The Effects of Social Information Cues Featured in SNS Ads on Unfamiliar Product Adoption

This study tests the effects of social information cues on ad responses and consumer decision making processes in the domain of unfamiliar product adoption. The findings show that participants having a huge size of the social network are particularly responsive to social information cues featured in the ads, showing an inverted U-shape pattern of purchasing intentions as the number of prior product purchasers increased. Findings suggest targeting and marketing strategies on social network service platforms.     

Subsidies and agricultural productivity in the EU

This paper investigates the relationship between EU agricultural subsidies and agricultural labor productivity growth by estimating a conditional convergence growth model. We use more representative subsidy indicators and a wider coverage (panel data from 213 EU regions over the period 2004–2014) than have been used before. We find that, on average, EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies increase agricultural labor productivity growth, but this aggregate effect hides important heterogeneity of effects of different types of subsidies. The positive effect on productivity comes from decoupled subsidies, that is, Pillar I decoupled payments and some Pillar II payments. Coupled Pillar I subsidies have the opposite effect: they slow down productivity growth.     

Extending Expectancy Violations Theory to Multiplayer Online Games: The Structure and Effects of Expectations on Attitude Toward the Advertising,Attitude Toward the Brand,and Purchase Intent

This study identified the underlying structure and the dimensional properties of multiplayer online game (MOG) expectations by adopting expectancy violations theory (EVT) and examined its effects on attitudes and behavioral intention for in-game ads. We found a multi-dimensional structure for MOG expectations consisting of three factors. While each of the expectation factors significantly predicted attitudes toward the advertising, no specific factor predicted purchase intent or brand attitude. Attitudes toward the advertising partially mediated the effects of MOG expectations (centrality, socialness, and features) on brand attitudes and fully mediated the effect of socialness on purchase intent. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

The role of corporate governance strength in crisis and non-crisis times

This study evaluates corporate governance practices of listed firms in the United Arab Emirates and investigates whether corporate governance mitigates/exacerbates the impact of leverage and risk on firm performance during crisis and non-crisis times. The study constructs a corporate governance index not only to examine the dispute of the role of corporate governance during the crisis but also its influence on other factors that fuelled the crisis. A firm-level panel data is used that spans the period 2008–2012 of all listed firms on Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM). The study finds a positive influence of corporate governance strength on the accounting performance, but a negative influence on the firms’ economic performance. In normal times, corporate governance mitigates the negative influence of leverage and risk on the accounting and economic firm performance. However, this synergy effect varies across performance indicators during crisis.     

IS FULL EFFICIENCY ACHIEVABLE? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY IN TAIWAN

This paper aims to propose a feasible framework for estimating the efficiency of input factors for banks and the adjustment of these factors necessary to achieve full efficiency in the short and long term. Based on a sample of 39 Taiwanese banks during 1999–2011, the framework recommends a scheme along with a set of adjustments empirically that allow the banks to not only achieve full efficiency but also save 10.3% of the total costs in the short term and 8.8% in the long term. This scheme amounts to short‐term and long‐term savings of NT$3.6 billion and NT$3.1 billion, respectively. (JEL C23, D24, G21)     

Predicting Recurrent Financial Distresses with Autocorrelation Structure: An Empirical Analysis from an Emerging Market

The dynamic logit model (DLM) with autocorrelation structure (Liang and Zeger Biometrika 73:13–22, 1986) is proposed as a model for predicting recurrent financial distresses. This model has been applied in many examples to analyze repeated binary data due to its simplicity in computation and formulation. We illustrate the proposed model using three different panel datasets of Taiwan industrial firms. These datasets are based on the well-known predictors in Altman (J Financ 23:589–609, 1968), Campbell et al. (J Financ 62:2899–2939, 2008), and Shumway (J Bus 74:101–124, 2001). To account for the correlations among the observations from the same firm, we consider two different autocorrelation structures: exchangeable and first-order autoregressive (AR1). The prediction models including the DLM with independent structure, the DLM with exchangeable structure, and the DLM with AR1 structure are separately applied to each of these datasets. Using an expanding rolling window approach, the empirical results show that for each of the three datasets, the DLM with AR1 structure yields the most accurate firm-by-firm financial-distress probabilities in out-of-sample analysis among the three models. Thus, it is a useful alternative for studying credit losses in portfolios.     

Effects of product quality certification on quality perceptions of stores' own brands

Retail stores' own brands offer an alternative to national brands, but a perception of inferior quality deters potential purchasers. This study investigates the role of third-party quality certification labels in overcoming that weakness. Data collected from 268 mall shoppers in Taiwan revealed for two distinct household products that quality certification significantly enhanced perceptions of the quality of the store brands and had relatively little influence on the perceived quality of the national brands. Managerial implications are discussed, and fruitful directions for future research suggested.     

Flying on the clouds: how mobile applications enhance impulsive buying of low cost carriers

Service Business - The goal of this research is to determine how design credibility, functional benefit, hedonic shopping value, and visual appeal affect impulse buying; the model and hypotheses...     

Putting forth marketing competencies strength with collaborating partners in the hotel industry

The research objectives of the study investigated how the service advantage, competencies of sales and marketing influenced marketing team performance via joint decision making. Research questionnaires were mailed to the director of the sales and marketing departments, and the participants were surveyed during a 4-month period, of the 650 questionnaires sent, 169 responses were received. Collaborating with partners will increase the relationship boundaries, joint decision making is an important mediating factor among competencies and performance, and the director of sales and marketing has the responsibility to develop consistent processes; furthermore, a hotel needs to be innovative to be the leading performer, competency is essential for making strategic decisions such as mutual cost management and efficiency improvement problems in the collaborating relationship; the director of sales and marketing must keep abreast of the hotel’s production and technological developments.     

Distributed Fascinating Knowledge Over an Online Travel Community

The research goal of this study was to investigate how website design quality and website service quality affect participation behavior in the online travel community by moderating tacit knowledge and commitment. The design of the questionnaire linked it to the invitation message on the three travel communities, of which 235 were returned completed. The finding of the study shows that an online travel community that allows quick manipulation capabilities is likely to attract its members. To succeed, online travel communities have to rethink the way in which they embrace a new art of dialog and collaboration with their members. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.