Price transmission and volatility spillovers in Asian rice markets: Evidence from MGARCH and panel GARCH models

ABSTRACT

This article examines world rice price transmission and volatility spillovers across six major Asian rice markets over the period 2005-13. In addition to the conventional GARCH models, we use a panel GARCH framework to estimate the spillover effects along with the consideration of heterogeneity and interdependence among countries. Empirical results suggest that changes in the world rice price affected not only the price levels of domestic rice markets but also their conditional variances. Moreover, interdependence across rice markets contributed to a strong spillover of a price shock in one country to another within the region.     

Fundamentals of service science

Service systems are value-co-creation configurations of people, technology, value propositionsconnecting internal and external service systems, and shared information (e.g., language, laws, measures, and methods). Service science is the study of service systems, aiming to create a basis for systematicservice innovation. Service science combines organization and human understanding with business andtechnological understanding to categorize and explain the many types of service systems that exist as wellas how service systems interact and evolve to co-create value. The goal is to apply scientific understandingto advance our ability to design, improve, and scale service systems. To make progress, we think servicedominantlogic provides just the right perspective, vocabulary, and assumptions on which to build a theory ofservice systems, their configurations, and their modes of interaction. Simply put, service-dominant logicmay be the philosophical foundation of service science, and the service system may be its basic theoreticalconstruct.

Resource orchestration for team‐based innovation: a case study of the interplay between teams,customers, and top management

The resource orchestration concept has attracted considerable interest in contemporary innovation research. However, resource orchestration is a manager‐centric framework and not all of its components necessarily reflect the value‐creation processes of organizations focusing on team‐based innovation. Drawing on a single‐case study of an innovative Swedish software company, we illustrate the roles of autonomous teams, customers, and top managers in orchestrating resources for team‐based innovation. Moreover, we introduce the concept of resource flocculation to describe how key actors co‐orchestrate various resource orchestration processes. The study contributes to research on resource orchestration by adapting the model to the conditions characterizing team‐based innovation, and to research on team‐based innovation by addressing how innovative teams are related to overall resource orchestration processes and, ultimately, organizational innovation outcomes.     

Could HRM support organizational innovation?

Nowadays, it has become clear that the capacity of organizations to innovate and manage their human resources can be sources of competitive advantage. Recently, literature also asserts a positive relationship between human resource management and innovation. However, very little empirical research has specifically addressed those relationships. Using structural equations modelling with data collected from 173 Spanish firms, this study analyses them. Our findings show that innovation contributes positively to business performance and that human resource management enhances innovation. Implications for both academics and managers as well as future research lines are discussed.     

Modelling Intercontinental Tourism Consumption in South Africa: A Systems‐of‐Equations Approach

This paper investigates the pattern of inbound tourists' consumption in South Africa, examining four main intercontinental markets and five different tourism goods. The empirical investigation develops an almost ideal demand system (AIDS) model and it extends recent research by allowing tourists to base their spending decision on the real effective price differences between South Africa and their home country. The results show that tourist spending in South Africa is a luxury good, and tourists react normally to a change in the relative price of goods. The cross‐price elasticities suggest that the preferences of different markets influence their view of substitutability and complementary effects between various products in South Africa.     

How Focused are the World’s Top-Rated Business Schools on Educating Women for Global Management?

Persuaded by the observed positive link between the flow of appropriately skilled and trained female talent and female presence at the upper echelons of management (Plitch, Dow Jones Newswire February 9, 2005), this study has examined current trends on women’s uptake of graduate and executive education programs in the world’s top 100 business schools and explored the extent to which these business schools promote female studentship and career advancement. It contributes by providing pioneering research insight, albeit at an exploratory level, into the emerging best practice on this important aspect of business school behavior, an area which is bound to become increasingly appreciated as more global economic actors wise up to the significant diseconomies inherent in the under-utilization of female talent, particularly in the developing world. Among the study’s main findings are that female graduate students averaged 30% in the sample business schools, a figure not achieved by a majority of the elite schools, including some of the highest ranked. Only 10% of these business schools have a specialist center for developing women business leaders, and only a third offered women-focused programs or executive education courses, including flextime options. A higher, and increasing, percentage of business schools, however, reported offering fellowships, scholarships or bursaries to prospective female students, and having affiliations with pro-women external organizations and networks that typically facilitate career-promoting on-campus events and activities. The implications of the foregoing are discussed, replete with a call on key stakeholder groups to more actively embrace the challenge of improving the supply of appropriately trained female talent, or top management prospects. Future research ideas are also suggested.     

Requests for zoo visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour: How many is too many?

Recognising the potential conservation impact, zoos regularly ask their visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour. This paper presents the results of two studies undertaken to address the question: how often during a visit should visitors be asked? Study 1 sought to a) determine individuals' personal thresholds and b) the point where the number of different behaviours requested began affect visitors' experiences. Study 2 sought the same, but focused on requests for the same behaviour. Results suggest that few respondents' personal thresholds were crossed (2.5% in Study 1 and 9% in Study 2). In neither study did many respondents (2.5% in Study 1 and 2.8% in Study 2) feel that the number of requests negatively affect their overall zoo experience. While there are caveats, we conclude that there appears little cause for concern about asking zoo visitors on multiple occasions to act in support of wildlife. Indeed, such requests may improve experiences.     

Do rice prices follow a random walk? Evidence from Markov switching unit root tests for Asian markets

This study revisits the issue of mean reversion in the import rice prices of six Asian countries over the period between 1995 and 2015. Augmented Dickey Fuller tests with a conventional linear regression model support the presence of a unit root in the levels of the price data. However, when regressions allow for Markov switching in coefficients and variances to capture periodic shifts in levels and volatilities, there is strong evidence against the unit‐root null hypothesis in favor of stationarity over much of the observation period.     

Country of Origin Labeling and Structural Change in U.S. Imports of Canadian Cattle and Beef

Mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) has become a thorny issue in U.S.–Canada bilateral trade relations. We undertake an ex post investigation of the impact of the law on U.S. imports of Canadian beef, feeder, and fed cattle. Using a partial equilibrium framework, we derive U.S. import demand equations for Canadian cattle and beef, and employ the Bai and Perron (1998, 2003) procedure for detecting multiple structural breaks with break points being endogenously determined. We find evidence that COOL may have caused significant structural change in U.S. imports of Canadian feeder and fed cattle. L’étiquetage du pays d'origine obligatoire est devenu un sujet épineux des relations commerciales entre le Canada et les États‐Unis. Dans la présente étude, nous effectuons une analyse ex post des répercussions de la Loi sur les importations américaines de viande de b?uf, de bovins d'engraissement et de bovins finis. À l'aide d'un modèle d’équilibre partiel, nous avons dérivé des équations de demande d'importation de bovins et de viande de b?uf de la part des États‐Unis et nous avons utilisé les tests de Bai et Perron (1998, 2003) pour déceler les ruptures structurelles multiples, dont les points de rupture ont été déterminés de façon endogène. Les résultats de notre étude montrent que l’étiquetage du pays d'origine peut avoir causé un changement structurel considérable sur les importations de bovins d'engraissement et de bovins finis.