Decoding network dynamics

Business networks are fluid, yet decoding network dynamics provides a number of methodological challenges. This research illustrates how, by using a technology-bundled business net, the temporal fluidity of the network boundary and the associated processes and events that affect this can be understood. Abductive logic is applied in combination with the concepts of network positions and roles to analyze these processes and events. Empirical observations from a case study embedded in the optical recording media industry spanning the period 2001–2008 are used to illustrate the network dynamics resulting from technological change that drive the evolution of the focal net. The case illustrates that in order to decode network dynamics, a number of aspects need to be considered: how the network boundary is delimited, process, time, events and the conceptual lenses that can provide a basis for analyzing change.     

Does corporate image really enhance consumer’s behavioural intentions?

This study determines that cognitive image and affective image have various mediation roles between the environmental marketing strategy and behavioural intentions. By utilizing an online survey for data collection, a total of 280 complete responses were obtained. The results reveal that the different corporate images perceived by customers would result in various behavioural intentions. In particular, Cognitive image plays a mediating role between environmental marketing strategy and the revisit intension while environmental marketing strategy benefits the willingness to pay a premium through cognitive image.     

Developing an effective industrial cluster from strawberry farms： A case of Dahu Township in Taiwan

Dahu, a small township in northern Taiwan, is famous for its produce of strawberries. Near Dahu, there are some attractions, such as hot springs, native Taiwanese tribes and a national park named Shei-pa. In order to better support more small businesses in this area, the local government is eager to promote an industrial cluster of agriculture and tourism based on the well-developed strawberry farms. In this research, the authors investigated 200 strawberry farmers to examine forming factors of the cluster, and effects of cluster on organizational performance. The findings are firstly, capital resource is regarded as the most effective forming factor of the cluster. Secondly, institutionalization, interaction mechanism and knowledge flow positively intermediate the clustering effects on organizational performance. These findings have important implications for the local government and the businesses as well.     

论我国石油产业战略性贸易政策的实施

我国石油产业迫切需要战略性干预。考察战略性贸易政策应从经典的局部均衡前提假设转移到一般均衡的视野下进行。所有旨在促进我国石油产业发展和提升其国际竞争力的战略性贸易政策,都应立足于国家经济安全与整体国民福利的提高。选择战略性贸易政策工具,应充分考虑到石油产业竞争力的提高对其他诸多相关产业的正负面综合影响、政策组合因素,以及中国石油产业现行市场结构和现状、WTO议定书框架等其他约束条件。     

Service-driven social community and its relation to well-being

This study aims to develop a conceptual framework pertaining to a service-driven social community and its relation to customer well-being. This paper draws on motivations and self-determination theory to expand an existing empowerment framework for a better understanding of how a service provider, which aims at transforming its service offerings to achieve business sustainability, supports for his/her customers’ needs in value co-creation in the beginning and over the course of time, which subsequently drive their active engagement in co-creation. The framework reinforces the transformative role of a service to establish a social community to satisfy customers’ psychological needs for competence, autonomy and a sense of relatedness. The satisfaction will drive the community to form a collective commitment to shared goals and intercustomer support, which subsequently perpetuates community members’ positive experiences of living well. This is accomplished through a case study drawn from the cTaipei platform, where service providers interact with their networks and customers to co-create values in developing a creative Taipei city. This paper contributes to this practice by providing a roadmap for services and customers to be benefited from the proposed service-driven social community framework.     

Public Housing,School Segregation,and Children’s Education: Evidence from Hong Kong

Evidence in the literature shows that public-housing residents move less frequently than others. This tendency may restrict school choice for children from public-housing families and lead to school segregation and lower educational outcomes for those children. Our empirical findings from Hong Kong show three strands of evidence that support this hypothesis. (1) Children from public-housing families are more likely to drop out of school after compulsory education. The result is robust after controlling for family background and a series of parental characteristics. (2) Public-housing families with school-age children are less likely to move than their private-housing counterparts. (3) Children from public-housing families are more likely to study in local community schools, which are located on the outskirts of Hong Kong and are of lower education quality. These findings have important policy implications for the public-housing programs such as those which have been implemented in Mainland China since 2011.     

Being good or being known: corporate governance,media coverage,and earnings announcements

Based on a sample of banking firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, we examine the impact of corporate governance and media coverage on the market reaction to unexpected earnings announcements. This study finds that positive media reports prior to bad earnings announcements have a positive short-term impact on the market's response to unexpected negative earnings, but the impact is reversed in the long term. In contrast, a better corporate governance quality has a persistent positive impact on market's reaction to unexpected negative earnings, especially when the quality of corporate governance is measured by pledge ratios. The study finding provides one central implication for managements: Yes, being good would pay off.     

Service-based capacity strategy for manufacturing service duopoly of differentiated prices and lognormal random demand

Globalization of production has ushered in vibrant manufacturing service industries whose business is to serve the production needs of product engineering firms. In these engineering–manufacturing chains, risk of capacity supply is an important concern for product firms as manufacturers are normally conservative in capacity expansion, especially when demand uncertainty and investment risk are high. To provide quality manufacturing services, this risk must be taken into consideration in formulating a capacity strategy. This paper presents a competition analysis method based on supply risk for a manufacturing duopoly of differentiated prices and lognormal random demand. A novel service-based demand rationing rule is first proposed. Reaction curves and equilibrium of capacity strategy are next derived. Finally, competition behavior of the duopoly is analyzed.     

Economic Growth and International Trade: The Case of Hong Kong

This paper estimates the major factors of growth of Hong Kong using a fairly new approach, which allows the direct inclusion of the factors of growth in the growth equation to be estimated. The growth factors that are found to be important for Hong Kong are physical capital accumulation, (negative) growth of unskilled workers, education, technology spillover (from foreign countries) through retained import of capital goods and inward direct investment, and learning‐by‐doing through import and domestic manufacturing production. The results strongly suggest that other than primary factor accumulation, education, trade, and foreign direct investment have contributed a lot to the growth of the economy.     

The boundaries of firms as information barriers

When contracts are incomplete, the property‐rights theory of firms suggests that ownership of physical assets provides better outside options, which in turn strengthen the owner's incentives to invest in the enterprise. This approach is less suitable for human capital firms such as management consulting that lack physical assets. This article develops an alternative theory for integration that sheds light on the boundaries of human capital firms. In particular, when a relationship between parties includes large potential externalities, reducing the outside option of each party will be beneficial. Integration provides this reduction by blurring the contribution of individual parties within the firm, and thus lowering their independent market valuation. Unlike some results in the property‐rights literature, the results here are robust to variations in ex post bargaining solution.