Vertical Relationships in the Automotive Industry: Do They Matter?

In this note we examine how vertical relationships are related to the efficiency of the operations in the automotive production chain. We first provide an overview of the nature of supplier arrangements by comparing current practices in the countries Japan, US, and Germany. Current best practices show that vertical linkages in the automotive industry have shifted away from simple market transactions and now involve closer long-term interactions coupled however with subtle incentive elements. We outline the economic issues which are present in vertical relationships and include a brief account of differing theoretical perspectives. Then, we use a refined methodology to measure productivity at the industry level for the supplier industries automotive parts and metalworking and for the final assembly industry. It turns out that Japanese industries achieve the highest productivity level at the supplier and at the assembly level. We interpret the empirical results and relate the differences in vertical arrangemen s with the efficiency of both parts in the relation.     

Moral and Ethical Antecedents of Attitude Toward Counterfeit Luxury Products: Evidence from Pakistan

Counterfeiting a universal problem is influencing marketers and consumers across the world. Despite its severity, earlier researchers have not paid much attention to it especially in the perspective of moral and ethical aspects. Researchers generally have established the influence of ethical/moral aspects along with social-personal factors on attitude toward counterfeiting luxury products (CLPs). They have not entirely explored the influence of moral aspects on CLPs. Thus, the aim of this study is to ascertain the influence of ethical issues on attitude toward CLPs in the context of theory of planned behavior and theory of reasoned action.     

社会信用与企业韧性——基于社会信用体系改革试点的准自然实验

在当前全球经济环境不稳定的背景下,如何增强企业韧性是所有企业都要面临的重要问题。文章基于 2007-2021年我国 A股上市公司的平衡面板数据。测度了企业韧性水平,并以城市社会信用体系改革试点作为一项准自然实验,运用多时点 DID模型实证检验了社会信用对企业韧性的影响。结果表明:社会信用提升能够显著增强企业韧性:社会信用主要通过提高城市人力资本水平、降低企业交易成本和提升企业劳动生产率三个机制来增强企业韧性。异质性分析发现:社会信用对企业韧性的增强作用在内部治理水平较低企业、非国有企业、市场化程度较低地区中的效果更大。文章为研究企业韧性的影响因素提供了新的视角,对如何增强企业韧性、实现企业高质量发展具有一定的启示。     

在建设和谐文化中努力构建和谐企业文化

构建和谐的企业文化,既是企业发展的迫切需要,也是当前建设和谐文化的必然要求。以和谐文化促进企业和谐,实现又好又快发展,不仅关系到企业自身,而且关系到整个社会的和谐发展。文章通过对企业和谐文化建设的意义、建设的途径、应处理好的几个关系等问题的分析,论述了在建设和谐文化中如何建设和谐企业文化这一课题。     

Perceived human resource system strength and employee reactions toward change: Revisiting human resource's remit as change agent

Although scholars have highlighted human resource's (HR's) important role as a change agent, we know little about the extent to which HR influences the change context to foster positive employee responses and support organizational changes. This study positions perceived HR system strength as an important internal context factor that influences employees' reactions toward change. Drawing on emotion theory and social exchange theory, we analyze the mechanisms through which employees' perceptions of HR system strength lead to positive employee responses to organizational change. Data from 704 employees in a UK police force showed that employees' perceptions of HR system strength were positively related to their ability to cope with organizational change and that this relationship was simultaneously mediated by state positive affect and perceived organizational support. Moreover, our findings demonstrated that coping with organizational change was positively related to employees' change‐supportive behavior. This study is important because it broadens the remit of HR's role as change agent and provides valuable insight into how HR positively influences employee outcomes during organizational change.     

丝绸之路经济带金融合作：进展、前景与策略

自丝绸之路经济带提出以来,加强区域金融合作已成为中国与中亚国家对话协作的重要议题。中国与中亚国家不仅具有地理毗邻、资源互补、贸易频繁与协商顺畅等优势,而且拥有强烈的金融合作愿望与需求。目前,中国与中亚国家之间的金融合作已取得了丰硕成果,但是也存在一些潜在挑战。对此,中国与中亚国家需要不断改善金融合作外部环境、完善金融基础设施建设、推进人民币结算与构建区域性金融市场,为丝绸之路经济带金融合作创造良好条件。     

Independent and joint effects of audit partner tenure and non-audit fees on audit quality

We examine the individual and joint effects of auditors’ non-audit services (NAS)/abnormal NAS fees and length of audit partner tenure on audit quality. Our results raise questions about the ‘one size fits all’ approach imposed by the current audit partner rotation requirement in Australia as a result of (1) a learning differentiation that we observe between Big 4 and non-Big 4 auditors and (2) higher discretionary accruals associated with non-Big 4 auditors. We find abnormal NAS fees to have a positive association with both absolute and positive (income-increasing) values of discretionary accruals for firms with short audit partner tenure. NAS/abnormal NAS fees are also negatively associated with the issuance of going concern opinions to financially distressed firms when partner tenure is short. In terms of policy implications, regulators are able to gauge the efficacy of the CLERP 9 reforms which currently impose a five year mandatory audit partner rotation requirement.     

Corporate social responsibility and provision of trade credit

In this article, we identify and examine three different views of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the relationship between CSR and firms’ provision of trade credit. The trust view of CSR argues that CSR and trade credit provision are related positively, because CSR, as a trust-enhancing device, complements the incomplete contract nature of trade credit. The CSR literature shows that CSR firms tend to have higher cash holdings. With this in mind, the precautionary motive view of CSR suggests that cash holdings serve as a hedge against trade credit risk, while, on the other hand, the substitution view of CSR predicts that cash hoarding discourages the provision of trade credit. Using a dataset of 20,591 firm-year observations from 1991 to 2015, we find strong evidence that supports both the trust and substitution views of CSR but not the precautionary view of CSR.     

Coherent forecasting for count time series using Box–Jenkins's AR(p) model

During the last three decades, integer‐valued autoregressive process of order p [or INAR(p)] based on different operators have been proposed as a natural, intuitive and maybe efficient model for integer‐valued time‐series data. However, this literature is surprisingly mute on the usefulness of the standard AR(p) process, which is otherwise meant for continuous‐valued time‐series data. In this paper, we attempt to explore the usefulness of the standard AR(p) model for obtaining coherent forecasting from integer‐valued time series. First, some advantages of this standard Box–Jenkins's type AR(p) process are discussed. We then carry out our some simulation experiments, which show the adequacy of the proposed method over the available alternatives. Our simulation results indicate that even when samples are generated from INAR(p) process, Box–Jenkins's model performs as good as the INAR(p) processes especially with respect to mean forecast. Two real data sets have been employed to study the expediency of the standard AR(p) model for integer‐valued time‐series data.     

Spatial clustering of time series via mixture of autoregressions models and Markov random fields

Time series data arise in many medical and biological imaging scenarios. In such images, a time series is obtained at each of a large number of spatially dependent data units. It is interesting to organize these data into model‐based clusters. A two‐stage procedure is proposed. In stage 1, a mixture of autoregressions (MoAR) model is used to marginally cluster the data. The MoAR model is fitted using maximum marginal likelihood (MMaL) estimation via a minorization–maximization (MM) algorithm. In stage 2, a Markov random field (MRF) model induces a spatial structure onto the stage 1 clustering. The MRF model is fitted using maximum pseudolikelihood (MPL) estimation via an MM algorithm. Both the MMaL and MPL estimators are proved to be consistent. Numerical properties are established for both MM algorithms. A simulation study demonstrates the performance of the two‐stage procedure. An application to the segmentation of a zebrafish brain calcium image is presented.