Technology and Flexibility: Enablers of Collaboration and Time‐Based Logistics Quality

Collaboration has been cited as one of the most important elements in leveraging supply chains to achieve competitive advantage. Literature in the field of collaboration tends to focus on strategic level initiatives; this research examines the benefits of implementing collaborative approaches at the logistics operations level. We find that leading strategic indicators, including technological innovativeness, technological complementarity, and flexibility are positively related to higher levels of collaboration and logistics service quality at the operational level in retail firms.     

What Drives the Relationship Between Financial Flexibility and Firm Performance: Investment Scale or Investment Efficiency? Evidence from China

Financial flexibility helps improve firm performance. By using data from Chinese listed companies, we examine whether investment scale or investment efficiency drives the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance via a special mediator testing method that is widely used in the psychology literature (Baron and Kenny, 1986). We find that financial flexibility has a significant and positive effect on both investment and firm performance. However, investment scale rather than investment efficiency seems to drive firm performance. This finding helps us understand that Chinese companies tend to emphasize investment expansion more than they do investment efficiency to improve firm performance.     

基于价格预期弹性的人民币升值分析

人民币升值是当前经济运行中的热点、重点问题,也是难点问题。由于现有的汇率决定理论对于汇率变动的解释能力十分低下,经不起实证的检验。因此,笔者试从人民币的价格预期弹性分析入手,阐明预期才是人民币升值问题的最深层次矛盾,同时为妥善解决人民币升值问题提供了有益的参考方向。     

Consistency vs Flexibility: The Impact of Employee Voice in Rule-Based and Discretionary Decision Procedures

Consistency and flexibility are desirable, but incompatible, features of decision-making procedures. A comparison of a rule-based decision procedure (maximizing consistency) with a discretionary decision procedure (maximizing flexibility) was conducted. Employee voice was predicted to interact with decision procedure in impacting fairness perceptions. Student participants (N = 128) in a 2 × 2 laboratory simulation viewed videotaped depictions of a supervisor discussing a positive drug test result with an employee. The employee was given, or not given, an opportunity to explain; the supervisor was permitted discretion in determining the consequence or was completely bound by company policy. The proposed advantages of each decision procedure were obtained under contrasting levels of employee voice. Voice was desirable when the supervisor had discretionary authority; voice was unnecessary or even detrimental when a rule-based procedure was used. No overall preference between these two decision procedures was evident.     

Is Financial Flexibility a Priced Factor in the Stock Market?

This paper develops a factor analysis–based measure for shifts in corporate financial flexibility (FFLEX) that can be observed from public accounting information. Companies that experience positive shifts in FFLEX are associated with higher future investment growth opportunities. We show that FFLEX is a robust determinant of future stock returns. Firms that have increased their financial flexibility are associated with lower stock returns in the subsequent period. A zero‐cost return portfolio produces a significant positive monthly premium of 0.69%, which is driven by covariance (risk). Risk inherent in the flexibility factor is not explained away by either prominent pricing characteristics or factors.     

供应链集中度与成本结构

企业的成本结构会影响企业通过经营实现利润的能力。企业进行成本结构决策时需要综合考虑各种经营和环境因素，其中客户和供应商集中度对于企业来说是一个关键的环境因素，但现有文献很少研究供应链集中度和公司成本结构之间的潜在关系。利用2012至2016年中国制造业上市公司的成本数据，发现制造商的客户集中度和其成本弹性之间存在正相关关系，并且随着客户议价能力提升，客户集中度高的公司的成本结构灵活性被削弱；随着供应商的集中，下游制造商的变动成本比上固定成本的比值在下降，成本刚性在加强。随着供应商行业议价能力提升，供应商集中度和下游客户成本刚性结构之间的正面关系被削弱。供应链集中度和议价能力是企业成本结构决策的决定因素。     

Is debt conservatism the solution to financial constraints? An empirical analysis of Japanese firms

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates why firms choose the conservative financing strategy known as non-positive net debt policy, which is a more recent prevalent trend among Japanese firms. The analysis reveals that Japanese firms are more likely to be financially conservative if they are smaller, older and more profitable and have fewer growth opportunities and tangibility. The survival analysis further investigates the duration of conservative debt policy and ordinary debt policy. The evidence shows that firms adopt/abandon the conservative policy with different motivations and preferences over debt conservatism. In particular, we argue that the more financially constrained firms abandon the conservative debt policy sooner than their counterparts, while less financially constrained firms abandon the ordinary (less conservative) debt policy sooner than their counterparts. The results suggest that a firm uses a conservative debt policy in terms of net leverage as a temporary buffer to mitigate financial constraints.     

Agency cost of debt overhang with optimal investment timing and size

The concept of debt overhang (that is, an equity‐maximizing levered firm will under‐invest relative to a firm‐value‐maximizing firm) is well established in the literature. A number of papers have demonstrated it as delayed investment (when investment size is specified) or smaller investment (when investment time is specified). However, there is no work on the underinvestment effect when the firm chooses both size and timing of investment, as it usually does in real life. This is what our paper focuses on. When the firm has the flexibility to choose both size and time, the effect is complicated by the fact that delayed investment results in larger investment, which suggests that the underinvestment problem might be mitigated. We find, however, that the effect depends on how underinvestment is measured. When measured by the expected present value of investment, flexibility can mitigate or exacerbate the underinvestment problem, depending on the cost of installing capacity. But when measured by the agency cost, flexibility always exacerbates the underinvestment problem. It is shown numerically that, at the optimal leverage ratio, the agency cost with plausible parameter values can be economically significant. Thus, with the flexibility of choosing both time and size of investment, the debt overhang problem can be of significant practical relevance in corporate investment decisions.     

EUROPE – HOW CAN THINGS GET BETTER?

In the 2010 Wincott Lecture, the author – a former European Commissioner – explains how the process of policy‐making within the European Union can be improved. In order to gain the full benefits of an open and integrated single market, the EU must stop interfering in areas that should properly be the responsibility of member states. However, in the context of the current economic crisis, the EU should take a greater role in financial regulation and in ensuring fiscal responsibility among members of the eurozone.     

高校行政化管理模式的弊端及柔性化激励机制构建

高校激励机制从形成到运行具有行政化倾向,存在弊端,高校管理中引进柔性管理,就必须实施以人为中心的人性化管理,建立柔性的组织方式,构建高校教师柔性化激励机制。