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This study aims to examine whether Chinese firms increase their concerns about analysts’ earnings forecasts following the split-share structure reform (SSR) in 2005, which removed trading restrictions on approximately 70% of the shares of listed firms.

Using data from 2002 to 2019, the authors empirically test the association between meeting or beating analysts’ earnings expectations and the implementation of SSR.

The authors find that firms are more inclined to meet analysts’ earnings expectations after the introduction of SSR. Further analysis shows that firms guide analysts to walk their forecasts down by manipulating third-quarter earnings, suggesting enhanced value relevance between analysts’ forecasts and third-quarter earnings management in the postreform period.

The findings reveal an undesirable side effect of SSR and suggest that policymakers and regulators should consider and carefully manage the complex relationships between firms and analysts.

In contrast to prior studies that predominantly focus on the positive effects of the reform, this study reveals the side effects of SSR and provides new evidence on the mechanisms of meeting or beating analysts’ earnings expectations.

Following the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), firms are required to recognize gains or losses from investment property revaluation in the income statement, instead of equity in the balance sheet. This results in both a “materiality effect” (as auditors set a higher materiality level and require lower audit efforts) and a “cushion effect” (as revaluation gains serve as a cushion and reduce earnings manipulation incentives). Utilizing this unique setting, this study investigates whether the use of fair value measurement for investment property affects audit pricing before and after IFRS convergence in the Hong Kong real estate industry.

Using a sample of 78 real estate companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the pre-IFRS period (2001–2004) and the post-IFRS period (2005–2008), this study employs multivariate regression analyses to test the research hypotheses with respect to the association between investment property revaluation and audit fees and the role of corporate governance structures in the context of family control.

The empirical results suggest that audit fees decrease with revaluation gains or losses from investment property revaluation after IFRS convergence, but not before. Furthermore, the negative association is stronger in companies controlled by founders, with proportionally more independent directors on the board and with a smaller board size. This is consistent with the moderating effect of corporate governance.

The findings shed more light on the consequences of fair value accounting for non-financial assets and are of interest to regulators for assessing the benefits of the wide use of fair value measurement under IFRS in emerging markets, especially where the corporate ownership structure is typically controlled by founding families. This study also provides recommendations for the audit community to fully consider the impact of asset revaluation on audit procedures and audit pricing.

This study aims to investigate whether and how a high turnover rate stimulates employees to engage more in learning behavior.

Drawing on self-regulation theory, the authors suggest that the motive for employees to engage in learning behavior is to improve themselves. Such a need can be activated when they reflect on themselves and realize the discrepancy between their current selves and desired future selves. The authors argue that the employees’ perceived poor performance at daily work may induce their desire for self-improvement via making the future work selves salient, and in turn engage more in learning behavior. This is particularly so when turnover rate is high because employees may be alert of and concerned more about their own poor performance. In an experience sampling study, the authors obtained evidence for these hypotheses.

When turnover rate was high, employees’ poor performance increased salience of future work selves, which in turn facilitated their learning behavior. This relationship was not significant when turnover rate was low.

Contrary to the typical view that high turnover rate leads to knowledge loss for the companies, the present study findings suggest that it could also serve as a motivational factor facilitating employees’ learning behavior, which is an important way to increase knowledge pool of the companies.

Despite the evident and dramatic increase in smartphone usage worldwide, some consumers continue to use traditional mobile phones. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavioral intentions of these laggard and non-smartphone users.

This current study examines the effects of consumer demographics, psychographics, and smartphone characteristics on the intentions of non-smartphone consumers to switch or resist the use of smartphones. Data were collected using a convenience sample of non-smartphone users in Taiwan. The proposed model is tested using the consistent partial least squares (PLSc) path modeling technique.

PLSc results indicate that consumer psychographics and smartphone characteristics play more important roles than consumer demographics. Specifically, price consciousness, nostalgia, and perceived ease of use are good predictors of intention to switch, whereas perceived usefulness and ease of use are strong predictors of the intention to resist smartphone adoption.

The results of this study have implications for mobile phone vendors and mobile manufacturers who target non-smartphone users or laggard adopters.

This study is among the few that focus on non-smartphone users’ perceptions of smartphones. Hence, this empirical study could contribute to the development and testing of theories related to the smartphone adoption process.

This study aims to focus on the optimized design and mechanical properties of gradient triply periodic minimal surface cellular structures manufactured by selective laser melting.

Uniform and gradient IWP and primitive cellular structures have been designed by the optimized function in MATLAB, and selective laser melting technology was applied to manufacture these cellular structures. Finite element analysis was applied to optimize the pinch-off problem, and compressive tests were carried out for the evaluation of mechanical properties of gradient cellular structures.

Finite element analysis shows that the elastic modulus of IWP increased as design parameter b increased, and then decreased when parameter b is higher than 5.5. The highest elastic modulus of primitive increased by 89.2% when parameter b is 6. The compressive behavior of gradient IWP and primitive shows a layer-by-layer way, and elastic modulus and first maximum compressive strength of gradient primitive are higher than that of gradient IWP. The effective energy absorption of gradient cellular structures increased as the average porosity decreased, and the effective energy absorption of gradient primitive is about twice than that of gradient IWP.

This paper presents an optimized design method for the pinch-off problem of gradient triply periodic minimal surface cellular structures.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the feature of soot in diesel engine oil and provide a method to stably disperse these soots using effect additives which is benefical for lubricants to pass related engine tests.

This paper designed experiments to investigate the dispersant type, treat level and different dispersant interactions which influence on lubricant soot-related viscosity increase. The research work developed an effective dispersant package which can well solve the soot-related viscosity increase, allowing pass Mack T-11 and Mack T-8 engine tests and demonstrated the helpfulness of using a quickly screening method developed by a steel piston diesel engine CA 6DL2-35.

The effect of dispersant treat level on the viscosity increase of the oil samples was negligible. Dispersant booster can effectively improve the soot handling ability of heavy-duty diesel engine oils (HDDEO), and the appropriate treat level of dispersant booster can help HDDEO pass Mack T-8 and Mack T-11 engine tests.

The test results are useful for formulators to select the appropriate dispersants or dispersant booster to develop the HDDEO packages which can meet the modern diesel engine lubrication requirements.

Most previous studies in this field were carried out on soot formation mechanism and soot-related wear rather than how to solve the soot-related viscosity increasing of HDDEO. This paper describes the soot dispersing requirements of different HDDEO specifications and developed an effective dispersant package which can well deal with Mack T-11 and Mack T-8E standard engine tests soot handling ability requirements.

The purpose of this study is to understand the impact mechanism of grassland transfer on herders' production behaviour in pastoral areas. The impact of grassland transfer on herders' livestock production and grazing intensity is quantified.

Using the survey data collected for 356 herder households from Inner Mongolia and Gansu, China, quantile regression is employed to assess the heterogeneous effects of grassland transfer on livestock production and grazing intensity. To correct the potential self-selection bias of grassland transfer, the propensity score matching technique is used.

Results show that labour, percentage of livestock income and livestock stock are the main factors affecting herders' choice to transfer grassland. The positive effect of grassland transfer on livestock numbers on behalf of those who rented additional grassland is statistically significant but declines with livestock numbers. The sustainability-enhancing effect of grassland transfer on grazing intensity is significant, and the effect becomes larger amongst herder households with higher grazing intensity. The analysis on the impact mechanism shows that grassland transfer significantly promotes the adoption of sustainable grazing modes, such as rotational and seasonal rest grazing, which in turn increases herders' livestock numbers and decreases grazing intensity.

Few studies have empirically analysed the influence of grassland transfer on livestock numbers and grazing intensity. This study fills this gap by employing a quantile regression to assess the heterogeneous effects of grassland transfer on livestock numbers and grazing intensity, while accounting for self-selection bias. In addition, the authors have examined the influencing mechanisms under which grassland transfer impacts on livestock numbers and grazing intensity.

Modeling and analysis of dimensional variation propagation is a crucial support technology for variation reduction, product/process design evaluation and recognition of variation source. However, owing to the multi-deviation (i.e. part deviations and fixture deviations) and multi-interaction (i.e. part-to-part interaction, part-to-fixture interaction and station-to-station interaction) in assembly processes, it is difficult for designers to describe or understand the variation propagation (or accumulation) mechanism clearly. The purpose of this paper is to propose a variation propagation modeling and analysis (VPMA) method based on multiple constraints aiming at a single station.

Initially, part-to-part constraints (PPCs) and part-to-fixture constraints (PFCs) are applied for the multi-interaction of assembly, and multiple constraints graph (MCG) model is proposed for expressing PPCs, PFCs, parts, as well as the variation propagation relation among them. Then, locating points (LPs) are adopted for representing the deviations in constraints, and formulas for calculating the deviations of LPs are derived. On that basis, a linearized relation between LPs’ deviations and part’s locating deviations is derived. Finally, a wing box is presented to validate the proposed method, and the results indicate the methodology’s feasibility.

MCG is an effective tool for dimensional VPMA, which is shown as an example of this paper.

Functions of geometric constraints in dimensional variation propagation are revealed, and MCG is proposed to formulize dimensional variation propagation.

Corporate site visits increase labor investment efficiency.

Our empirical model for the baseline analysis follows those of Jung et al. (2014) and Ghaly et al. (2020).

We show that corporate site visits are associated with significantly higher labor investment efficiency; more specifically, site visits reduce both over-hiring and under-hiring of employees. The effect of site visits on labor investment efficiency is more pronounced for firms with higher labor adjustment costs, greater financial constraints, weaker corporate governance and lower financial reporting quality. We also find that site visits mitigate labor cost stickiness.

First, while the literature has suggested how the presence of institutional investors and analysts may affect labor investment decisions, we focus on institutional investors and analysts’ activities and interactions with firm executives. We provide direct evidence that institutional investors and analysts may use corporate site visits to improve labor investment efficiency. Second, our study adds to a line of recent studies on how corporate site visits reduce information asymmetry and agency conflicts. We show that corporate site visits allow institutional investors and analysts to influence labor investment efficiency. We also provide new evidence that corporate site visits reduce labor cost stickiness.

This paper aims to develop a framework for competitive advantage by systematic quantitative methodology based on resource-based view and dynamic capability theory. Strategic agility was used as a dynamic capability.

Data were collected from a survey aimed at manufacturing companies from five manufacturing industry in Semnan, Iran. A total of 102 questionnaires were received from 13 companies using convenience sampling. Fuzzy two-stage data envelopment analysis model (DEA) was used to analyse the data collected.

The results indicate that there is close internal relationship among firm resources, strategic agility and competitive advantage, and their inherent relationship makes constant returns to scale (CRS) scores closer to 1. In most of the companies, the second process which transforms strategic agility to competitive advantage is the main cause for unsatisfactory performance in gaining competitive advantage.

The innovation of this paper is in its model and method. There is no research has been ever done on the relationship among firm resources, strategic agility and competitive advantage. Moreover, to obtain a competitive advantage structure, DEA technique was adopted which is a new approach in this area.