The analysis of Taiwanese bank efficiency: Incorporating both external environment risk and internal risk

This study adopts a three-stage approach to estimate bank efficiency based on information obtained from 29 banks in Taiwan for the period from 2002 to 2004. In the first stage we employ super SBM (super slacks-based measure) to estimate the scores relating bank efficiency including internal risk. In the second stage a stochastic frontier regression model is then employed to estimate the external environment risk effects. In the third stage we employ the DEA method again to estimate the scores relating bank efficiency including the internal risk and excluding the external risk.     

Modeling Corporate Citizenship and Its Relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Citizenship, such as corporate citizenship and organizational citizenship, has been an important issue in business management for decades. This study proposes a research model from the perspectives of social identity and resource allocation, by examining the influence of corporate citizenship on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). In the model, OCBs are positively influenced by perceived legal citizenship and perceived ethical citizenship, while negatively influenced by perceived discretionary citizenship. Empirical testing using a survey of personnel from 18 large firms confirms most of our hypothesized effects. Theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are discussed.     

Decision-Making Process of Internal Whistleblowing Behavior in China: Empirical Evidence and Implications

In response to the lack of empirical studies examining the internal disclosure behavior in the Chinese context, this study tested a whistleblowing-decision-making process among employees in the Chinese banking industry. For would-be whistleblowers, positive affect and organizational ethical culture were hypothesized to enhance the expected efficacy of their whistleblowing intention, by providing collective norms concerning legitimate, management-sanctioned behavior. Questionnaire surveys were collected from 364 employees in 10 banks in the Hangzhou City, China. By and large, the findings supported the hypotheses. Issues of whistleblowing in the Chinese context and implications were discussed.     

Construal-level mind-sets and the perceived validity of marketing claims

Prior research shows that the repetition of unfamiliar statements increases their subjective truthfulness. The present research shows that truth ratings can also be increased without repetition. Several different manipulations of low-construal-level mind-sets increased the perceived validity of a wide variety of marketing claims across a broad spectrum of products and industries. Mismatched construals reduced this effect. The results suggest that concrete construals enhance truth ratings when consumers focus on their intuitive feelings and impressions but not when they process marketing claims analytically.     

Transformational leadership and job performance: A social identity perspective

Drawing on social identity theory, this study provides a model explaining the underlying process through which transformational leadership influences creative behavior and organizational citizenship behaviors. Individual differentiation and group identification are proposed as social identity mechanisms reflecting the characteristics of personal and collective identity orientations that underpin the differential effects of transformational leadership behaviors on performance outcomes. The model is tested with data from a sample of 250 front-line employees and their immediate managers working in five banks in the People's Republic of China. Results of hierarchical linear modeling provide support for the model whereby group-focused and individual-focused transformational leadership behaviors exert differential impacts on individual differentiation and group identification. Furthermore, individual differentiation mediates the relationship between individual-focused transformational leadership and creative behavior, whereas group identification mediates the relationships between group-focused transformational leadership and OCBs toward individuals and groups. Implications for theory and practice are discussed and future research directions are outlined.     

How to Align your Brand Stories with Your Products

The role of stories and their influence on communication have been widely discussed, yet despite recent advances, the elements that constitute a good brand story and their alignment with product types remain unclear. This study uses four between-subjects experiments to test hypotheses pertaining to the appropriate stories for both search and experience products. Authenticity, conciseness, reversal, and humor are generally useful in engaging readers, though brand story elements influence customer attitudes differently for search versus experience products. Authenticity is more important for experience than search products; conciseness has a significant influence on brand attitude only for search products; reversal is more critical to improve brand attitude for experience than search products; and humor exerts a relatively greater influence for search than for experience products. These findings provide insights for marketers who want to design brand stories that align with their products.     

Tradeoff on corporate cash holdings: a theoretical and empirical analysis

In this study, we propose an optimal cash holding model which examines the tradeoff between illiquidity and opportunity cost concerns as the benchmark to determine corporate excess cash. Through an optimization process, the optimal cash holdings suggested by our illiquidity–opportunity tradeoff model (IOT model) are endogenously determined. Different from many prior studies, the IOT model not only contains the value of cash, through market-based conception, but also adopts the modified Black–Scholes–Merton default probability of illiquidity. We then compare the IOT model with the Opler et al. (J Financ Econ 52(1):3–46, 1999) model (the OPSW model), which is a widely-used benchmark to determine excess cash, by using data for U.S. public firms from 1984 to 2014. The empirical results show that with regard to financial management the IOT model could be a better alternative to determine excess cash, even in light of different corporate characteristics and performance measures. Our conclusion suggests that while exploiting the value of marginal cash has attracted the attention of many recent studies, exploring the issue of optimal cash holdings is still important in the literature.     

Is the realized volatility good for option pricing during the recent financial crisis?

The contributions of this paper are threefold. The first contribution is the proposed logarithmic HAR (log-HAR) option-pricing model, which is more convenient compared with other option pricing models associated with realized volatility in terms of simpler estimation procedure. The second contribution is the test of the empirical implications of heterogeneous autoregressive model of the realized volatility (HAR)-type models in the S&P 500 index options market with comparison of the non-linear asymmetric GARCH option-pricing model, which is the best model in pricing options among generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic-type models. The third contribution is the empirical analysis based on options traded from July 3, 2007 to December 31, 2008, a period covering a recent financial crisis. Overall, the HAR-type models successfully predict out-of-sample option prices because they are based on realized volatilities, which are closer to the expected volatility in financial markets. However, mixed results exist between the log-HAR and the heterogeneous auto-regressive gamma models in pricing options because the former is better than the latter in times of turmoil, whereas it is worse during the rather stable periods.     

Being Good Citizens: Understanding a Mediating Mechanism of Organizational Commitment and Social Network Ties in OCBs

Given that citizenship challenges the basis and workings of the basic institutions market, state, and civil society, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) become an important moral tenet found in some codes of ethical principles. This study explores service-oriented OCBs and their determinants. Three dimensions of service-oriented OCBs (loyalty, service delivery, and participation) are hypothetically influenced by distributive justice, procedural justice, personal cooperativeness, and the need for social approval through the mediation of organizational commitment. The three dimensions of OCBs are hypothetically influenced by personal cooperativeness, need for social approval, task interdependence, and outcome interdependence through the mediation of social network ties. The model is tested using data from contact employees at several financial holding companies in Taiwan. Test results reveal that the relationships between need for social approval and organizational commitment and those between task interdependence and social network ties are insignificant, whereas all other paths are significant. This study also provides managerial implications and limitations.