The Impact of Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance on Real Options Exercise: Potential for Suboptimal Time Delays and Value Destruction

Real options (RO) valuation has been promoted as a way to evaluate investment opportunities and make investment decisions that takes into account the value of managerial flexibility in the face of uncertainty. Although RO enjoys a substantial body of literature considering its application and suitability in different situations, the impact of national culture on the application of RO has received little attention. Values embedded in national culture affect the behavior of managers. In particular, these values play a role in how managers frame information, communicate, and make decisions, directly and indirectly affecting behavior through cultural layers such as organizational culture. National culture, therefore, can systematically affect the application of RO, potentially leading to suboptimal outcomes. In this article, we hypothesize how 2 particularly relevant dimensions of culture, power distance and uncertainty avoidance, affect RO exercise, and estimate the magnitude suboptimality of these effects using a model we develop for the case of a put option. Our estimates suggest RO may not always be a superior valuation approach to net present value for national cultures with certain characteristics.     

The role of innovation in venture capital: empirical evidence from European Union and EFTA countries

This article investigates the effects of innovation attempts on the venture capital and investment activity in the cases of the selected European Union plus European Free Trade Agreement countries using annual panel data and by controlling for real income growth and business sophistication. Our findings suggest that innovation has positively significant effects on venture capital in the cases without opt-out countries (United Kingdom and Denmark); however, these effects become negative in the cases with opt-out countries. Policy implications are provided in the conclusion section of this study.     

关于企业成本管理的探讨

成本管理是预算管理和绩效管理的前提,企业需要正确地将成本进行分类、计量和归集。恰当的成本管理制度可以帮助企业提升运营效率和业务绩效,同时企业的流程改善、突破和优化与成本管理密不可分。另外,管理者需要令客户对产品和服务满意,并且有效控制各项成本。企业成本管理不是单纯地降低成本,而是通过利用成本分析工具,有效地管理和规划资源,进而提高总体运营效率,保证企业总体绩效的持续改善。论文通过成本计算制度的制定方法和业务流程改善分析技术两方面对成本管控进行探讨。     

External pressure or internal culture? An innovation diffusion theory account of small retail businesses’ social media use

COVID-19 put unprecedented external pressure on small businesses to adopt or increase use of social media while not all small businesses are internally ready for this rapid change. This study investigated the roles of external pressures and organizational culture of openness and learning in driving small retail business owners'/managers' social media use decisions by impacting their perceived usefulness and barriers, based on the innovation-decision process model from the diffusion of innovations theory and the theory of reasoned action. An online survey with structured measurements was administered to 411 U.S. small retail business owners/managers. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that external pressures positively influenced small business owners'/managers’ perceived usefulness and barriers and social media use intention. In addition, the culture of openness and learning positively influenced the perceived usefulness while mitigating the perceived barriers, thereby directly and indirectly influencing the social media use intention. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

A truly global crisis? Evidence from contagion dependence across international REIT markets

This study examines the global nature of the recent crisis under bivariate Markov-switching models for pre- and post-crisis periods using the breakpoint of August 9, 2007. It quantifies international synchronization of boom-bust regime switches to investigate contagion-type dynamic comovements of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Global REIT markets display persistent bust regimes from September 2008 to May 2009, whereas the regime-switching patterns are not significant in the pre-crisis period. The results provide new evidence for global REIT contagion phenomena and suggest greater difficulties in diversifying risks across global REIT markets during the post-crisis period.     

期权型资源配置对企业竞争优势的影响

旨在打开资源基础观中组织黑箱，丰富资源配置研究成果，探讨在新竞争时代何种资源配置方式能更有效地促进企业创新特别是探索式创新，从而建立或强化企业竞争优势。通过梳理西方最新研究成果，基于我国146家企业样本，利用回归分析法检验期权型资源配置对企业竞争优势的促进作用，采取因果逐步回归法检验探索式创新在该过程中的中介作用。研究表明：期权型资源配置既能强化企业竞争优势，又能促进探索式创新；探索式创新在期权型资源配置与竞争优势间发挥部分中介作用；相对于创新的资源投入，资源配置方式对竞争优势的作用更强。     

工商管理类专业课程教学质量监控体系研究

课程教学质量是高等学校的生命线，学分制模式下，工商管理类专业课程因其本身固有的特性，课程教学质量的提升在较大程度上依托于一个完善的质量监控体系的有效运作，为此高校要采取措施，在内部构建起课程教学质量的监控体系来确保人才培养质量，从而提高办学水平。     

Business groups,the financial market and modernization*

Business groups are an important aspect of the industrial organization of many developing countries. This paper develops a theory suggesting that they may be organizations that facilitate modernization in the presence of financial market constraints. An important function of the stockmarket is the diversification of risk that comes with specialized, productive technology. But in the face of serious information problems a well functioning stockmarket may fail to emerge, relegating the economy to a low productivity‐poverty trap. Bilateral links between a firm and a group of others may be a more cost effective way to achieve risk‐sharing. Such business groups may be feasible when a full‐fledged stockmarket is not. As modernization takes place, either because information problems become less severe or more firms enter the economy, business groups actually expand in size before being abruptly rendered obsolete by the stockmarket. This is consistent with empirical results from a number of emerging economies.     

The Performance of Service Industries in Canada: A Real Value Analysis

The performance of service industries in Canada has been lower than that of good industries over the last four decades, with noticeable exceptions such as for railways and telecommunication carriers. Service industries were less economically (and technically) efficient in that they generated less output value (quantity) per hour worked (level and growth) or per combined unit of labour and capital (multifactor productivity growth) than good industries. The relative output price of services declined slightly over time compared with goods. At the disaggregated level, changing relative output prices were substantial and proved to be an important factor explaining the relative satisfactory economic performance of many service industries despite their low technical performance. Nevertheless, the output share of service industries increased over that period, sustained, mainly, by the growing recourse of all firms to outsourcing of services.     

The saving–investment correlation puzzle is still a puzzle

A number of simulation studies claim to have solved the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle by demonstrating that a high time-series correlation between saving and investment naturally arises from business cycle shocks. This paper uses panel data of saving and investment controlled for business cycle shocks to empirically test the significance of cyclical shocks — productivity, fiscal and the terms of trade shocks — in explaining a high saving–investment correlation. The estimation results reveal that conventional aggregate shocks only partially explain the high saving–investment correlation. Moreover, country differences in the size of the GNP and the non-traded sector do not significantly affect the saving–investment correlation. The saving–investment correlation puzzle remains a puzzle after all.