Empirical Study of Management Consulting Success in Korea

An integration model of factors influencing the success of management consulting (MC) projects in proposed. The model posits that client organisational characteristics, competence of consultants, and consultation mode will be correlated with MC success, measured by efficiency and effectiveness of the projects. Nine hypotheses are proposed and empirically tested using data collected from the client staffs of 119 MC projects in 60 Korean firms. Analyses of the data using the multiple regression technique moderately supports the study's model. The major findings are that both client organisational characteristics (e.g., staff's commitment, and functional heterogeneity of client staffs) and consultation mode (e.g., specifics of goals, procedural standard, methodological compatibility) have a significant impact on the success of MC, particularly on its effectiveness. However, it was found that the competence of consultants is not significantly correlated with MC success. These findings are discussed and several implications are suggested.     

The Determinant of the Hospitality Industry's Unsystematic Risk: A Comparison Between Hotel and Restaurant Firms

ABSTRACT

Unsystematic risk is accepted as an important factor in stock valuation. Despite the importance, little has been done to study the relationship of unsystematic risk to stock values in the hospitality industry. This study attempted to advance the understanding of financial variables that could be related to unsystematic risk of hospitality firms. Regression models were developed for hotel and restaurant firms, using unsystematic risk as the dependent variable and financial variables as independent variables. The major findings of this study indicate: 1) more profitable hospitality companies have less unsystematic risk, 2) reducing reliance on debt financing could reduce unsystematic risk, 3) the positive relationship between operating leverage and unsystematic risk, suggesting that decreasing operating leverage could mitigate the stock price volatility of hospitality firms, and 4) large hotel and restaurant firms have less unsystematic risk than small firms. This study should help management of hospitality firms incorporate effects of shareholder expectations into their operational decision making as an integral part of long-range financial planning.     

Dividend Payouts and Corporate Governance Quality: An Empirical Investigation

Motivated by agency theory, we investigate how a firm's overall quality of corporate governance affects its dividend policy. Using a large sample of firms with governance data from The Institutional Shareholder Services, we find that firms with stronger governance exhibit a higher propensity to pay dividends, and, similarly, dividend payers tend to pay larger dividends. The results are consistent with the notion that shareholders of firms with better governance quality are able to force managers to disgorge more cash through dividends, thereby reducing what is left for expropriation by opportunistic managers. We employ the two‐stage least squares approach to cope with possible endogeneity and still obtain consistent results. Our results are important as they show that corporate governance quality does have a palpable impact on critical corporate decisions such as dividend policy.     

Optimal reinsurance and portfolio selection: Comparison between partial and complete information models

We consider partial and complete information models to investigate how partial information has a unique quality over complete information for insurers. We find that optimal reinsurance and investment strategies for the partially informed insurer depend on prior beliefs, whereas those for the completely informed insurer do not. In addition, information quality can affect insurer behaviour, mainly through the relative difference between risk-adjusted market premium and risk-adjusted insurance premium projected on the financial markets. Numerical results indicate that partial information increases the conservativeness of insurer strategies.     

Measuring Retailers' Sustainable Development

This study aimed to develop a framework and measurement items for retailers to assess sustainability while avoiding potential subjectivity by combining top‐down and bottom‐up approaches, and verifying their validity based on consumer perceptions of sustainable retailing. The framework consisted of 54 measurement items categorized into a three‐order hierarchical model. At the top level of the model, there were three third‐order dimensions respectively related to consumers, retailers, and society. At the middle level, eight second‐order sub‐dimensions associated with retailing mix were classified into the aforementioned third‐order dimensions. At the bottom level, there were 21 first‐order sub‐dimensions related to the sustainable retailing activities. The development of sustainability assessment by combining top‐down and bottom‐up approaches and including consumer perceptions will allow retailers to assess their sustainability more strategically, as it will reduce the subjectivity and increase consumers' recognition of sustainable retailing. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Energy prices, energy conservation, and economic growth: Evidence from the postwar United States

The effects of energy prices and energy conservation on economic growth have been examined empirically for the postwar U.S. economy. A vector autoregressive model includes real GDP, real capital, labor, real energy prices, and the Divisia energy index. A key feature of our finding is that some damaging effects of energy conservation on the macroeconomy are statistically insignificant in the short run, and the insignificant short-run effects are quickly enervated over time. Alternative measures of energy use also suggest that energy conservation has no significant impact on real output growth. The findings are generally consistent with the neoclassical position that real economic growth of the United States is neutral with respect to changes in energy use. One exception is the case that energy prices are omitted from the model.     

Composition of robust equity portfolios

Robust portfolios resolve the sensitivity issue identified as a concern in implementing mean–variance analysis. Because robust approaches are not widely used in practice due to a limited understanding regarding the portfolios constructed from these methods, we present an analysis of the composition of robust equity portfolios. We find that compared to the Markowitz mean–variance formulation, robust optimization formulations form portfolios that contain a fewer number of stocks, avoid large exposure to individual stocks, have higher portfolio beta, and show low correlation between weight and beta of the stocks composing the portfolio. These properties are also found for global minimum-variance portfolios.     

CREDIT,DEFAULT, AND OPTIMAL HEALTH INSURANCE

I study how credit and default affect optimal health insurance, constructing a life-cycle model of health investment with a strategic default option on emergency room bills and financial debts. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy and used to compare the optimal policy for Medicaid by the availability of the default option and credit. I find that strategic default induces the optimal policy to be more redistributive. With (Without) the option, the optimal income threshold for Medicaid eligibility is 44% (25%) of the average income. In these findings, the interaction between strategic default and preventative medical spending is important.     

美国贸易壁垒浅析

作为世界经济与贸易大国，美国在倡导贸易投资自由化、相对开放本国市场的同时，实施一整套严格的旨在保护本国企业利益的进口管理体制和相关贸易投资措施，涉及关税、非关税措施、技术性贸易壁垒、服务贸易、知识产权等诸多领域。对美国贸易壁垒的研究有助于我辩证地把握全球化趋势，应对加入世界贸易组织的挑战，扩大机遇。