The effect of reducing risk and improving personal motivation on the adoption of knowledge repository system

The role of Knowledge Repository Systems (KRSs) is to provide the exchanging intermediaries of explicit knowledge between knowledge contributors and knowledge seekers to assist knowledge sharing of employees in the organization. However, there is still a lack of deep understanding of how to reduce perceived risk and improve personal motivation on the adoption of KRSs in previous research. The paper presents social-psychological-technical perspectives to integrate social factors of reduced perceived risk (trust and organizational support) into Motivation Model (MM) and develop a comprehensive framework for assessing and analyzing the interaction of technology with the social, psychological, and behavioral aspects in KRSs. The proposed framework is validated with 528 respondents from teaching hospitals located in Taiwan, which shows that social factors of reduced perceived risk, personal motivation factors, and technology quality factors are three key factors affecting the acceptance of the KRSs. In other words, technological, social, psychological aspects will affect simultaneously behavioral intention in KRSs. Moreover, the psychological aspects are important mediators among technological, social, and behavioral aspects. The findings may be used as theoretical base for future research and offer empirical foresight to managers of organizations in assessing and evaluating the performance of the KRSs.     

The relationship between institutional ownership and casino firm performance

This study examined the relationship between institutional ownership and firm performance in the casino industry from 1999–2003. Given the evidence of the endogeneity of institutional ownership in the casino industry, institutional ownership was found to be a significant and positive determinant of casino firm performance as measured by a proxy for Tobin's Q in a simultaneous equations system. This study reveals that investing institutionally in casino firms may help casino industry investors mitigate the agency problem caused by the separation of management from ownership. In addition, financial institutions tend to invest in larger casino firms with lower financial leverage.     

论东亚各国资本移动自由化的影响——资本移动自由化的文献综述

亚洲各国的资本移动自由化开始于20世纪80年代后期至90年代之间。历经90年代后期的金融危机,亚洲各国的资本移动情况各不相同。以韩国为例,亚洲危机之后,外资流入股市的比例激增;另一方面,流入印尼和菲律宾的外资则多为外债的借入,投入股市及直接投资的比例几无成长。在中国,以其独特的外资管制政策抑制投入股市的总额之外,90年代后期起,更快速的开放国外直接投资的资本进入。文章拟就有关国际资本移动自由化既存的研究作简单回顾,同时考察亚洲各国对外资管制多样化的各种重要论述。     

Immigration and inequality: Analysis of Mainland Chinese spouses during the early stages of their time in Taiwan

In this study on Mainland Chinese women in Taiwan, I examined the effect of immigration-related disruption on the assimilation of these women into the Taiwanese labour market during 2005–2015. Accordingly, I used a unique dataset obtained by linking three administrative registers to measure the assimilation process. In addition, I employed the nearest-neighbour matching estimator to assess heterogeneous effects on each Mainland Chinese woman. The results indicated narrowing immigrant–native gaps in labour supply (full-time employment rates) and real monthly insured wages for their first traceable job in favour of Mainland Chinese women. In general, I found that Mainland Chinese women assimilated into the Taiwanese workforce at levels comparable with those of Taiwanese women.     

Group heterogeneity and the economic effect of farmer organisation participation: Empirical evidence from Taiwan

We explore the effects of different farmer organisations on smallholder farmers' economic performance. The average treatment effect of switching between different farmer organisations is examined. In addition, based on the premise that a higher level of social capital is accumulated through participation in multiple farmer organisations, we also investigate how the economic consequences of farmer organisation membership vary with the intensity of participation. Our conceptual model explicitly includes social capital to provide a micro-foundation and a theoretical justification for the linkage between farmer organisation participation and the economic outcome. This indicates that participating in different types of farmer organisations is beneficial for farm households only when the returns from social capital investment outweigh the time cost of participation. Our empirical results suggest that membership of farmer organisations that are more homogeneous in terms of member specialty and similarity in production and marketing activities results in a significant increase in farm sales revenue and net returns. This result supports the view that technological proximity accentuates knowledge spillovers within the farmer organisations, and thus leads to better economic outcomes. In line with the prediction of the theoretical model, the average treatment effect of participation is found to increase with the number of organisations that farmers belong to. Moreover, results from the quantile regression provide empirical evidence supporting increasing returns to social capital accumulated through participation in several farmer organisations.     

Price Rigidity and Vacancy Rates: The Framing Effect on Rental Housing Markets

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper proposes a new explanation for housing rent price rigidity. When high inflation or low inflation occurs, the bargaining process for new...     

Modeling diffusion of multi-generational LCD TVs while considering generation-specific price effects and consumer behaviors

An effective diffusion model characterized by the technology-induced function diversification and cost reductions can be developed to reflect whether competition exists among multiple generations of technology and to interpret how price reductions stimulate consumption. New technology can enhance the production skill levels of LCD TV manufacturing, enabling successive generation of LCD TV to become larger-sized than the previous generation, reducing the overall cost in manufacturing process and resulting in the price reduction of LCD TVs. However, previous diffusive predictions of LCD TVs using conventional multi-generational models ignore the price effect on market potentials and generational substitutions, so a novel generation-specific multi-generational model for the first time incorporating heterogeneous price elasticity and consumer behaviors across various LCD TV sizes is constructed in this work. This study applies nonlinear least square method to simulate the parameters of our modified model and further compares the accuracy between our modified model and the existing models. Analytical results indicate that price reduction strongly correlates with LCD TV sales, implying that price reductions increase the market potential of each LCD TV generation. Our modified model performs superior to the conventional multi-generational model in terms of predicting future shipment orbits of 26-, 42-, and 46-in. LCD TVs.     

Nursing staff intentions to continuously use a blended e-learning system from an integrative perspective

The blended e-learning system (BELS), combining face-to-face classes with e-learning modules, is now widely used in education. The primary purpose of this research was to investigate the factors affecting nurses’ behavioral intentions of using the BELS. We synthesized the technology acceptance model, the information system (IS) success model, and perceived enjoyment (PE) into a hypothesized model to discuss and predict nurses’ intentions of using the BELS continuously. Self-reporting questionnaires were distributed to district hospitals and regional hospitals in central Taiwan. From the 800 distributed questionnaires, we received 557 completed questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 69.6%. Structural equation modeling was used to show that information quality, system quality, and service quality significantly affect perceived usefulness (PU) and the perceived ease of use (PEOU). The effect of service quality on PU, however, was not significant. PU, PEOU, and PE were significantly related to the attitude, and indirectly, to the behavioral intention of using the BELS. This research contributed to the literature by (1) identifying the IS success model (information quality, system quality, and service quality) and PE as antecedents of BELS usage; (2) advancing the theoretical development of behavioral intention regarding nurses’ use of the BELS; (3) providing empirical support for the effects of external factors on the PU and PEOU, which lead to attitude and behavioral intention of usage; and (4) providing hospital managers with a reference for assessing future developments and approaches to promote the BELS.     

Risk and regret aversions on optimal bank interest margin under capital regulation

This paper examines the bank's optimal loan rate (and thus the bank's interest margin) under more stringent capital regulation when the bank is not only risk-averse but also regret-averse. Risk-averse preferences are characterized by an option-based utility function that includes disutility from the dislike of bank equity risk. Regret-averse preferences feature an option-based utility function that includes disutility from having chosen ex-post suboptimal alternatives. We show that an increase in bank capital requirement results in an increased margin under risk aversion dominating regret aversion, whereas it results in a reduced margin under regret aversion dominating risk aversion. The former holds when risk aversion domination stems from increasing risk-averse preference, but not from decreasing regret-averse preference, while the latter holds when regret aversion domination results from either decreasing risk-averse or increasing regret-averse preference. Risk aversion, as such, makes the bank more prudent and less prone to risk-taking, while regret aversion, as such, makes the bank less prudent and more prone to risk-taking.