Franchising and firm financial performance among U.S. restaurants

Franchising has attracted the attention of retailing and entrepreneurship scholars in the past three decades, but evidence pertaining to how franchising affects financial performance is mixed and inconclusive. Thus, the question remains as to whether franchising firms exhibit better financial performance than non-franchising firms in the same industry. In order to find an answer to this question, our study compares the risk-adjusted financial performance of franchising versus non-franchising restaurant firms over the 1995–2008 interval, using five different performance measures: the Sharpe Ratio, the Treynor Ratio, the Jensen Index, the Sortino Ratio, and the Upside Potential Ratio. For each measure, the results revealed that franchising restaurant firms outperformed their non-franchising counterparts. Thus, we provide very robust evidence that franchising is superior on average in the restaurant industry, which can help explain the increasing popularity of franchising as a business form.     

高绩效工作系统与智力资本的关系研究

最近十几年,智力资本越来越受到学术界和企业界的重视。文章通过文献回顾发现,尽管已经有从雇佣关系和职能角度对人力资源管理与智力资本关系的研究;但是从高绩效工作系统角度进行的研究还很缺乏。而且,深入分析高绩效工作系统与智力资本各维度关系的实证研究更为鲜见。文章通过以北京、上海、广东和山西等地204家企业为样本,进行实证检验后发现:高绩效工作系统能够促成智力资本的全面发展;并且高绩效工作系统的内部匹配会对人力资本和客户资本具有显著的正向影响。     

中等职业学校班主任工作初探

班主任工作是学校工作的一个重要组成部分,是联络各科教师与学生之间的纽带,是沟通学校、家庭与社会教育的桥梁,其工作意义重大,任重道远.     

How do bankruptcy laws affect entrepreneurship development around the world?

How do bankruptcy laws as formal institutions affect entrepreneurship development around the world? Do entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws encourage more entrepreneurship development at a societal level? We posit that if bankrupt entrepreneurs are excessively punished for failure, they may give up potentially high-return but inherently high-risk opportunities to start new businesses. Amassing a cross-country database from 29 countries spanning 19 years (1990-2008), we find that lenient, entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws are significantly correlated with the level of entrepreneurship development as measured by the rate of new firm entry.     

Configuring a corporate venturing portfolio to create growth value: Within-portfolio diversity and strategic linkage

This study attempted an empirical investigation of whether and how a corporate investor can enhance future growth opportunities through corporate venturing investments (CVIs). Different from previous studies, we assessed the firm-level performance impact of a CVI portfolio with a focus on two configuration features: within-portfolio diversity and strategic linkage. Based on a longitudinal dataset of CVIs made by Taiwanese technology-based companies, we found that increasing CVI portfolio diversity and maintaining strategic linkages, particularly vertical ones, between the portfolio companies and the investing firm's core business will add value to the investing firm's future growth. Implications for CVI strategy and opportunities for future research are also discussed.     

Segmenting industrial competitive markets: An example from air freight

This paper applies a disaggregated approach to segment industrial markets under competitive structures taking the air-freight market for the high-technology product industry in Taiwan as a case study. Data from firms is used to examine the structure of the air freight industry and we find that carriers are clustered into two strategic groups, express and forwarder. Pricing is a leading strategy recognized by customers for forwarders, whereas service punctuality and freight security are the winning strategies for express. The high-tech freight market is classifiable by shipment destination and size.     

Exploring the use of travel information – identifying contextual market segmentation in Seoul, Korea

As the amount of information is rapidly growing, and ubiquitous urban environments are emerging, the question which kind of information to provide is a major challenge for commercial and public travel-information service providers alike. This paper reports the analyses of recent data, collected in Metropolitan Seoul, about the acquisition of travel information. The study applies CHAID analysis to find homogeneous segments in travel information acquisition. Findings indicate that contextual variables are crucial to explain information acquisition behaviour, depending on decision context. The implication is that both socioeconomic and contextual variables are important to better understand the acquisition (and provision) of travel information. The results have important implications for managers and policy-makers, in particular in the way they respond to dynamic, contextual market segmentation.     

数字偏好与股票收益异常——来自上海证券交易所的经验证据

本文研究股票代码对股票收益的影响。研究发现,由于数字偏好效应的存在,投资者刻意回避代码以“4”结尾的股票。在较长时间内,尾数是“4”的股票收益低于给定风险水平下的市场必要收益。但这一现象受到股市行情的影响,牛市行情时,投资者回避“4”的行为表现明显,而熊市行情时则会趋向消失。具体表现为：牛市行情下,“4”组合的资产收益小于给定风险水平下的市场必要收益,熊市行情则无此现象。本文从行为金融莹晶当磨时杖一仑蜃由市扬耳夔讲符T觎崧     

世界石油储量问题探析

储量决定声量,因而对石油储量问题的研究非常重要.与世界石油储量有关的问题有两个:一是当前的石油锗量有多少;二是未来储量会增长多少?本文认为:当前世界石油锗量为9000亿桶,未来储量增长,包括新发现的储量和现有油田的储量增长总共约专4700亿桶,二者相加.可计算出人类可以利用的石油总量还育137 00亿桶另外,人类已经生...