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1 – 10 of 33This study examines the relationship between chief financial officer (CFO) general ability and corporate debt financing, using all Chinese listed companies as the sample. It has…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the relationship between chief financial officer (CFO) general ability and corporate debt financing, using all Chinese listed companies as the sample. It has significant implications for corporate shareholders and investors. Companies aiming to increase the proportion of external capital should prioritise the CFO's general ability. Similarly, investors can consider this a valuable sign before making investment decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study follows Custódio et al.'s (2013) approach to measuring the CFO general ability index (GAI) in five dimensions, while the D/E ratio is treated as the primary proxy of corporate debt financing. This study investigates the linear relationship between CFO general ability and corporate debt financing by using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with controlling year and industry fixed effect simultaneously.
Findings
Based on a sample dataset of all listed firms in China from 2008 to 2023, this paper identifies a significant positive correlation between CFOs' general management skills and corporate debt financing. This finding underscores that generalist CFOs prefer debt financing over equity financing. The paper also suggests that corporate innovation could be a potential mechanism through which CFOs' comprehensive management skills influence debt financing.
Originality/value
This study expands upon prior research by establishing a positive correlation between generalist CFOs and debt financing. Previous studies investigating the influence of CFO demographic characteristics have predominantly concentrated on singular dimensions, such as educational background, varied professional experiences and career trajectories, often overlooking the significance of past work experience. Secondly, this paper enriches the financial literature by introducing a novel determinant that substantially impacts debt financing.
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Hualong Yang, Zhiying Cheng and Junjie Zhou
The online profile picture of a doctor serves as a pivotal source of visual information, playing a key role in shaping the doctor’s professionalism in the online health market…
Abstract
Purpose
The online profile picture of a doctor serves as a pivotal source of visual information, playing a key role in shaping the doctor’s professionalism in the online health market. Doctors can strategically curate the elements of their online profile pictures, such as attire and background, to either reinforce a formal image or craft a casual image, thereby influencing patients’ doctor choices. Despite this, the relative effectiveness of formal or casual images in swaying patient choices remains unclear. This study endeavors to bridge this knowledge gap.
Design/methodology/approach
This study tested the influence of a doctor’s attire and background in their profile picture on patient decision-making, with a focus on discerning variations in impact among patient groups differentiated by the severity of their illnesses (i.e. high-severity versus low-severity conditions). We formulated four hypotheses and tested them through an econometric analysis and a controlled laboratory experiment.
Findings
The empirical findings reveal that doctors’ formal profile pictures, characterized by formal attire and backgrounds, exert a more pronounced influence on patient choices than casual images. The severity of a patient’s illness positively moderated the relationship between formal images and patient choices.
Originality/value
These insights make a significant contribution to the understanding of patient behavior in selecting doctors within the online health market. Furthermore, they offer valuable guidance for doctors in optimizing their online profile presentation to better align with patient preferences and expectations.
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Ziyu Zhou, Haizhou Fan and Zhiying Liu
1. Explore the important role of sole actual controller in the innovation decision of the firm and the different effects of the ownership of sole actual controller on innovation;…
Abstract
Purpose
1. Explore the important role of sole actual controller in the innovation decision of the firm and the different effects of the ownership of sole actual controller on innovation; 2. Explore whether the role played by sole actual controllers varies in different types of firms; 3. Explore the important role of cooperative culture in the internal governance of firms and whether sole actual controller firms feel a rejection effect on cooperative culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collect data on Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2021 to analyze the role of the sole actual controller on innovation investment, as well as the moderating effect of cooperative culture in corporate annual reports using natural language processing.
Findings
The authors find that sole actual controllers promote corporate innovation investment and that concentrated equity inhibits corporate innovation investment, while dispersed equity concentration promotes it. In addition, cooperative culture has a nonlinear moderating effect on the relationship between SACs and innovation.
Research limitations/implications
On the one hand, this study focuses chiefly on the decision-making behavior of top managers, such as the SACs and shareholders, and does not account for the role of bottom-level employees or professional R&D teams in innovation. On the other hand, although this study discusses the moderating role of corporate cooperative culture, it is limited to internal cooperative culture; cooperative culture should also consider external cooperation, such as cooperation between companies or between companies and universities.
Practical implications
First, companies should actively implement the SAC model and scientifically select a truly compassionate and visionary SAC as the dominant person in the company. Second, the Chinese government needs to standardize the identification of actual controllers, who should not be a shareholder of the company. Third, policymakers should promote the reform of the mixed system of enterprises, optimize the shareholding structure of firms, make executives an important part of corporate governance. Fourth, cooperation culture is a good start, though firms should avoid letting it become a “double-edged sword” of the management mode of the SAC.
Originality/value
First, existing studies do not address the impact of SACs on innovation from the perspective of SACs, who have most influence the firm's decision-making. Focusing on the SAC's decision-making style has sufficient practical implications for future corporate innovation planning. This study used the natural language processing (NLP) module in ChatGPT to analyze the culture of cooperation in corporate annual reports. Currently, corporate culture is an obstacle to the study of corporate governance because of its obscurity and difficulty of quantification. The authors adopted a PSM (propensity score matching) approach to eliminate the endogeneity of the data, which makes the results more scientific.
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Xiuyuan Gong, Zhiying Liu, Xiabing Zheng and Tailai Wu
Mobile social apps permeate every facet of daily life through the pervasive use of smartphones. Customer retention with mobile social apps has become extremely important for…
Abstract
Purpose
Mobile social apps permeate every facet of daily life through the pervasive use of smartphones. Customer retention with mobile social apps has become extremely important for app-related companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore why experienced users in mobile social apps (e.g. WeChat) are likely to continue using the app.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposed a conceptual model to identify key determinants of continuance intention of WeChat users and highlight the effects of individual experience. Data were collected from WeChat users, which is one of the most popular mobile social apps in China. The study employed partial least squares regression to test the research model based on a survey of 295 valid responses.
Findings
Results showed that trust, which was driven by user satisfaction and perceived critical mass, played a critical role in influencing the continuance intention of WeChat users. Moreover, tie strength exerted a negative moderating effect on the relationship between trust and continuance intention. Specifically, tie strength and perceived critical mass had strong impacts on the continuance intention of low-experience users. In addition, the effect of frequency was closely associated with the continuance intention of high-experience users.
Research limitations/implications
This study addressed the issue of mobile social app continuance intention by providing an innovative means to explore the key antecedents of user continuance intention from the experience perspective. The findings not only prove that trust plays a central role in influencing the continuance intention of experienced users but also reveal that the determinants of continuance intention vary among users with different experience. The results provide insights into the key antecedents of experienced WeChat user continuance intention and contribute to the literature on mobile social apps and individual differences.
Practical implications
The results provide suggestions for mobile social app practitioners to effectively plan mobile social app retention practices and to set up appropriate incentive mechanisms for retaining users with different experiences.
Originality/value
Although abundant studies have focused on the adoption of media users, few studies have investigated the post-adoption behavior of experienced users in the context of mobile social apps. This study revealed the key determinants of the continuance intention of WeChat users and pinpointed the different impacts of these antecedents on users with different levels of experience. It also provides useful guidelines for practitioners to effectively retain users with different levels of experience.
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Xiongfei Cao, Lingling Yu, Zhiying Liu, Mingchuan Gong and Luqman Adeel
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism of building trust during the transition from online payment to mobile payment, as well as to examine the effect of trust…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism of building trust during the transition from online payment to mobile payment, as well as to examine the effect of trust on the satisfaction and continuance intention of mobile payment users. Based on trust transfer theory, this study proposes that trust in online payment (i.e. trust in source) and two source-target relationship factors, namely, perceived similarity and entitativity, affect trust in mobile payment (i.e. trust in target). In turn, the resulting trust influences user satisfaction and continuance intention toward mobile payment in an online-mobile payment context.
Design/methodology/approach
The model was empirically tested on data collected from 219 mobile payment users of a famous payment enterprise in China.
Findings
The results indicated that the trust transfer process positively influences the continuance intention of mobile payment through satisfaction. Satisfaction is an important factor affecting continuance intention. Moreover, trust in online payment, perceived similarity, and perceived entitativity between online and mobile payments can positively influence trust in mobile payment.
Originality/value
This study investigates the post-adoption usage of mobile payment from the trust transfer perspective. It focuses on the trust-building process and emphasizes the importance of trust on the continuance intention toward mobile payment in an online-mobile payment context.
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Lihua Fu, Yaxuan Wei, Ruijie Li, Yaokuang Li and Zhiying Liu
For survival and prosperity, enterprises need to simultaneously engage in exploitation and exploration. Digital transformation is of great significance to enterprise innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
For survival and prosperity, enterprises need to simultaneously engage in exploitation and exploration. Digital transformation is of great significance to enterprise innovation. However, the impacts of digital transformation on exploitation and exploration remain unclear. Moreover, the impacts of technological diversity on the relationships between digital transformation and exploitation and exploration are also unknown.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an integrated perspective of dynamic capability theory and organizational inertia theory and using data from Chinese listed enterprises from 2007 to 2020, this study clarifies the effects of digital transformation on exploitation and exploration and assesses the moderating effect of technological diversity.
Findings
The results show that digital transformation improves exploitation, but negatively impacts exploration. Technological diversity mitigates the negative effect of digital transformation on exploration, but the moderating effect on the relationship between digital transformation and exploitation is not significant.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the existing literature on the digital paradox and provides guidance for enterprises to clarify the direction of digital transformation.
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Muhammad Athar Nadeem, Zhiying Liu, Usman Ghani, Amna Younis and Yi Xu
This study, based on social exchange theory, aims to explore knowledge hiding behavior in relation to shared goals of individuals working in teams and trust (cognitive-based trust…
Abstract
Purpose
This study, based on social exchange theory, aims to explore knowledge hiding behavior in relation to shared goals of individuals working in teams and trust (cognitive-based trust and affective-based trust) as a boundary condition on shared goals and knowledge hiding relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
A total sample of 270 reliable questionnaires are collected from university students in China. SPSS and AMOS are employed for the data analysis of the proposed model.
Findings
Findings of the study have indicated that shared goals are negatively associated with knowledge hiding behavior. Furthermore, trust (cognitive-based trust and affective-based trust) moderates the relationship between shared goals and knowledge hiding behavior.
Practical implications
This study has provided empirical proof and in-depth understanding and recommendations for supervisors and administrative authorities to form the culture of groups/teams with shared goals to reduce the undesirable individual behaviors.
Originality/value
This study, among the first empirical studies investigating the relationship between shared goals and knowledge hiding behavior, trust as a moderator, enriches the existing academic literature of and provides valuable insight into the research on knowledge hiding and knowledge management.
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Ruhao Zhao, Xiaoping Ma, He Zhang, Honghui Dong, Yong Qin and Limin Jia
This paper aims to propose an enhanced densely dehazing network to suit railway scenes’ features and improve the visual quality degraded by haze and fog.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose an enhanced densely dehazing network to suit railway scenes’ features and improve the visual quality degraded by haze and fog.
Design/methodology/approach
It is an end-to-end network based on DenseNet. The authors design enhanced dense blocks and fuse them in a pyramid pooling module for visual data’s local and global features. Multiple ablation studies have been conducted to show the effects of each module proposed in this paper.
Findings
The authors have compared dehazed results on real hazy images and railway hazy images of state-of-the-art dehazing networks with the dehazed results in data quality. Finally, an object-detection test is taken to judge the edge information preservation after haze removal. All results demonstrate that the proposed dehazing network performs better under railway scenes in detail.
Originality/value
This study provides a new method for image enhancing in the railway monitoring system.
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Suqin Liao, Lihua Fu and Zhiying Liu
This study aims to assess how firm functional capability moderates the relationship between two types of open innovation and performance, with a special focus on the role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess how firm functional capability moderates the relationship between two types of open innovation and performance, with a special focus on the role of technological capability and the join effect market information management capability. This paper develops and tests a research model, which assesses how the performance implications of two open innovation forms are shaped by the technological capability and how such an effect is contingent on market information management capability.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 238 Chinese high-tech enterprises. Structural equation modeling and linear regression were used to test the data. Then, the main research questions were answered.
Findings
Empirically results show that technological capability strengthens the influence of inbound open innovation on firm performance. However, the moderate effect of technological capability on the relationship between outbound open innovation and firm performance remains unsupported. A higher technological capability with a high level of market information management capability increases the efficacy of outbound open innovation in gaining superior performance. Additional analysis shows that when firms implement inbound activities and possess a strong technological capability, they will achieve higher performance if they possess a moderate level of market information management capability, compared with a high or low level.
Originality/value
This paper provides new evidence on the benefits of different open innovation strategies on firm’s performance and, more importantly, the specific firm-level contingencies (technological capability and market information management capability) under which these benefits are more likely to be enhanced. It clarifies what the capabilities are and how they interact to foster the robust open innovation strategies, which sheds new light on the boundary conditions that affect the open innovations–firm performance relationship.
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Suqin Liao, Zhiying Liu, Lihua Fu and Peichi Ye
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the new distributed leadership patterns is an important driver for innovating business model. By synthesizing insights from the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the new distributed leadership patterns is an important driver for innovating business model. By synthesizing insights from the dynamic capabilities perspective, it also explores how and when distributed leadership enhances the business model innovation (BMI) by involving strategic flexibility as a mediator and environmental dynamism as important contingency.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey via questionnaire was conducted with 262 CEOs and 262 senior managers from Chinese high-tech companies that provided the research data. Structural equation modeling and linear regression analyses were used to test the time-lagged data, and then the main research questions were responded to.
Findings
The analysis reveals that distributed leadership has a significant direct influence on BMI, and that distributed leadership also indirectly affects BMI by enhancing strategic flexibility. Environmental dynamism strengthens the positive effect of distributed leadership on BMI under strategic flexibility.
Originality/value
This paper advances and enriches the emerging stream of BMI research. It presents an innovative conceptual analysis of the antecedents of BMI, and it shows a possible solution for BMI that complements extant research that considers which and how the leadership style of the organizations affects the business model change.
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