Equal Dreams: The One Child Policy and the Consumption of Education in Urban China

This study explores the effect that China's one child birth policy is having on gender equality in urban areas of China, as viewed through patterns of consumption. Specifically, differential access to education by gender is examined through an analysis of the investments of urban parents in their children's education. The results of the study show that there are few important differences in the aspirations of parents for daughters versus sons. In addition, educational expenditures, including tuition, private lessons, books, and other educational products, show no significant differences by gender. These results seem to indicate that, in an important departure from a long history of unequal access to education by females in China, urban children are receiving full and equitable investments in their futures by their families, regardless of their gender. The results have important implications for the effects that public policies can have on gender equality.     

Dutch-auction IPOs: institutional development and underpricing performance

The Dutch-auction method of bringing IPOs to market has been used sparingly since its initiation in 1999 despite the potential for this method to lead to more fully-priced issues. The development of Dutch-auctioned IPOs is documented here, and institutional details are reviewed. An empirical investigation of the characteristics of these IPOs is presented. The evidence indicates smaller magnitudes of underpricing of Dutch-auctioned IPOs relative to traditional IPOs. A multi-variate analysis indicates, however, that this smaller degree of underpricing is due to factors other than the Dutch-auction process. The evidence strongly reinforces the institutional rationing hypothesis for underpricing. It also contributes to the international evidence of the failure of auctioned IPOs to avoid underpricing.     

New Firm Survival: The Effects of Start-up Characteristics

This paper empirically examines the influence of operating activities and financial and investment decisions in the start-up year on post-entry survival, taking industry effects into account. Compared to traditional financial ratios, we find that funds flow measures are superior in identifying those start-up characteristics that are related to subsequent failure. In the first year, failed firms typically generate less cash flows, incur higher labour expenses, use more trade credit and financial debt, limit inventories and are cash constrained. Surprisingly, industry effects do not have a significant impact. From these results, we draw conclusions for public policy.     

Studying processes in and around networks

The industrial marketing literature on business networks has drawn attention to the importance and yet the complexities of managing in a context of fluid and dynamic inter-organizational relationships. This context also poses significant challenges to researchers who wish to better understand the evolution of networks and the processes occurring in and around them in order to generate valuable theoretical insight and actionable knowledge for practitioners. After reviewing the nature of process research, this paper considers the key methodological choices and tradeoffs faced by process researchers interested in studying network dynamics. These choices and tradeoffs are illustrated by drawing on a series of exemplary process studies of networks derived from the entrepreneurship, strategic management, organization theory and industrial marketing literatures. The paper concludes by proposing that future studies might benefit from focusing on key network transformations and from mobilizing programmatic investments.     

Beyond Business Ethics: An Agenda for the Trustworthy Teachers and Practitioners of Business

Societies need markets, so just as trustworthy professionals are needed in fields such as healthcare, law and education, modern societies need trustworthy market managers, including corporate officers and directors. But in its screening of candidates, U.S. corporate business has lagged behind fields such as medicine and law, which in the nineteenth century addressed their need for screening by upgrading professional education and establishing licensing of individual practitioners. Corporate business, by contrast, has been too tolerant of problematic executives, particularly executives of a type shown by recent research in psychology to exhibit a set of personality traits including below average concern about bad effects of their actions on other people. Over-representation of this problematic type has cost corporate business the trust and respect it could earn by resting fully on a time-honored alternative foundation already espoused by many trustworthy teachers and practitioners of business. Society needs these trustworthy people of business to work together to establish screening of candidates for high level corporate positions by upgrading MBA education and establishing licensing for these positions. For reasons again based on current findings in psychology, screening candidates for the MBA could be significantly strengthened by requiring historical studies, particularly history of the corporate legal structure in the U.S. and history of the MBA itself. Upgrading the MBA and establishing correlated licensing could open the way toward corrections in the legal form of the corporation to bring it into line with hospitals, law courts and universities as places where responsible professionals pursue their callings on behalf of society.     

Shopping value in online auctions: Their antecedents and outcomes

Online auctions present unique characteristics in the consumer decision-making process that raise new issues related to consumer shopping behaviors in auction-based purchases. The present research examined the relationship between consumer characteristics (i.e., compulsive buying behavior, variety-seeking tendency, and price sensitivity) and shopping value (i.e., utilitarian and hedonic) in online auctions and found that both compulsive buying behavior and variety-seeking tendency are critical factors of shopping value in the online auction environment. There were no positive relationships between price sensitivity and shopping value. The results of this study also revealed that consumers’ shopping value positively influenced their preference, which, in turn, formed behavioral intentions in online auctions. While utilitarian value was found to be a significant predictor of behavioral intentions, hedonic value was not. However, hedonic value influenced intentions indirectly through preference.     

Lemonade or lemon?: Riegel-Neal and the consolidation of American banking

Riegle-Neal altered the American banking landscape by eliminating the prohibitions against banking and branching, thus paving the way for banking mergers and interstate acquisitions across state lines. The law's proponents expected that it would lead to fewer but stronger banks more able to compete with domestic, nonbanking financial institutions and with foreign banks both at home and overseas. Detractors feared that fewer but larger banks would reduce services to individuals, small businesses, farmers, and small communities or increase the cost of these services. This paper finds that fears associated with Riegle-Neal have become mute because branching networks and de novo banks filled niches created or left vacant by large banks' expansionism.     

External Relationships and the Small Business: A Review of Small Business Alliance and Network Research*

In order to thrive, small businesses are often advised to develop relationships with external organizations that have the potential to assist business development, survival, and growth. A focus on the external relationships of the small business underlines the vital importance of external resources in moving a small business toward increased success and profitability. Covering the period from 1990 to 2002, this paper reviews the small business literature as it relates to the use of these external relationships (such as organizational partnerships, networks, and alliances). In response to both academic and practitioner demand for further research in this area, an exhaustive analysis of the relevant literature was conducted and three “meta” research questions representing the connections within this literature were formed. The resource‐based view of the firm, resource dependency theory, and punctuated equilibrium theory are proposed as useful starting points for exploring these research questions and can give direction for moving forward in this research area.     

The Measurement of International Harmonisation in Financial Reporting

Several developments in the harmonisation of accounting standards are described in the accompanying article by Howieson. This article explains how harmonisation can be measured and refers to studies of the harmonisation of accounting standards and of financial reporting in practice. These studies have measured harmonisation in Europe, the US and Japan, as well as comparing accounting standards and reporting practices under Australian accounting standards (AASBs) and international accounting standards (LASS).     

Adaptive Estimation of a Conditional Density

The authors consider the problem of estimating a conditional density by a conditional kernel density estimate when the error associated with the estimate is measured by the L₁‐norm. On the basis of the combinatorial method of Devroye and Lugosi ( 1996 ), they propose a method for selecting the bandwidths adaptively and for providing a theoretical justification of the approach. They use simulated data to illustrate the finite‐sample performance of their estimator.