Search results

Fertilizer overuse is regarded as one of the main contributors to agricultural pollution and environmental problems in China. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate technical efficiency (TE) and fertilizer overuse index (FOI) with respect to China’s arable agricultural production and examine regional variations in terms of fertilizer overuse.

The maximum likelihood random effects–time varying inefficiency effects model was applied to estimate TE, fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) and FOI.

Over the study period (2011–2015), TE steadily increased for each individual province. Overall, mean annual TE was 0.811, implying that, on average, Chinese provinces could increase output by 18.9 per cent given unchanged levels of inputs and technology. Mean annual FOI ranged from 0.008 to 3.139, with a mean of 0.685, suggesting that there is fertilizer overuse in almost all provinces, and that large regional variation exists. Coastal provinces were found to have the highest TE scores, while the central region showed the highest degree of fertilizer overuse.

The results indicate that fertilizer use has had a significant positive impact on production in the China’s arable agricultural sector. High TE was not necessarily associated with low FUE.

This paper aims to investigate the interconnections between corporate ownership, tax system and controlling shareholder tunneling through intercorporate loans in an emerging market setting.

China’s Enterprises Income Tax reform in 2008 abolished its previous multiple-tiers tax system under which foreign direct investment (FDI) firms enjoyed preferential tax rates than domestic firms by introducing a new unified-rate tax system. Using difference-in-differences tests, the author analyzes changes of controlling shareholders tunneling through intercorporate loans among Chinese listed companies around this reform.

The author documents significant reductions of intercorporate loans after the reform. More importantly, the author reveals that foreign-invested firms experienced larger reductions of intercorporate loans than domestic firms. The author also shows that state association matters for domestic firms’ response to the reform. In addition, the author documents positive stock market reaction to the tax reform announcement for firms that exhibited higher level of tunneling prior to the reform, indicating market expectation of reduced principal-principal conflict post-reform.

The findings suggest effective corporate governance system is warranted to constrain intercorporate fund transfers in emerging markets where tax incentives are used for attracting inward foreign direct investments. Institutional reforms in emerging markets aimed at removing market frictions can alleviate the problem of controlling shareholder expropriations of minority interests or tunneling.

This is a pioneering study that reveals the role of tax as a public governance mechanism in weak minority investor protection environment.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate and test a theoretical model to explain inter-organizational cooperation behaviors among suppliers in automotive new product development (NPD) projects. This study aims to investigate the effects of cost and benefit factors on trust and inter-organizational cooperative behaviors among suppliers in automotive NPD projects from the perspective of social exchange theory (SET).

The structural equation modeling method is applied to test the proposed model, which is based on the analysis of survey data from 272 product managers of automotive part suppliers.

Knowledge sharing and coordination effort influence inter-organizational cooperation indirectly through trust. Specially, trust is negatively influenced by coordination effort but positively affected by knowledge sharing. Requirement uncertainty moderates the relationship between cost–benefit factors and trust differently. Specifically, requirement uncertainty increases the negative influence of coordination effort on trust but also strengthens the positive effect of knowledge sharing on trust.

This study provides a relatively comprehensive cost–benefit framework for further understanding the formation mechanism of inter-organizational cooperation among suppliers. It also contributes to SET by incorporating the contextual factor to explain the moderating effect of requirement uncertainty on the relationships between cost–benefit factors and trust in the context of automotive NPD projects.

This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the Great Resignation in the hospitality and tourism industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this paper reviews the causes and effects of the Great Resignation, addresses the labor shortage in this industry and proposes strategies that can help manage the challenges.

This paper is based on a critical analysis of emerging phenomena, related literature and researchers’ experiences and insights.

The Great Resignation has presented unprecedented challenges for the hospitality and tourism industry. A closer examination reveals that the pandemic has served as a catalyst rather than a leading cause of this trend. Workforce issues are becoming increasingly complex under contemporary influences, including internal elements such as new explications at work and external factors like the gig economy and technology implementation.

This study provides practical implications on how Hospitality and Tourism practitioners can respond to the Great Resignation on micro, meso and macro levels. The practical implications revolve around employees’ changing needs and preferences in the wave of Great Resignation, as well as the necessity for employers’ reflection and improvement.

This study marks an initial attempt to provide a critical assessment of a contemporary issue involving the Great Resignation. This paper extends its discussion through an advanced analysis of the issue, offers suggestions to manage current obstacles related to labor issues in hospitality and tourism, and illuminates future research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of state shareholding and control versus institutional investors on tax aggressiveness of Chinese listed firms.

By exploring recently available tax reconciliation data required under 2006 Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises on a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms, the authors calculate a direct measure of tax aggressiveness and investigate the influence of firm ownership structure on their tax aggressiveness.

The authors find that state ownership and control are positively associated with corporate tax aggressiveness. A positive link between the collective shareholding by the top ten shareholders and firm tax aggressiveness is also found. In contrast, institutional share ownership is negatively associated with corporate tax aggressiveness.

The results indicate that political connections and ownership concentration empower firms to pursue aggressive tax planning, whereas institutional investors partially mitigate such influences.

This paper complements recent studies on tax aggressiveness in the USA by analyzing tax planning activities of Chinese listed firms. The authors highlight firm ownership and control factors that encourage aggressive tax planning in China. This paper has important implications for both public policy and corporate governance in emerging markets similar to China.

This paper aims to theoretically examine the effects of regulatory policyholder protection on spread behavior and default probability of a life insurance company.

The authors construct a contingent claim model for the valuation of the equity of a life insurance company. Then, they extend it to model default risk measures associated with a more appropriate behavioral mode of strategic invested asset rate-setting under regulation.

The findings established that the optimal insurer interest margin is explicitly modeled by a spread between the loan rate and the required guaranteed rate of the company. The effect of the guaranteed rate on the insurer interest margin is positive when the barrier is low, whereas it is negative when the barrier is high. As the barrier increases, the positive effect of the guaranteed rate on the default risk is increased, the negative effect of the participation on the insurer interest margin is decreased and the positive effect of the participation on the default risk is decreased.

Several results derived that should be of interest to investors, analysts, supervising agencies and policymakers. For example, policyholders protected by increasing the guaranteed rate may create a higher risk for the life insurance company to meet its obligations.

The authors’ approach is a significant departure from the existing literature; they differentiate among path-dependent, barrier options and suggest that the life insurance company’s defaults are more commonly triggered by regulatory responses than debt default.

In today's competitive business environment, understanding how leadership traits shape outcomes is critical. Chief executive officer (CEO) narcissism, an intriguing and debated trait, raises questions about its impact on organisational behaviour, particularly regarding entrepreneurial orientation (EO). This study aims to examine how CEO narcissism affects EO, both as aggregate and specific measures, encompassing internal and external growth. It also considers the organisational context by examining how factors such as capital intensity, firm ownership and CEO duality moderate this relationship.

To test the hypotheses, the authors used a sample of firms drawn from China's ChiNext database (2008–2017). After an initial screening, the final sample consists of 251 CEOs from 239 companies. Data on CEO narcissism are collected from the firm's official website and major online sources, whilst additional data are extracted from the WIND daabase. The authors use multiple regression and ordinary least squares (OLS) for data analysis.

The results show that CEO narcissism leads to external asset growth investments but not internal research and development (R&D). There is a positive relationship between CEO narcissism and EO as an aggregate measure and also different managerial discretions play varying roles in the relationship. Specifically, capital intensity weakens this relationship, but state ownership strengthens it.

This study helps to clarify the relationship between CEO narcissism and EO and advances the literature by showing that firms' EO actions may take various forms of innovation and venturing as new entry initiations of EO. The study findings have important implications for firms to capitalise on narcissistic CEOs' entrepreneurial tendencies, balance internal R&D and external asset growth and leverage various managerial discretions.

This paper aims to examine the J-shaped relationship between age and job-specific skill obsolescence (JSSO), and the differential moderating effects of development and maintenance HR practices on this relationship.

Regression models of survey data obtained from a sample of 722 Chinese knowledge workers were used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that among women age and JSSO are J-shaped related and the relationship weakens under high development HR practices; while among men the J-shaped age-JSSO relation is significant only under low maintenance HR practices.

This research is subject to the cross-sectional design, and the sample is restricted to knowledge workers.

This study advances previous studies that hold a linear (positive or negative) age-JSSO relationship by theorizing and testing a J-shaped one. The differentiated moderating effects of two bundles of HR practices proved improves our knowledge about how to use HR practices appropriately to sustain employee work competency in the context of workforce aging.

This study aims to explore the phenomenon of sentimental tourism in Central-Eastern Europe, which is travels to places related to people’s past or their country’s past for sentimental reasons with reference to disruptive historical events (e.g. border changes and lost territories), and identify different segments within sentimental tourists.

A survey was conducted with 400 Polish sentimental tourists to compare their attitudes and behaviour when visiting a “lost” land by age and family roots. Independent samples t-tests and analysis of variance were conducted to compare the views of sentimental tourists by Borderland origin. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the underlying dimensions of destination performance. Cluster analysis was conducted to classify tourists into segments based on their perception of destination performance.

This study analysed the attitude and behaviour of sentimental tourists by age and family roots. Some significant differences were revealed in the purpose of trip, interest in heritage attractions and perception of destination performance across different groups. The study also identifies key factors of destination performance: accessibility, sentiment and infrastructure and security. Based on factor and cluster analyses, Polish sentimental tourists were divided into three types of connections: personally attached older sentimental tourists, cognitively attached younger sentimental tourists and tourists with general interests.

Different from roots tourism, sentimental tourism is unique in including tourists without personal roots but feels sentimental towards the destination based on the shared heritage of lost territories. This study shows how sentimental tourists attach to a lost land that used to belong to their country and how different perceptions of the destination have roots and non-roots tourists. Sentimental tourism in Central Europe provides a new perspective to consider the relationship between tourists and heritage places as well as tourist segmentation.

本研究旨在探讨中东欧的感伤旅游现象, 即由于破坏性历史事件 (例如国界变化、失去领土), 出于感伤原因前往与个人过去或国家过去相关的地方旅游, 并试图分辨感伤旅游游客中的细分市场。

本研究对 400 名波兰感伤旅游游客进行问券调查, 比较年龄和家庭根源不同的游客, 在游历“失落”土地时的态度和行为。本研究使用独立样本 t 检验和 ANOVA, 按年龄和是否Borderland出身的不同来比较感伤旅游游客的观点。接着进行探索性因素分析以确定目的地表现的潜在维度, 并进行聚类分析以根据游客对目的地表现的感知将其分类。

本研究按年龄和家庭根源 (是否Borderland出身) 分析了感伤旅游游客的态度和行为。不同群体在旅行目的、对遗产景点的兴趣以及对目的地表现的看法方面存在一些显着差异。本研究还确定了感伤旅游目的地表现的三个关键因素：可及性、感伤情绪以及基础设施和安全性。基于因子和聚类分析, 波兰感伤旅游者被划分为三种类型：个人依恋的老年感伤游客、认知依恋的年轻感伤游客和具有普遍兴趣的年轻游客。

与寻根旅游不同, 感伤旅游的独特之处在于包括与目的地没有个人或家族根源, 但基于“失落”土地的共同遗产而对目的地感到感伤的游客。这项研究显示了感伤旅游游客如何依附于曾经属于他们国家的失落土地, 以及同根源游客和非同根源游客对目的地的不同看法。中欧的感伤旅游通过游客细分及比较根源和非根源游客提供了一个新的视角来考虑游客与遗产地之间的关系。

Este estudio pretende explorar el fenómeno del turismo sentimental en Europa Central y Oriental, que consiste en viajar a lugares relacionados con el pasado de las personas o de su país por motivos sentimentales en referencia a acontecimientos históricos perturbadores (por ejemplo, cambios fronterizos, territorios perdidos), e identificar diferentes segmentos dentro de los turistas sentimentales.

Se realizó una encuesta a 400 turistas sentimentales polacos para comparar sus actitudes y comportamientos al visitar una tierra “perdida” según la edad y las raíces familiares. Se realizaron pruebas t de muestras independientes y ANOVA para comparar las opiniones de los turistas sentimentales por edad y origen fronterizo. Se aplicó un análisis factorial exploratorio para identificar las dimensiones subyacentes del funcionamiento del destino. Se aplicó un análisis de conglomerados para clasificar a los turistas en segmentos en base a su percepción del funcionamiento del destino.

Este estudio analizó la actitud y el comportamiento de los turistas sentimentales en función de la edad y los arraigos o raíces familiares. Se revelaron algunas diferencias significativas en el motivo del viaje, el interés por las atracciones patrimoniales y la percepción de los resultados del destino entre los distintos grupos. El estudio también identifica tres factores clave del “funcionamiento” de los destinos: la accesibilidad, el sentimiento y las infraestructuras y la seguridad. Basándose en análisis factoriales y de conglomerados, los turistas sentimentales polacos se dividieron en tres tipos de vinculaciones: los turistas sentimentales de más edad vinculados personalmente, los turistas sentimentales más jóvenes vinculados cognitivamente y los turistas con interese generales.

A diferencia del turismo de raíces, el turismo sentimental es único al incluir a turistas sin arraigos personales pero que sienten un sentimiento hacia el destino basado en la herencia compartida de territorios perdidos. Este estudio muestra el apego de los turistas sentimentales a una tierra perdida que solía pertenecer a su país y la diferente percepción del destino que tienen los turistas de raíces y los que no lo son. El turismo sentimental en Europa Central ofrece una nueva perspectiva para considerar la relación entre los turistas y los lugares patrimoniales, así como la segmentación turística a través de la comparación de los turistas de raíces y los que no lo son.