Search results

Good market timing skills can be an important factor contributing to hedge funds’ outperformance. In this chapter, we use a unique semiparametric panel data model capable of providing consistent short period estimates of the return correlations with three market factors for a sample of Long/Short equity hedge funds. We find evidence of significant market timing ability by fund managers around market crisis periods. Studying the behavior of individual fund managers, we show that at the 10% significance level, 17.12% of funds exhibit good linear timing skills and 21.32% of funds possess some level of good nonlinear market timing skills. Further, we find that market timing strategies of hedge funds are different in good and bad markets, and that a significant number of managers behave more conservatively when the market return is expected to be far above average and more aggressively when the market return is expected to be far below average. We find that good market timers are also likely to possess good stock selection skills.

Do multinational enterprises evolve differently in emerging and developed economies? Although one camp argues that emerging economy multinationals are different from their developed country counterparts owing to the underdeveloped institutions in their home countries, another camp counters that they are the same and the existing international business theories can fully explain their strategies. A third camp suggests a more nuanced perspective by finding value in both approaches. In this introductory chapter, we review this debate and offer new perspectives on how to extend existing theories by accounting for four specific aspects of the home country institutional environments of emerging economies: breadth, depth, timing, and duration of exposure to institutional development. We then discuss how the chapters in this volume extend these ideas.

The overall goal of this chapter is twofold. First, the authors aim to identify indigenous phenomena that influence employee turnover and retention in the Chinese context. Second, the authors link these phenomena to the contextualization of job embeddedness theory. To achieve the goal, the authors begin by introducing three macro-level forces (i.e., political, economic, and cultural forces) in China that help scholars analyze contextual issues in turnover studies. The authors then provide findings in the literature research on employee retention studies published in Chinese academic journals. Next, the authors discuss six indigenous phenomena (i.e., hukou, community in China, migrant workers, state-owned companies, family benefit prioritization, and guanxi) under the three macro-level forces and offer exploratory propositions illustrating how these phenomena contribute to understanding employee retention in China. Finally, the authors offer suggestions on how contextualized turnover studies shall be conducted in China.

This chapter examines the similarities and differences between the concepts of transformational leadership as developed within North America and the Confucian idea of transformation. It argues that Confucian tradition encompasses the essential elements embedded in the concept of transformational leadership. The former differentiates from the latter in its deeper degree of transformation, emphasis on morality and culture, and its focus on transformation from the inside outwards. The two greatest educators in Chinese history, Confucius and Cai Yuanpei, are evaluated in terms of their transformational leadership qualities in the Western sense. By looking at Confucius and Cai Yuanpei as successful transformational leaders, the chapter identifies four important factors from Chinese cases that may contribute to the success of this type of leadership. Implications of this comparison are discussed as they may inform the knowledge, research and practices of transformational leadership.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is growing steadily and Chinese multinationals (MNCs) are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy. Thus, the number of papers focusing on China’s OFDI and Chinese MNCs has been increasing during the last years. The aim of this chapter is to carry out a review of the empirical papers dealing with Chinese MNCs published between 2002 and 2012 in high-impact international business and management journals.

This chapter reviews 43 empirical papers focusing on Chinese MNCs that were published in nine major scholarly journals between 2002 and 2012.

We report individual and institutional contributions, the theories and methods used, the research topics, and the main findings. We also discuss implications for future research.

Some previous literature reviews have dealt with research on China’s OFDI and Chinese MNCs. Nevertheless, none of the earlier reviews dealt specifically with empirical papers; neither did they provide an analysis of both individual and institutional contributions.

Based on government data from 1993 to 2008, this chapter aims to compute and analyze the trends of inequity in interprovincial and regional per-student spending in China's compulsory education, and to ascertain the potential impact of changes in education financing policies. Appropriate inequity measures (Gini and Theil index and Gini decomposition, among others) are employed to provide a systematic picture of the trends. Main findings include: (1) all inequity measures show large and overall increased disparities among provinces and among regions, between 1993 and 2008. (2) However, a slight drop of spending inequity is observed at the primary education level around 2002 and a larger reduction in 2005 and on. There are more turning points in the trend of lower-secondary per-student spending among provinces. These patterns are consistent across different inequity measures and spending indicators (per-student total spending, per-student recurrent spending, and per-student nonpersonnel spending). (3) The trend toward more balanced resource allocation around 2002 and 2005 could be the impact from the Reform of Tax and Administrative Charges and the New Mechanism for Financing Rural Compulsory Education. An increased share of budgetary expenditure in determining total spending suggests that equalizing financing policies have the potential to induce a significant reduction in spending inequity. These findings may help policy makers to better understand and alter the extent of spending inequity in compulsory education. This is an original empirical study that systematically derives the spending inequity trends over a long period in China's compulsory education.

Generation Z makes up 20% of China’s population, and accounts for the highest share of household spend at 13% (vs. 3% for the United Kingdom and 4% for the United States). To advance marketers’ understanding about this group of consumers and capitalise on China’s booming market, this chapter uses rich statistics and information to show that China’s Generation Z has distinct behaviour patterns, which can be attributed to the unique background in which they grew up: (1) rigidity of social stratification, (2) abundance of materialism, (3) digital era, (4) limited (vs. extended) family, and (5) heavy schoolwork. Growing up in such a background, Generation Z’s lifestyle and consumption-related attitudes and behaviour are distinct from their predecessors. The chapter presents specific actions that marketers can take when targeting this distinct group of consumers in China, along with useful guidelines to HR managers for hiring them.