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This chapter differentiates the effect of solicited credit ratings (SCRs) and unsolicited credit ratings (UCRs) on bank leverage decision before and after the credit rating change. We find that banks with UCRs issue less debt relative to equity when the credit rating changes are approaching. Such findings are also prominent when bank credit rating moves from investment grade to speculative grade. After credit rating upgrades (downgrades), banks with unsolicited (solicited) credit ratings are inclined to issue more (less) debt relative to equity than those with solicited (unsolicited) credit ratings. We conclude that SCR and UCR changes lead to significantly different effects on bank leverage decision.

This chapter explores a descriptive theory of multidimensional travel behaviour, estimation of quantitative models and demonstration in an agent-based microsimulation.

A descriptive theory on multidimensional travel behaviour is conceptualised. It theorizes multidimensional knowledge updating, search start/stopping criteria and search/decision heuristics. These components are formulated or empirically modelled and integrated in a unified and coherent approach.

The theory is supported by empirical observations and the derived quantitative models are tested by an agent-based simulation on a demonstration network.

Based on artificially intelligent agents, learning and search theory and bounded rationality, this chapter makes an effort to embed a sound theoretical foundation for the computational process approach and agent-based micro-simulations. A pertinent new theory is proposed with experimental observations and estimations to demonstrate agents with systematic deviations from the rationality paradigm. Procedural and multidimensional decision-making are modelled. The numerical experiment highlights the capabilities of the proposed theory in estimating rich behavioural dynamics.

Any career is marked by luck, both good and bad, as well as by hard work interspersed by times of uncertainty, fits and starts, and learning from one's mistakes and successes. But beyond these outcomes and actions, I owe an enormous debt to people who have shaped me and made life the challenging and rewarding journey it is. My family of origin and extended family were incredibly supportive in personal and functional ways. So many mentors and teachers influenced what I know and who I am. Many students, colleagues, secretaries, computer and library staff, and group chairs and deans provided the help, inspiration, and friendship guiding my career behind the scenes. My wife, son, and daughter sustained me through times of tears and joy, as did my community of faith. All these relationships were foundational to any contributions I may have made to attitudes, social action, and theory of mind; methodology, statistics, and philosophical foundations of research; sales force, organization, and health behaviors; emotions, ethics, and moral behavior; and marketing and managerial practice. For me, my career contributions are secondary to the relationships within which I was fortunate to engage.

Since 1997, a quantitative revolution has swept Korean economic history and generated a new paradigm. From 1700 to 1900 the Korean economy expanded and contracted along lines suggested by Adam Smith. Economic expansion was based on productive land and a stable commodity market. The direct result was high real skilled wages. Economic contraction became clear from the mid-nineteenth century when the value of land declined, commodity prices rose, and real skilled wages fell. The contraction was apparent before the appearance of Japanese imperialism and the absorption of Korea into the international commodity market after 1876.

Industrialization in capitalist societies ushered in the growth of trade unions and the development of union activities of industrial workers. In the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries in the West when unionism began, trade unions took diverse forms. These forms varied by society and were significantly influenced by the country’s specific historical background and socioeconomic and cultural conditions. Yet such diverse union structures began to merge into “industrial unionism” in the late nineteenth century, which embraced all types of workers within the boundaries of an industry. Industrial unionism has been considered the organizational form that most effectively ensures the collective power of trade unions and their sociopolitical sway over contending forces, notably, the state and employers’ associations, and thus has remained a prototypical union system. Accordingly, nonwestern societies and latecomers to unionism in the West have modeled their unions on the basis of the industrial union structure.

The authors focus on a non-Western setting that has hardly featured in debates around political authenticity, Taiwan. The authors also adopt a novel inter-generational perspective to look at varying attitudes towards two ‘unconventional’, high-profile politicians, Ko Wen-je and Han Kuo-yu. Drawing on focus group data, the authors note the similarities and differences in the way that the different generations engage with, and assess, the two politicians with a particular focus on the extent to which their personalities, appearance, and everyday activities are perceived as authentic.

In this paper I investigate the nature of the differential in poverty by ethnicity in rural China using data from the Chinese Household Income Project in 2002. For that, I compare observed poverty with that in a counterfactual distribution in which ethnic minorities are given a set of relevant village and household characteristics of the Han majority. In particular, I investigate the importance of the location of minorities in explaining their higher poverty levels. The ethnic poverty differential does not change after equalizing the distribution of the population by geographical region (unless we use a higher poverty line). However, it is reduced after equalizing other locational characteristics of minorities (such as them living in less developed and mountainous areas), their larger number of children, their low education, and their fewer skilled non-agriculture workers. Finally, the ethnic per capita (log) income differential is shown to be higher for higher percentiles, with an increasing role of the geographical region as the main driver of these higher differentials.

Using the modified theory of planned behavior, this study aims to understand residents’ supporting or rejecting mindsets toward legalizing gambling in Kinmen, Taiwan, where exists a complex and somewhat contradictory relationships between economic growth and the preservation of the natural environment in the context of tourism specifically to small island destinations. This study develops a convenience sampling procedure in which 365 questionnaires are collected. A series of hypotheses tests are conducted via structural equation modeling. This study notices that perceived behavioral control is the most important attribute affecting behavioral intention. However, behavioral intention does not necessarily lead to actual behavior. Attitude is considered as a more reliable predictor of actual action. Attitude relied heavily on positive perceived behavioral control. Further, the respondents are concerned more about how legalizing gambling affects their current lifestyle.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.