Do political connections affect stock price crash risk? Firm-level evidence from China

Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in the period from 2003 to 2012, this paper empirically investigates how the presence of politically connected directors affects stock price crash risk. We thereby make a distinction between listed state-controlled firms and privately controlled firms due to their different incentives to appoint politicians as directors on the board. Our empirical results show that politically connected directors exacerbate stock price crash risk in listed state-controlled firms, an effect driven by the appointment of local government officials as directors. In contrast, hiring politicians as directors, particularly central-government-affiliated directors, helps listed privately controlled firms to reduce stock price crash risk. Finally, good quality of institutions does not help to alleviate the positive relationship between political connections and stock price crash risk in listed state-controlled firms. However, it does weaken the role of political connections in reducing crash risk in listed privately controlled firms.     

Activation and variation of the United Nation’s cluster coordination model: a comparative analysis of the Haiti and Japan disasters

The coordinated response to extreme events is critical as illustrated by recent disasters in Haiti and Japan. As a way for coordinated provision of international humanitarian assistance to disaster-hit countries, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) developed cluster coordination model (CCM). With content analysis and network analysis of OCHA situation reports, this study checked four premises regarding activation of CCM, interaction between national and international actors, roles of proximity country, and level of cluster coordination. This study found that there were meaningful variations in implementing the CCM for 2010 Haiti and 2011 Japan disasters. From the analyses, we found that the current CCM may be vulnerable to black swan disasters; thus, extensive and active estimation of national disaster management capacities should be conducted to prevent collapse of national disaster management system. However, the reconciliation of state sovereignty and international humanitarian assistance also should be considered.     

Towards a hybrid model? A systematic review of human resource management research on Chinese state-owned enterprises (1993–2017)

Abstract

Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of research on human resource management (HRM) in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as a result of the wide-reaching state-sector reform of the late 1980s. This article aims to provide a systematic review of literature on this topic and capture the nature of HRM in Chinese SOEs, both in research and practice. The article draws on 178 studies from 43 English academic journals over a period of 25?years (1993–2017). In analysing this literature and by taking stock of theoretical frameworks, research methods, themes and analysis of academic articles in this area, we have gained a number of insights. The study has found that the research methods used have shifted from qualitative and interpretive methodology toward quantitative and sophisticated modelling. A further insight is that there has been a relatively heavy reliance on institutional theory in the earlier studies reviewed, and since then a switch towards organizational behaviour perspectives. The level of analysis has moved from macro to micro level and thematic foci have become more diverse and complex. We highlight a number of avenues, theoretical and empirical, for future studies in this field.     

A penny for your thoughts: Inducing truth-telling in stated preference elicitation

Contingent valuation often induces hypothetical bias. In a laboratory experiment, we test three calibration mechanisms: cheap-talk, consequentialism, and a new mechanism, the Bayesian truth serum (“BTS”). We apply the BTS in a “faith-based” format: subjects are informed about the purpose and potential efficacy of the BTS, but not its theoretical foundations. We find that real and hypothetical responses differ significantly; real and consequentialist responses are statistically indistinguishable; cheap-talk and the BTS eliminate bias inconsistently; subject characteristics interact significantly with treatment.     

Profiling mobile TV adopters in college student populations of Korea

By profiling demographic characteristics, perceived general adoption attributes, perceived value-based adoption attributes, motivational needs, mass media use, and content interest, this exploratory study examines the nature of four categories of mobile TV adopters — current, potential, continuous non-, and discontinuous user groups. Despite the limited sample size (N = 214), there are some meaningful findings. First of all, the non-adoption rate of mobile TV of the continuous non-, and discontinuous user groups is higher than the adoption rate of the current and potential user groups. Less than half of the respondents (N = 34) who had used TV on a mobile device were unwilling to use it again in the next twelve months, and almost half of those (N = 102) did not have the intention of using it within the coming year. The results suggest that the discontinuous group seems to have been dissatisfied with the actual mobile TV use when compared with their expectations and evaluations, while the potential user group is more likely to have high expectations and positive evaluations before the adoption and use of mobile TV. All user groups were unwilling to pay the fee, despite the current and potential user groups perceiving the exceptional values. No differences were found in the personality trait of innovativeness and mass media use behaviors among the four groups.     

Promoting Giving Campaigns in University Websites: A Cross-cultural Comparison between the United States and South Korea

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to compare the ways the websites promote giving campaigns between the United States and South Korea. Furthermore, this study explored how the campaign appeals are associated with the distinct cultural values between universities in the United States and Korea. Guided by a content analysis of 200 universities in the United States and South Korea, the findings of this study demonstrated that, compared to the Korean university websites, U.S. university websites more frequently targeted university-affiliated donors, including alumni, students, parents, and so forth, and used multimedia-based exemplars about the giving campaigns.     

Dynamic network design for reverse logistics operations under uncertainty

The design of reverse logistics network has attracted growing attention with the stringent pressures from environmental and social requirements. In general, decisions about reverse logistics network configurations are made on a long-term basis and factors influencing such reverse logistics network design may also vary over time. This paper proposes dynamic location and allocation models to cope with such issues. A two-stage stochastic programming model is further developed by which a deterministic model for multiperiod reverse logistics network design can be extended to account for the uncertainties. A solution approach integrating a recently proposed sampling method with a heuristic algorithm is also proposed in this research. A numerical experiment is presented to demonstrate the significance of the developed stochastic model as well as the efficiency of the proposed solution method.     

Doing Right Leads to Doing Well: When the Type of CSR and Reputation Interact to Affect Consumer Evaluations of the Firm

This study investigates the efficacy of three corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives—sponsorship, cause-related marketing (CRM), and philanthropy—on consumer–company identification (C–C identification) and brand attitude and, in turn, consumer citizenship behaviors. CSR reputation is proposed as the moderating variable that affects the relationship between CSR initiatives, C–C identification, and brand attitude. A conceptual model that integrates the hypothesized relationships and the moderating effect of CSR reputation is used to frame the study. Using a between-subjects factorial designed experiment, the results showed that all three CSR initiatives have a significant effect on C–C identification and brand attitude. The level of that influence, however, varied according to a firm’s CSR reputation. Managerial implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Motivations and Use Context in Mobile Tourism Shopping: Applying Contingency and Task–Technology Fit Theories

Mobile tourism shopping is an emerging market, but there is little theoretically based research on the topic. This study investigates the impact of motivations (value, enjoyment, time saving and mobility) on consumer satisfaction by applying contingency and task–technology fit theories in the mobile tourism shopping context. The results show that value and enjoyment have significant effects on satisfaction. Use context is found to have a full mediating role between time saving and satisfaction as well as between mobility and satisfaction. This study offers theoretical and practical contributions to the tourism literature and mobile tourism industry. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The contextual nature of the predictive power of statistically-based quarterly earnings models

We present new empirical evidence on the contextual nature of the predictive power of five statistically-based quarterly earnings expectation models evaluated on a holdout period spanning the twelve quarters from 2000–2002. In marked contrast to extant time-series work, the random walk with drift (RWD) model provides significantly more accurate pooled, one-step-ahead quarterly earnings predictions for a sample of high-technology firms (n = 202). In similar predictive comparisons, the Griffin-Watts (GW) ARIMA model provides significantly more accurate quarterly earnings predictions for a sample of regulated firms (n = 218). Finally, the RWD and GW ARIMA models jointly dominate the other expectation models (i.e., seasonal random walk with drift, the Brown-Rozeff (BR) and Foster (F) ARIMA models) for a default sample of firms (n = 796). We provide supplementary analyses that document the: (1) increased frequency of the number of loss quarters experienced by our sample firms in the holdout period (2000–2002) vis-à-vis the identification period (1990–1999); (2) reduced levels of earnings persistence for our sample firms relative to earnings persistence factors computed by Baginski et al. (2003) during earlier time periods (1970s–1980s); (3) relative impact on the predictive ability of the five expectation models conditioned upon the extent of analyst coverage of sample firms (i.e., no coverage, moderate coverage, and extensive coverage); and (4) sensitivity of predictive performance across subsets of regulated firms with the BR ARIMA model providing the most accurate predictions for utilities (n = 87) while the RWD model is superior for financial institutions (n = 131).

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