Extent of managerial IT use,learning routines,and firm performance: A structural equation modeling of their relationship

Organizations increasingly rely on information technology (IT) to improve performance. Yet, there is debate about the pay-off of the IT revolution, and empirical evidence suggests that investments in IT do not guarantee enhanced performance. Drawing from accounting, marketing, management and information technology literature, this study uses structural equation modeling to assess the extent to which managerial use of IT is intertwined with control issues including learning routines (internal and external), product quality, cost improvement, customer satisfaction and firm profitability. The conceptual framework builds on knowledge- and resource-based views and return on quality perspectives. The results indicate support for the theoretical framework. Extent of managerial IT use influences internal and external learning routines that influence quality and cost improvement. Quality improvement significantly impacts customer satisfaction and cost improvement that significantly impact firm profitability. The non-hypothesized paths are not significant, indicating that learning routines, quality improvement, cost improvement and customer satisfaction are intervening variables between extent of managerial IT use and firm profitability. Further, the sample is split into two industry subgroups, durable and nondurable goods subgroups, and the two-group analysis reveals that industry moderates the relationship among the variables under study. The effects are in general more pronounced for durable goods firms.     

中国和国际林产品贸易对森林保护和人民生计的影响

分析了中国林产品进出口的总量、结构、变化、增长趋势及对相关国家和地区人民生计的影响,提出了作为进口国消费国、生产国和加工国应采取的措施。1997年到2005年间,中国林产品进口总量折合原木材积增长了两倍多,从0.40亿m3增长到1.34亿m3,进口额也翻了一番。2005年,俄罗斯、马来西亚、印尼、泰国、巴布新几内亚列中国总木质林产品进口前5名,进口额占71.6%;加拿大、印尼、俄罗斯、智利、美国列纸浆进口前5位,进口额占77.6%;美国、日本、香港、欧盟是中国林产品出口的主要目的地。中国迅速增长的林产品贸易对国际社会也有消极影响,导致不可持续采伐、非法采伐等问题,但中国只是全球产业链上的一环,来自美国、欧盟和日本的购买者和零售商也负有不可推卸的责任。中国应认清其在国际林产品贸易中的关键地位,加快其林业部门的改革步伐,推动本国的林产品生产和供给,实现可持续的林业发展。     

Foreign Institutional Investment,Ownership, and Liquidity: Real and Informational Frictions

The literature widely documents the negative liquidity impact of foreign participation in firms that permit high foreign institutional ownership. This paper employs a unique setting for the limited participation of qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) in China's A-share market and examines how this impacts on stock liquidity in emerging markets. Contrary to the findings in the literature, foreign investor participation helps enhance the liquidity of affected stocks by promoting trade activities and price discovery. The improvement in liquidity does not occur through the information friction channel, but rather the real friction channel. Our results are robust to endogeneity issue and the possible influence of the global financial crisis, industry effects and the stock exchange. Further, the liquidity improving effects of QFII are even stronger when the analysis is performed on a subsample of QFII firms.     

The effect of uncertainty on pollution abatement investments: Measuring hurdle rates for Swedish industry

We estimate hurdle rates for firms’ investments in pollution abatement technology, using ex post data. The method is based on a structural option value model where the future price of polluting fuel is the major source of uncertainty facing the firm. The empirical procedure is illustrated using a panel of firms from the Swedish pulp and paper industry, and the energy and heating sector, and their sulfur dioxide emissions over the period 2000–2003. The results indicate that hurdle rates of investment vary from 2.7 to 3.1 in the pulp and paper industry and from 3.4 to 3.6 in the energy and heating sector depending on econometric specification.     

Interorganizational cost management in the exchange process

This paper explores interorganizational cost management (IOCM) practices in the exchange process. IOCM can be defined as buyers’ and suppliers’ coordinated efforts to reduce costs. Past research has primarily argued that such practices depend on component characteristics, relationship characteristics, and characteristics of the transaction. Based on a study of three buyer–supplier relationships, this article also finds variations in IOCM practices between six main activities in the exchange process. In this process, the supplier's management accounting is found to be more important than recognized by prior research. The deepest collaboration around IOCM issues and the greatest joint use of suppliers’ management accounting in the three cases typically occurs in earlier activities in the exchange process, including supplier selection, joint product design and joint manufacturing process development. In later activities in the process, during full-speed production as well as in product and manufacturing process redesign, suppliers’ managerial accounting plays a lesser role in our study.     

Coping with risk: analysis on the importance of integrating social perceptions on flood risk into management mechanisms – the case of the municipality of Águeda,Portugal

The paper reflects on how populations prone to flood risk perceive such hazards and the way this perception has or has not been incorporated into the measures and mechanisms of flood risk management. The frequent occurrence of flooding, as well as the population's vulnerability and exposure to this risk, shows that the municipality of Águeda is a paradigmatic case for analysis of these issues. Similar to the rest of the country, the municipality of Águeda has been neglecting the multidimensional nature of flood risk. The data collected present some disparity between the proposals and technical perspectives regarding the management and mitigation of flood risk and the perception of local populations. In addition, neither knowledge of social perception of flood risk nor of the local communities is being integrated in a substantial and pro‐active way, whether in the processes of policy‐making or in the implementation of these policies. Empirical evidence equally shows that there is a clear tendency towards acceptance and coping with flood risk by the population in the municipality of Águeda. This seems to be connected to the local populations' recognition that though it is impossible to eliminate risk, there are at the same time advantages to occupying the floodplains.     

Innovation in services – how different from manufacturing?

Using standardised firm data a comparative analysis of the determinants of product and process innovation in manufacturing and services is performed. Results show that in services there are significant differences in innovation behaviour, in terms of intramural and extramural R&D. It is also found that size matters less in services than in manufacturing. Although youth has a positive effect in both cases, young service firms are more likely than young manufacturing of being pioneer innovators. The results reveal the importance of learning by doing in service process innovations, as young service firms are less likely to introduce process innovations.     

Caring for her: the influence of presumed influence on female consumers’ attitudes towards advertising featuring gender-stereotyped portrayals

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how presumed influence on others affects women's evaluations of advertising featuring gender stereotypes. Previous research has largely overlooked the social context of the reactions to gender stereotypes. Addressing that gap, this study draws on the influence of presumed influence model to proposed that female consumers believe that other women are negatively affected by advertising that contains gender-stereotyped portrayals. This perception is hypothesized to influence ad and brand attitudes as consumers ‘punish’ the brand for hurting others. The results of two experimental studies featuring stereotyped and non-stereotyped advertising portrayals indicate that the hypothesis holds for two types of stereotype components (physical characteristics and role behaviour). This new theoretical perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising, one that helps to explain why many women dislike gender stereotypes in advertising even though those stereotypes often have limited impact on them personally.     

FDI,taxes and agglomeration economies in the EU15

This article provides an empirical analysis of the impact of tax differentials and agglomeration economies on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The article departs from most previous work on FDI and tax competition in a number of ways. First, it incorporates several measures of agglomeration in order to investigate whether agglomeration economies mitigate the downward spiral in tax rates. As the strength of agglomeration economies may vary with the degree of integration, we use a panel of bilateral FDI flows for a highly integrated region including countries with similar economic structure – the EU15 – from 1986 to 2004. Second, the empirical analysis explicitly deals with the problem of selection bias by using the Heckman sample selection approach. Also, by focusing on the EU15, we are able to provide additional information on the determinants of FDI between similar, higher-income countries. The empirical analysis provides some evidence of corporate marginal effective tax rates having an impact on FDI. This result, however, is sensitive to the inclusion of agglomeration economies. In particular, we find both Marshall types of technological externalities and overall concentration of economic activity to have an influence on FDI flows and, moreover, mitigating the negative impact of taxes.