提升我国国际竞争力的主要途径初探

运用系统范式分析现代国家竞争力的构成因素,应当包括企业行为,产业环境,要素禀赋,国家政治、经济、文化、人口、科技、习俗,国际环境等。这些在国家、产业、企业发展中的不同阶段中具有不同作用,国家和企业应据此采取相应的措施,作为形成和提升国家竞争力的基本途径。     

中小城市天然气公司的天然气能量测定方法探讨

在天然气的贸易结算中，体积、质量、能量分别是3种不同的贸易结算依据，同时也是天然气计量发展过程中先后使用的计量方式。由于一系列的原因，我国大陆地区至今仍然采用体积计量作为天然气买卖双方的计量方式。然而，作为燃料使用的民用天然气，天然气燃烧的价值主要体现在其热值．即天然气的发热量。因此，能量计量显然更科学与合理。此外，随着我国天然气市场的扩大，能源需求日益剧增，引进国外天然气将变成现实，因而我国的天然气计最方式很有必要与罔际接轨（目前，国际天然气贸易普遍采用能量计量方式）。但是，在我国大陆地区实现天然气的能量计量，需要有政府相关的法律法规支持，需要制定能量计量标准，改革现有的价格体制、进入市场竞争，发展能量计量技术研究等诸多方面。目前，国内天然气行业已经开始了这方面的研究和准备工作，且取得了一定的成果。     

Involvement theory in constructing bloggers' intention to purchase travel products

Blogs recently have demonstrated their enormous marketing potential, and more and more travel advertisements are being posted in blogs. In light of this observation, this study aims to provide insights into the structural relationship among travel bloggers' involvement level, the advertising effect from blog messages, and travel bloggers' intention to purchase travel products. A travel blogger's purchase intention model was constructed and empirically tested. A total of 900 questionnaires were distributed to identified travel bloggers; 398 valid responses were returned. The data were examined with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The results demonstrated the positive impact resulting from the ad effect as well as the ad effect on purchase intention, which could be verified in travel blog environments. It also indicated that high-involvement travel bloggers are more likely to form favourable impressions with regard to ads in travel blogs. Travel blogs play a positive role in the processing of ad messages; brand management is essential to business marketers since brand attitude is the most influential factor related to the ad effect on purchase intention. Meanwhile, while ad attitude is not significantly effective concerning purchase intention, it remains essential in forming brand attitudes. Several implications for posting advertisements in travel blogs will be discussed and suggested in this paper.     

Relevance of the disposition effect on the options market: New evidence

A moneyness‐based propensity to sell (MPS) measure, at the aggregate level, determines the propensity of option holders to exercise their winning relative to losing positions. Using data on individual stock and S&P 500 Index options, we find that the MPS measure has significant predictive power over the cross section of delta‐hedged option returns. We test the disposition effect in the options market based on a long–short strategy that exploits price distortions induced by the disposition bias. More pronounced evidence of the disposition bias is found for individual at‐the‐money call options than put options where the significance of abnormal returns remains robust across different subsamples even after we control for the portfolio option greeks and market‐based risk factors. The profitability of the long–short strategy is related to limit‐to‐arbitrage proxies suggesting that behavioral explanations help explain the positive relation between the MPS measure and delta‐hedged option returns.     

Audit Partner Disciplinary Actions and Financial Restatements

This study investigates the signalling role and rectification effectiveness of an audit partner disciplinary system. The signalling role refers to whether sanctions reflect the poor audit quality of disciplined audit partners, and rectification effectiveness addresses whether disciplinary actions enhance subsequent audit quality. The sample consists of Taiwanese listed companies, in the period 2000 to 2006, where the identities of audit partners who sign audit reports and who are sanctioned are accessible. Empirical results indicate that in the pre‐sanction period, the probability of financial restatements by clients of disciplined audit partners is significantly higher than that of non‐disciplined audit partners. The more severe or frequent the sanctions, the higher the likelihood of financial restatements in the pre‐sanction period. These findings imply that audit partner disciplinary actions can serve as a signal of lower audit quality provided by those partners. The rectification effectiveness of disciplinary actions is examined from two perspectives: (1) the effects on subsequent improvements of audit quality of disciplined audit partners; and (2) audit quality enhancement of successor non‐disciplined audit partners who accept clients from disciplined audit partners. Empirical results show a lower probability of restating financial statements audited by disciplined audit partners after sanctions. We also find a lower likelihood of restating financial statements audited by successor non‐disciplined audit partners in the post‐sanction period. Both findings support our conclusion that audit partner sanctions improve audit quality. Overall, audit partner disciplinary actions can signal lower quality audit partners and are effective in enhancing audit quality.     

National Health Insurance and Technology Adoption: Evidence from Taiwan

Generous health-insurance coverage may encourage hospitals to acquire and employ more advanced medical technologies. The authors examine the effects of Taiwan's 1995 implementation of National Health Insurance on technology adoption, ownership, and use by comparing changes in adoption, ownership, and use rates by private hospitals with changes by public nonteaching and public teaching hospitals. Using random-effect panel probit and tobit models, the article finds strong empirical evidence that third-party payment increases the probability of technology adoption, ownership, and use. (JEL H4 , I )     

Knowledge exchange and knowledge protection in interorganizational learning: The ambidexterity perspective

Are knowledge exchange and knowledge protection conflicting or complementary? Although facilitating knowledge exchange and protecting core proprietary knowledge are important in interorganizational learning, extant studies often regard them as conflicting activities. Few studies have discussed the mechanisms that can help firms achieve both. In this current study, we extend the concept of ambidexterity to the interorganizational learning context and suggest several mechanisms that can enhance knowledge exchange and knowledge protection simultaneously. We conducted a survey and the empirical results reveal that experience sharing and shared interpretation are positively associated with knowledge exchange success. Hostage arrangement enhances the level of knowledge protection, whereas reciprocal investment has no effect on knowledge protection. Furthermore, ambidexterity (the product term of knowledge exchange success and knowledge protection) significantly affects the performance of a firm. Finally, we discuss the implications of this research and offer suggestions for future research.     

Particle swarm optimization with cocktail decoding method for hybrid flow shop scheduling problems with multiprocessor tasks

This paper addresses the problem of multiprocessor task-scheduling in a hybrid flow shop (HFS) problem to minimize the makespan. Due to the complex nature of an HFS problem, it is decomposed into the following two sequential decision problems: determining the job permutation in stage 1, followed by a decoding method to assign jobs into each machine in subsequent stages when designing a heuristic algorithm. The decoding method plays a pivotal role for improving the solution quality of any algorithm for the HFS problem. However, the majority of existing algorithms ignores the problem and is only concerned with the first decision problem. This study emphasizes the importance of the decoding method via a small test, and searches for a number of solid decoding methods that can be incorporated into the cocktail decoding method. Then, this study develops a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm that can be combined with the cocktail decoding method. In the PSO, a variety of job sequences are generated using the PSO procedure in stage 1, and the cocktail decoding method is used to assign the jobs to machines in sequential stages. Moreover, a modified lower bound is introduced. Computational results show that the proposed lower bound is competitive, and with the help of the cocktail decoding method, the proposed PSO, and even the adoption of a standard PSO framework, significantly outperforms the majority of existing algorithms in terms of quality of solutions, especially for large problems.     

Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Green Hotel Attributes in Tourist Choice Behavior: The Case of Taiwan

Although many companies in the hotel industry aim to pursue more sustainable and socially responsible practices, the present literature shows mixed results with regard to tourist reactions to such moves, especially for the service quality perception impacted by implemented green practices and the willingness to pay more for such actions. Unlike previous research examining tourists’ preferences for separate green hotel attributes, this study identifies the determinants of tourists’ choice of green hotel attributes. Additionally, the study measures the willingness to pay (WTP) for such services, in the context of the Taiwanese market, using the stated preference of combined green hotel attribute scenarios. A multinomial logit (MNL) model is employed to estimate the relative influence of behavioral and facility attributes on choice behavior. Furthermore, the study examines determinants influencing respondents’ choice of green hotel attributes. A latent variable class model (LVCM) approach is applied in the estimation of the unobserved heterogeneity, and a total of 390 valid respondents were used in the analysis. The empirical MNL results indicate that while tourists prefer luxury rooms and the provision of personal toiletries, they are also willing to accept reduced service quality. Additionally, sex, income, and age have significant influences on tourist choice behavior. The results of the LVCM model demonstrate that respondents with high levels of the green consumption trait are more likely to choose hotels that have a greater number of environmentally friendly attributes. The implicit amount that tourists are willing to pay for room quality is around US$13, for the provision of personal toiletries is about US$22, and for service quality is US$12, but they also require a discount of approximately US$11 in order to accept the common practices of green hotels. This study is useful in providing the hotel industry and government with quantitative information that can be used to develop and implement better green hotel policies.     

A fuzzy multi-criteria decision model for international tourist hotels location selection

The main purpose of this paper is to present a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (FMCDM) model for international tourist hotel location selection. In this article we created 21 criteria for selecting the international tourist hotel location acquired from literatures review and practical investigations. And the methods of fuzzy set theory, linguistic value, hierarchical structure analysis, and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process are used to consolidate decision-makers’ assessments about criteria weightings. Finally, an empirical study for identifying the international tourist hotel location selection in Taiwan is conducted to demonstrate the computational process and effectiveness of FMCDM proposed by this paper.