THE highest strength wrought aluminium alloys currently available are based on the aluminium‐zinc‐magnesium‐copper system, and such alloys offer considerable potential for weight…
Abstract
THE highest strength wrought aluminium alloys currently available are based on the aluminium‐zinc‐magnesium‐copper system, and such alloys offer considerable potential for weight savings in airframe structures. However, these alloys have presented problems in service, arising from deficiencies in fracture toughness and fatigue crack propagation resistance together with a susceptibility to exfoliation corrosion and stress‐corrosion, which have led to restrictions being placed on their use by individual aircraft companies and by procurement authorities in a number of countries. This situation has led to the wide‐spread use in the UK and continental Europe of lower strength alloys of the aluminium‐copper‐magnesium‐silicon type, even though significant weight penalties are incurred in the process. There has been a more general acceptance of the high strength aluminium‐zinc‐magnesium‐copper alloys in the USA, where problems associated with their use have been partially alleviated by a willingness to replace components at short intervals, but even so during recent years a trend has developed there towards the use of lower strength versions of these alloys in attempts to improve airframe durability and reliability.
This study aims to establish the effect of environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices on Australian energy and utility investment performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to establish the effect of environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices on Australian energy and utility investment performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Conventional and ESG-rated portfolios are constructed using monthly returns and ESG scores of S&P/ASX 300 listed energy and utility firms from 2014 to 2022. Portfolio performance is estimated using a four-factor regression model, controlling for any economic shocks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings
The findings show that the lower the ESG score associated with the overall ESG and environmental portfolios, the greater the performance compared to the market (but not the conventional and other ESG portfolios). High ESG scores do not appear to influence the performance of the energy and utility portfolios, which contrasts expectations that the uptake of ESG should deliver superior risk-return outcomes for investors. The findings also indicate that a contrarian investment approach may be a reasonable performance indicator for high-rated ESG portfolios. ESG practices did not impact portfolio performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
This research has contributed to the literature by offering ESG investment insights for policymakers, regulators, fund managers and investors. Consistent with the agency perspective on ESG practices and efficient market hypothesis, the evidence implies that, regardless of ESG scores (either high or low), investors should consider investing passively in diversified energy and utility portfolios or low-cost index fund equivalents.
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Chanki Moon and Ángel Sánchez‐Rodríguez
Antecedents and influences of workplace incivility have recently been studied in many areas of research but there is still a lack of consideration for the impact of culture…
Abstract
Purpose
Antecedents and influences of workplace incivility have recently been studied in many areas of research but there is still a lack of consideration for the impact of culture. Theoretical considerations for the present research are based on the cultural dimensions of power distance and tightness/looseness because the collective levels of power distance are similar between Korea and Spain, but the collective levels of tightness/looseness are different between the two countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether individuals’ occupational position affects their normative reactions to incivility differently.
Design/methodology/approach
Participant (victim)’s (those who react to uncivil behaviors) social power (low vs high) and perpetrator’s (those who exhibit uncivil behaviors) social power (low vs high) were experimentally manipulated; all participants were randomly assigned to one of four perpetrator × victim conditions in relation to hierarchical positions (Ntot = 467).
Findings
The results suggest that the level of social and personal acceptability was greater either among Koreans than Spanish at a collective level or among people who endorsed higher power distance and tightness values. All in all, the findings highlight cultural influences on the importance of social hierarchy as a factor that can impact the people’s normative reactions to incivility.
Originality/value
The findings broaden our understanding of the psychology of employees in relation to incivility, by simultaneously considering the influences of culture (power distance and tightness/looseness) and social power.
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In construction projects, engineering variations are very common and create breeding grounds for opportunistic claims. This study investigates the complementary effect between an…
Abstract
Purpose
In construction projects, engineering variations are very common and create breeding grounds for opportunistic claims. This study investigates the complementary effect between an inspection mechanism and a reputation system in deterring opportunistic claims, considering an employer with limited inspection accuracy and a contractor, which can be either reputation-concerned or opportunistic.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies a signaling game to investigate the complementary effect between the employer's inspection and a reputation system in deterring the contractor's possible opportunistic claim, considering the information-flow influence of claiming prices.
Findings
This study finds that in the exogenous-inspection-accuracy case, the employer does not always inspect the claim. A more stringent reputation system complements a less accurate inspection only when the inspection cost is lower than a threshold, but may decline the employer's surplus or social welfare. In the optimal-inspection-accuracy case, the employer always inspects the claim. However, only a sufficiently stringent reputation system can guarantee the effectiveness of an optimal inspection in curbing opportunistic claims. A more stringent reputation system has a value-stepping effect on the employer's surplus but may unexpectedly impair social welfare, whereas a higher inspection cost efficiency always reduces social welfare.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the project management literature by combing the signaling game theory with the reputation theory and thus embeds the problem of inspection mechanism design into a broader socio-economic framework.
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Sarah Wolfolds, Markus Taussig, Bryan Hong and Kjell Carlsson
This chapter is motivated by a surprising empirical finding: During the 2008 economic crisis, leading global buyers of labor-intensive manufacturing goods were more likely to…
Abstract
This chapter is motivated by a surprising empirical finding: During the 2008 economic crisis, leading global buyers of labor-intensive manufacturing goods were more likely to terminate contracts with suppliers based in countries with strong formal contract enforcement institutions than with those in countries where such institutions were weak. We develop a formal model that explains this counterintuitive finding as the result of heightened reliance on informal contracting when the formal contracting system is unreliable. This explanation contrasts with recent characterizations of outsourcing as an exercise of real options and adds to understanding of the effect of using relational contracting across multiple borders.
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Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to clarify the effects of brand differentiation on the platform's formulation of channel strategy and help the online platform formulate the optimal channel strategy, which involves selecting a proper selling mode for each brand.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a multistage game model consisting of one online platform and two competing manufacturers with differentiated brands and examines the effects of brand differentiation on these three channel members' profits under each candidate channel strategy.
Findings
The results show that the platform prefers to offer the reselling mode for both brands when the brand differentiation is low, and this preference will be enhanced by the decrease in order fulfilment cost. By contrast, when the brand differentiation is high, it will offer the reselling mode for the premium brand but the marketplace service for the economy brand if the order fulfilment cost is not high; or the marketplace mode will be offered to both brands if this cost is high.
Research limitations/implications
This study assumes that the order fulfilment costs of platform and manufacturer are fixed and symmetric. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to consider asymmetric costs of order fulfilment.
Practical implications
The paper guides the online platform to formulate the optimal channel strategy for differentiated brands and provides managerial insights for differentiated brands entering online markets.
Originality/value
This paper explores platforms' optimal channel strategy by jointly considering the effects of brand differentiation and investigates the impacts of brand differentiation on the optimal decision making under four candidate options. Moreover, this paper has been extended to examine the case when the manufacturers' production costs cannot be neglected.
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This study explores whether a firm's environmental and social (E&S) transparency affects corporate payout policies having two forms of dividend payout and stock repurchase payout…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores whether a firm's environmental and social (E&S) transparency affects corporate payout policies having two forms of dividend payout and stock repurchase payout.
Design/methodology/approach
Focusing on a large sample of S&P 500 firms, and utilizing Tobit estimators, the author examines whether a firm's environmental transparency and social transparency affect the levels of each dividend payout and stock repurchase payout. Transparency reflects comprehensive scores compiled by Bloomberg, capturing both the quantity (in terms of the number of data points) and the quality (with respect to objective and industry-relevant data points) of verified E&S information attributed to a firm's E&S practices.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that transparency, both environmental and social, relates to higher corporate payouts (i.e. higher dividend payout and higher stock repurchase payout). These positive relationships are magnified for firms suffering from high information asymmetry, low financial reporting quality and for those with weak governance. Moreover, the author finds that dividend payout is more stable in high E&S transparent firms than in low E&S transparent firms. The study findings continue to hold after a battery of robustness and sensitivity checks such as alternative measures, specifications, estimators, use of the instrumental variable regression approach and mitigation of omitted variable bias
Research limitations/implications
The study findings suggest that investors' interests (demanding for high corporate payouts) and other stakeholders' interests (demanding for high E&S transparency) are not necessarily in conflict, and investors' demands can be met while maintaining commitment to high E&S transparency. In addition, the study results imply that higher E&S transparency complements higher corporate payouts and signals to the market both a firm's commitment to E&S transparency and its ability to have high corporate payouts. In this line, the study findings clarify the high value of E&S transparency screening in investors' decision-making process as such transparency leads to higher corporate payouts for investors (i.e. facilitating wealth transfer to shareholders). Finally, the study findings are relevant to standard setters and regulators who emphasize the importance of E&S transparency.
Originality/value
By integrating two distinct streams of literature on corporate finance and corporate social responsibility (CSR), the author introduces E&S transparency as a novel nonfinancial driver of corporate payout policies. Finally, the study findings are in line with the notion that firm transparency (reflected in E&S transparency) can be a crucial element in justifying a firm's corporate payout policies and, in an overall view, firm policies.
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The introductory chapter includes how to design-in good practices in theory, data collection procedures, analysis, and interpretations to avoid these bad practices. Given that bad…
Abstract
The introductory chapter includes how to design-in good practices in theory, data collection procedures, analysis, and interpretations to avoid these bad practices. Given that bad practices in research are ingrained in the career training of scholars in sub-disciplines of business/management (e.g., through reading articles exhibiting bad practices usually without discussions of the severe weaknesses in these studies and by research courses stressing the use of regression analysis and structural equation modeling), this editorial is likely to have little impact. However, scholars and executives supporting good practices should not lose hope. The relevant literature includes a few brilliant contributions that can serve as beacons for eliminating the current pervasive bad practices and for performing highly competent research.
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Khusnul Prasetyo and Damai Nasution
This study aims to reconcile conflicting empirical results from prior studies on the association between political connections (PCs) and firms’ performance. Furthermore, it…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reconcile conflicting empirical results from prior studies on the association between political connections (PCs) and firms’ performance. Furthermore, it investigates whether the contradictory findings were moderated by the different types of both PCs and firms’ performance measures. This study also makes a cross-country comparison of the empirical evidence to provide more insight.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used meta-analysis to integrate the previous studies’ findings on the association between PCs and firms’ performance and further investigated the moderators of such association.
Findings
The findings show that PCs have a positive association with firms’ performance. This result is apparent for both democratic and authoritarian countries, which suggests PCs’ beneficial consequences toward firms’ performance should not be disregarded in both contexts. This study also finds PCs and firms’ performance measures moderate the association between PCs and firms’ performance.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the stream of research that investigates the association between PCs and firms’ performance. To the best of our knowledge, it is among the first to implement statistical meta-analysis on the aforementioned literature while incorporating a cross-country comparison.
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I‐V characteristics of GaAs n‐i‐n structures are calculated by considering impact ionization of carriers. Impact ionization at reverse‐biased n‐i junction becomes a cause of steep…
Abstract
I‐V characteristics of GaAs n‐i‐n structures are calculated by considering impact ionization of carriers. Impact ionization at reverse‐biased n‐i junction becomes a cause of steep current rise when an acceptor density in the i‐layer is high. It is shown that an optimum acceptor density exists to keep a good isolation. Photoconduction transients of GaAs n‐i‐n structures are also simulated, and are shown to be strongly affected by existence of n‐i junctions.