in the IoT, in both academia and industry. Extant studies have surveyed the topic of IoT using different approaches. This study takes a digital innovation view of IoT as a complex ecosystem of technologies, industry applications, concepts, methodologies, and social institutions, which is temporally dynamic and evolves over time. The study focuses on three research questions: (1) What are the important elements of the IoT ecosystem? (2) How are such IoT elements connected in the ecosystem? And (3) How have such IoT elements been evolving over time? This study adopts a topic modeling approach and extracts hidden trends from social media data. The popular elements in the IoT ecosystem are cloud computing, big data, and cybersecurity, among others. The analysis provides detailed information about popular categories or topics in the IoT ecosystem, the associations among those topics, and their evolution since 2014. Based on the findings, the study offers implications for practice and suggestions for future research.     

Regulating the use of facial recognition technology across borders: A comparative case analysis of the European Union,the United States,and China

Regulating the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) presents a Collingridge dilemma regarding the great demand for common legal principles to mediate the practical conflicts between privacy and efficiency, autonomy and authority, and safety and accountability. This study compares the enforcement by legitimate authorities in the European Union, the United States, and China of the laws and regulations applied in practical FRT cases and explores the fundamental principles and values manifested in these judgments and their results. The findings presented here indicate that (1) the E.U. regulations tend to move from downstream to upstream based on the notions of “privacy by design” and “privacy by default,” (2) the U.S. regulations are not limited to private contexts but tend also to target the (semi-)public sector, and (3) the Chinese regulations have been shifting from a practice represented by the phrase “nine dragons playing with a pearl” to a practice of “learning by doing”. Specifically, with respect to the determination of violations, the E.U. jurisprudence endorses deontological ethics and the U.S. jurisprudence a kind of universal egoism while the core FRT legislation in China valorizes utilitarianism. Overall, a top-down regulatory framework relating to FRT usage was apparent in the E.U. countries, a self-regulatory approach was observed in the United States, and a “presumption of fault” principle was manifested in China's process of assessing damages.     

Political hazards and firms' geographic concentration

Research summary : We examine the relationship between the geographic concentration of a firm's sales and the firm's vulnerability to expropriation hazards. Although expanding outside the home location can initially increase a firm's exposure to government expropriation, we find that this effect reverses when a firm's sales outside its home location have reached a point at which it has sufficient resources to better influence government actions and to pose a credible threat to exit the market in which it is being targeted. We supplement this main result by identifying two moderating factors: the firm's level of political capital and the effectiveness of institutional constraints on government behavior. We find support for these hypotheses from survey data on privately owned enterprises in China. Managerial summary : This research advises firm managers that certain market activities might knock their firms' economic interests out of alignment with the government's political interests, and thus, influence the political hazards they face, particularly in emerging markets such as China, which has attracted strong interest of many firms with respect to entering the market. Here, all else being equal, the firms' geographic concentration exposes them to different levels of state expropriation—but not in a simple linear fashion as suggested by the conventional wisdom of local protectionism or that of the bargaining advantage generated by the threat of relocation: Those who are “stuck in the middle” ended up paying twice or even three times as much unauthorized levies as the purely local or the most expansive firms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.