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International business.

Undergraduate level course in international business.

Two fellow students at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Wen-Szu Lin and Joseph Sze, reconnected after finishing their MBAs and decided to launch a franchise together in China. The franchise they decided upon was Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. The company had experienced strong growth in Asia with over 85 stores in Thailand, 30 stores in Korea, 25 stores in Malaysia and 8 stores in Japan. Because of these successes, Win and Sze had forecast smooth sailing for their franchise in Beijing. However, things were not as smooth as they had expected. The first challenge was the impounding of their second shipment of pretzel mix for a few weeks. Other problems that they faced had to do with Lin’s inability to write Chinese, although he could speak the language, the lack of regulation of food and ingredients in China which led to their producing some poisonous products, and problems they had with their own employees. Lin and Sze were searching for ways to overcome the cultural and other challenges they faced in Beijing with their franchise.

At the conclusion of the case discussion, students should be able to identify the appropriate global strategy for Auntie Anne’s in China; identify whether Lin and Szu were intending to use a production orientation or the marketing concept in introducing Auntie Anne’s Pretzels into China; list and describe challenges the two entrepreneurs encountered in China; develop a list of actions that American businesspeople should follow in anticipating setting up a business in China; and outline a strategy for Lin and Szu to use in attempting to save the Auntie Anne Pretzel franchise in China.

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CSS 5: International Business.

This study aims to establish a comprehensive model integrating variables from the updated unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), expectation-confirmation model (ECM) and trust to determine what factors influence consumers’ decision to continue using food delivery apps (FDA) after the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan.

Data was collected from 350 respondents living in Taiwan via Line using a Google Forms link. A total of 333 valid responses were analyzed after 17 invalid questionnaires were eliminated. To test the suggested study paradigm, partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used as the data analysis approach.

The results indicate FDA users’ continuance intention (CI) is directly significantly affected by performance expectancy, satisfaction and habit. All the constructs of the updated UTAUT theory, confirmation and trust significantly influence the satisfaction of FDA, and users’ satisfaction significantly positively impacts users’ CI.

Although consumers’ intentions toward FDA have previously been the topic of research, there is a paucity of literature that discusses the connections between the variables that influence FDA users’ CI after the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. By focusing on the relationships between the multiple antecedents of FDA users’ CI, this study contributes to reducing the existing literature gap. Explanation surrounding the elements influencing FDA users’ CI is provided by examining several aspects of FDA usage, including technological and psychological postadoption issues.

本研究试图建立一个综合模型, 整合了来自统一接受和使用科技理论（UTAUT）、期望-确认模型（ECM）和信任等变量, 以确定影响消费者在COVID-19疫情爆发后继续使用食品外卖应用(FDA)的因素。

本研究针对台湾的居民通过Line平台使用Google Forms链接收集了350份问卷数据, 经过筛选后得到333份有效回复。为了验证所提出的研究范式, 本研究采用了PLS-SEM作为数据分析方法。

结果表明, FDA用户的继续使用意图受到性能预期、满意度和习惯的直接显著影响。UTAUT理论、期望确认和信任显著影响FDA用户的满意度, 而用户的满意度对用户的继续使用意图产生积极影响。

尽管消费者对FDA的意向不是新的研究的主题, 但在讨论COVID-19疫情后影响FDA用户继续使用意图的变量之间的关系方面, 文献中存在不足。通过探索FDA用户继续使用意图的多个前因关系, 本研究有助于弥补现有文献的空白。通过考察FDA使用的技术和心理因素等多个方面, 本研究提供了解释影响FDA用户继续使用意图的论述。

This paper aims to theorize and examine how central cognition elaboration cue and peripheral cognition elaboration cue influence users’ health information sharing intention in Strong ties social media (STSM) in emerging markets.

This paper innovatively proposes two concepts of health information emotion and health information sharing value based on the in-depth observation of users’ social health behavior. We integrate Elaboration Likelihood Model, Media Richness Theory, Trust Theory and Regulatory Focus Theory to develop hypotheses and research models and lay emphasis on the study of health information emotion’s moderating effect. This paper conducts an empirical study by selecting 372 health information users of WeChat, a typical STSM, to verify the research model by structural equation model.

For the central route, individual motivation and health information richness positively influence health information sharing value. For peripheral route, health information source trust and health information recipient trust both positively influence the health information sharing attitude. Health information sharing value and sharing attitude can positively affect users’ health information sharing intention. In addition, health information positive emotion has significant moderating effect, while health information negative emotion does not have.

This study contributes to a comprehensive perspective for understanding users’ health information sharing intention in STSM in emerging markets, an important but understudied topic. The results can also give implications for researchers to explore users’ behavioral intention from the perspective of process-oriented persuasion and health information emotion’s moderating effect.

Major sporting events (MSEs) have always contributed to sustainable change. Many owners and organizers of MSEs have gradually institutionalized the governance of sporting events legacies. International sports organizations and past studies currently have a vision for sporting event legacies. However, a specific legacy governance system has not been developed. Thus, this study explores stakeholder's perspectives of post-event effects and the legacy governance strategies for Taipei 2017 Universiade (TU).

The representatives of the various stakeholders of the TU are selected and an in-depth interview approach employed. Archival material, including official organizing documents and information from the TU website, is used to increases the reliability of the results.

The benefits of MSEs are not always long-lasting. The TU has created a significant breakthrough for Taipei City, and its successful hosting has raised the image of the city and strengthened its infrastructure and national identity. Thus, the TU must leave sustainable legacies to benefit society and urban development.

Although the study has revealed diverse perspectives from the representatives of stakeholder groups and highlighted the uniqueness and future directions of legacy governance that the TU has produced and learned, the findings may not be fully applicable or replicated in other cities or small countries, especially given Taiwan's international political status. For further study, a systematic model can be constructed to more accurately analyze the interconnected relationship to determine the extent to which various MSE legacies are regarded as “successful” governance, and other significant aspects should be incorporated into the model as a basis for comparing traditional legacy assessment.

This study developed a theoretical account of legacies and their relevance to MSEs, thus emphasizing that, in addition to “hard legacies” (concrete infrastructure or athletes' village), hosting the TU has established “soft legacies” (memories enshrined in the public's consciousness). Regarding the Taipei city government, the sustainable strategies of legacy governance after learning from the hosting experience are probably more complex. Nonetheless, hosting MSEs has been regarded as a crucial medium for urban development across the globe. It would be helpful to further this line of inquiry via the TU stakeholder perspectives regarding legacy governance concerns.

The study contributes to the literature by proposing feasible directions of legacy governance for a host city. As Taiwanese are concerned, the political legacy has the most profound influence among all types of the legacies generated by the TU. The followed is the infrastructure legacy, which can be utilized as the core of the sustainable development strategies of the legacy governance, thereby expanding the post-event governance of various legacies.

Does the adoption of the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) improve bank profitability? Does ERM also reduce bank risk? By analyzing a sample of banks located in European emerging markets between 2005 and 2013, the aim of this chapter is to empirically investigate the determinants of firm performance, both in terms of bank profitability and risk, with respect to the adoption of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). In order to capture the effect of the ERM program adoption on banks’ performance, we both use market-based measures as well as accounting-based indexes. Following the seminal literature on the topic (Aebi, Sabato, & Schmid, 2012; Eckles et al., 2014; Ellul & Yerramilly, 2013; Hoyt & Liebenberg, 2003, 2011; Lin, Wen, & Yu, 2012; Pagach & Warr, 2010), we adopt a binary proxy variable, that is, the appointment of a Chief Risk Officer (CRO), to define whether the firm is currently undertaking an ERM program. Our results show that a post-ERM firm experiences an increase in the risk-adjusted profits and a reduction of the overall risk.

The proliferation of digital communication on social media provides new opportunities for businesses to take advantage of Internet memes to boost customer engagement. Academic literature on digital communications mostly focuses on popular forms such as selfies, branded posts, and branded emoticons. Less attention has been paid to brand memes and their implications for brand management. Based on the cue utilization theory, this research aims to investigate the informational cues of brand memes foster brand partnerships.

The structural equation modeling and importance-performance matrix analysis were used to empirically validate the research hypotheses with 595 respondents to an online survey.

Three informational cues of brand memes (i.e. comprehensibility, novelty, and meme-brand congruity) stimulated consumers' attitudes, which in turn impacted consumer-brand relationships. Another brand meme informational cue, sarcasm, negatively moderated the relationships between the three informational cues and consumer-brand relationships.

Our findings indicate that a brand can engage consumers in conversations on social media and foster long-term consumer-brand relationships through brand memes.

This paper examines the framing of digital transformation. The research questions are specified as follows: what are the different types of framing strategies in response to digital transformation? How do the strategies differ across organizations? Theoretically, the authors draw on the framing perspective to emphasize the use of linguistic frames in shaping innovation and change processes. Empirically, the authors choose to study the Taiwanese sectors, including publicly governed entities, traditional private business or technology-based ventures.

The authors’ approach combines topic modeling and qualitative analysis. Using data collected from newspaper and magazine articles, the authors employ topic modeling to generate a set of distinctive framings that Taiwanese actors typically adopt to motivate and justify their digital move. The authors also conduct personal interviews to qualitatively complement the authors’ topic modeling analysis and to identify the rationale behind the linguistic framings and the strategic differences brought about by the various organizations.

The authors identify five topics that the Taiwanese actors commonly used in the framing of digital transformation. These topics or frames are labeled as cross-domain coordination, market demand, intelligent technology, global trend and competition and digital innovation. The practical use of the framings is contingent on organizational characteristics. Furthermore, the authors show how the framings can be classified as either positive framing (e.g. winning the next war) or negative framing (e.g. innovate or die), generally applicable to organizations around the world struggling to cope with digital disruption.

The authors’ study has two research implications. First, the authors extend the appreciation of the digital transformation from the usual concern with technological and business model innovations to linguistic or framing practices. Second, the authors enrich the framing analysis by emphasizing a practice or contingency perspective based on sector difference. The findings are subject to the limitations of the choice of only established and reputable media outlets, the diatextual reading and filtering of useful articles for topic modeling analysis and the use of world frequency to account for frame significance.

The authors shift actors' attention from improving technical efficiency to acquiring linguistic resources in the pursuit of digitalization. For example, framing the digital transformation in terms of creating a market orientation calls for not only real consumer power but also strategic discursive competence that enables the move to change. The findings also point out that practitioners can enlarge the scope of their agency rather than being trapped in the habituated routine of practices. Despite social embeddedness, organizations are more often widely connected and built enough to call for more of the cognitive frames to appeal to heterogeneous stakeholders.

The authors study contributes to the literature by developing a linguistic or socio-cognitive view of digital transformation strategy that is capable of expanding organizational attention toward change and innovation. The authors explore menus of strategic frames employed by actors in response to digital transformation. We also address the application of a machine-learning tool such as topic modeling to explore the socio-cognitive dimensions of digital transformation. Furthermore, the analysis leads us to identify the outcomes or effects – either positive or negative – that move beyond the particular Taiwanese case to explain the framing of digital transformation in general.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of strategic control and operational control on new venture performance in the China context.

This study tests the hypotheses in a sample of 83 new ventures that have equity investment by established firms and are founded between 1993 and 2007 that issued initial public offerings while not more than eight years old.

The results of this study show that: strategic control has a significantly negative relationship with new venture performance; operational control has a significantly positive relationship with new venture performance; industry relatedness between the corporate investor and the new venture and the new venture’s political ties moderate the relationships between the two types of control and new venture performance. The results are robust to alternative measurements of new venture performance.

The management control that the corporate investor exercises over the new venture is a significant determinant of the new venture success. Managers have to distinguish between strategic control and operational control and understand their impacts on new ventures.

This study highlights the issue of management of corporate venturing capital relationships from the new venture’s perspective. In addition, this study separates strategic and operational control within management control and examines how they influence new venture performance.

This paper aims to use the institutional and information-processing perspectives to explore their association with between internationalization and the Penrose effect phenomenon for business groups (BGs).

The authors use ordinary least squares regression models to test arguments about data pertaining to 101 Taiwanese BGs’ foreign direct investments.

The results indicate that greater levels of depth and scope in the process of internationalization during one period may negatively affect rates of growth in the following period. The results further demonstrate that institutional distance moderates the relationship.

Using the perspective of information-processing demands, the authors provide alternate explanations regarding the relationship between the process of internationalization (depth, scope and rhythm) and the Penrose effect.

Owners and managers should focus on both the depth and the scope of internationalization. BGs are likely to incur high dynamic adjustment costs, which then limit the rate of BGs’ growth. Managers should balance international market uncertainty with current managerial resources when determining how deeply and broadly to expand internationally and where to enter. In addition, as recent major panel studies suggest, management capabilities and practices can improve significantly, which has a positive effect on firm growth and performance. This does require the careful development and acquisition of the managerial resources needed for internationalization.

The contradiction and conflict between grassland conservation and economic development are prominent in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) with its fragile environment and ecosystem. How to promote sustainable grazing in the plateau without hurting the economic welfare of local residents is a key challenge facing the Chinese government. This study explores the potential of market-based grassland conservation policies by evaluating consumer preferences and valuations for forage–livestock balance certification labeled yak products.

This study adopts a choice experiment with four attributes of yak meat, including forage–livestock balance certification, feeding type, age at slaughter and price. A sample size of 2,999 respondents from Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Chengdu was collected by a professional online survey company.

The result reveals that urban Chinese consumers are willing to pay highest price premiums for forage–livestock balance certified yak meat, followed by grass-fed claim labeled meat. Consumers on average place negative valuations for grain-fed claims, meat from yak slaughtered above 2 and 4 years old. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that individuals who are female, younger, married, and better educated, and with above median income, Tibet travel or yak consumption experience, are more receptive to the forage–livestock balance certification.

It is the first study to explore demand-driven mechanisms for grassland conservation by focusing on consumer valuation for the forage–livestock balance certification.