Search results

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of China's 2005 shareholding reform and investigate the relationship of the changes of state-owned shareholdings and the largest shareholdings with corporate performance.

Methodology/approach – This study uses a sample of 470 listed firms that were subject to China's 2005 shareholding reform with data from 2004 and 2006. First, we examine whether the reform has reduced state-owned shareholdings measured by ownership concentration and the largest shareholdings through comparing shareholder structures of the reformed listed companies prior to and after the reform. Second, regression analysis was used to explore the relationship between the change of ownership concentration and largest shareholdings and corporate performance of Chinese listed firms.

Findings – This study reveals the effectiveness of the shareholding reform as both ownership concentration and largest shareholdings decrease. This study presents evidence suggesting a positive impact of China's 2005 shareholding reform on corporate performance and endorsing the notion that state-owned shareholdings are detrimental to corporate performance.

Research limitations – ROE is used as a measure of corporate performance, which is influenced by the rules of accounting standards and corporate behavior.

Originality/value – This study provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of China's shareholding reform and shows a positive relation between the reduction of ownership concentration and corporate performance. This is the first study to examine this relation using the cases of Chinese listed companies. The findings have implications to regulatory bodies, public listed firms and investors in China in terms of corporate governance and shareholding configuration.

Markets for public contracting are in the process of transition. Various public/private partnership arrangements replace conventional purchasing, especially within the local and regional government area. Municipal entities may not be in a position to define their needs up-front because they would not have the overview of what the market may have to offer. So one should ask: Is the traditional ban-on-negotiations in mandatory tender procedures (sealed bidding) - such as it is in EU public procurement law - counter-effective to genuine best value for public money? The article displays significant differences between European Union (EU) law, U.S. law and other regimes such as United Nations Model law, The World Trade Organisation’s Government Procurement Agreement (WTO/GPA), The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). New avenues for public/private demand a new agenda and the recent EU 2004 directive scheme attempts to respond to the market challenges. The author accepts that the new directive on public contracting facilitates a more smooth approach than in current EU law with regard to high-tech complicated contract awards, but questions whether the ’competitive dialogue’ really can afford tailor-made solutions to cope with long-term public/private partnership arrangements of the kind now spreading all over Europe

A careful study demonstrates that President Bush has implemented the faith-based initiative as a method of governmentality, one which appears to be biased toward Christianity. This paper examines the definition of Foucaultʼs governmentality as it relates to the ever-expanding structure of contemporary American governance and justifies the categorization of faith-based initiatives as an example of pastoral power. Ultimately, these arguments characterize the current state of governmentality as “born-again,” and call specific attention to what appears to be a strong affiliation of “charitable choice” with evangelical Christianity. By relying on evangelical Christianity to govern, the pastoral-panopticon coupled with governmental resources has brought back an older method of regulation which is less obvious in its intrusion, and more dangerous for it.

Despite the prevalent use of professional status and service feedback in online healthcare markets, the potential interaction relationship between two types of information is still unknown. This study used the signaling theory to examine the substitute relationship between professional status and service feedback in patients' doctor choice, as well as the moderating effect of illness severity.

To test the paper's hypotheses, we constructed a panel data model using 418 doctors' data collected over a period of six months from an online healthcare market in China. Then, according to the results of the Hausman test, we estimated a fixed-effects model of patients' choice in online healthcare markets.

The empirical results showed that the effect of a doctor's professional status and service feedback on a patient's doctor choice was substitutable. Moreover, patients' illness severity played a moderating role, in that the influence of professional status on a patient with high-severity illness was higher than that on a patient with low-severity illness, whereas the influence of service feedback on a patient with low-severity illness was higher than that of a patient with high-severity illness. In addition, we found that illness severity negatively moderated the substitute relationship between professional status and service feedback on a patient's choice.

These findings not only contribute to signaling theory and research on online healthcare markets, but also help us understand the importance of professional status and service feedback on a patient's choice when seeking a doctor online.

The disparities of COVID-19 vaccination rates between the rural and urban areas have become apparent during this pandemic. There is a need to understand the root causes of vaccine hesitancy demonstrated by the rural population to increase coverage and to contain the disease spread throughout the United States. This study aimed to explore other factors influencing vaccine hesitancy among rural dwellers besides the geography-related barriers such as poor health care access and individuals having no or suboptimal insurance coverage.

By reviewing existing data and literature about vaccination, health literacy, and behaviors, and prevailing ideologies, we discuss the potential causes of vaccine hesitancy in rural areas that could create barriers for successful public health efforts related to vaccine coverage and provide suggestions to ameliorate the situation.

Geography-related barriers, health literacy, and preconceived notions are key determinants of adopting healthy behaviors and complying with public health authorities' recommendations among rural individuals during a public-health crisis. We argue that ideology, which is much deeper than preconception or misconception on vaccination, should be incorporated as a key factor to redefine the term “vulnerable populations” in public health research.

The limitation of our study is that we have not found an effective way to encourage the populations who hold conservative religious and political ideologies to join the efforts for public health. Even though geography-related barriers may strongly impact the rural dwellers in achieving optimal health, the various forms of ideologies they have toward certain health behaviors cannot be discounted to understand and address vaccine-related disparities in rural areas. There is a need to redefine the term “vulnerable population” particularly as it relates to rural areas in the United States. During large-scale public health disasters, scholars and public health authorities should consider the ideologies of individuals, in addition to other factors such as race/ethnicity, area of residence (rural vs. urban), and socioeconomic factors influencing the existing vulnerabilities and health disparities.

Ubiquitous digital technologies are driving organisations to embrace non-traditional digitally transformed business models incessantly. Heterogeneous literature contributions have resulted in a spur in the research related to business transformation driven by digital technologies in recent years; consequently, the research under the digital transformation (DT), even though becoming a hotspot, remains very fragmented. The authors endeavour to holistically present the literature's intellectual structure under DT as a concept, its evolving journey and the emerging research streams in the business and management domains using the techniques of bibliometric analysis.

By performing bibliometric analysis on 234 research articles published over the last 20 years in the DT domain, retrieved from Thompson Reuters Web of Science ^TM, this study culls out thorough insights from the citation, co-citation and keyword analysis. Further emerging research streams were evaluated using VOSviewer software.

The study depicts an overall incremental trend of year-on-year publications, authors' performance, publication journals, associated institutions and research driving countries, along with key insights from co-citation network analysis. Furthermore, the study evaluates four research areas – organisational impacts, applied applications and insights, operational processes and social aspects, comprising eighteen research streams that comprehensively cover-up research under the DT domain.

The study contributes to the literature of DT by amalgamating the status of the present research, but more importantly, by deriving the research areas and research streams, which can be further expanded by researchers as future research streams.

For the practitioners, the study aims to act as a ready reckoner repository with practice-oriented literature references to facilitate them building knowledge and taking effective strategic decisions to harness the benefits of DT more proficiently.

This study illustrates the bibliometric structure of the DT literature and presents insights from the growth of the literature year-on-year.

This study examines solvent extract conductivity (SEC) testing, e.g., Ionograph or Omega Meter testing, which measures ionic cleanliness of printed wiring boards (PWBs). SEC has been a quality control (QC) monitor to assure product electrical reliability. Typical SEC measurements occur after wave soldered products have been solvent‐cleaned. This study concerns SEC testing on new wave soldering processes that involve no solvent cleaning, i.e., inert gas soldering with ‘no clean’ fluxes. Results show ionic residues from ‘no clean’ fluxes may have other characteristics that make QC testing for ionic cleanliness inappropriate. However, SEC may be appropriate as a process control monitor after soldering with these fluxes. An Ionograph measured SEC response for the following chemicals: NaCl, NaF, NaBr, KCl, MgCl2, CaCl2, HCl, succinic acid, malic acid, glutaric acid, adipic acid and ethylene glycol. The list includes inorganic salts, strong electrolytes, which may arise from manufacturing or PWB materials. The list also includes weak organic acids (WOAs) common to ‘no clean’ fluxes. One non‐ionic hygroscopic chemical, ethylene glycol, was studied. Ionograph response was measured via (i) direct injection of aqueous solutions and (ii) immersion of PWBs with individual chemicals as surface deposits. All ionisable compounds, including all WOAs, produced substantial SEC response. Surface conductivity was measured at 35°C/90% relative humidity (RH) with controlled amounts of the above chemicals deposited on clean PWB test circuits. Surface loadings corresponded to the molar‐ionic equivalent of 2.0 ?g/cm2 NaCl. In addition, NaCl, adipic acid and polyethylene glycol (PEG 400) were examined as a function of concentration. Several ionisable chemicals including all WOAs produced no measurable effect, i.e., surface conductivities were indistinguishable on clean and deposited specimens. Surface conductivity increased for ionic contaminants with critical RH below ∼80% and for the non‐ionic hygroscopic glycol. SEC measurements and surface conductivities were compared. The latter is more directly related to electrical reliability. Although all ionic compounds including the WOAs showed a SEC response, not all enhanced surface conductivity. Achievement of critical RH appears to be the important factor. Adipic acid required the presence of hygroscopic glycol to enhance surface conductivity. Therefore, SEC can be a misleading QC test for electrical reliability when WOA flux residues are present.

Online trust is a key factor for successful online transactions. To some extent, online health consultation can be considered an online transaction. Owing to the unique physician–patient relationship, patients' choice of physicians within an online health consultation setting may not only be based on rational judgments but also considerably affected by their feelings. Hence, the purpose of this study was to explore which physicians' attributes affect patients' cognitive and affective trust in physicians, as well as how these two variables and their association affect patients' willingness to choose.

Based on the broad conceptual framework of online trust, this paper proposed a set of hypotheses that were tested through analyzing survey data using structural equation modeling techniques.

Results showed that physicians' ability had a significant positive influence on patients' cognitive trust in the physician; physicians' integrity and benevolence had a significant positive influence on patients' affective trust in the physician; cognitive and affective trust had a significant positive impact on patients' willingness to choose and there were significant positive interactions between affective and cognitive trust.

This study theoretically enriches the generic model of online trust. From the practical perspective, it will provide physicians working in online health consultation platforms and relevant practitioners with baseline information on the topic and advice for decision-making toward service enhancement and clientele improvements.