Is the liberalization policy effective on improving bivariate cointegration of current accounts, foreign exchange, stock prices? Further evidence from Asian markets

This paper fist examines three set of bivariate cointegrations between any two of current accounts, stock markets, and currency exchange markets in 10 Asian countries. Furthermore, this work examined the effect of country characters on this bivariate cointegration. Our findings suggest that for three sets of cointegration test, each sample country at least exists one cointegration. India consistently exhibited a bi-directional causal relationship between any two of three indicators. Unlike Pan et al. (Int Rev Econ Financ 16:503–520, 2007 and Phylaktis and Ravazzolo (J Int Money Financ 24:1031–1053, 2005), this study found that such cointegration is influenced by three characteristics: capital control; flexibility in foreign exchange rates; and the ratio of trade to GDP. These characteristics are the result of liberalization in each Asian country. This implies that liberalization policies are effective on improving the cointegration between any two of financial markets and current account for 10 Asian countries.     

Integration of the Kano and QFD model in health food development: using black beans as examples

This study applied the Kano two-dimensional quality model and quality function deployment (QFD) to develop the black bean’s reputation as a health food and identify quality attributes of consumers’ needs in order to effectively control the attributes. This study first conducted a literature review and summarized the product’s quality attributes and then carried out expert interviews to determine health food quality attributes and consumer need quality attributes. A questionnaire survey was conducted to discuss which quality attributes of black beans consumers perceived to be important when they were presented as a health food and classify their answers using the quality attributes in the Kano model in order to effectively control consumers’ needs. Consumers’ demand for quality attributes was transformed into a technique of product quality development. In a matrix of the two constructs, quality classification of health food in the Kano model and order of consumers’ satisfaction with eating types of health food products, quality factors were transformed into technical specifications of product development for QFD and the construction of the first-stage of the House of Quality matrix. The results serve as references for companies to effectively distribute resources and establish strategies of product development, enhance product quality and consumer satisfaction, reduce product development time, and increase the success rate of products in the market. The results contribute to the health food enterprises are not only can make profit of product but also meet customers’ need.     

A comparative study of the determinants of future plans and expectations of business students

Current university juniors and seniors have plans and expectations for after they graduate. In an effort to better understand these plans and expectations, the authors assessed a sample of 334 university students enrolled in business classes. The study examined the impact of three categories of independent variables—family influences, demographic influences, and academic influences—on the dependent variables of student degree aspirations, career aspirations, and expected salaries. Determinant variables with the most consistent influences on these dependent variables include birth order and parents' income (family influences); age and ethnicity (demographic influences); and grade point average, college entrance exam scores, and academic major (academic influences).     

A novel interval-valued fuzzy MCDM method for improving airlines’ service quality in Chinese cross-strait airlines

This paper presents an effective approach based on combining VIKOR, GRA, and interval-valued fuzzy sets to evaluate service quality of Chinese cross-strait passenger airlines via customer surveys. The proposed approach can enable decision-makers to understand the gaps between alternatives and aspired levels. An empirical study is used to establish a complete service quality evaluation framework for reducing the gaps to achieve the aspired level. Based on the gaps in priorities, it can help an airline to identify its own strengths and weaknesses in specific areas of passenger service to further improve service quality.     

Customer Equity Models for Mainland China and Taiwan's Economy Hotels

The economy hotel industry in Mainland China has grown rapidly in the last 20 years. At the same time, Taiwan has aggressively marketed development for the last five years. This work develops a customer equity model for economy hotels and compares model differences for Mainland China and Taiwan. In total, 297 completed questionnaires were collected in Mainland China and 318 in Taiwan. Model testing was conducted through structural equation modeling (SEM). Analytical results reveal that travelers focused more on relationship equity and brand equity in Mainland China, while travelers in Taiwan focused on value equity and brand equity, and that strengthening these will strengthen customer equity. Finally, implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Sovereign wealth fund investment and the return-to-risk performance of target firms

This paper investigates the relationship between sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investment and the return-to-risk performance of target firms. Specifically, we find that target firm raw returns decline following SWF investment. Though risk also declines following SWF investment, we find that SWF investment is associated with a reduction in the compensation of risk over the 5 years following acquisition. Firm volatility decomposition suggests that idiosyncratic risk is what mainly drives these impacts toward decline. Employing a multinomial logit framework wherein combinations of target returns and risk movements are categorized, we see that, in cases of foreign investment, SWFs’ target firm performance most closely resembles that of other government-owned firms. The observed results are inconsistent with predictions of higher volatility and improved returns due to monitoring firm activities from the institutional investor literature. This suggests that SWFs may not provide some of the benefits that are offered by other institutional investors.     

The Importance of Hotel Employee Service Attitude and the Satisfaction of International Tourists

Although there have been numerous studies dealing with service attitude and customer satisfaction, they have not specifically addressed international hotel customers. Moreover, most of them have discussed the subject from the viewpoint of the employee. This study takes a customer perception approach and emphasises critical factors (elements) of service attitude affecting the satisfaction of international tourists. It has been found that the importance of employee attitudes to service and the level of satisfaction with the service vary significantly among customers of different nationalities. For example, American travellers emphasise elements such as employees being able to solve their problems, and so are dissatisfied with the service when employees lack an adequate command of English. Taiwanese customers stress the importance of employees treating customers politely regardless of their attire. They feel that they are treated unfairly because of employee expectations of tips from well-dressed customers. These findings could furnish managers with useful information for planning marketing and personnel training.     

Implied deterministic volatility functions: An empirical test for Euribor options

This study proposes the implied deterministic volatility function (IDVF) for the volatility as the function of moneyness and time in the Heath, Jarrow, and Morton (1992) model to price and hedge Euribor options across moneyness and maturities from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2005. The IDVF models are extended to two‐ and three‐factor models, indicating that they are potential candidates for interest rate risk management. Based on the criteria of in‐sample fitting, prediction, and hedging, it is found that two‐factor IDVF models provide the best in‐sample and prediction performance, whereas three‐factor IDVF models yield the best results for hedging. Correctly specified multifactor models with the volatility as the function of moneyness and time can replace inappropriate onefactor models. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 29:319–347, 2009