Corporate philanthropy, attitude towards corporations, and purchase intentions: A South Korea study

This study proposes a model integrating attributions about perceived motives of corporation philanthropy (CP), attitude towards the corporations conducting CP, and subsequent purchasing intention. The model is tested in South Korea where the culture and business environment are different from that in North America. Data are collected from two different stakeholder groups of South Koreans (127 managers and 229 consumers: total sample of 356). The results based on the total sample indicate that only when corporations are perceived as conducting CP for public-serving (altruistic) motives, the CP significantly influences attitude towards the corporations. When the sample is divided into the two different stakeholder groups, non-identical patterns of relationships between motives and attitudes are observed. Managers show favorable relationships between motives and attitude, while consumers become skeptical for the reactive motive. The functional relationships between motives and attitude proposed in the model are partially supported with the South Korean data.     

Promoting cost efficiency and uniformity in parcel delivery centre locations and service areas: a GIS-based analysis

This paper provides a systematic framework to determine local delivery centre (LDC) locations and service areas to reduce delivery costs and balance the allocation of parcel delivery loads to promote sustainable LDC development. Based on a case study of a parcel distribution company in Korea, this study proposes two strategies for LDC service area delineation within each terminal service boundary that either minimises the total delivery time or balances the allocation of delivery loads. This research contributes to improving cost efficiency and balancing delivery load allocations in planning LDC locations and service areas that can potentially promote the long-term mutual sustainable development of parcel distribution companies and their local delivery counterparts.     

Measuring agricultural knowledge and adoption

Understanding the tradeoffs in improving the precision of agricultural measures through survey design is crucial. Yet, standard indicators used to determine program effectiveness may be flawed, and at a differential rate for men and women. We use a household survey from Mozambique to estimate the measurement error from male and female self‐reports of their adoption and knowledge of three practices: intercropping, mulching, and strip tillage. Despite clear differences in human and physical capital, there are no obvious differences in the knowledge, adoption, and error in self‐reporting between men and women. Having received training unanimously lowers knowledge misreports and increases adoption misreports. Other determinants of reporting error differ by gender. Misreporting is positively associated with a greater number of plots for men. Recall decay on measures of knowledge appears prominent among men but not women. Findings from regression and cost‐effectiveness analyses always favor the collection of objective measures of knowledge. Given the lowest rate of accuracy for adoption was around 80%, costlier objective adoption measures are recommended for a subsample in regions with heterogeneous farm sizes.     

Do lucky CEOs avoid innovation?

Stock options are one of the most widely used equity-based compensation mechanisms to mitigate misalignment between managers’ and shareholders’ interests. And yet, it is sometimes suspiciously used as a method of extracting shareholders’ wealth to managers (Bebchuk et al., 2009). The typical ways to do so is using opportunistic timing such as backdating, spring-loading, etc. As shown in Bebchuk et al. (2010), opportunistic timing of option grants increases the incidence of lucky grants, or stock option grants that CEOs receive when the price is abnormally low. We investigate whether lucky grants to CEOs impact firm innovations and, by extension, long-term growth. Using patent citations as a proxy variable for innovation (Kogan et al., 2017), we find that innovation decreases if CEOs received lucky grant in the previous year. The results imply that lucky grants may reduce the incentive for CEOs to invest in risky, long-term projects and negatively affect fir innovation.     

Productivity growth, technological progress, and efficiency change in chinese agriculture after rural economic reforms: A DEA approach

This study applies a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to analyze total factor productivity, technology, and efficiency changes in Chinese agricultural production from 1984 to 1993. Twenty-nine provinces in China were classified into advanced-technology and low-technology categories. The Malmquist (1953) productivity measures were decomposed into two components: technical change index and efficiency change index. The results show that total factor productivity has risen in most provinces for both technology categories during the 1984–1993 period. Technical progress was mostly attributed to Chinese agricultural productivity growth after the rural economic reforms. The deterioration in technical efficiency in many provinces indicates China has great potential to increase productivity through improved technical efficiency. Enhancing rural education and research and development (R&D) in agriculture may also help farmers to improve technical efficiency and productivity in agricultural production.     

Concentration of land holdings: An empirical exploration of Kuznets' conjecture

According to Kuznets (1963), the dynamics of the maldistribution process starts from an initial unequal income distribution, then through a cumulative effect, a high concentration of asset holdings is induced which in turn contributes to a high concentration of income. In other words, unequal income distribution tends to be self-perpetuated and unequal asset holdings is a medium of such process. The literature on rural income distribution seems to suggest a different emphasis by assigning a more crucial role to asset holdings, i.e., land, in the explanation of unequal income distribution. This study shows, via a simultaneous equation model and a multi-nation cross-sectional set of data, that both the land and income concentration ratios are positively related. Of the two rival conjectures of emphasis, the empirical evidence lends support in the general case to Kuznets, that is, over the entire range of countries, developed and less-developed, inequality in income seems to cause inequality in land holdings rather than vice-versa In the specific case of less developed countries, it is the high concentration of land holdings that influences the unequal distribution of income.     

Do Outside Directors with Government Experience Create Value?

We examine whether outside directors with government experience add value to their firms. We find that government directors are more likely to miss board meetings and that their appointment announcements are greeted more negatively. Firms with government directors also experience poorer operating performance and more negative merger announcement returns, although their mergers are less likely to be challenged by antitrust authorities. These adverse valuation effects are largely alleviated when firms have large government sales, when they operate in regulated industries, or when government directors are politically connected. Using close gubernatorial election outcomes as a natural experiment and an instrumental variables approach to control for endogeneity bias do not change the results.