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1 – 9 of 9Owing to the importance of the investment behavior in China, the purpose of this paper is to find the influence of executive network and government governance on…
Abstract
Purpose
Owing to the importance of the investment behavior in China, the purpose of this paper is to find the influence of executive network and government governance on investment efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper use China’s listed companies as sample to make an investment efficiency determinant model.
Findings
In this article, the authors find that larger executive network and higher government governance will lead to more corporate investment efficient. Furthermore, the informal institution – executive network, is not only an effective way to alleviate financing constraints, but also can solve underinvestment problem. While the improvement of local government governance can provide institutional protection, it will also be more conducive to restrain overinvestment behavior.
Research limitations/implications
The authors have not explored conduction path. Especially, the authors have not examined whether information spillover effect or the release of resources constraints in executive network plays a more important role to ease investment insufficient.
Originality/value
Under the Chinese circumstance, relationship governance can not only promote companies to improve investment efficiency, but also provide an important guarantee for sustained macroeconomic growth.
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Junli Yu, Shelagh M.R. Campbell, Jing Li and Zhou Zhang
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO), despite being a critical organization member responsible for ensuring quality of financial reporting, audit and compliance, is…
Abstract
Purpose
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO), despite being a critical organization member responsible for ensuring quality of financial reporting, audit and compliance, is under-researched. Grouped as a member of top management teams (TMS) in studies, factors influencing decision making in this group rely on static measures of characteristics without regard for dynamic and longitudinal influences of career trajectories and industry occupational group memberships. The relationship between the high-tech industry as a site of notable reported internal control (IC) weakness and influences on CFOs requires closer examination. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws together the upper echelons theory and occupational communities (OCs) to explore the impact of shared values and behavioral norms from different sources on executive decision making. Internal and external sources of OC are proposed and their influence on activities with respect to corporate IC is tested. The sample of 1,573 firm/year observations includes high-tech firms listed on major US exchanges was developed using data from five distinct databases. Executives’ biographic information was manually collected.
Findings
Results indicate that senior financial executives belong not only to their firm and its culture but also to OCs that extend beyond the firm. Membership in professional credential granting occupational groups has less impact on effective IC than experience in the high-tech industry. In combination, multiple OCs show evidence of compound and counteracting effects on IC. The OC that arises in the high-tech industry makes a measurable positive difference in the quality of IC in sample firms, in contrast with the OC among credentialed accounting and financial professionals.
Research limitations/implications
This quantitative study of OC reveals the differential impact of different sources of OC and contributes to the literature on TMS a new framework for examining decision making. OC is typically studied through qualitative methods and, thus, potential exists to further explore the specific nature and dynamics of the OCs identified in this study.
Practical implications
The study highlights the role of broad affiliations and networks among senior financial executives which may have bearing on their ability to effectively manage IC. The role of these networks may also partially explain instances of CFO failure and thus dismissal. Knowledge of the role of OC may help boards of directors in the selection and promotion of senior financial officers of the firm.
Originality/value
The paper offers a different perspective on professional accounting expertise in one specific industry where incidence of IC weakness is high relative to other industries. Study results expand recent research on TMS to include sociological impacts of cohort groups. Despite generally weaker IC in the high-tech sector, this study demonstrates the value of exploring group membership within the industry as an important predictor of behavior. The result is a new perspective to CFO decision making which illustrates the relevance of OCs among upper echelons. The implications of findings for CFO recruitment and promotion are borne out in recent instances of senior financial executive failure in the sector.
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Liangzhi Yu, Wenbo Zhou and Junli Wang
This study aims to build an integrative framework for explaining society's information access disparity, which takes both structure and agency as well as their…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to build an integrative framework for explaining society's information access disparity, which takes both structure and agency as well as their interactions into consideration.
Design/methodology/approach
It adopts a qualitative survey design. It collects data on the development of 65 individuals' information access through interviews, and analyzes the data following grounded theory principles.
Findings
A theoretical framework is established based on seven constructs and their relationships, all emerging from the empirical data. It rediscovers practice as the primary structural force shaping individuals' information access, hence society's information access disparity; it shows, meanwhile, that the effect of practice is mediated and/or interrupted by four agentic factors: affective responses to a practice, strategic move between practices, experiential returns of information, and quadrant state of mind.
Research limitations/implications
It urges LIS researchers to go beyond the embedded information activities to examine both the embedded and embedding, beyond actions to examine both actions and experiences.
Practical implications
It calls for information professionals to take a critical stance toward the practices they serve and partake in their reforms from an LIS perspective.
Originality/value
The framework provides an integrative and novel explanation for information access disparity; it adds a number of LIS-relevant concepts to the general practice theories, highlighting the significance of embedded information activities in any practice and their reverberations; it also appears able to connect a range of human-related LIS theories and pinpoint their gaps.
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Jiang Chen, Junli Zheng and Feng Xiong
The spatial resolution of seepage monitoring methods based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) temperature sensing technology is limited by the distance between measurement…
Abstract
Purpose
The spatial resolution of seepage monitoring methods based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) temperature sensing technology is limited by the distance between measurement points. Improving the spatial resolution for a given number of measurement points is a prerequisite for popularizing this technology in the seepage monitoring of rockfill dams. The purpose of this paper is to address this problem.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a mobile-distributed seepage monitoring method based on the FBG-hydrothermal cycling seepage monitoring system. In this method, the positions of the measurement points are changed by freely dragging the FBG sensing cluster within the inner tube of a dual-tube structure, consisting of an inner polytetrafluoroethylene tube and outer polyethylene of raised temperature resistance heating tube.
Findings
A seepage velocity calibration test was carried out using the improved monitoring system. The results showed that under a constant seepage velocity, the use of the dual-tube structure enables faster cooling, and the cooling rate accelerates with an increase in the diameter of the inner tube. The use of the dual-tube structure can improve the sensitivity of the seepage evaluation index ζv to the seepage velocity. When the inner diameter increases, ζv becomes more sensitive to the seepage velocity.
Originality/value
A mobile-distributed seepage monitoring method based on FBG sensing technology is proposed in which the FBG sensors are not fixed. Instead, the positions of the measurement points are changed to improve the spatial resolution. Meanwhile, the use of the dual-tube structure in the presented monitoring system can improve its sensitivity.
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Shuangying Chen, Feng Fu, Tingting Xiang and Junli Zeng
Extant research on the crowding-out effects of government subsidies on the positive role of firm innovation resources or activity remains limited. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Extant research on the crowding-out effects of government subsidies on the positive role of firm innovation resources or activity remains limited. This paper aims to investigate the crowding-out effects of subsidies on the utilization of technological capabilities and also the contingency mechanisms of market-oriented economy based on the resource-based view (RBV), given the co-existence of the subsidies and technological capabilities for firm innovation in transitional economy.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper used panel data of 115 Chinese high-tech firms from 2002 to 2010. Fixed-effects model was used to test several hypotheses.
Findings
This paper empirically demonstrates that the subsidies crowd out the utilization of firms’ technological capabilities for invention outcomes in the near-term. Furthermore, this paper finds that the crowding-out effects are weaker when firms have high export intensity or are located in provinces with high market-oriented systems.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this paper apply to Chinese firms. Future research could test their generalizability to different samples and other transitional economies.
Practical implications
This paper highlights the crowding-out effects of the subsidies, revealing that high-tech firms should balance the direct effects and crowding-out effects of the subsidies.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the neglected interactions between the subsidies and technological capabilities based on RBV and provides a more nuanced understanding of the crowding-out effects of the subsidies in transitional economy.
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Ute Stephan, Jun Li and Jingjing Qu
Past research on self-employment and health yielded conflicting findings. Integrating predictions from the Stressor-Strain Outcome model, research on challenge stressors…
Abstract
Purpose
Past research on self-employment and health yielded conflicting findings. Integrating predictions from the Stressor-Strain Outcome model, research on challenge stressors and allostatic load, we predict that physical and mental health are affected by self-employment in distinct ways which play out over different time horizons. We also test whether the health impacts of self-employment are due to enhanced stress (work-related strain) and differ for man and women.
Design/methodology/approach
We apply non-parametric propensity score matching in combination with a difference-in-difference approach and longitudinal cohort data to examine self-selection and the causal relationship between self-employment and health. We focus on those that transit into self-employment from paid employment (opportunity self-employment) and analyze strain and health over four years relative to individuals in paid employment.
Findings
Those with poorer mental health are more likely to self-select into self-employment. After entering self-employment, individuals experience a short-term uplift in mental health due to lower work-related strain, especially for self-employed men. In the longer-term (four years) the mental health of the self-employed drops back to pre-self-employment levels. We find no effect of self-employment on physical health.
Practical implications
Our research helps to understand the nonpecuniary benefits of self-employment and suggests that we should not advocate self-employment as a “healthy” career.
Originality/value
This article advances research on self-employment and health. Grounded in stress theories it offers new insights relating to self-selection, the temporality of effects, the mediating role of work-related strain, and gender that collectively help to explain why past research yielded conflicting findings.
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Zheng Li, Xizhen Zhou, Samuel Jung and Jun Li
The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of policies and practices of innovation in China for the past 40 years.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of policies and practices of innovation in China for the past 40 years.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a review paper. It adopts a different multi-dimensional, qualitative methodology to examine China’s trajectory of innovation from the economic reform since 1978, highlighting “China” experiences in the developing innovation-driven economy, also pointing the challenges that China faces in this transition process and future prospects. The analysis of China’s innovation performance was based mostly on secondary data from sources and institutions that use statistical data to build country rankings, such as the global innovation index and global competitiveness index.
Findings
It is found that the institutional foundations of the national innovation system in China are already being laid, and so far, China has made extraordinary progress regarding innovation performance from country to region and from business to individual. However, some critical challenges in its innovation-driven development still need urgent attention and effective efforts to reinforce them.
Originality/value
This paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by providing an overview of the evolution of the policies and practices of innovation development in China since the 1978 economic reforms and explores the Chinese experiences in transforming into an innovation-driven economy.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow impacts on regional innovation efficiency in China and whether the impacts of FDI…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow impacts on regional innovation efficiency in China and whether the impacts of FDI are contingent on regional conditions that may maximize the effect of FDI on regional innovation efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
Using panel data of 30 provinces from 2000 to 2010, the authors first used data envelopment analysis to measure regional innovation efficiency, followed by a spatial panel model to test research hypotheses concerning the effect of FDI on regional innovation efficiency and the direct and moderating effects of regional characteristics such as regional innovation environment, regional absorptive capacity and regional complementary assets.
Findings
The paper finds that there are considerable inter-regional and intra-regional variations in innovation efficiency in China and that regional variations in innovation efficiency in China can first be explained by the differences in inflow FDI and then be accounted for by the direct and moderating effect of regional innovation environment, absorptive capacity and complementary assets.
Research limitations/implications
The research findings have three policy implications. First, governments should continue their efforts to increase the transparency and predictability of the framework for inward FDI and align FDI with the region’s strategic priorities of development to improve innovation efficiency. Second, governments should develop holistic and coherent policies that address the key aspects of regional conditions conducive to the inflow of FDI. Third, governments at the regional level should cultivate an open innovation environment and support the development of financial markets to maximize the positive effect of FDI technology spillover and externalities.
Originality value
This paper fills a gap in research on the spatial heterogeneity characteristics of spillover effects of FDI on regional innovation efficiency.
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