Software copyright infringement among college students

In recent years, the issue of infringement in the software industry has gained international attention as the demand for software continues to grow. The growing presence of unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted products inhibits full potential growth and discourages creative activity. This study analyses the extent of software copyright infringement among college students and attitudes of these students with regard to risk of apprehension and conviction. This study finds a significantly higher likelihood of infringement for computer majors and male students, and a decrease in the likelihood of infringement for older students. This study also uncovers differences in attitudes toward risk of apprehension and conviction between majors in scientific fields and those in business and economics. Whereas the first group of majors appears to exhibit risky behaviour, the latter tends to be more risk averse.     

Knowledge-oriented human resource configurations,the new product development learning process,and perceived new product performance

We propose a set of organizational efforts that can help companies accumulate and learn knowledge related to new product development (NPD) activities. We call it the NPD learning process and argue that a set of coherent human resource management (HRM) practices, termed knowledge-oriented human resource (HR) configuration, can facilitate the NPD learning process. Collecting survey data from Taiwan, we find that the knowledge-oriented HR configuration is positively related to the NPD learning process and that the NPD learning process is positively related to managers' perceived new product performance. This study contributes to the literature of strategic HRM and innovation management.     

Fewer Fish for Higher Profits? Price Response and Economic Incentives in Global Tuna Fisheries Management

This paper evaluates industry-wide economic incentives arising from changes in product prices in an industry exploiting a common renewable resource (tropical tunas) that is regulated via output limits. Changes in prices alter economic incentives by affecting revenues, profits, conservation, and nonmarket public benefits. Economic incentives in industries exploiting common resources have been examined from multiple angles. However, industry level variation in market prices arising from changes in public regulation has not been explored. We analyse the impact on economic incentives due to changes in output limits and market prices through estimation of ex-vessel price and scale flexibilities for imported skipjack and yellowfin in Thailand’s cannery market. The unitary scale flexibility, estimated from the General Synthetic Inverse Demand Systems, indicates no loss in revenue and even potential profit increases resulting from lower harvest levels that could arise from lower catch limits. However, for a revenue neutral or positive outcome to be achieved, the three inter-governmental tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations, which manage the majority of the yellowfin and skipjack tuna in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, would have to coordinate multilaterally to set the catch limits for both species.     

An application of Lotka–Volterra model to Taiwan's transition from 200 mm to 300 mm silicon wafers

In this paper, we explore the innovation growth of 200 mm and 300 mm silicon wafers from Taiwan. Using the historic data, we simulate the growth of the area of 200 mm and 300 mm silicon wafers manufactured in Taiwan by the competitive Lotka–Volterra model. The parameters in the Lotka–Volterra model estimated with the realistic data are obtained numerically. The dynamic growth of competitive relationship between 200 mm silicon wafers and 300 mm silicon wafers is then analyzed. To prove the performance of the model, we further compare the famous Bass model and the Lotka–Volterra model. We also perform the equilibrium analysis to determine the long-term stability state in the simulation trajectory. Our research exhibits that 200 mm silicon wafers and 300 mm silicon wafers show a prey–predator relationship under the assumption of natural competition in the global semiconductor market. From a managerial perspective, the coefficients in the Lotka–Volterra model of exponential growth, self-interaction and cross-interaction represent the strength of product attractiveness, niche capacity and interaction for two competition products. We also find that there exists a stable equilibrium state for 200 mm silicon wafers and 300 mm silicon wafers. The prey 200 mm generation does not disappear completely; it finally settles to a constant market alongside the predator 300 mm generation.     

Financial intermediary's choice of borrowing

This research investigates several dynamic stochastic models of a bank's management problem of the term structures of its assets and liabilities. A bank can either eliminate most of its interest risk with appropriate options, or it can utilize its expertise in its core business and seek extraordinary profits. This research concerns a bank with the latter goal. In this model, the bank seeks to maximize the expected present value of dividend issued subject to the Federal Reserve's regulatory constraint and liquidity constraint. With this model, we find that if the available deposits are not too high and the level of liquid assets is high enough, then it is optimal for a bank to accept all of the available deposits. However, if the level of liquid assets is too low, then a bank should not issue a dividend or to accept any deposits. The properties are still valid even if the bank is not risk neutral.     

Toward Sustainable Livelihoods: Investigating the Drivers of Purchase Behavior for Green Products

Green consumption involves comprehensive concerns that address the broad scope of sustainability, ecosystem balance, profit‐generation and people. Identifying the factors that influence consumers' purchase behavior enables manufacturers to understand consumers' decision‐making processes and can help them develop more environmentally beneficial products. However, scholars have recently found that a gap exists between environmental concern and consumers' actual purchase behavior. The purpose of this paper is to use cognitive behavior theory to investigate the drivers of green consumption behavior and the missing link in the concern–behavior gap. After collecting 375 valid questionnaires, this study validated the proposed conceptual model using structural equation modeling. The revised model indicates that environmental involvement, informational utility, green advertising skepticism and green trust are antecedent variables of consumer attitudes toward green products. Additionally, this study also provides a possible explanation of and remedies for the concern–behavior gap. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Day-of-the-week effect in the Taiwan foreign exchange market

This study uses stochastic dominance with and without risk-free assets to examine whether trading days can affect patterns of the day-of-the-week effect in the Taiwan foreign exchange market. Our results generally indicate that higher returns appear on the first three days of the week across different trading-day regimes in the Taiwan foreign exchange market, confirming day-of-the-week effect. Allocating part of investors’ assets in risk-free assets is useful in distinguishing returns among weekdays for all currencies.     

Surprises,sentiments, and the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates

Between 2005 and 2009, we document evident time-varying credit risk price discovery between the equity and credit default swap (CDS) markets for 174 US non-financial investment-grade firms. We test the economic significance of a simple portfolio strategy that utilizes fluctuation in CDS spreads as a trading signal to set stock positions, conditional on the CDS price discovery status of the reference entities. We show that a conditional portfolio strategy which updates the list of CDS-influenced firms over time, yields a substantively larger realized return net of transaction cost over the unconditional strategy. Furthermore, the conditional strategy’s Sharpe ratio outperforms a series of benchmark portfolios over the same trading period, including buy-and-hold, momentum and dividend yield strategies.     

Targeting Teaching Lecture Capture Learning: Do Students Perform Better Compared to Face‐to‐Face Classes?

Online learning has become more prevalent in colleges and universities as new technology is introduced. One such technology is lecture capture, which allows a live lecture to be recorded and packaged with classroom media and delivered online to many more students than a traditional face‐to‐face class. This article studies the selection process and educational outcome differences between students enrolled in a lecture capture and a face‐to‐face course in economic principles. Students could select either course format, both with the same instructor and course requirements, without capacity restrictions. We find that students’ attitudes toward online learning are the chief determinant of their choice of class over demographics, opportunity cost measures, or past online experiences. Additionally, our findings suggest that lecture capture students perform as well as those who take a face‐to‐face course when not accounting for self‐selection. When selection is taken into account, lecture capture is not significantly worse than face‐to‐face.     

INTEREST RATE HEDGING: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES

For hedging, financial and agricultural futures contracts differ in their usefulness. This paper presents a new hedging approach uniquely appropriate to financial futures that better fits the typical hedging situation confronted by those wishing to hedge interest rate risk. The superiority of this new hedging strategy is demonstrated empirically by comparing the strategy with several other methods currently in use.