2015 will See Great Opportunities in Segment Market of Tablet PCs

【正】According to the latest Quarterly Report on the Chinese Tablet PC Market(Nov,2014)released by IDC,the Chinese tablet PC market will have a product delivery o...     

Corporate investment myopia: a horserace of the theories

This paper tests two theories of corporate investment myopia which predict a distortion in investment policy with respect to the standard net present value rule. The theories are confronted with the empirical evidence, allowing the theories to compete to explain investment behavior. Research and development expense is used to proxy for long-term investment in a pooled, cross-sectional time-series regression. I find that research and development expense is decreasing in the age of the Chief Executive Officer. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that agency costs are lower when the firm invests myopically, rather than follow a standard net present value rule.     

Consumer perceptions of risks of chemical and microbiological contaminants associated with food chains: a cross-national study

The development and implementation of effective systems to identify vulnerabilities in food chains to chemical and microbiological contaminants must take account of consumer priorities and preferences. The present investigation attempted to understand consumer perceptions associated with chemical and microbiological contaminants in four specific food chains (drinking water, farmed salmon, chicken and milk powder). To this end, ten focus group discussions were held in five different countries (Poland, Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Brazil). Consumers expressed higher concerns about chemical, as compared with microbial, contaminants. Chemical contaminants were more strongly associated with the potential for severe consequences, long-term effects and lack of personal control. Traceability was considered by consumers as a useful tool that offers the potential to improve consumer confidence in food safety.     

Entrenched management,capital structure changes and firm value

The relationship between managerial share ownership and the firm’s change in leverage around a security issuance is examined. We find that entrenched managers are not more likely to issue equity, however they do affect lower leverage by choosing debt issuances which are smaller and equity issuances that are larger than those chosen by managers that are not entrenched. The magnitude of the decline in leverage that occurs from before the issuance to after the issuance is positively related to managerial share ownership. In addition, this relationship is confined to only the “entrenchment” range of managerial share ownership. The market reacts negatively to an issuance announcement when managerial share ownership is high.

Exploring antecedents of customer citizenship behaviors in services

Social exchange theory explains how a party in social interaction provides the other party with reciprocal rewards. Applying this concept to the customer context, this study empirically investigates determinants of customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs) in services. For the generalizability of the study across various service providers, the data were collected based on Bowen’s (1990) classifications of services. With a total of 665 usable customer responses, structural equation modeling was adapted to test the theoretical research model. This study reveals that customers’ perceived support and justice from the service provider positively influence affective commitment toward the organization, resulting in CCBs. The results show that customers’ perception of organizational support has the partial mediation effect between customers’ perception of organizational justice and their affective commitment. Furthermore, customers’ affective commitment partially mediates the relationship between customers’ perceived organizational justice and CCBs, but fully mediates the effect of customers’ perceived organizational support on CCBs.     

Foreign competition and optimal privatization with excess burden of taxation

We examine in a mixed oligopoly setting how foreign competition and the excess burden of taxation will affect privatization policy in the presence of strategic tax/subsidy policies. We show that in the presence of excess burden of taxation with foreign competitors, output subsidy coupled with import tariff and partial privatization is adopted to improve the social welfare. However, if the excess burden of taxation is relatively large, the government may switch to use production tax coupled with tariff policy and partial privatization to improve the social welfare.