Marcelo J. Alvarado-Vargas and Qi Zou
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the number of lawsuits on firm performance and in-house legal department size. More importantly, this paper also aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the number of lawsuits on firm performance and in-house legal department size. More importantly, this paper also aims to explore the interaction effect of in-house legal department size on the aforementioned lawsuit-performance relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analyses are performed by using secondary data. Structural equation modeling is employed in order to examine multiple structural relationships between the number of lawsuits, size of in-house legal department, and firm performance.
Findings
Three key findings were generated: number of lawsuits has a significant detrimental effect on firm performance; number of lawsuits is positively associated with size of in-house legal departments; and size of in-house legal departments negatively moderates the relationship between number of lawsuits and firm performance.
Practical implications
The results corroborate the harmfulness of lawsuits. On the one hand, a large number of lawsuits damage the firm’s financial performance directly; on the other hand, more lawsuits lead to enlarged in-house legal departments which further aggravate the negative effects of lawsuits on firm performance. These results suggest that firms should spend more effort in properly managing legal departments.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by empirically examining the economic impacts of lawsuits on firm performance. Moreover, it also explored the notion that having a large size of in-house legal department does not mitigate, but aggravates the harmfulness of lawsuits on firm performance.
Details
Keywords
Firms often struggle with opportunistic behavior from supply chain partners. Relying on Transaction Cost Economics and its extensions, this study developed a conceptual model…
Abstract
Purpose
Firms often struggle with opportunistic behavior from supply chain partners. Relying on Transaction Cost Economics and its extensions, this study developed a conceptual model theorizing the antecedence, consequences and conditional factors of opportunism within a buyer–supplier–supplier triadic relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed a cross-sectional survey data collected from 200 U.S. firms. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS and AMOS, the two statistical software, for reliability, validity, confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling.
Findings
First, opportunism negatively influences operational performance and business performance, and such an effect is fully mediated by relationship stability. Second, this study classified power asymmetry as asymmetrical power discrepancy and asymmetrical power advantage with these two forms playing different roles in influencing opportunism. Results indicate that asymmetrical power discrepancy induces opportunism while asymmetrical power advantage strengthens the negative influence that opportunism has on relationship stability. Additionally, the mediated moderating effect of asymmetrical power advantage by relationship stability is confirmed.
Originality/value
The results provide significant academic and managerial insights that can guide managerial efforts in distinguishing types of power asymmetry, controlling opportunism and further mitigating the consequences of opportunism within a triadic relationship.
Details
Keywords
Marcelo J. Alvarado-Vargas and Qi Zou
The purpose of this paper is to focus on two internal organizational factors in college football teams (team powerfulness and team reputation) and their combined relationship on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on two internal organizational factors in college football teams (team powerfulness and team reputation) and their combined relationship on game attendance. Authors aim to validate new data published by Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and NCAA websites; and to develop a new conceptual model to examine the interaction effect of team powerfulness and team reputation on game attendance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study relies on secondary data collected from the WSJ’s “College Football’s Grid of Shame” publication and the NCAA official website. Data for 123 US college football teams are collected representing 13 conferences for seasons 2010–2014. Multi-level regressions are utilized for statistical analyses.
Findings
Results reveal that not only team’s powerfulness is required for more public attendance to games, but also team reputation strengthens this relationship. In other words, team reputation plays an important role in increasing games’ attendance. Team reputation alone does not bring more attendees to games.
Originality/value
This paper studies the relevance of team reputation in the field of sports management. This paper argues that in order to achieve superior financial benefits in college football games, it is important to properly manage team powerfulness and its legal and ethical behavior. In this way, a positive reputation can leverage game attendance to a larger extent.
Details
Keywords
Jiaojiao Liu, Weidong Li, Qi Zou, Shuai Liu, Meng Wang and Jing Zheng
The Chinese government hopes to achieve the goal of benefiting citizens by building a National Integrated Online Government Service Platform (NIOGSP). However, citizens' low…
Abstract
Purpose
The Chinese government hopes to achieve the goal of benefiting citizens by building a National Integrated Online Government Service Platform (NIOGSP). However, citizens' low adoption of the platform makes it difficult for the government to achieve its goal. Research on the influencing factors of citizen adoption of NIOGSP can help the government fully understand the concerns and needs of its citizens and take targeted measures to increase citizen adoption.
Design/methodology/approach
First, this research builds a model of the citizen adoption process, including attention, retention and motivation, based on an observational learning model. Next, research variables are determined based on social cognitive theory, literature review and real-world needs. Finally, based on the questionnaire survey and structural equation model, the influencing factors of each stage of the citizen adoption process model are studied and the relationship between the three stages of the model is verified.
Findings
Results show that perceived usefulness (PU) and self-efficacy (SE) positively affect attention. SE positively affects retention, while perceived privacy (PP) negatively affects retention. PU, social influence, PP and anxiety positively affect motivation.
Originality/value
The conclusion of this study can provide reference for governments in various countries to establish and improve online one-stop government. In addition, this study verifies the citizen adoption process model and finds that there is no obvious causal relationship between attention and retention, but both have positive effects on motivation.
Details
Keywords
Qi Zou, Yuan Wang and Sachin Modi
This study uncovers how government interventions, in terms of stringency and support, shape coronavirus disease 2019's (COVID-19) detrimental impact on organizations' performance…
Abstract
Purpose
This study uncovers how government interventions, in terms of stringency and support, shape coronavirus disease 2019's (COVID-19) detrimental impact on organizations' performance. Specifically, this paper studies whether stringency and support play complementary or substitutive roles in lowering COVID-19's impact on organizations' performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors gathered primary data from USA manufacturing companies and combined this with secondary data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) to test the proposed model with structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The results show that the stringency approach increases the detrimental impact on both operational and financial performance, while economic support (to households) and fiscal spending (to organizations) work differently on lowering the impacts of COVID-19. Further, these combinative effects only influence the firm's operational performance, albeit in opposite directions.
Originality/value
This study advances the knowledge of government interventions by examining stringency and support's direct and interaction effects on firm performance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings contribute to the literature by uncovering the unique roles of both supportive policies, thus differentiating economic support (to individuals/households) from fiscal spending (to organizations) and providing important academic, managerial and policy insights into how government should best initiate and blend stringency and support policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Details
Keywords
Junbo Liu, Yaping Huang, Shengchun Wang, Xinxin Zhao, Qi Zou and Xingyuan Zhang
This research aims to improve the performance of rail fastener defect inspection method for multi railways, to effectively ensure the safety of railway operation.
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to improve the performance of rail fastener defect inspection method for multi railways, to effectively ensure the safety of railway operation.
Design/methodology/approach
Firstly, a fastener region location method based on online learning strategy was proposed, which can locate fastener regions according to the prior knowledge of track image and template matching method. Online learning strategy is used to update the template library dynamically, so that the method not only can locate fastener regions in the track images of multi railways, but also can automatically collect and annotate fastener samples. Secondly, a fastener defect recognition method based on deep convolutional neural network was proposed. The structure of recognition network was designed according to the smaller size and the relatively single content of the fastener region. The data augmentation method based on the sample random sorting strategy is adopted to reduce the impact of the imbalance of sample size on recognition performance.
Findings
Test verification of the proposed method is conducted based on the rail fastener datasets of multi railways. Specifically, fastener location module has achieved an average detection rate of 99.36%, and fastener defect recognition module has achieved an average precision of 96.82%.
Originality/value
The proposed method can accurately locate fastener regions and identify fastener defect in the track images of different railways, which has high reliability and strong adaptability to multi railways.
Details
Keywords
Lu Lu, Christina Geng-Qing Chi and Rong Zou
This paper aims to examine the primary determinants of Chinese consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions of imported organic wines.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the primary determinants of Chinese consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions of imported organic wines.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a multi-stage data collection via multiple sampling techniques. Data were collected from close to 2,000 Chinese wine drinkers across 33 provincial-level administrative units in China. The consumer data were subject to a two-step structural equation modeling analysis.
Findings
Chinese consumers express favorable attitudes and are interested in making a purchase. The results also reveal distinct influences of cognitive and emotional determinants on consumers’ positive attitudes and purchase intentions of organic wines. Health benefits and symbolic value positively influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions. Emotional assessment of organic wines, despite exhibiting a positive effect on attitudes, does not drive Chinese consumers’ purchase decisions.
Originality/value
China has become a world leader in consuming wines, especially wines imported from traditional wine producing countries. The increasing health concerns have also prompted Chinese consumers toward favoring organic products. Despite the evident shift in Chinese consumers’ travel expenditure toward food and wines and the growing wine consumption while dining out, existing research is scant in explaining the decision drivers of Chinese consumers’ organic wine purchase. A greater and deeper understanding of Chinese consumers’ purchase decision of organic wines not only provides marketing intelligence for countries exporting wines to China but also is meaningful for international destinations to capture a lucrative market to support local attractions and hospitality businesses.
Details
Keywords
Hailiang Zou, Xiyuan Yang and Ruijing Wang
This study aims to investigate the antecedents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of competitive dynamics and proposes a correlation of CSR between…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the antecedents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of competitive dynamics and proposes a correlation of CSR between competing firms because rival firms’ engagement in CSR induces the focal firm’s catch-up to keep pace with them.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of Chinese listed companies through the lens of firm dyads, and drawing on the awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) framework, a set of contingencies of firms’ competitive catch-up in CSR are examined, including the visibility of its competitors, the interdependence between the focal firm and its competitors and the focal firm’s resource slack.
Findings
The empirical results reveal that a focal firm’s CSR is in a positive relationship with that of its competitors, which is strengthened by the visibility of its competitors, the interdependence between the focal firm and its competitors, and is affected by the focal firm’s resource slack.
Originality/value
These findings uncover the interplay of CSR among competitors, enriching our understanding of its antecedents by extending the AMC framework to the CSR context.
Details
Keywords
Hanyang Ma, Jingjie Zou and Hailiang Zou
This study aims to explore the internationalization of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from China and aims to examine the relationship between Chinese MNEs’ duration of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the internationalization of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from China and aims to examine the relationship between Chinese MNEs’ duration of internationalization and export intensity, and the contingent roles of the home country government.
Design/methodology/approach
By extending the springboard theory with institutional and cost-benefit analyses, the authors elaborate a two-phase framework of internationalization to explain how Chinese MNEs develop their international business under the influences of the home country government. Furthermore, the authors apply the Heckman two-stage method based on a panel data set of 19,994 firm-year observations of Chinese listed firms in 2008–2018 to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The research findings demonstrate an inverted U-shape relationship between the duration of internationalization and the export intensity of MNEs from China. The export intensity of MNEs from China increases during the initial phase of internationalization, and decreases during the subsequent. A further study reveals that the inverted U-shape of Chinese non-SOEs is steeper than that of SOEs, and this moderating effect is more salient after the Belt and Road Initiative. These results highlight the influence of the home government through state ownership and policies on the inverted U-shaped relationship.
Originality/value
This study helps to refine the understanding of Chinese MNEs’ global expansion by addressing time as an explicit dimension and revealing the mechanism of state ownership and the home country governmental policy in the dynamic internationalization process.
Details
Keywords
Guangbin Wang, Muyang Liu, Dongping Cao and Dan Tan
Few of the established risk identification methods refer to low-severity yet high-frequency safety risks data that may lead to several safety risks being ignored, thus reducing…
Abstract
Purpose
Few of the established risk identification methods refer to low-severity yet high-frequency safety risks data that may lead to several safety risks being ignored, thus reducing the potential of learning from a considerable number of cases. The purpose of this study is to explore a new valid method based on preaccident safety supervision data to identify these minor construction safety risks during routine construction operations.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 329 official construction safety supervision reports containing 5,159 safety problem records from Shanghai between 2016 and 2018 served as raw material for in-depth analysis. Given the characteristics of the data collected, text mining integrated with natural language processing was applied to review the supervision reports and group safety risks automatically.
Findings
This study clarifies the way in which the supervision data should be employed to analyze high-frequency–low-severity safety risks. From these data, seven unsafe-act-related and nine unsafe-condition-related risks are identified. Regarding unsafe-act-related risks, inappropriate human behaviors could usually occur in personnel management, contract management, expense management, material management and acceptance work. For unsafe-condition-related risks, hoisting, scaffolding and reinforcement works are the main generators of onsite safety hazards during construction operations.
Practical implications
The study includes implications for project managers and supervisors to facilitate more effective proactive risk management by paying more attention to collecting and employing the supervision data established in each routine inspection.
Originality/value
Whereas previous research focused on analyzing severe accidents, this study seeks to identify the high-frequency–low-severity construction safety risks using the preaccident supervision data. The findings could provide a new thought and research direction for construction safety risk management.