Determinants of Relationship Quality in Importer–Exporter Relationships

Despite significant evidence pointing to the key role of relationship quality in solidifying commercial relationships, limited attention has been paid to its determinants in an international context. In an attempt to fill this research gap, our study examines the impact of asset specificity, role performance and cultural sensitivity on the quality of the relationships between importers and their foreign suppliers. It is based on a mailed survey involving 292 importing firms. Relationship quality is presented as a higher‐order concept that results in lower conflict and greater trust, commitment and satisfaction. The results indicate that asset specificity, role performance and cultural sensitivity play a significant positive role in building sound relationship quality. Several managerial implications are extracted from the study, as well as suggestions for future research.     

Drivers and Outcomes of Long‐term Orientation in Cooperative Relationships

We argue in this paper that a buyer may deliberately develop long‐term orientation as a governance mechanism to deal with risks arising from exchange hazards, and to reduce the opportunistic behaviour of a supplier. While the exchange hazards of asset specificity pose a safeguarding problem, those of market uncertainty pose an adaptation problem. We test our model on a sample of 221 procurement partnerships. Our results show that satisfactory prior history of a supplier, asset specificity of the buyer and market uncertainty are all positively related to a buyer's long‐term orientation towards a supplier. Consistent with the idea that asset specificity and market uncertainty pose different governance problems, we find that satisfactory prior history reduces the positive relationship between asset specificity and a buyer's long‐term orientation, but enhances the positive relationship between market uncertainty and a buyer's long‐term orientation. We also find that a buyer's long‐term orientation fully mediates the relationship between satisfactory prior history and a supplier's opportunistic behaviour. Finally, implications on the theory and the practices of relationship governance are discussed.     

Determinants of Perceived Interfirm Dependence in Industrial Supplier Relations

Studies of industrial buyer-supplier relations mostly focus on structural characteristics of the transactions between parties, and assume a direct relation between these factors and characteristics of the relationships. This paper focuses on the psychological dimension of transaction relations, reflected in perceptions of dependence, from the perspective of an industrial supplier. In the first step of the analysis, three groups of structural determinants of perceived supplier dependence are explored: factors related to goal mediation, factors related to relation-specific assets, and factors related to network embeddedness. After that, the influence of these structural factors and of perceived supplier dependence on the ordering of buyer-supplier relations is investigated. Data come from a study of the micro-electronics assembly industry in the Netherlands. The findings show that sales to a particular buyer as a percentage of the total sales of the supplier and the growth of sales to a particular buyer (two forms of goal mediation) are important determinants of perceived supplier dependence. Human asset specificity is also related to perceived supplier dependence. Network embeddedness variables play only a minor role in explaining perceived supplier and buyer dependence in this study. The data further show that perceived dependence has an effect on the degree of ordering in the relationship, next to structural factors like the extendedness of the relationship beyond the focal transaction and physical asset specificity. The effects of human asset specificity and dedicated assets on ordering are contrary to what was expected on the basis of the literature.     

Inter-firm co-ordination: international versus domestic buyer–seller relationships

The use of transaction cost analysis (TCA) to study the choice of governance mode in foreign countries has been a source of considerable research. Empirical tests of the TCA predictions within a single governance mode are, however, limited. Building on transaction costs arguments, and related work in international marketing literature, we examine the association between asset specificity and inter-firm co-ordination in domestic and international buyer–seller relationships. The extant literature is extended by also comparing the impact of environmental uncertainty on inter-firm co-ordination across domestic and international relationships. Empirical findings from a survey of 164 industrial buyers demonstrate that there is a positive association between asset specificity and inter-firm co-ordination, and further that this association is stronger in international relationships than in domestic business-to-business trade. Furthermore, the results indicate that environmental uncertainty is stronger related to inter-firm co-ordination in international buyer–seller relationships compared to domestic buyer–seller relationships.     

Impact of Customer‐based Corporate Reputation on Non‐monetary and Monetary Outcomes: The Roles of Commitment and Service Context Risk

A firm's reputation is an important intangible asset, because of its potential for value creation. The authors explore non‐monetary and monetary outcomes of customer‐based corporate reputation (CBR) and hypothesize that commitment serves as a partial mediator, while service context risk is a moderator, of these relationships. Using a large sample of service customers who evaluated the reputation of service firms in four service categories, the results show that (1) commitment partially mediates the relationship between CBR and most of the outcome variables, and (2) service provider selection risk moderates these relationships, such that reputation has a stronger effect on several non‐monetary outcomes for higher‐risk services and commitment has a stronger effect for lower‐risk services, consistent with a dual‐processing framework explanation. The authors discuss the theoretical and managerial implications.     

How to govern business services exchanges: Contractual and relational issues

With firms concentrating on core competencies, more emphasis has been placed on outsourcing and dealing with external sourcing agents. This has led to a stronger academic focus on buyer–seller exchanges and the corresponding mechanisms for governing these exchanges. This paper gives an overview of previous research investigating the exchange governance phenomenon based on transaction cost theory or co‐operative interorganizational relationships. The results reveal that few research studies have investigated the overall picture of exchange governance, including both contractual and relational governance and taking into account antecedents as well as performance outcomes of the governance mechanisms involved. Moreover, despite the service‐dominant logic shift, limited attention is given to specific service characteristics and their impact on exchange governance. This paper attempts to meld economic and social related antecedents into a model with regard to exchange governance in business services settings. Contractual and relational governance issues and their impact on performance outcomes are also considered. The resulting model indicates that to govern business services exchanges efficiently, more emphasis should be placed on behavioral uncertainty, human and process asset specificity and contractual governance. The paper concludes by discussing several directions for future research.     

多重关联关系下供应链上关联信用风险的传染效应

供应链企业之间的多重关联关系导致其信用风险传染愈加复杂。本文基于供应链双渠道融资模式,针对供应链上同时存在交易关联、资产关联和人际关联等三重关联关系的情景,揭示了关联信用风险微观传染机理,构建了关联信用风险传染强度模型,分别探讨了三种关联关系以及链外市场对传染效应的影响。为研究关联信用风险传染的外溢效应,在银行未识别出供应链上关联关系时,探讨了银行面临的期望损失。结合仿真分析发现,相较于单一商业信用融资,双渠道融资模式下传染效应更弱;在最优交易关联强度下,商业信用额度和成本（反映了供应链上的一种资产关联关系）在不同方向上对传染效应产生影响,人际关联关系以及链外市场均负向影响传染效应;银行期望损失则与贷款利率和贷需比相关,人际关联关系将导致银行更大的潜在损失。     

询价制度改革、知情交易者概率与IPO溢价

O'Hara理性预期模型假设非知情交易者对市场交易价格信息存在完全学习行为，从而知情交易者概率对资产期望收益产生负向效应。本文放松这一假设，引入非知情交易者学习程度，在理性预期模型框架下，以新股发行市场为背景对理性预期模型进行了拓展，模型结论表明：非知情交易者对市场交易价格的学习行为影响了知情交易者概率与资产期望收益的关系；当市场非知情交易者存在学习行为时，随着非知情交易者的学习程度加深，知情交易者概率对资产期望收益产生负向影响。在进一步的实证研究中，通过羊群效应验证了市场上非知情交易者的学习行为，以2010年1月到2011年12月在中小板上市的278家IPO公司为样本，对模型进行实证检验，实证结果支持理论模型结论。本研究对已有实证研究中知情交易者概率对资产收益产生正或负效应这一矛盾的研究结论提出了一种理论解释，并基于此对询价制度改革的有效性进行了检验。本文研究结论对知情交易者概率在资产定价中的适用性具有一定启示性，同时对非知情交易者的学习行为提出了一种实证检验的方法，具有一定的开创性。     

The effects of suppliers’ trust on manufacturers’ innovation capability: an analysis of direct versus indirect relationships

The study offers an alternative explanation for the role of trust in economic exchange, answering the critical research questions of how and under what conditions suppliers’ trust affects manufacturers’ innovation capability. The study adopts a transaction value approach suggesting combining strategy and organisational economic literature to fully investigate the processes through which joint value is generated and developed by interacting partners. Using survey data from a sample of 235 supplier–manufacturer relationships, we find broad support for the model hypotheses. The results confirm the mediating role of asset specificity and knowledge sharing as procedural dimensions in the relation between suppliers’ trust and manufacturers’ innovation capability. However, the direct path between trust and innovation capability was not confirmed. The study provides theoretical and practical implications for firms seeking to translate inter-firm trust into innovation-based competitive advantage.     

Strategic Orientations in Management Literature: Three Approaches to Understanding the Interaction between Market,Technology, Entrepreneurial and Learning Orientations

Market, technology, entrepreneurial and learning orientations have attracted major scholarly interest within their specific streams of literature for some decades. These strategic orientations are seen as principles that direct and influence the activities of a firm and generate the behaviours intended to ensure its viability and performance. Prior studies have argued that firms should develop and use multiple orientations, yet the relationship between different orientations has received only fragmented attention. This paper presents a systematic review of this literature, covering 67 scholarly articles published between 1987 and 2010 which investigate multiple orientations. The paper contributes first by summarizing the current state of knowledge on the interplay between these orientations. Many of these relationships have not been studied to any great degree, and there are research gaps in the information available on the relationships between entrepreneurial, technology and learning orientation in particular. Secondly, the paper contributes to further theoretical and empirical enquiry by synthesizing the empirical findings into a three‐approach framework. The sequential, alternatives and complementary approaches to perceiving the relationship between orientations all suggest areas for further research. The sequential approach could further contribute by developing better constructs for explaining the orientation of the firm; while the alternatives approach could increase its relevance to management through the exploration of contingency settings and comparative studies. The complementary approach encourages discussion between researchers from the different streams of literature through the investigation of the relationships. It suggests focus on the investigation of both universal‐ and contingency‐dependent‐orientation configurations.     

Dynamic Pricing and Demand Estimation for a Single Unique Asset*

We address the situation of a firm that needs to dispose of a large, expensive asset (e.g., car, machine tool, earth mover, turbine, house, airplane), with or without a given deadline (and either known or unknown to the buyer). If a deadline exists, the asset is salvaged at a known value which may be zero, or even negative if there is a disposal cost. The asset has a known holding cost and may also have an initial nominal (undiscounted) price. The question is how, if at all, the price should be discounted as time progresses to maximize the expected proceeds. We use a dynamic recursion where each decision stage can be optimized based on classic economic monopoly pricing theory with a demand intensity function estimated from sales data, and show that the model is well‐behaved in the sense that the optimal price and optimal expected revenue monotonically decline as the deadline approaches. We test the model by comparing its optimal price pattern to the official pricing policy practiced at a used‐car dealer. We then extend the model to situations where the buyer knows the seller's deadline and thus may alter his behavior as the deadline approaches.     

B-CAPM模型的GMM估计和检验

作为资本资产定价模型（CAPM）的发展之一,B-CAPM模型更适合于复杂多变的现实资本市场。本文首先分析从CAPM到B-CAPM的模型转化及其理论含义,然后迭代求出B-CAPM模型的零贝塔期望收益的极大似然估计值（MLE）,最后通过案例,实证运用GMM方法构建B-CAPM的估计和检验。结果表明,B-CAPM模型适用于证券市场收益和风险的度量以及有效性检验,GMM方法更符合实际。     

品牌延伸:资产价值转移与理论模型创建

本文通过对品牌延伸(Brand Extension)的研究综述和实证研究,提出决定品牌延伸的三大因子,并在此基础上构成品牌资产价值(Brand Asset Value),进而研究其在品牌延伸过程中的价值转移,从而构成了评估品牌延伸成败的标准,最终将各种因子和评估标准进行整合,提出了品牌延伸的理论模型。     

FINANCIAL INTEGRATION: A NEW METHODOLOGY AND AN ILLUSTRATION

This paper develops a simple methodology to test for asset integration, and applies it within and between American stock markets. Our technique relies on estimating and comparing expected risk‐free rates across assets. Expected risk‐free rates are allowed to vary freely over time, constrained only by the fact that they must be equal across (risk‐adjusted) assets in well‐integrated markets. Assets are allowed to have standard risk characteristics, and are constrained by the Fama and French factor model of covariances over short time periods. We find that internal integration in the S&P 500 market is never rejected and is not generally rejected in the NASDAQ. Integration between the NASDAQ and the S&P, however, is always rejected dramatically. (JEL: G14)     

DC型企业年金最优资产配置和给付方案问题研究

DC型企业年金管理者如何选择最优的资产配置策略和给付方案,以实现参保者最大的效用,是理论界和实务界都关注的问题。本文首次将生存者利益部分的精算规律考虑到个人年金账户余额变动满足的随机微分方程中,并将实际给付金额与预期给付中枢的二次偏差最小化作为优化目标。通过HJB变分方法,得到了最优的资产配置比例和最优给付方案的解析形式,并利用蒙特卡洛模拟方法研究了个人年金账户余额和预期给付中枢对最优策略的影响。结果表明:个人年金账户余额对实际给付金额和无风险资产配置比例存在正向影响;预期给付中枢对无风险资产配置比例存在负向影响。     

An Institutional Contingency Perspective of Interlocking Directorates

Interlocking directorates, in which companies are linked by the directors that serve on their boards, exist globally. It is an expression of hegemonic power exercised by the elites of a society, and has been studied with great interest by organizational sociologists, management scholars and financial economists. The interest emanates from the effect that interlocks have on wealth creation and distribution, and from the perspective that interlocks can tell us how elites in a society are networked. Although diverse theoretical perspectives have informed the research on interlocking directorates, this review shows that the Anglo‐American perspective dominates. This dominance is notable not only in the volume of Anglo‐American studies, but also in theories employed by international studies. For example, most international studies use agency theory to investigate the welfare implications of interlocks, but many countries do not use the Anglo‐American legal regime, which is the basis for agency theory. This paper expands the theoretical basis of the review to include class hegemony and resource dependence, to articulate better the causes and consequences of interlocks in the international context. The paper also extends theory by showing that institutions have an important influence on interlocks, so that the latter can be welfare‐depleting in one institutional setting, while welfare‐enhancing in another. The review concludes by discussing the implication for future research.     

PUBLIC DEBT UNDER LIMITED PRIVATE CREDIT

There is a conventional wisdom in economics that public debt can serve as a substitute for private credit if private borrowing is limited. The purpose of this paper is to show that, while a government could in principle use such a policy to fully relax borrowing limits, this is not generally optimal. In our economy, agents invest in a short‐term asset, a long‐term asset, and government bonds. Agents are subject to idiosyncratic liquidity shocks prior to the maturity of the long‐term asset. We show that a high public debt policy fully relaxes private borrowing limits and is suboptimal. This is because agents expecting such a policy respond by investing less than is socially optimal in the short asset which can protect them in the event of a liquidity shock. The optimal policy is more constrained and it induces a wedge between the technological rate of return on the long asset and the rate of return on bonds. In such a regime, agents subject to liquidity shocks are also borrowing constrained, and this expectation of being borrowing constrained induces them to invest the optimal level in the short asset.     

基于VaR的多阶段金融资产配置模型

本文提出了基于VaR的多阶段金融资产配置模型。进一步以我国经济环境为依托,考虑了未来各种资产收益、工资变动及物价变动的不确定性,对这一模型进行了仿真计算,并与静态模型在最优性上进行了比较,得出了动态模型优于静态模型的结论。在期望财富相同的情况下,基于VaR的多阶段资产配置模型比静态模型的期望损失成本低,承担的风险更小。     

Prices and Portfolio Choices in Financial Markets: Theory,Econometrics, Experiments

Many tests of asset‐pricing models address only the pricing predictions, but these pricing predictions rest on portfolio choice predictions that seem obviously wrong. This paper suggests a new approach to asset pricing and portfolio choices based on unobserved heterogeneity. This approach yields the standard pricing conclusions of classical models but is consistent with very different portfolio choices. Novel econometric tests link the price and portfolio predictions and take into account the general equilibrium effects of sample‐size bias. This paper works through the approach in detail for the case of the classical capital asset pricing model (CAPM), producing a model called CAPM+ε. When these econometric tests are applied to data generated by large‐scale laboratory asset markets that reveal both prices and portfolio choices, CAPM+εis not rejected.     

A Decision Framework for Managing Risk to Airports from Terrorist Attack

This article presents an asset‐level security risk management framework to assist stakeholders of critical assets with allocating limited budgets for enhancing their safety and security against terrorist attack. The proposed framework models the security system of an asset, considers various threat scenarios, and models the sequential decision framework of attackers during the attack. Its novel contributions are the introduction of the notion of partial neutralization of attackers by defenders, estimation of total loss from successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful actions of attackers at various stages of an attack, and inclusion of the effects of these losses on the choices made by terrorists at various stages of the attack. The application of the proposed method is demonstrated in an example dealing with security risk management of a U.S. commercial airport, in which a set of plausible threat scenarios and risk mitigation options are considered. It is found that a combination of providing blast‐resistant cargo containers and a video surveillance system on the airport perimeter fence is the best option based on minimum expected life‐cycle cost considering a 10‐year service period.