Xie Yizhong, Zhibin Lin, Yevhen Baranchenko, Chi Keung Lau, Andrey Yukhanaev and Hailing Lu
Graduate employability is a key concern for many observers particularly at a time when education is increasingly available for the masses. The purpose of this paper is to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
Graduate employability is a key concern for many observers particularly at a time when education is increasingly available for the masses. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of graduate perceived employability on job search by integrating theory of planned behavior and to identify how job search self-efficacy, subjective norms, intention and intensity change over time.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from a six-wave survey study with a sample of Chinese university graduating students.
Findings
Results show that perceived employability has a positive and significant effect on job search self-efficacy, attitude, intention and intensity; and that all the repeated measuring variables (except job search attitude) decreased over time.
Practical implications
The study is useful for educators, employers and prospective students. It prompts discussion of reforms in the curriculum to increase graduate awareness of the complexity of the job search process and existing opportunities. The study could also help to explain how job search behavior changes over time.
Originality/value
The findings carry implications for both higher education research and the measures of improving graduate employability. The study fills the gap in the literature by integrating employability and the theory of planned behavior into one framework in order to analyze the process of Chinese university graduates’ job search behavior.
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Nicholas Apergis and Chi Keung Marco Lau
This paper aims to provide fresh empirical evidence on how Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy decisions from a benchmark monetary policy rule affect the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide fresh empirical evidence on how Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy decisions from a benchmark monetary policy rule affect the profitability of US banking institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
It thereby provides a link between the literature on central bank monetary policy implementation through monetary rules and banks’ profitability. It uses a novel data set from 11,894 US banks, spanning the period 1990 to 2013.
Findings
The empirical findings show that deviations of FOMC monetary policy decisions from a number of benchmark linear and non-linear monetary (Taylor type) rules exert a negative and statistically significant impact on banks’ profitability.
Originality/value
The results are expected to have substantial implications for the capacity of banking institutions to more readily interpret monetary policy information and accordingly to reshape and hedge their lending behaviour. This would make the monetary policy decision process less noisy and, thus, enhance their capability to attach the correct weight to this information.
Jie Ma, Zhibin Lin and Chi Keung Lau
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how Sino-Japanese joint ventures implemented the three Japanese improvement methods, i.e. Kaizen, Kaikaku and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how Sino-Japanese joint ventures implemented the three Japanese improvement methods, i.e. Kaizen, Kaikaku and Kaizen Blitz. The specific objectives of this study are to identify the key enablers for the three improvement methods; and to identify the most selected improvement method.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to pairwise-compare the three improvement methods. Data are collected from 28 industry experts from Sino-Japanese joint ventures. The study then adopts extent analysis approach for pairwise comparisons and extent analysis to obtain synthetic extent values for priority weights.
Findings
The results of the study indicate that personnel (humanware) factor enablers are the most important factor for Kaizen, whilst software factor enablers (essential rules, policies and institutional arrangements) weight second and hardware factor enablers (physical, measurable hard facts or resources) weight last. The study also reviews that Kaizen is the most selected improvement method among the three.
Research limitations/implications
The sample of this study is limited to Sino-Japanese ventures in Guangzhou, China. This study only identifies the key improvement enablers based on interviews with shop floor managers and improvement experts.
Practical implications
Practical implications are threefold: the improvement implementations should be based on factors such as regular training, incentives for motivations and shop floor management; improvement methods are transferable and standard operations may only have small effects on collecting improvement ideas; and Kaizen is the appropriate method to support long-term and process-oriented improvements.
Originality/value
This study is the first to specifically pairwise-compare the three Japanese improvement methods and to identify priorities of their key enablers in Sino-Japanese joint ventures.
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Omokolade Akinsomi, Yener Coskun, Rangan Gupta and Chi Keung Marco Lau
This paper aims to examine herding behaviour among investors and traders in UK-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) within three market regimes (low, high and extreme…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine herding behaviour among investors and traders in UK-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) within three market regimes (low, high and extreme volatility periods) from the period June 2004 to April 2016.
Design/methodology/approach
Observations of investors in 36 REITs that trade on the London Stock Exchange as at April 2016 were used to analyse herding behaviour among investors and traders of shares of UK REITs, using a Markov regime-switching model.
Findings
Although a static herding model rejects the existence of herding in REITs markets, estimates from the regime-switching model reveal substantial evidence of herding behaviour within the low volatility regime. Most interestingly, the authors observed a shift from anti-herding behaviour within the high volatility regime to herding behaviour within the low volatility regime, with this having been caused by the FTSE 100 Volatility Index (UK VIX).
Originality/value
The results have various implications for decisions regarding asset allocation, diversification and value management within UK REITs. Market participants and analysts may consider that collective movements and market sentiment/psychology are determinative factors of risk-return in UK REITs. In addition, general uncertainty in the equity market, proxied by the impact of the UK VIX, may also provide a signal for increasing herding-related risks among UK REITs.
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Jie Ma, Feng Jiao, Chi Keung Lau and Zhibin Lin
The purpose of this paper is to develop and redefine the “classic” roles of shop floor management and quality control circles (QCCs) in Kaizen. In specific, it aims to examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and redefine the “classic” roles of shop floor management and quality control circles (QCCs) in Kaizen. In specific, it aims to examine the linkage between shop floor management and QCCs, and test the relationships among shop floor management, QCCs and long-term Kaizen improvement outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs qualitative method by using a questionnaire to obtain data from 371 respondents in nine Sino-Japanese automotive joint-ventures. The data are analysed with the method of canonical correlation approach.
Findings
The study identifies important factors to assist the adoption of shop floor management and QCCs for Kaizen. The analysis on the survey indicates that not all the shop floor management tools could help to identify improvement opportunities. QCCs are effective in addressing large problems and challenging current policies in companies, however, they have low impacts on individual learning.
Research limitations/implications
The data of this study come from nine Sino-Japanese automotive joint ventures. Therefore, the sample selection is limited to these companies. The findings are able to be applied for improving the similar problems which were identified in this study.
Practical implications
The study has the following practical implications, first is small shop floor problems can be identified and solved rapidly and continuously at source by shop floor management. The second one is QCCs, or other similar group-based improvement approaches take long to be fully addressed and implemented. Third, practical solutions can be achieved from small and gradual changes, and they can prevent the results backsliding to the pre-improvement stage. Finally, QCCs are hardly to achieve a better improvement alone. It requires other Kaizen approaches to support.
Originality/value
This study is probably the first to explore and investigate the implementation of the four building block tools of shop floor management in real business practise, and more specific the first to discuss the relationship among shop floor management, QCCs and long-term improvement outcomes based on empirical data from Sino-Japanese automotive joint-ventures.
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Xie Yizhong, Yevhen Baranchenko, Zhibin Lin, Chi Keung Lau and Jie Ma
The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of job characteristics and social exchange in transformational leadership (TFL) and employability relationship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of job characteristics and social exchange in transformational leadership (TFL) and employability relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample is composed of 760 participants employed in Yangtze Delta and Pearl River Delta in China. The participants have worked under their line manager for more than one year. In order to better prevent data from possible common method bias, two waves of surveys (in 2014) on a stratified sample, included a mix of industries, such as construction, manufacturing, finance, insurance and communications, were used to investigate the proposed relationship between TFL, job characteristics, social exchange and employability.
Findings
The research has empirically tested the relationship between TFL and employability. While previous research has analyzed the relationship between them, the authors have enriched existing literature by exploring the mediating factors and illustrating the importance of indirect effects. Besides the direct effect, the results of this study showed that TFL could also improve employees’ employability through job demands, skill discretion, decision authority, perceived organizational support and team–member exchange, but not leader–member exchange.
Originality/value
The study opens up a debate around the employability of employees as it stands apart from the performance measurement. The authors believe that this new mediating model can provide an insight into complex mechanisms of employability enhancement from the perspective of leader development.
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Steve McDonald, Amanda K. Damarin, Jenelle Lawhorne and Annika Wilcox
The Internet and social media have fundamentally transformed the ways in which individuals find jobs. Relatively little is known about how demand-side market actors use online…
Abstract
The Internet and social media have fundamentally transformed the ways in which individuals find jobs. Relatively little is known about how demand-side market actors use online information and the implications for social stratification and mobility. This study provides an in-depth exploration of the online recruitment strategies pursued by human resource (HR) professionals. Qualitative interviews with 61 HR recruiters in two southern US metro areas reveal two distinct patterns in how they use Internet resources to fill jobs. For low and general skill work, they post advertisements to online job boards (e.g., Monster and CareerBuilder) with massive audiences of job seekers. By contrast, for high-skill or supervisory positions, they use LinkedIn to target passive candidates – employed individuals who are not looking for work but might be willing to change jobs. Although there are some intermediate practices, the overall picture is one of an increasingly bifurcated “winner-take-all” labor market in which recruiters focus their efforts on poaching specialized superstar talent (“purple squirrels”) from the ranks of the currently employed, while active job seekers are relegated to the hyper-competitive and impersonal “black hole” of the online job boards.
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Farrukh Suvankulov, Marco Chi Keung Lau and Frankie Ho Chi Chau
This paper aims to estimate the impact of job search on the internet on the probability of re‐employment and the duration of unemployment spells.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to estimate the impact of job search on the internet on the probability of re‐employment and the duration of unemployment spells.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses national panel datasets from Germany (SOEP 2003‐2007) and South Korea (KLIPS 1996‐2006) to estimate probit and Hausman‐Taylor IV models of the impact of job search on the internet on the probability of re‐employment. The study also explores duration analysis with the aim of estimating the impact of internet job search on the duration of unemployment.
Findings
In Germany and South Korea job seekers who used the internet had a 7.1 and 12.7 percentage point higher probability, respectively, of being re‐employed in the next 12 months. Furthermore, job seekers who used the internet had a shorter duration of unemployment in both Germany and South Korea.
Practical implications
Over the past decade, internet penetration rates and use of the internet in job search have risen sharply across the world. The internet has significantly changed the job application process and improved the channels of communication between employers and job seekers. The findings of the research indicate that the internet is beneficial and should be a part of job search efforts.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study is twofold. It is the first study to use panel datasets to analyze the link between internet use and job search outcomes. Therefore, the results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity problems. The study also addresses the issue of endogeneity of job search on the internet by using the Hausman‐Taylor IV model.
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Leticia Bollain-Parra, Oscar V. De la Torre-Torres, Dora Aguilasocho-Montoya and María de la Cruz del Río-Rama
In this work, we estimated the impact that the US VIX, economic policy and epidemic uncertainty indexes had on leisure and recreation stocks. We extended the current literature in…
Abstract
In this work, we estimated the impact that the US VIX, economic policy and epidemic uncertainty indexes had on leisure and recreation stocks. We extended the current literature in two ways: first, we estimated the smoothed probabilities of being in ‘normal’ (
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Hamid Khobzi, Raymond Y.K. Lau and Terence C.H. Cheung
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of different ways of message framing on users’ engagement behavior regarding the brand posts on Facebook and to determine…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of different ways of message framing on users’ engagement behavior regarding the brand posts on Facebook and to determine whether users’ thumbs-up and reply moderate this impact.
Design/methodology/approach
A panel data analysis was conducted on a panel with 11,894 observations on 850 unique brand posts from the Facebook pages of the world’s most valuable brands over a seven days window with two observations each day. A system of equations was estimated using ordinary least squares, Hausman–Taylor IV and seemingly unrelated regressions to test study’s hypotheses.
Findings
The empirical findings confirm that more positively and negatively framed comments result in increased users’ engagement. Also, an increase in thumbs-up ratio for neutrally and negatively framed comments results in less engagement. The reply ratio might also have a positive and negative moderation effect on the influence of neutrally and positively framed comments on engagement behavior, respectively.
Practical implications
This study provides an in-depth understanding of online social interactions on Facebook pages for firms’ managers and marketers. Online social interactions might be either harmful or fruitful for firms depending on the type of interaction and engagement behavior. Findings can help managers and marketer to improve their strategies for leveraging Facebook for electronic marketing.
Originality/value
This is likely to be the first study that examines the moderating effect of users’ thumbs-up and reply on the relationship between message framing and users’ engagement behavior. By providing robust findings by addressing issues like omitted variables and endogeneity, the findings of this study are promising for developing new hypotheses and theoretical models in the context of online social interactions.