Peiyan Wu, Xiaofang Yao and Shakeel Muhammad
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the female participation in top management team (TMT) and the growth performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the female participation in top management team (TMT) and the growth performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Chinese economic environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting resource dependence theory, this paper tests the hypotheses using panel data from 469 Chinese-listed SMEs during the period of 2011 to 2013.
Findings
The results show that female participation in TMT significantly promotes the growth performance of SMEs, and there is significantly inverted U-shaped relationship between these two variables.
Originality/value
This paper finds that education level weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship between the female’s participation in TMT and the growth performance of SMEs.
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Xiaofang Yao, Xiyue Wu and Dan Long
This paper aims to explore the impact mechanism of Chinese university students’ perceived entrepreneurial environment on their entrepreneurial tendency in the context of Chinese…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the impact mechanism of Chinese university students’ perceived entrepreneurial environment on their entrepreneurial tendency in the context of Chinese economic transition. In particular, the paper provides a reference for relevant departments to make policies and entrepreneurship educators to perfect the pedagogical design and curriculum development in entrepreneurship education programs.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used questionnaires to collect data in Chinese universities via random sampling, and gained 729 valid questionnaires. Results from principal component analysis indicate that the scales have a good reliability. In particular, entrepreneurial attitude had three components. The hypotheses are tested by using Spearman correlation and multiple linear regression; the level of statistical significance of F-test was less than 0.05. Hence, multiple linear regression can be used in the analyses.
Findings
The study found that university students’ perceived social environment and economic environment have a positive influence on their entrepreneurial tendency, and entrepreneurial attitude is partially playing a mediating role between students’ perceived entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurial tendency. However, students’ perceived policy environment has no significant impact on entrepreneurial tendency.
Originality/value
Environmental factors are often viewed as“gap fillers” in related studies, and mostly concentrated in the Western developed countries. This study attempts to fill the gaps in the context of Chinese economic transition.
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Qi Yao, Xiaofang Tao and Wenkai Zhou
This study aims to empirically investigate how the interaction effect of occasion-setting cues and consumers’ cognitive styles (e.g. field dependence levels) influences their food…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to empirically investigate how the interaction effect of occasion-setting cues and consumers’ cognitive styles (e.g. field dependence levels) influences their food intake intention.
Design/methodology/approach
In this research, several scenario simulation studies were conducted to verify the hypotheses. A total of 646 participants were recruited for the experiments, and samples were obtained through well-established online research platforms.
Findings
In the occasion-setting cue advertisement condition, field-dependent (vs field-independent) consumers displayed increased cravings for food and purchase intention, with mental simulation playing a mediating role and cognitive load playing a moderating role.
Research limitations/implications
The influence of others (e.g. servers and other consumers) was not taken into consideration in this study. Future research can extend this study by conducting field experiments.
Practical implications
The research conclusions can help various organisations reduce consumers’ food overconsumption intention and encourage healthier food choices by adjusting occasion-setting cues in marketing stimuli and identifying the target consumers’ cognitive styles.
Originality/value
Based on embodied cognition theory, this study reveals the influence and internal mechanism of the interaction effect between occasion-setting cues and individual cognitive style on eating desire.
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Xiaofang Xue, Junpeng Dou and Yao Shang
Information sharing helps improve the efficiency of the supply chain. However, there are some problems in the multi-stage structure supply chain, such as untimely information…
Abstract
Purpose
Information sharing helps improve the efficiency of the supply chain. However, there are some problems in the multi-stage structure supply chain, such as untimely information feedback and distortion. Despite recent progress in ensuring improved collaboration in the past decade or so, the inefficiency status continues to persist. It is also difficult to add value to the supply chain. The information sharing framework and decentralized model designed in this paper are to deal with existing problems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on the theoretical research of supply chain information asymmetry and synergetics. We attempt to introduce blockchain technology into supply chain operation management, reconstruct information sharing architecture and provide a new decentralized mode to promote the collaborative operation of all nodes. The information sharing and decentralization operational model are built, which has changed the hierarchical relationship between upstream and downstream enterprises, regarding customers as the center of the whole system and effectively reducing the bullwhip effect. Finally, we selected the home supply chain as an example design and performed system dynamics simulation on the blockchain-based operation process.
Findings
The model of setting up the scene application mode based on blockchain is helpful to realize the goal of supply chain management to reduce cost, improve quality and enhance the overall efficiency of the system.
Originality/value
Based on the blockchain technology, this paper constructed a new supply chain operation mode and used the synergetic theory and the concept of the product–service system to explain the process of value increment in detail.
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Kalugala Vidanalage Aruna Shantha
The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolutionary nature of herding phenomenon in the context of a frontier stock market, the Colombo Stock Exchange of Sri Lanka.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolutionary nature of herding phenomenon in the context of a frontier stock market, the Colombo Stock Exchange of Sri Lanka.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies the cross-sectional absolute deviation methodology for daily frequencies of data of all the common stocks listed during the period from April 2000 to March 2018. The regression coefficients are estimated by using both the ordinary least square and the quantile regression procedures.
Findings
The findings reveal significant changes to the pattern of herding over different market periods, each with specific characteristics. Herding is strongly evident in up and down market days in the 2000-2009 period, during which the market was highly uncertain with the impact of the political instability of the country due to the Civil War on the stock trading. Even after this Civil War period, herd tendency is strongly manifested toward the up market direction as a result of the investors’ optimism about the country’s economy and political stability, which caused to a speculative bubble in the market. After that, it is turned into negative herding due to the panic selling occurred in view of the uncertainty of the inflated prices, which led to a market crash. Notably, herding appears to be consistently absent over the period after the crash, despite the presence of herd motives such as high market uncertainties triggered by political instability and economic crisis during that period.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that herd behavior is an evolving phenomenon in financial markets. Consistent with the adaptive market hypothesis, the absence of herding evident after the market crash could be attributed to the investors’ learning of the irrationality of herding/negative herding for adapting to market conditions. As a result, herding and negative herding tendencies declined and disappeared at the aggregate market level.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by providing novel evidence on the evolutionary nature of behavioral biases, particularly herding, as predicted by the adaptive market hypothesis. With the application of the quantile regression procedure, in addition to customary used ordinary least squares approach, it also provides robust evidence on this phenomenon.
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Zhongwei Sun, Xuchuang Zhang and Xiaofang Wu
This study investigates the mediating role of wage and workforce adjustments, along with the moderating influence of collective bargaining system and employees’ localization, in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the mediating role of wage and workforce adjustments, along with the moderating influence of collective bargaining system and employees’ localization, in elucidating the relationship between the COVID-19 shock and workplace employee relations (ER) tension.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data from 1,483 enterprises across 21 prefectural cities in China’s Guangdong Province are collected. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression.
Findings
The study reveals a positive correlation between the COVID-19 shock and workplace ER tension across crisis-hit enterprises, irrespective of their size or industrial sector. Wage reduction and mass layoffs emerge as significant mediators, while the collective bargaining system (CBS) and employees’ localization act as moderators.
Research limitations/implications
The measurement of ER is limited in a single-item scale. Representation of China is also limited since the study exclusively focuses on Guangdong province. The study offers some contributions that firm-level data reveal the pathway through which COVID-19 creates ER tension.
Practical implications
On the one hand, the authors recommend the establishment of an effective communication system between employers and employees. On the other hand, managers should consider the role of informal institutions. Furthermore, the authors suggest implementing tailored strategies at the enterprise level.
Social implications
Intense external shocks result in widespread layoffs and increased wage reductions within workplaces, and under such circumstances, formal or informal institutions may be insufficient to alleviate ER tension. In this case, the state authorities – including governments and other public agencies or bodies – are necessary to intervene in to organize tripartite dialogue.
Originality/value
While numerous emerging studies on COVID-19 explore how different countries manage industrial relations tension at the national level, few focus on ER at workplace level, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how workplace ER evolve during external shocks and identifying institutional measures to mitigate their negative impact is crucial for future crisis management.
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Chong Wu, Xiaofang Chen and Yongjie Jiang
While the Chinese securities market is booming, the phenomenon of listed companies falling into financial distress is also emerging, which affects the operation and development of…
Abstract
Purpose
While the Chinese securities market is booming, the phenomenon of listed companies falling into financial distress is also emerging, which affects the operation and development of enterprises and also jeopardizes the interests of investors. Therefore, it is important to understand how to accurately and reasonably predict the financial distress of enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
In the present study, ensemble feature selection (EFS) and improved stacking were used for financial distress prediction (FDP). Mutual information, analysis of variance (ANOVA), random forest (RF), genetic algorithms, and recursive feature elimination (RFE) were chosen for EFS to select features. Since there may be missing information when feeding the results of the base learner directly into the meta-learner, the features with high importance were fed into the meta-learner together. A screening layer was added to select the meta-learner with better performance. Finally, Optima hyperparameters were used for parameter tuning by the learners.
Findings
An empirical study was conducted with a sample of A-share listed companies in China. The F1-score of the model constructed using the features screened by EFS reached 84.55%, representing an improvement of 4.37% compared to the original features. To verify the effectiveness of improved stacking, benchmark model comparison experiments were conducted. Compared to the original stacking model, the accuracy of the improved stacking model was improved by 0.44%, and the F1-score was improved by 0.51%. In addition, the improved stacking model had the highest area under the curve (AUC) value (0.905) among all the compared models.
Originality/value
Compared to previous models, the proposed FDP model has better performance, thus bridging the research gap of feature selection. The present study provides new ideas for stacking improvement research and a reference for subsequent research in this field.
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This paper intends to explore the impact and mechanism of digital infrastructure development on enterprises vertical specialization. The following questions are discussed: (1…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper intends to explore the impact and mechanism of digital infrastructure development on enterprises vertical specialization. The following questions are discussed: (1) What is the impact of digital infrastructure on enterprise vertical specialization? (2) If the digital infrastructure serves to raise the level of vertical specialization of enterprises, does the impact differ depending on the level of city, industry and enterprise?
Design/methodology/approach
The research employs the “Broadband China” strategy as a quasi-natural experiment for digital infrastructure development, with a multi-period difference-in-difference model constructed to test the research hypothesis. The study examined data from Chinese A-share enterprises listed between 2007 and 2019.
Findings
The study’s findings indicate that the construction of digital infrastructure significantly increases firms' vertical specialization. According to the mechanism analysis, digital infrastructure can increase vertical specialization by lowering market transaction costs. This study employs group regressions in terms of cities, industries and companies to gain a better understanding of the heterogeneity of this effect. The results indicate that digital infrastructure contributes more significantly to higher levels of vertical specialization among enterprises in areas with higher levels of innovation and entrepreneurship as well as in eastern and central cities, service industries, and mature firms.
Research limitations/implications
There are two shortcomings to this study that warrant investigating further. The first limitation is the mechanism. This study simply looked at the mechanism between variables in terms of transaction costs, using existing theories. As the level of technology continues to improve, the process of digital infrastructure’s impact on vertical specialization requires greater investigation. Another weakness of this study is its country-specific focus. The effect of digital infrastructure on vertical specialization differs by country, reflecting disparities in economic growth. Further discussion of cross-national comparative studies is required.
Originality/value
The study’s marginal contributions are largely represented in the two aspects listed below: (1) This paper includes a comprehensive theoretical study of the influence of digital infrastructure development on vertical specialization, focusing on transaction costs. This provides a theoretical foundation for the empirical study presented in this paper; (2) this study fills the gap in earlier research in this field, and the findings broaden research findings in areas such as digital infrastructure development and vertical specialization.
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Lenka Papíková and Mário Papík
European Parliament adopted a new directive on gender balance in corporate boards when by 2026, companies must employ 40% of the underrepresented sex into non-executive directors…
Abstract
Purpose
European Parliament adopted a new directive on gender balance in corporate boards when by 2026, companies must employ 40% of the underrepresented sex into non-executive directors or 33% among all directors. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impact of gender diversity (GD) on board of directors and the shareholders’ structure and their impact on the likelihood of company bankruptcy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The data sample consists of 1,351 companies for 2019 and 2020, of which 173 were large, 351 medium-sized companies and 827 small companies. Three bankruptcy indicators were tested for each company size, and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and logistic regression models were developed. These models were then cross-validated by a 10-fold approach.
Findings
XGBoost models achieved area under curve (AUC) over 98%, which is 25% higher than AUC achieved by logistic regression. Prediction models with GD features performed slightly better than those without them. Furthermore, this study indicates the existence of critical mass between 30% and 50%, which decreases the probability of bankruptcy for small and medium companies. Furthermore, the representation of women in ownership structures above 50% decreases bankruptcy likelihood.
Originality/value
This is a pioneering study to explore GD topics by application of ensembled machine learning methods. Moreover, the study does analyze not only the GD of boards but also shareholders. A highly innovative approach is GD analysis based on company size performed in one study considering the COVID-19 pandemic perspective.
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Linyan Liu and Yilei Wang
This paper aims to take International SPOrt (ISPO) as a typical case to study how exhibition organizers can reshape their relationship with users through business model innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to take International SPOrt (ISPO) as a typical case to study how exhibition organizers can reshape their relationship with users through business model innovation to answer the question that how enterprises can help the exhibition industry to upgrade and develop through business model innovation in the internet environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Faced with the development of internet technology, the impact of online platforms, the relationship between exhibition organizers and their customers are facing unprecedented challenges. On the basis of the literature review, this study analyzed the innovation of exhibitors’ business model from three modules: value proposition, revenue logic and cost base and how to reshape their interaction with users through innovation. This study systematically analyzed the innovation of the ISPO business model and the process of reshaping its relationship with users and dynamic interaction with a single case study method.
Findings
The main conclusions are as follows: the starting point of reshaping the relationship between exhibition organizer and users in the internet era is to re-understand the needs of customers, the key point of reshaping the relationship is to further cultivate the industrial value and the sustainability of the relationship lies in the customer life cycle management.
Originality/value
From the perspective of exhibition organizers filling the gap of case study in the field of the exhibition. In the area of the exhibition, previous studies rarely started from the perspective of exhibition organizers, but, this paper discusses the interaction between exhibition organizers, exhibitors and visitors from this perspective in this study.