China's Generation Y's Expectation on Outbound Group Package Tour

This paper aims to identify China's Generation Y's (Gen Y) preference toward joining group package tour (GPT) when traveling abroad and explore their expectations on a number of service attributes. Six service attribute dimensions were identified through factor analysis, including: group leader/local guide(s), optional tour and shopping arrangement, safety, cleanness, and comfortableness, accommodation, activities, and shopping length and frequency. This study confirmed the importance of group leader/local guide(s) with a special emphasis on their honesty. It is found that current group and non-group travelers of Gen Y shared similar expectations on six service feature dimensions, while having different expectations on four service attributes: food hygiene, tour leader's emergency handle ability, Chinese food offering, and park as attraction choice. Results also showed that potential group travelers had higher concern over the factor of group leader/local guide(s) than non-group travelers.     

A Structural Model to Examine How Destination Image,Attitude, and Motivation Affect the Future Behavior of Tourists

This study examines a behavioral model of wetlands tourism using variables of destination image, attitude, motivation, satisfaction and future behavior for tourists at Cigu, Sihcao and Haomeiliao in southwestern Taiwan. Empirical results indicate that destination image directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects future behavior. Tourist attitude directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects future behavior, while tourist motivation directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects future behavior. Tourist satisfaction had a significant influence on future behavior, and satisfaction proved a significant mediating variable within this behavioral model.     

An overview of Internet-based surveys in hospitality and tourism journals

Survey research has reached an era when the Internet is commonly used as a research tool in different fields of study. Yet, the use of this method in tourism and hospitality research has not been fully explored. This study provides a state-of-the-art assessment of journal publications in the past ten years to reveal how the Internet has been incorporated into tourism and hospitality research. Various aspects of online research in tourism and hospitality are identified via reviewing relevant articles retrieved from the EBSCOhost.     

Rainbow trend options: valuation and applications

Asset selection and timing decisions are major investment concerns. To resolve these issues simultaneously, a new class of rainbow trend options is proposed. The diversification effect of rainbow options can reduce the importance of asset selection decisions and trend options can mitigate unfavorable effects on market entry and exit decisions. We consider a general framework to facilitate the derivation of analytic pricing formulas for simple, pure, and Asian rainbow trend options using the martingale pricing method. The properties of these options and their Greeks are analyzed. We also investigate the performance of the dynamic delta hedging strategy for issuers of rainbow trend options. Last, this paper explores the applications of rainbow trend options for hedging price risks, designing executive stock options, modifying countercyclical capital buffer proposed by Basel Committee, and acting as control variates of the Monte Carlo simulation.     

Corporate governance in the 2007–2008 financial crisis: Evidence from financial institutions worldwide

This paper investigates the influence of corporate governance on financial firms' performance during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Using a unique dataset of 296 financial firms from 30 countries that were at the center of the crisis, we find that firms with more independent boards and higher institutional ownership experienced worse stock returns during the crisis period. Further exploration suggests that this is because (1) firms with higher institutional ownership took more risk prior to the crisis, which resulted in larger shareholder losses during the crisis period, and (2) firms with more independent boards raised more equity capital during the crisis, which led to a wealth transfer from existing shareholders to debtholders. Overall, our findings add to the literature by examining the corporate governance determinants of financial firms' performance during the 2007–2008 crisis.     

Determinants of information technology investments: The case of ATM in an emerging economy

This paper examines the determinants of automatic teller machine (ATM), a kind of information technology (IT), in the Taiwanese banking industry. The lessons learned from Taiwan's banking industry can be applied to China's banking industry to facilitate the understanding of the IT adoption strategies of Chinese financial institutions. Factors that are expected to have impact on IT investment in general and on ATM investment in particular are identified from three perspectives, namely operating scale perspective, deposit service perspective, and operating cost perspective. The results of this study indicate that operating scale, banking deposit service and operating cost are all significant determinants of ATM investment in the Taiwan banking industry. The results are useful for those banks and financial institutions outside of China in deciding their ATM investment strategies in China when trying to enter and penetrate the Chinese banking market.     

More communication is not always better? The interplay between effective communication and interpersonal conflict in influencing satisfaction

Effective communication on a personal level plays an important role in developing a long-term buyer–seller relationship, but the process of interpersonal communication may be conflictual. Drawing on the interaction approach, the present study investigates the interplay between effective communication and interpersonal conflict in influencing satisfaction and argues that a high level of effective communication not only diminishes the negative impact of relationship conflict on satisfaction, but also suppresses the positive impact of task conflict on satisfaction. Surveying data from 298 procurement professionals revealed that as the level of effective communication increases, the negative impacts of relationship conflict on satisfaction decrease, but the positive impacts of task conflict on satisfaction also decrease. Therefore, effective communication is found to be beneficial for improving purchasers' perceived satisfaction, but the timing of the task conflict, along with the low levels of relationship conflict, is a critical factor to affect the efficiency of effective communication.     

Government ownership,corporate governance and tax aggressiveness: evidence from China

This study investigates how government ownership and corporate governance influence a firm's tax aggressiveness. Using Chinese listed companies during 2003–2009, we find that compared with government‐controlled firms, non‐government‐controlled firms pursue a more aggressive tax strategy. In particular, non‐government‐controlled firms with a higher percentage of the board shareholdings and with a CEO who also serves as the board chairman are more aggressive. For government‐controlled firms, we find that board shareholding has an impact on tax aggressiveness and it does not differ between local and central government‐controlled firms. However, local government‐controlled firms in less developed regions where the implementation of corporate governance measures is generally less effective are more tax aggressive than those in other regions.     

Modelling Accounting Populations for Ratio Estimation in Audit Sampling

The classical ratio estimator is one of the auxiliary information estimators frequently discussed in the audit sampling literature. The major weakness of this estimator is its unreliability when accounting populations have only one-sided errors or when the error rate is low. Efforts have been made to improve the classical estimator by using techniques such as the Jackknifed ratio discussed by Frost and Tamura (1982). This paper proposes a new method to estimate the population total error based on the ratio of error over book value, i.e., taintings.

The special features of the proposed procedure are that (1) it specifically models the special characteristics of the typical accounting populations, and (2) it is the first study we know of in the audit sampling literature that uses simulation to capture the characteristics of the specific distribution of the estimator each time a confidence interval is constructed. This new approach became possible because of the recent publication of several studies on the empirical characteristics of accounting errors. Results of empirical tests indicate that the proposed method can significantly improve the reliability of the classical ratio under circumstances where the classical ratio needs improvements. Empirical comparisons are also made with a third ratio estimator under dollar-unit sampling. Again, the proposed method provides better reliability.     

IMPACT OF DIVIDEND‐PROTECTED EMPLOYEE STOCK OPTIONS ON PAYOUT POLICIES: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN

Abstract. This study used a sample of 1035 Taiwanese firms to examine the impact of dividend protected employee stock options on stock repurchase and cash dividend policies from 2000 to 2005. This study finds a positive relationship between cash dividends and executive options, implying that executives holding stock options might prefer to distribute cash dividends to boost the stock price. This result, unlike in earlier studies, arises from the dividend protected characteristic of Taiwanese employee stock options. Finally, free cash flow, firm profitability, level of debt, investment opportunities and firm size are found to considerably influence payout decisions.