Kam C. Chan, Hung‐Gay Fung and Wai K. Leung
We examine the citations from four international business (IB) journals over 2000‐2004 to show the areas, the journals, and the institutions that impact IB research. The leading…
Abstract
We examine the citations from four international business (IB) journals over 2000‐2004 to show the areas, the journals, and the institutions that impact IB research. The leading works that influence IB research are primarily management journals, scholarly books, and IB journals. IB research is published in non‐IB journals, as well and this has influenced the recent research in IB journals. U.S. and non‐U.S. academic institutions and non‐academic organizations are among the top 100 institutions that impact IB research, indicating that this research is a truly global endeavor. Finally, recent IB research is influenced more by recent published research than by past research. Scholarly books have become less influential, while the economics, finance, and marketing journals show no change in the influence on IB research over time.
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Kam C. Chan, Anna Fung, Hung-Gay Fung and Jot Yau
The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective review of literature and presents a conceptual framework in journal and institution rankings. Several streams of ranking…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective review of literature and presents a conceptual framework in journal and institution rankings. Several streams of ranking literature are analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide a conceptual framework to analyze the literature of journal and school ranking. Thus, several streams of ranking literature are analyzed to support the conceptual framework.
Findings
Through the lens of a context-driven framework, the authors point to originality, utility, and timeliness as aspects that contribute to the recent increase of the ranking literature. Finally, the authors discuss other issues that arise within ranking due to subjective biases, institutional preferences and difficulties establishing weighting measurements, as well as the future direction of ranking.
Research limitations/implications
The authors propose a context-based ranking framework to analyze rankings as factors that influence the environment may ultimately affect the usefulness of these rankings. It also implies that ranking of a journal or institution is a relative measure, as the context in which rankings are derived may change over time. Ultimately, the relative benchmarks used in the ranking will change as newer, more relevant metrics are developed.
Originality/value
The conceptual framework is new and provides a useful benchmark to understand ranking of journals and school.
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Yeuk Mui May Tam, Kam Wah Chan and Ka Man Lo
Relatively few studies about retirement transition examine economies, where a public pension system is absent. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature.
Abstract
Purpose
Relatively few studies about retirement transition examine economies, where a public pension system is absent. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study draws on the stratification and risk society approach, as well as results from unstructured interviews with 12 Chinese in Hong Kong.
Findings
The analyses show that the retirement transition involves moving between different forms of wage work and non-work status. These moves were undertaken because of not only financial needs but also a strong desire to be a financially self-reliant and intrinsic commitment to employment. The authors argue that the desire and commitment to employment are shaped by the underdeveloped pension system, practical orientation towards traditional Chinese filial piety norms and personal work history.
Research limitations/implications
The current research covers only a very small sample and uses retrospective interviewing instead of a larger and/or representative sample using prospective panel interview. Nevertheless, the research carries theoretical and policy implications of the study on retirement transition and protection.
Originality/value
Few local studies track retirement transitions in the way similar to the current studies. Existing studies are mostly about advanced Anglo-Saxon economies with a long history of public pension, albeit reformed in recent year, in place. The current study adds to the general literature on retirement studies.
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Jianhua Tan, Kam C. Chan, Samuel Chang and Bin Wang
This paper aims to examine the effect of carbon emissions on audit fees. The authors hypothesize that firms in cities with higher carbon emission levels have lower reporting…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effect of carbon emissions on audit fees. The authors hypothesize that firms in cities with higher carbon emission levels have lower reporting transparency, higher return volatility or are subject to higher reputation risk, causing them to be charged higher audit fees for auditing services.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use panel data of 25,960 firm-year observations from a sample of Chinese firms. The carbon emission data for each Chinese city are obtained from the China Emission Accounts and Datasets for Emerging Economies. This paper adopts a multiple regression model to study the impact of carbon emissions on audit fees.
Findings
The authors find that firms located in cities with higher carbon emission levels and firms with more carbon emissions are charged, on average, a higher audit fee. This audit fee effect of carbon risk is transmitted by lessened information transparency and elevated financial risk within these firms. This paper shows that auditors consider carbon risk in their audit fee decisions and other factors that could influence audit risk and effort.
Originality/value
This study draws a connection between carbon emissions and audit fees. It is especially relevant due to the increasing importance of environmental factors in the audit risk assessment. In addition, the findings suggest that a firm implementing a proactive environmental strategy benefits the economy and decreases the costs to the firm for services such as auditing.
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Kam C. Chan, Annie Wong and Hannah Wong
The purpose of this paper is to provide a complementary analysis of finance journals that are often being overlooked in prior studies. Specifically, the authors examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a complementary analysis of finance journals that are often being overlooked in prior studies. Specifically, the authors examine the Australian Business Dean Council’s (ABDC’s) C-ranked journals in terms of their authors’ affiliations with US colleges, US colleges with Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditations, and US colleges with AACSB doctoral program accreditations.
Design/methodology/approach
A list of C-ranked journals is downloaded from the ABDC’s website. Full-text articles of these journals are downloaded from library databases for the five-year period of 2009-2013. Author affiliations are collected from the corresponding articles. Journal histories, journal editor locations, Cabell’s journal rankings, and acceptance rates are collected from the ABDC’s database, Cabell’s Directory, journal websites, and library databases. The final sample consists of 28 finance journals.
Findings
The authors find that these journals have a substantial number and percentage of authors from US colleges. Among the US authors, about 92 percent of them are from AACSB accredited schools and most of them are from AACSB accredited schools with doctoral programs. The findings support the notion that these journals are important publication outlets for US researchers. The authors also find that journals with longer histories and US-based editors have a higher percentage of US authors. In addition, journals with better Cabell’s journal rankings and higher rejection rates have higher percentage of US authors from AACSB accredited schools with doctoral programs.
Originality/value
C-ranked journals are often neglected in prior studies on journal characteristics because they are less well-known and less likely to be cited. However, these journals constitute as many as half of all finance journals in the ABDC database and can be important publication outlets for finance researchers. This study contributes to the literature by examining the author characteristics of these journals, namely, the proportions of authors who come from US colleges and authors who come from AACSB accredited US programs. Such an analysis will provide valuable insight into the value of these journals.
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Fansheng Jia, Yilin Zhang, Kam C. Chan and Sujuan Xie
This paper aims to examine the relation between religiosity and formal financing in the context of long- and short-term corporate loans.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relation between religiosity and formal financing in the context of long- and short-term corporate loans.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses archival methodology to conduct a multiple regression analysis with the amount of long- and short-term corporate loans as the dependent variable and a measure of religiosity as the key explanatory variable.
Findings
This paper offers four findings. First, when a private firm locates in a high religiosity region, it is more likely to get more corporate loans and the amount of corporate loans is positively correlated with the extent of religiosity. Second, religiosity drives a private firm getting more (less) short-term (long-term) loans. Third, a private firm in a high religiosity region is able to incur lower interest cost associated with more short-term loans. Finally, the results are confined to Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity.
Practical implications
Overall, the findings are consistent with the notion that religiosity shapes the local culture so that individuals, some of them are borrowers and lenders, show the religious traits in the formal lending and borrowing relationship.
Originality/value
Overall, findings of this paper are consistent with the notion that religiosity shapes the local culture so that individuals, some of them being borrowers and lenders, show religious traits in the formal lending and borrowing relationship.
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Changyuan Xia, Xieen Mao, Haizong Yu and Kam C. Chan
This paper aims to investigate the impact of a firm’s pension insurance contributions (PIC) on its financialization (investment in risky assets) using a sample of Chinese firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of a firm’s pension insurance contributions (PIC) on its financialization (investment in risky assets) using a sample of Chinese firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use a multiple regression model to conduct the analysis.
Findings
The findings suggest that a firm’s PIC increases its financialization. Additional analysis suggests that firms with higher PIC are more likely to have lower operating profit and higher financial risk. In addition, the impact of PIC on financialization is more salient when a firm faces high industry competitiveness, holds more cash, has high labor costs and labor intensity or is non-state owned.
Practical implications
The paper adds to the growing literature on the effect of social insurance on corporate policies. The findings complement those related to the relationship between defined contributions and defined benefits retirement plans and corporate policies.
Social implications
The study contributes to the debate on the merits of financialization. The literature is mixed on the pros and cons of financialization. The results suggest that financialization has an adverse effect on a firm’s performance and risk in the lens of increased PIC.
Originality/value
China has seen a trend of financialization arising from the rapid economic development in the past decade. Moreover, the PIC premiums in China are not trivial. Thus, the significant cost of PIC and the financialization trend suggest that the answer to the research question is timely and meaningful.
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Huijie Zhong, Xinran Zhang, Kam C. Chan and Chao Yan
Robots are widely used in industrial manufacturing and service industries around the world. However, most of the previous studies on industrial robots use data at the national or…
Abstract
Purpose
Robots are widely used in industrial manufacturing and service industries around the world. However, most of the previous studies on industrial robots use data at the national or industry level in the context of developed countries. This study examines the impact of imported industrial robots on firm innovation at the firm level in China.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on a large dataset of more than three million records in China, including non-publicly traded small and medium firms, the authors adopt a difference-in-differences method to investigate the impact and channels of industrial robots on firm innovation.
Findings
The authors find that the application of industrial robots increases firm innovation. Two possible channels are identified through which robots promote innovation: alleviation of financial constraints and the improvement of human capital. Further analysis shows that the effect of robots on innovation is more pronounced for firms that are highly dependent on external financing, belong to high-tech industries, import high-end robots, have insufficient supply of skilled labor and private firms (non-SOEs). The authors also find that industrial robots increase the firms' innovation quality and the marginal contribution of innovation to firms' total factor productivity.
Originality/value
This study provides big data evidence of the unintended positive consequences of industrial robots on firm innovation. The results are helpful to clarify the controversy of industrial robots. It also has important implications for government industrial policy making, firm innovation and human resource management.
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Chunfang Cao, Fansheng Jia, Xiaowei Zhang and Kam C. Chan
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between Buddhism/Taoism and dividend payout decisions among Chinese listed firms during 2003-2013.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between Buddhism/Taoism and dividend payout decisions among Chinese listed firms during 2003-2013.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors include all Chinese A-share listed stocks in their sample during 2003-2013 and use a multiple regression method to conduct their analyses.
Findings
Their findings suggest that firms in regions with high influence of Buddhism and Taoism lean toward having high dividend payouts. The results are robust to a battery of alternative specifications in dividend payout, religiosity measures, research methods and dividend regulation regimes.
Originality/value
They show that the religions of Buddhism/Taoism play a role in determining dividend payout, complementing other informal institution studies of dividend policy. They complement the literature by providing insights into the impact of Buddhism and Taoism on corporate behaviors beyond immoral or unethical practices. They are able to relate specific doctrinal tenets of Buddhism and Taoism to corporate behavior rather than using only the general moral and ethical guidelines of religiosity.
Kennedy Kam Ho Chan, Cuiling He, Richard Chi Keung Ng and Jessica Shuk Ching Leung
The purpose of this paper is to explore the emotions reported by a group of student teachers (STs) after viewing their own teaching videos and those of their peers, as well as the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the emotions reported by a group of student teachers (STs) after viewing their own teaching videos and those of their peers, as well as the reasons for those emotions. It also investigated the perceived influence of the STs’ emotions on their learning from the videos.
Design/methodology/approach
The case study involved 12 STs, and was situated in the context of a science methods course on a postgraduate teaching diploma program. The emotions associated with watching different types of video materials were investigated using a variety of data-collection methods, including written surveys, student-generated metaphors, and interviews. The emotion labels/words (e.g. horrible, joyful) and metaphors the STs used to describe their video-viewing experience, as well as the reasons for their emotions, were analyzed. The perceived influence of the participants’ emotions on their learning from the different types of video material was also analyzed qualitatively.
Findings
The findings suggested that most of the STs experienced negative emotions when viewing their own videos, whereas all of them reported positive emotions when viewing their peers’ videos. Distinct groups of STs displaying similar emotions while viewing the different video materials were distinguished. Their characteristics and the reasons for their emotions were identified. Analysis of the perceived influence of emotions suggested that they exert differential influences on learning from video materials, with the negative emotions associated with viewing one’s own videos reported to hinder such learning in most cases.
Originality/value
This study represents one of the few attempts to investigate the emotions related to STs’ video-viewing experience. The case study problematizes the lack of attention to the emotions associated with ST’s video-viewing experience in existing scholarship and highlights the fact that research findings on in-service teachers’ emotions associated with viewing different types of video material might not be transferable to novice teachers. The identification of distinct groups of STs who experience particular emotions when viewing different types of video material, as well as the differing perceived influence of those emotions on their learning, has implications for the effective use of videos to enhance learning in initial teacher education.