Long-term relationship between political behavior and stock market return: new evidence from quantile regression

The stock market is an extremely sensitive and comprehensive indicator of the fluctuating political climate as well as investor confidence. Therefore, in an era of fierce media competition, the long-term influence of political behaviors on the Taiwan stock market is an important issue. However, the traditional regression model can only describe the “average” influence of variables on rate of return rather than completely describe conditional distribution as in quantile regression, which also analyzes correlations between stock return and the congressional effect.     

Effects of ethical sales behaviour,expertise, corporate reputation,and performance on relationship quality and loyalty

This analysis examines the influence of ethical sales behaviour, salesperson expertise, service performance, corporate reputation, and corporate performance on relationship quality and its consequences from multi-level perspectives in order to identify the nature of mix relationships at different levels. A survey with 505 qualified observations from financial institutions' customers in Taiwan was conducted. A structural equation modelling approach was used. Ethical sales behaviour, salesperson expertise, service performance, corporate reputation, and corporate performance, that is, the antecedents of relationship quality, have significant effects on relationship quality. Relationships exist between salespeople and customers, but customers also establish relationship with the retailers themselves. Satisfactory relationship quality has positive effects on commitment and loyalty. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

An Exploratory Content Analysis of Product Placement in Top Grossing Films

ABSTRACT

The current study examines the prevalence and characteristics of brand appearances in the top grossing films broadcast in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Hong Kong (H.K.). An average of 13 brand appearances per film was recorded and similarities and differences in brand execution features were revealed in the two cultural markets. Most of the films registered on the U.K. and H.K. top grossing lists are US production, which demonstrates that product placements are increasingly exported to other cultures. It suggests the importance of examining product placement effectiveness across cultures and provides valuable insights for brand practitioners.     

Validating innovating practice and perceptions of course management system solutions using structural equation modeling

As adopting information and communications technology to deliver instruction and facilitate learning, course management systems (CMSs) offer an alternative capability to enhance management practices. Based on innovation diffusion theory, this study explores CMS effectiveness (EF) and reliability (RL), and considers both perceived innovative attributes (IA) and demographic characteristics. This study also exams the moderating effect of complexity (CX) and mediating effect of function evaluation (FE) on the causal relationship between IA and outcome variables (i.e., EF, RL). Analysis also includes the differential effects of three types of CMSs and gender differences. Participants were 238 undergraduates, majored in business or management, who volunteered to complete an online survey. Results show that perceived IA affect RL and EF, but not FE. CX moderates the effect of perceived IA on RL, but does not moderate the effects of perceived IA on FE and EF. EF, but not FE, appears to mediate the effects of perceived IA on RL. There is no significant difference in model fit between genders, but there is among the type of CMS solution group. Conclusions and implications are offered regarding the future research for program leaders and practitioners.     

The study of behavioral intention for mobile commerce: via integrated model of TAM and TTF

Mobile commerce systems allow customers to purchase products over the Internet without using a pc. It also creates a new mobile business model and change e-commerce paradigms, having an especially significant effect on the medical and insurance industries. Furthermore, the real estate industry is increasing in the booming market, but tends to become overheated. Thus, some innovative techniques (such as mobile commerce) were adopted by estate agent to enhance their competitive advantage. Consequently, identifying the match between mobile commerce technique and individual performance is a valuable focus of research. In fact, technology acceptance model (TAM) is a well-known theory regarding the adoption of information technology (IT), but ignores the focus on evaluating IT; meanwhile, the task-technology fit (TTF) model takes a directly rational approach by assuming that users choose to use IT that provides benefits but does not consider about users’ beliefs and attitude towards IT. Therefore, this study examined an integrated model of TAM and TTF that provided additional explanatory power via structural equation modeling. Analytical results confirm that the integrated model provides greater explanatory power than either TAM or TTF alone. Furthermore, several practical implications and recommendations are also discussed below.     

Transformational leadership,trusting climate,and knowledge-exchange behaviors in Taiwan

This study follows the leadership literature in proposing that leadership behaviors can affect followers' attitudes and actions. Specifically, we propose that transformational leaders may nurture a trusting climate among organizational members and, in turn, promote employee knowledge-exchange behaviors. Surveying data from multiple respondents, we find that a trusting climate mediates the positive relationship between transformational leadership and employee knowledge-exchange behaviors among R&D workers in 122 Taiwanese enterprises. We then discuss the significance of our findings and the possible contribution to the literature of leadership and organizational climate.     

Knowledge-oriented human resource configurations,the new product development learning process,and perceived new product performance

We propose a set of organizational efforts that can help companies accumulate and learn knowledge related to new product development (NPD) activities. We call it the NPD learning process and argue that a set of coherent human resource management (HRM) practices, termed knowledge-oriented human resource (HR) configuration, can facilitate the NPD learning process. Collecting survey data from Taiwan, we find that the knowledge-oriented HR configuration is positively related to the NPD learning process and that the NPD learning process is positively related to managers' perceived new product performance. This study contributes to the literature of strategic HRM and innovation management.     

Busy Auditors,Ethical Behavior,and Discretionary Accruals Quality in Malaysia

The required professional and ethical pronouncements of accountants mean that auditors need to be competent and exercise due care and skill in the performance of their audits. In this study, we examine what happens when auditors take on more clients than they should, thus raising doubts about their ability to maintain competence and audit quality. Using 2803 observations of Malaysian companies from 2010 to 2013, we find that auditors with multiple clients are associated with lower earnings quality, proxied by total accruals and discretionary accruals. Our results demonstrate that associating client firms’ reported discretionary accruals with individual auditors, rather than their firms or offices, is important in determining audit quality. Moreover, we demonstrate that the disclosure of auditors’ signatures on their reports is useful for assessing auditor quality at the individual level, thus contributing to the debate on the usefulness of having auditor identities on reports.     

Factors affecting users’ continuance intention of mobile social network service

This study investigates the factors that influence users’ intention to continue using social network service applications (apps) on mobile devices. We drew on the uses and gratifications (U&G) paradigm and innovation diffusion theory; these were augmented with the factors that characterize mobile social network service (MSNS) usage. The proposed framework explained the relationships between these factors and the intention to continue using MSNS apps. A web-based survey was used to collect data for analysis. The results indicated that critical mass, mobility, compatibility, purposive value, and entertainment value were important drivers of users’ intention to continue using MSNS apps. The findings contribute to existing U&G paradigm, innovation diffusion theory, and MSNS usage literature. The paper closes with a discussion of useful insights relevant to researchers and practitioners in terms of developing and implementing MSNS apps that have high retention rates.     

Getting to Know You: Trust Formation in New Interfirm Relationships and the Consequences for Investments in Management Control and the Collaboration

Trust is often posited to substitute for management control in interfirm transactions. However, this raises questions of how trust arises in new relationships, and whether trust that is not based on prior experience transacting together is sufficient to persuade managers to forgo investments in management controls. We use an experiment to test whether two features of the early stage of an interfirm relationship influence a buyer's initial trust in a supplier and have consequences for subsequent investments in management controls and in the collaboration. These two features are the autonomy of the buyer's manager to choose a supplier (i.e., delegation of decision‐making authority) and the supplier's willingness to share information with the buyer. We find that the buyer manager's initial trust in the supplier is associated positively with both the autonomy to choose the supplier and the supplier's willingness to share information. Information content and supplier characteristics are held constant, so these results are novel and distinct from prior studies of the antecedents of trust. We find that higher initial trust is associated with reduced expenditures for management controls and increased investments in the collaboration. Thus, we conclude that delegation of decision‐making authority and supplier information‐sharing behavior in the early stages of a relationship influence the formation of initial trust, which has real consequences for investments in management control and in the collaboration.