The Effects of Four Dimensions of Strategic Orientation on Firm Innovativeness and Performance in Emerging Market Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises

We investigate the effects of technology, entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations on firm innovativeness, and the mediating effect of firm innovativeness on these relationships, using a survey of 374 small- and medium-size enterprises in Korea. The results reveal that, while technology, entrepreneurial, and learning orientations significantly influence firm innovativeness, firm innovativeness has a significant effect on firm performance. We also find that firm innovativeness has a statistically significant mediating role in the relationships of technology, entrepreneurial, and learning orientations to firm performance. Our study contributes to strategic management and emerging market literature by identifying the pivotal role of innovativeness for firms that seek to benefit from various types of strategic orientations.     

The Underpricing and Excess Returns of Initial Public Offerings in Taiwan Based on Noisy Trading: A Stochastic Frontier Model

Initial public offerings (IPOs) are typically offered at prices lower than the transaction price in the early aftermarket. With a stochastic frontier model, we measured the fair offer price of an IPO and then the deliberate IPO underpricing and the market misvaluation based on the estimated fair offer price. Our results show that IPOs are deliberately underpriced. The extent of noisy trading leading to significantly higher market transaction prices explains the excess IPO returns. We conclude that initial IPO returns result primarily from the noisy trading activities instead of the deliberate IPO underpricing.     

The Psychological Contract in Employment in Vietnam: Preliminary Empirical Evidence from an Economy in Transition

The psychological contract is defined as a set of mutual and promissory obligations perceived by employees and employers in their employment relationship. Although this concept had been extensively researched in the West, little empirical evidence in other contexts was available. This study operationalized the concept of psychological contract in Vietnam, an economy in transition. From a sample of 220 questionnaires of employees and their corresponding human resource managers, it found some distinct features of the psychological contract. Furthermore, this articles confirmed the congruence in the perceptions of employees and employers about contract obligations and fulfilments.     

Slack-based directional distance function in the presence of bad outputs: theory and application to Vietnamese banking

In this paper we extend the slack-based directional distance function introduced by Färe and Grosskopf (Eur J Oper Res 200(1):320–322, 2010) to measure efficiency in the presence of bad outputs and illustrate it through an application on data of Vietnamese commercial banks. We also compare results from the slack-based directional distance function relative to the directional distance function, the enhanced hyperbolic efficiency measure (Färe et al. in Rev Econ Stat 71(1):90–98, 1989) and the Farrell-type technical efficiency and confirm that it has greater discriminative power.     

Perceptions of the ethicality of favors at work in Asia: An 11-society assessment

We explore macro-level factors that shape perceptions of the ethicality of favors in Asian workplaces using the subordinate influence ethics (SIE) measure. We also expand and use the crossvergence model to examine the cross-level relationship between socio-cultural (i.e., traditional/secular; survival/self-expression; in-group favoritism) and business ideology influences (i.e., human development level, control of corruption) on perceptions of favor-seeking at work. This study examines the perceptions of a total of 4,325 managers and professionals in a diverse set of 11 Asian societies: China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Our investigation focuses on both the “softer” (image management) and “harder” (self-serving) sides of subordinate influence attempts to seek favors, as well as the degree of ethical differentiation across these societies. Key results based on hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) suggest that both the World Value Survey’s socio-cultural values as well as in-group favoritism contribute to our understanding of influence behaviors in Asia. Likewise, level of human development and control of corruption also appear to be promising predictors of influence ethics. In sum, our results suggest that widening the scope of the crossvergence conceptualization of socio-cultural and business ideology influences engender a better understanding of differences in attitudes toward subordinate use of favoritism across Asian societies.     

The influence of experiential marketing and activity involvement on the loyalty intentions of wine tourists in Taiwan

This study assesses a behavioural model that uses latent variables of experience of experiential marketing, activity involvement, satisfaction and loyalty intentions of wine tourists in Taiwan. A total of 871 usable questionnaires were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model analysis were performed using LISREL 8.70 for Windows. Analytical results, which further elucidate the behavioural models of wine tourism, suggest that experience of experiential marketing, activity involvement and satisfaction significantly affect the loyalty intentions of wine tourists. Satisfaction played a mediating role in the behavioural model. This study provides further insight into the behavioural modelling of wine tourism.     

The influence of recreation experiences on environmentally responsible behavior: the case of Liuqiu Island,Taiwan

Scientific understanding of the relationships between recreation experience and environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) of nature-based tourists is limited. To address this research gap, this study examines the relationship between recreation experiences (i.e. education, experiential engagement, esthetics, and escapism) and the general and site-specific ERB of tourists on Liuqiu Island in Taiwan. In total, 443 usable questionnaires were collected. The empirical results indicate that general ERB is positively and significantly affected by experiential engagement and the escapism of recreation experiences. The site-specific ERB of tourists is positively and significantly affected by the education, esthetics, and escapism of the recreation experience. We conclude that when people participate in the types of nature-based tourism described here, their recreation experiences can strengthen their sense of engagement in general and site-specific ERB, and contribute constructively to positive aspects of sustainable tourism. The management implications presented in this paper provide valuable insights for sustainable tourism. We suggest that recreation managers at nature-based tourism destinations collaborate to plan and implement recreational activities that are integrated with environmental education initiatives. This approach will encourage tourists to simultaneously engage in high-quality recreation experiences and ERB.     

Brand-as-Person versus Brand-as-User: An Anthropomorphic Issue in Tourism-related Self-Congruity Studies

Tourism self-congruity studies use two facets to personify destinations, namely, brand-as-person and brand-as-user. These features have been considered synonymous in previous research, and thus the differences between these facets, which may demonstrate biased congruity, must be investigated. This study uses projective techniques to personify brand-as-person and brand-as-user for two tourist destinations. Both facets are distinct and must not be used interchangeably in tourism-related self-congruity studies.     

Persistence in Portuguese mutual fund performance

Recent evidence suggests that future performance is predictable from past performance, that is, funds with superior (inferior) performance in the past are likely to remain good (bad) performers in the future. This research addresses the persistence of mutual fund performance in a European regional market (the Portuguese equity fund market). Some of the problems in evaluating fund persistence are identified in the context of limited sample size and using the peer group median as a benchmark for contingency table analysis of performance persistence. The criteria for assessing performance persistence based on the contingency table methodology of repeated winners and losers are presented in terms of significance statistics, adjusted for small sample bias. The adjustments are accomplished through the Yates continuity correction and Fisher's exact p-value. The appropriateness of each criteria under different circumstances is also discussed. The analysis of the returns of all Portuguese domestic equity funds, since a representative number was established, shows some performance persistence (on a quarterly basis). The persistence, however, is reduced when the returns are controlled for the various dimensions of risk. Significant risk persistence has been documented. Furthermore, for more or less frequent intervals of measurement, the industry persistence is rejected, although individual funds exhibit superior/inferior performance.     

Modelling Accounting Populations for Ratio Estimation in Audit Sampling

The classical ratio estimator is one of the auxiliary information estimators frequently discussed in the audit sampling literature. The major weakness of this estimator is its unreliability when accounting populations have only one-sided errors or when the error rate is low. Efforts have been made to improve the classical estimator by using techniques such as the Jackknifed ratio discussed by Frost and Tamura (1982). This paper proposes a new method to estimate the population total error based on the ratio of error over book value, i.e., taintings.

The special features of the proposed procedure are that (1) it specifically models the special characteristics of the typical accounting populations, and (2) it is the first study we know of in the audit sampling literature that uses simulation to capture the characteristics of the specific distribution of the estimator each time a confidence interval is constructed. This new approach became possible because of the recent publication of several studies on the empirical characteristics of accounting errors. Results of empirical tests indicate that the proposed method can significantly improve the reliability of the classical ratio under circumstances where the classical ratio needs improvements. Empirical comparisons are also made with a third ratio estimator under dollar-unit sampling. Again, the proposed method provides better reliability.