Jieqi Guan, Carlos Noronha, Sandy Hou In Sio and Ching-Chi (Cindia) Lam
Typhoon Hato attacked Macau in August 2017 and had caused fatalities and extensive damages. This study aims to analyze the reactions of the city’s six casinos after the natural…
Abstract
Purpose
Typhoon Hato attacked Macau in August 2017 and had caused fatalities and extensive damages. This study aims to analyze the reactions of the city’s six casinos after the natural disaster from the perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR), with particular emphasis on finding out which stakeholders had they directed their support mostly.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative content analyses of press releases, social media, company reports and websites of the casinos in relation to the disaster and their CSR activities were conducted and examined in depth. Furthermore, triangulation of the qualitative data was achieved with quantitative data through a regression analysis.
Findings
It was found that most of the casinos’ activities were delivered in the forms of donations, rebuilding the community, supporting staffs and calling for volunteer work, thus largely targeting on the community and employees.
Practical implications
The study serves as a practical lesson for the casino operators to better plan and implement risk and reputational management and to better proliferate their socially responsible side of the gaming business to the public. It also helps casinos to ponder upon better crisis management methods so as to attain sustainability of the industry itself.
Social implications
The study explains the CSR activities of casinos, which are in a controversial industry, and attempts to explore why do they engage in CSR. It can be seen that the wrestle between social pressure and voluntarism will eventually institutionalize casinos and other controversial businesses in promoting more CSR in various aspects.
Originality/value
Combining some established institutional and socio-psychological theories, including the theory of planned behavior and the theory of regret regulation, the current work serves as an exploratory study to look into how and why Macau’s leading industry reacts in response to a natural disaster through CSR.
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Ruopiao Zhang, Carlos Noronha and Jieqi Guan
There is currently a host of measurements of corporate social performance (MCSPs) each with its own individual merits and concerns. This paper aims to bring new insights into…
Abstract
Purpose
There is currently a host of measurements of corporate social performance (MCSPs) each with its own individual merits and concerns. This paper aims to bring new insights into measuring corporate social performance (CSP) by advocating the use of a complementary indicator known as the social contribution value per share (SCVPS) developed by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in China.
Design/methodology/approach
A three-dimensional model is built to dissect the theoretical foundation of SCVPS. Next, this paper undertakes an extensive literature review of the criteria and methodologies which SCVPS relies upon to assess a firm’s social performance. Then SCVPS is critically compared with other commonly used MCSPs from different angles.
Findings
This paper highlights the major limitations of some MCSPs, namely, the lack of transparency, selection biases and the exclusion of controversial industries. It is suggested that SCVPS is worthy to be considered as a complementary indicator for CSP given its innovativeness, standardization and practicability.
Practical implications
The authors argue that there is great theoretical and practical significance for firms to set per-share social contribution indicators using SCVPS on a global basis, which helps to enrich decision-making processes when combined with other MCSPs.
Originality/value
This paper suggests SCVPS as a complementary indicator of social performance and anatomizes this choice indicator with other MCSPs in terms of their theoretical underpinnings, practical applications and probable deficiencies.
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Xiangzhen Nie, Weibing Max Zhao and Jieqi Guan
This study conducts a systematic review of research on restaurant menus and uses a detailed analytical framework to examine how these menus are developed. It incorporates insights…
Abstract
Purpose
This study conducts a systematic review of research on restaurant menus and uses a detailed analytical framework to examine how these menus are developed. It incorporates insights from the multi-level perspective (MLP) and signaling theory (ST) to provide a thorough and nuanced analysis of the factors that influence menu design.
Design/methodology/approach
This study scrutinizes 120 peer-reviewed articles published from 2004 to 2023 at A or A* journals, as classified by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC). Following a comprehensive analytical framework, it endeavors to delve into the intricate complexities of menu research, giving particular emphasis to the latest trends and developments. Two tools, namely CiteSpace and VOSviewer, were utilized to perform a thorough bibliometric analysis of the publications.
Findings
This study explores menu design from macro, meso and micro perspectives, illustrating that menus are more than simple lists of food items. Instead, they are shaped by societal norms, values, market dynamics, industry standards and consumer preferences. It underscores the vital role of menu as a communication and management tool in engaging consumers and influencing their dining choices and decisions.
Originality/value
This study represents the pioneering effort to incorporate the MLP and ST into the realm of menu research, providing a novel approach to the systematic review of related literature. It offers a distinctive macro-level theoretical perspective on menu dynamics, providing insights that are relevant to industry professionals, policymakers, academics and the public.
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Jieqi Guan, Yui-yip Lau, Huijun Yang and Lianping Ren
This paper aims to explore factors affecting young consumers’ purchasing of new smart products under the influence of social media.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore factors affecting young consumers’ purchasing of new smart products under the influence of social media.
Design/methodology/approach
Twenty semi-structured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted with young consumers who used new media, and five extended interviews were conducted with popular smartwatch retailers in Macau.
Findings
The findings reveal that they tend to garner product information from multiple channels of communication. Social media exert the greatest influence. Reliable information, strong branding and interactions with vendors are also influential, although new product pre-announcements may be boring and difficult to understand.
Originality/value
This study presents new insights into diffusion of innovation theory and provides retailers launching smart products with a better understanding of their target young customers’ purchasing behavior.
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Tiffany Cheng Han Leung, Jieqi Guan and Yui-Yip Lau
This study aims to examine management attitude and awareness towards green logistics, explores the external conditions that drive and restrict its positive behaviour, investigates…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine management attitude and awareness towards green logistics, explores the external conditions that drive and restrict its positive behaviour, investigates the level of its adoption amongst logistics service providers (LSPs) and determines the major barriers affecting its application in the industry.
Design/methodology/approach
This research investigates the key decision-making process on green logistics attitude and behaviour through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis.
Findings
This study explores both institutional and individual-level attitudes/awareness. Then, the driving and restraining forces and the challenges that influence the industry’s adoption of green initiatives are determined. Finally, this study constructs a framework following a behavioural driving route with interactions among green “attitude”, sustainable “subjective norms”, “behavioural control” and “external context” factors.
Practical implications
Findings can enlighten the practitioners who are struggling to adopt the green or low-carbon practice and provide valuable insights and constructive advice to LSPs and their stakeholders.
Social implications
Findings can draw the government and policy-makers’ attention to provide necessary financial or non-financial support for the practitioners to improve their green operations.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to adopt the hybrid theoretical lens on the green behaviour of the logistics industry. New insights are added to existing environmental management literature with a wider understanding and deeper investigation of the decision-making on green logistics in the industry. The theoretical framework in this study can offer future applications to a relevant large-scale study.
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Carlos Noronha, Jieqi Guan and Sandy Hou In Sio
While the COVID-19 virus has been spreading worldwide, some studies have related the pandemic with various aspects of accounting and therefore emphasized the importance of…
Abstract
Purpose
While the COVID-19 virus has been spreading worldwide, some studies have related the pandemic with various aspects of accounting and therefore emphasized the importance of accounting research in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on society as a whole. Recent studies have looked into such an impact on various industries such as retail and agriculture. The current study aims at applying a sociological framework, sociology of worth (SOW), to the gaming industry in Macau, the largest operator of state-allowed gambling and entertainment in China, which will allow for its development during the COVID-19 pandemic to be charted.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the theory of SOW as a framework and collects data from various sources, such as the government, gaming operators and the public, to create timelines and SOW frameworks to analyze the impact of the virus on the gaming industry and the society as a whole.
Findings
Detailed content analysis and the creation of different SOW matrices determined that the notion of a “lonely economy” during a time of a critical event may be ameliorated in the long term through compromises of the different worlds and actors of the SOW.
Practical implications
Though largely theory-based, this study offers a thorough account of the COVID-19 incident for both the government and the gaming industry to reflect on and to consider new ways to fight against degrowth caused by disasters or crises.
Social implications
The SOW framework divides society into different worlds of different worths. The current study shows how the worths of the different worlds are congruent during normal periods, and how cracks appear between them when a sudden crisis, such as COVID-19, occurs. The article serves as a social account of how these cracks are formed and how could they be resolved through compromise and reconstruction.
Originality/value
This study is a first attempt to apply SOW to a controversial industry (gaming) while the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are ongoing. It offers a significant contribution to the social accounting literature through its consideration of the combination of unprecedented factors in a well-timed study that pays close attention to analyses and theoretical elaboration.
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Carlos Noronha, Jieqi Guan and Jing Fan
This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social contribution measures and investors’ reaction under the effect of corporate governance for firms listed in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social contribution measures and investors’ reaction under the effect of corporate governance for firms listed in China, the largest emerging economy in the world. Corporate social contribution is examined from an informative perspective by using a financial indicator – social contribution value per share (SCVPS) brought up by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2008.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are obtained from two channels: financial information during 2007-2015 generated from database and social accounting information manually collected from the 2007-2015 annual reports and social reports.
Findings
It is predicted that investors’ reaction toward corporate social contribution becomes stronger for companies with higher corporate governance quality.
Practical implications
This paper is one of the first to use Chinese SCVPS data to indicate the informativeness of social contribution toward firm value. It can serve as a valuable reference to both investors and companies in terms of the issue of social contribution.
Social implications
The study highlights the importance of social contribution on firm value by using an empirical approach in the Chinese market. The study can be used as a reference for many other developing countries in the world.
Originality/value
The findings of this study can provide guidance to investors on how to evaluate a firm’s social performance and encourage companies to improve the transparency of their social reporting, as well as the quality of corporate governance.
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Ruopiao Zhang, Teresa Chu, Carlos Noronha and Jieqi Guan
This study introduces Social Contribution Value per Share (SCVPS), an indicator devised by the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), as an easy-to-interpret Measurement of Corporate…
Abstract
Purpose
This study introduces Social Contribution Value per Share (SCVPS), an indicator devised by the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), as an easy-to-interpret Measurement of Corporate Social Performance (MCSP) to the international research arena. The authors first explore the informativeness role of voluntary disclosure of SCVPS in the stock market. The authors then go one step further to demonstrate the relationship between corporate value creation quantified by SCVPS and firm value.
Design/methodology/approach
The study takes a new perspective – a quasi-natural experiment of SCVPS disclosure in 2008 and uses a Propensity Score Matched Difference in Difference model (PSM-DiD) to investigate the impact of SCVPS disclosure policy on stock price synchronization and firm value. Through manually recalculating all the values of SCVPS and its components, this study enables us to further investigate the relationship between corporate value creation for various stakeholders and firm value.
Findings
This study reveals that voluntary disclosure of SCVPS can signal firm-specific information to the market and reduce noise in returns, thus affecting stock price synchronization. The findings further demonstrate that such firm-specific information has value relevance to firm performance. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that corporate value creation for different stakeholders measured by SCVPS can significantly affect firm value. The moderating effects of ownership structures and industry types are also investigated, and an endogeneity test confirms the robustness of the findings.
Practical implications
This study argues that SCVPS offers an economically viable way for firms, including small-and-medium-sized enterprises, in emerging economies to disclose corporate value creation and provide the public with a direct understanding and appreciation of the values created by corporations for stakeholders.
Originality/value
The result makes contributions to the MCSP literature and explores the informativeness of SCVPS disclosure. Besides, this paper demonstrates that SCVPS offers a good setting to explore the effect of corporate value creation on firm performance in an emerging market.