Seeing Through and Breaking Through: The Role of Perspective Taking in the Relationship Between Creativity and Moral Reasoning

Journal of Business Ethics - The recent wave of same-sex marriage legalization marks the most significant human rights progress in decades. Nevertheless, the valuation effects on corporate America...     

A conceptual framework for R&D strategic alliance assessment for Taiwan’s biotechnology industry

With the rapid development of technology, technology advancement is harder and harder with more and more risks in technology innovation, thus enterprises can’t carry out technology innovation program alone. The development of the emergence of the biotechnology industries provides valuable insights into the role of strategic alliances and networking that shaped the synergy between both industries. This paper provides a step by step methodology to evaluate R&D strategic alliances problem in Taiwan biotechnology Industry. The purpose of this paper is to formalize the choice of R&D strategic alliance modes for an individual multinational enterprise among Joint Venture, Franchise agreement, Licensing Agreement, Subcontract and Merger/acquisition. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The proposed approach also provides a relatively simple and well suited decision making tool for this type of strategic decision making problem. This evaluation mode was identified as a workable method.     

Timely loss recognition and termination of unprofitable projects

Ideally,firms should discontinue projects that become unprofitable.Managers,however,continue to operate such projects because of their limited employment horizo...     

An Empirical Analysis of the Stochastic Behaviour of Short-Term Interest Rates in Singapore

This paper examines the stochastic behaviour of short-term interest rates in Singapore. We consider the following models of interest-rate structure: the lognormal model, the stable Paretian model and the mean-reversion model. Data on the three-month interbank rates are analysed. The mean-reversion model with conditional heteroscedasticity appears to fit the data adequately.     

How electronic trading affects bid‐ask spreads and arbitrage efficiency between index futures and options

This paper examines the impact of switching to electronic trading on the relative pricing efficiency of Hang Sang Index futures and options contracts traded on the Hong Kong exchange. The study is motivated by the recent shift in 2000 from the pit to an electronic trading platform. Electronic trading leads to lower bid‐ask spreads and less price clustering than floor trading in both the options and futures markets. Mispricing between futures and options drops significantly after the change. Quicker correction of mispricing indicates a significant improvement in dynamic inter‐market arbitrage efficiency with electronic trading. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:375–398, 2005     

The impact of auction characteristics on prices of agricultural products traded online: evidence from cherries

This article provides an empirical study on the relationship between auction characteristics and prices using a data set on cherry sales from the online auction site Yahoo! Kimo. Using three alternative measures of the dependent variable, results indicate that reputation variables have a statistically important association with auction prices. The extent of reputation's impact on prices varies substantially depending on the model specification and estimation technique. The article highlights the effectiveness of a nonlinear specification for both measuring and interpreting the underlying reputation variables. The use of a “Buy It Now” option, size, and country of the origin is correlated with prices at statistically significant levels. Several econometric concerns regarding the empirical modeling strategy are discussed.     

The information flow and market efficiency between the U.S. and Chinese aluminum and copper futures markets

This study examines the information flow and market efficiency between the metallurgical futures markets of the United States and China over a ten‐year span from 1999 to 2009. There were structural breaks in the aluminum and copper futures price series for the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) between 2006 and 2008. The New York and Shanghai markets are cointegrated, indicating an equilibrium relationship between the two markets. Trading strategies are implemented to explore the error‐correction process. The overall results show that U.S. and Shanghai futures prices are closely related and both markets are comparably efficient on a daily basis. The U.S. market does not appear to be more efficient than the Chinese market in incorporating information into prices. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark     

Volatility and trading activity following changes in the size of futures contracts

This paper has two purposes. First, we examine the relationship between daily price volatility and trading activity one year before and after a change in contract size by examining the results of contract splits in the Australian share price index futures and the U.K. FTSE-100 futures contracts and a reverse contract split in the Australian Bank Bill Acceptance futures contract. Second, we evaluate the effect of the change in contract size on the use of the particular futures market. We find that after a contract size change, the change in total trading frequency has the power to explain the change in daily price volatility. Specifically, after a contract split, trading frequency increased, resulting in increased daily price volatility, and vice versa after a reverse contract split. Most of the average trade size variable has an immaterial impact on price volatility. However, decomposing the total trading frequency into four trade size classes, we find that the trading frequency for small and large trade size categories are highly significant in explaining changes in daily price volatility after the contract splits. Finally, we find the change in contract size for each futures market was successful because within three years following the change, the adjusted trading volume and open interest surpassed the levels prior to the change and have continued to increase thereafter.     

Analysis of Blogs and Microblogs: A Case Study of Chinese Bloggers Sharing Their Hong Kong Travel Experiences

Blogs and microblogs became popular in recent years among people who would like to share their travel experiences online. This is a phenomenon which marketers are interested in but know very little about. This exploratory study analyzes blog and microblog contents created by mainland Chinese visitors sharing their Hong Kong experiences, with the objective of gaining insights into how bloggers communicate their travel experiences and how this could help market a destination. Three hundred blog posts and 300 microblog posts are analyzed. Research results indicate a generally positive image of Hong Kong as a destination among the mainland Chinese bloggers. The study also profiles the bloggers by their usage pattern and identifies opportunities for using the social media for destination marketing purpose. While the case study is about Hong Kong, the research method and blogging patterns identified would also apply in other destination situations.     

Dollars and pounds: the impact of family income on childhood weight

This article examines the impact of family income on childhood weight status for children in the United States using matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY 79). Instrumental variable (IV) models, family Fixed Effects (FE) models and family Fixed Effects IV (FEIV) models are estimated in order to control for causality. The results suggest that although the prevalence of childhood obesity is higher in low-income families in the sample, family income might be acting primarily as a proxy for other unobserved characteristics that determine the child's weight status rather having a major direct causative role in determining the child's weight status.