外商直接投资、外汇收支顺差与人民币升值压力

当前人民币遭受的升值压力与外商直接投资密切相关,它从三条渠道对人民币形成升值压力,一是外汇收支贸易顺差,二是庞大的出口贸易规模,三是外汇收支资本项目顺差。从利用外资趋势看,人民币升值压力不会减弱,而且人民币小幅升值也改变不了外汇收支顺差的局面。因此,缓解人民币升值压力的政策思路要转向适度控制利用外资规模、提高利用外资质量上来。     

区域合作污染控制及动态收益分配策略研究

近年来，相邻区域之间的跨界污染问题层出不穷，并呈现交叉伤害的外溢性。在考虑污染容量动态变化的基础上，建立了非对称两区域之间的微分博弈模型，探讨在非合作机制、治污成本分担机制以及协同合作三种情形下双方的反馈纳什均衡策略、污染容量最优轨迹及瞬时收益的变化。在此基础上，进一步引入纳什议价方法分析了具有时间一致性的动态合作收益最优分配策略。结果表明，当污染对环境的伤害较大时，治污成本分担机制可以实现环境与经济的帕累托改善，而协同合作机制在区域收益与环境方面都是最优的；其次，通过数值分析探讨了地区的"短视"行为和环境自净率对稳定状态下均衡策略的影响，分析表明，地区的"短视"行为导致短期收益最大化，从而减少对治污的投入而增加了污染容量；而随着环境自净率的增加，污染容量与地区收益均有改善，但对环境伤害更为敏感的地区收益增加更显著。最后，给出了动态最优收益分配的具体数值变化。研究结论对区域之间治污模式与合作分配机制具有一定的决策参考价值。     

两级再制造的S-M闭环供应链的决策与绩效分析

供应商是再制造战略研究中不可忽视的决策主体之一,因为制造商的产品回收再制造战略会对供应商的零部件供应决策产生影响,而且处于强势背景的供应商也有选择是否参与零部件的回收再制造的权利。为了探讨产品和零部件的两级再制造战略对供应商和零售商的定价决策及收益的影响,本文运用Stackelberg博弈,对供应商强势背景下供应商选择参与和选择不参与零部件的回收再制造的两种Supplier-Manufacturer闭环供应链模型进行了研究,并对两种情形下的定价决策与收益进行了对比分析。最后得出以下结论:再制造战略对批发价决策的影响与产品的市场需求状况有关,对零售价决策的影响与回收风险状况有关;供应商应积极参与两级再制造战略,因为供应商选择供应可再制造的零部件使自身受益,并且参与零部件的回收再制造可以在降低批发价和零售价的基础上使双方受益。最后,运用数值算例验证了本文的研究结论,丰富了再制造战略对定价决策及收益影响的研究成果。     

Bargaining power and the trade-off between the ownership and control of international joint ventures in China

Equity ownership and operational control constitute two crucial elements in the design of the governance structure of international joint ventures (IJVs). Based on the bargaining power theory, this study proposes that discrepancies between majority ownership and dominant control may exist as a consequence of bilateral bargaining, which is attributable to the influence of both contextual and resource content variables. Based on a survey database containing over 700 IJVs in China, our empirical findings illustrate contingencies under which equity share and dominance of control may reveal a trade-off relationship. The foreign partner will be more likely to secure a position of dominant control by accepting ownership concessions when it is at the upstream stage of the IJV, which is characterized by a high dependence on foreign input. Furthermore, while intangible resources furnished by the foreign parent exert positive impacts on the foreign partner’s attainment of dominant operational control in general, the foreign partner’s supply of product related knowledge and marketing expertise is particularly capable of rendering it bargaining power in managing the trade-off between ownership and control whenever necessary. These findings may suggest foreign firms adopt a flexible mindset in their negotiations with potential local counterparts in order to achieve collaborative goals.     

Dimensions of Control in UK International Joint Ventures*

From a sample of UK joint ventures with partners from Western Europe, the USA and Japan, dimensions of parent control of the ventures are considered by way of a taxonomy based on the mechanisms, extent and focus of control. The origins of the mechanisms of control identified in the study indicate that UK parents have not been sufficiently responsible for providing the mechanisms to allow them to exercise a greater leverage of control than that obtained by the foreign partners. The origins of the mechanisms of control also indicate relatively little autonomy for the managements of the joint ventures. Evidence from the study supports the view that joint venture parents seek to focus their influence of control over particular decisions and activities of the venture, rather than attempting to extend their control over the whole venture. The study considers the mechanisms and focus of control across the characteristics of the sample: contractual form of the venture, relative equity shareholding of the UK parent, time period of formation, nationality of foreign partner, industry group of the venture and broad purpose of the venture. Chi-squared tests show that there is little evidence of any systematic variation in the dimensions of control across the characteristics of the sample, the major exception to this being the relative equity shareholding of the UK parents.     

Dynamic pricing in the presence of consumer inertia

Customer behavior modeling has gained increasing attention in the context of dynamic pricing. As an important behavior phenomenon, consumer inertia refers to consumers' inherent tendency of purchase procrastination and may induce consumers to wait even when immediate purchase is optimal from an objective perspective. This paper studies a dynamic pricing problem for a monopolist firm selling perishable goods to consumers who may be influenced by inertia. We formulate this problem using the finite-horizon dynamic programming approach and derive the optimal dynamic pricing policy. We demonstrate that consumer inertia produces negative effects on firms' expected revenues and optimal prices, which are monotonically decreasing in both inertia depth and breadth. Through numerical illustrations, we further show that the marginal effects of inertia depth on optimal prices and expected revenues are decreasing, whereas the marginal effects of inertia breadth are increasing. Finally we propose some suggestions for firms to influence the level of consumer inertia.     

服务补救方式对消费者情绪和行为意向的影响

本文采用情景模拟方法,以饭店服务失误和补救为例,分别测评了主动补救和被动补救对消费者情绪和行为意向的影响,结果发现,服务补救方式对消费者情绪和行为意向的影响存在显著差别,其中主动补救对消费者正面情绪、口碑传播和重购意向的影响显著高于被动补救,而对消费者负面情绪的影响显著低于被动补救;获得服务补救消费者的正面情绪与口碑传播和重购意向呈显著正相关,而消费者负面情绪与口碑传播和重购意向呈显著负相关。     

Strategic planning—Myth or reality?—A chief executive's view

The author of this paper is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Emhart Corporation. Emhart has worldwide revenues of over $1.8bn and ranks 41st among the 150 largest U.S. multinationals. The author is a foe of interoffice memos and an advocate of face-to-face communication. The author has written and talked extensively on the role of the Chief Executive in the 1980s: thinks business's poor communication with the media may be its own fault; worries about mixing politics and sociology into foreign trade; is concerned that business should properly adjust and adapt to the better educated, more individualistic employee coming into the work force and thinks that business's credibility would improve if it applied its resources more prudently and refrained from trying to solve all of society's problems.     

Mitigating liabilities of foreignness: Defensive versus offensive approaches

Finding effective mechanisms that can overcome liabilities of foreignness (LOFs) is the central issue in the study of LOFs. This study proposes that such mechanisms comprise defensive options and offensive options. Defensive mechanisms include contract protection, parental control, parental service, and output standardization. Offensive mechanisms include local networking, resource commitment, legitimacy improvement, and input localization. Using China as an analytical setting, this study emphasizes two prominent yet distinct mechanisms: contract protection and local networking (“guanxi” in Chinese). Contracts and guanxi mitigate the LOF via different paths: Contracts negate LOFs by safeguarding invested resources, curtailing operational uncertainty, and reducing coordination costs, whereas guanxi neutralizes LOFs through increasing indigenous adaptability, improving organizational legitimacy, and heightening cooperation with the local business community. Our analysis of 92 sample MNEs in China suggests that contracts and guanxi exert different influences on the consequences of LOFs. Contracts reduce production and marketing costs but do not stimulate sales revenues. Guanxi, however, enhances sales revenues but does not reduce production and marketing costs. This study also documents that contracts and guanxi operate as complements in overcoming LOFs.     

Foreign language skill,anxiety, cultural intelligence and individual task performance in global virtual teams: A cognitive perspective

Global virtual teams (GVTs) operate in a globally dispersed work environment, principally relying on communication and information technologies to achieve work tasks. In this work context, using language effectively is crucial. We utilize the cognitive perspective to explain how foreign language use in a GVT influences individual task performance. This study employs (a) cognitive neuroscience of foreign language processing perspective to explain the relationship between foreign language skills and individual task performance; (b) the theory of cognitive load to explain foreign language anxiety as a pathway that further explains how low-level foreign language skill negatively influences individual task performance; and (c) the theory of intelligence to examine the conditional role of cultural intelligence in the mediation process. Utilizing 294 data pairs (collected from GVT members and their respective supervisors) in a multinational offshoring firm, we found support for the mediation process and the conditional influence of the dimensions of cultural intelligence in reducing the negative effect of foreign language anxiety on individual task performance in GVT.     

技术整合机制、整合能力和技术合作效果关系研究：以我国某重点汽车零配件公司为例

技术合作是发展中国家企业提升技术能力一个重要途径.而有效的技术合作和技术转移却是一个相当复杂的动态过程.技术接受方所采取的整合机制以及其自身的整合能力是影响技术合作效果的重要因素.本文以我国某重点汽车零配件企业与国外公司之间的技术合作为例,借助LISREL8.7软件进行结构方程建模,研究发现技术接受方组织所采取的整合机制以及整合能力是技术合作效果的重要影响因素.并且发现,整合能力是整合机制与技术合作效果之间的关键中介变量.     

Optimal Design of the Online Auction Channel: Analytical,Empirical, and Computational Insights*

The focus of this study is on business‐to‐consumer (B2C) online auctions made possible by the advent of electronic commerce over an open‐source, ubiquitous Internet Protocol (IP) computer network. This work presents an analytical model that characterizes the revenue generation process for a popular B2C online auction, namely, Yankee auctions. Such auctions sell multiple identical units of a good to multiple buyers using an ascending and open auction mechanism. The methodologies used to validate the analytical model range from empirical analysis to simulation. A key contribution of this study is the design of a partitioning scheme of the discrete valuation space of the bidders such that equilibrium points with higher revenue structures become identifiable and feasible. Our analysis indicates that the auctioneers are, most of the time, far away from the optimal choice of key control factors such as the bid increment, resulting in substantial losses in a market with already tight margins. With this in mind, we put forward a portfolio of tools, varying in their level of abstraction and information intensity requirements, which help auctioneers maximize their revenues.     

Board attributes and foreign shareholdings in Malaysian listed firms

This study examines the association between foreign shareholdings and several characteristics of board of directors in the context of a developing capital market. Using data of 777 listed firms on Bursa Malaysia for the financial year 2008, the study predicts that foreign shareholdings are positively related to board independence, multiple directorships, and financial literacy of the board of directors. The study finds a strong positive relationship between multiple directorships and foreign shareholdings. Contrary to our expectation, the association between board financial literacy and foreign shareholdings is negative and significant. With regard to the link between board independence and foreign shareholdings, we find weak evidence to support our prediction that there is positive relationship between board independence and foreign shareholdings. The multivariate results also show strong positive relationships between foreign shareholdings and number of foreign directors on boards, and between foreign shareholdings and audit quality. The study also documents a significant negative association between foreign shareholdings and firm size, and between foreign shareholdings and book-to-market ratio. The findings of the study supports the view that multiple directorships is an important asset to firms in emerging markets partly due to limited pool of potential talents and experts which in turn could signal reputational capital and quality of directors. Since there is a mandated presence of finance and accounting qualified director on the audit committee, foreign shareholders can somewhat rely on the oversight of audit committee instead of depending entirely on the board of directors for the quality of financial statements and financial reporting oversight. Finally, the presence of foreign directors on a board of directors may signal a firm’s commitment to adopt good corporate governance practices. It is also possible that foreign investors can influence corporate governance through their participation on the board of directors.     

Investing Profitably in China: is it Getting Harder?

Using information from the Toyo Keizai, this article studies the performance of 2,962 foreign subsidiaries across the period 1985-1999 to show a picture of declining profitability from foreign direct investment by MNE’s in China. Despite the influence of macro-level factors, such as the historically fluctuating performance of the Chinese economy, we observed that of the many factors that may affect profitability, subsidiary-specific factors had the greater influence. The findings suggest that there are significant benefits for early entrants into the market, but caution against the use of high majority ownership control. Other evidence showed that larger subsidiaries tended to perform better. Managerial implications for MNEs and the future prospects of foreign direct investment in China are discussed.Since China opened up to the outside world in 1979, it has been attracting increasing amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI), and after 1993 became the second largest recipient of FDI flows in the world. Meanwhile, a major participant in the upsurge in global foreign direct investment in the 1990s was Japan. By the mid-1990s, Japan became the second largest FDI source country in the world behind the United States. China, in particular, has become a major destination for Japan’s direct investments, absorbing one-ninth of all Japanese foreign investments at the end of 1996.¹Studying Japan’s worldwide direct foreign investment, we found that the proportion of profitable Japanese subsidiaries in China has been declining. In fact, this was the only part of the world where this was the case. While over 71 percent of Japanese subsidiaries in China claimed profits in 1992, the percentage steadily slipped to around 50 percent by 1999 (see Table 1). This poses two interesting questions. Is it really getting harder to invest profitably in China? And what could have influenced the profit performance of foreign subsidiaries in China?     

清洁发展机制(CDM)对中国企业经营绩效影响的实证检验

CDM项目早期在国内的迅速发展主要依赖政策引导和扶持，但企业本身参与项目的主动性不高。因此，随着《京都议定书》到期，政策引导力减弱，CDM项目的参与度迅速回落。实际上，CDM项目的意义并不仅局限于环境绩效和减排额收入，其有相当一部分附加商业价值被忽略，比如CDM项目对发展企业出口业务和节约生产成本的潜在利好。综上所述，本文旨在通过揭示CDM项目的真实商业价值重塑企业和政府对CDM的认知，调动企业开发项目的积极性。实证结果显示，参与CDM项目对于企业出口比例有显著提升作用，但CDM项目对生产成本率的影响存在明显的行业分化，对于集中于主流项目、平均绩效指标（盈利水平、流动性、负债水平）良好的行业（如电力、水泥、环保等），CDM项目能够显著降低生产成本率，其余行业（包括钢铁、煤炭、造纸等）则无法受益。因此，本文建议有意图开拓海外市场的企业可以考虑借力CDM项目，而希望通过开发CDM项目降低生产成本率的企业则需要结合项目类型和自身实力谨慎决策。同时，政府部门应该引导不同类型项目平衡发展，并适时对亟待绿色转型的企业予以补贴。     

政府管制与大宗敏感商品价格及波动性研究——以世界糖产业为例

政府管制对于大宗商品的定价有何影响?对于价格的波动性又有何影响?这些关系国家经济、经贸乃至国家安全的大宗敏感商品政府应该如何管?这些都是目前国家宏观调控中非常重要而又迫切需要解决的问题。本文以世界糖产业政府管制及国内外糖现、期货实证研究表明,政府管制对于大宗商品的价格及波动性有着重要的影响。具体而言,政府管制使得国际糖价长期低于生产成本,世界食糖市场被严重扭曲。东京谷物交易所原糖、纽约期货交易所原糖期货和郑州商品交易所白糖期货均存在严重的杠杆效应;半衰期由长到短依次为:伦糖、美糖、郑糖、昆糖、东京糖。在文章的最后,通过分析给出了大宗敏感商品政府管制一般的路径和方法。     

外商直接投资、产学研合作与地区创新绩效 ——来自中国省级面板数据的实证研究

本文构建了外商直接投资、产学研合作的溢出效应和地区创新绩效的分析框架,运用中国省级面板数据进行实证分析,检验了外商直接投资与产学研合作的溢出效应在对区域创新产出和创新效率的影响上存在何种关系(互补/替代)。研究表明:在对区域产品相关创新产出的影响上,外商直接投资与产学研合作作为两类知识获取渠道存在替代关系;在对区域专利相关和产品相关创新效率的影响上,外商直接投资与产学研合作作为两类知识获取渠道存在替代关系。在上述结论的基础上,本文对中国区域创新绩效提升提出了相关的政策建议。     

Seeds of Corruption? The Contingent Role of Ties to Politicians and Foreign Subsidiary Relations with Government-Sponsored Financial Institutions

In drawing from transaction cost economics and social network theories, this study examines the influence of corruption as a determinant of foreign subsidiary formal contracting practices with government-sponsored financial institutions. We hypothesize that lower corruption distance (between parent home and host countries) and higher perceived corruption (in host country) are positively related, and mutually reinforcing, when considering a foreign subsidiary's propensity to formally contract with government-sponsored financial institutions. We also suggest that these relationships strengthen with the intensification of political ties to government officials who can offer preferential political services via contractual agreements, changing the nature of market transactions in favour of a foreign subsidiary. We found support for our hypotheses using data from a sample of over 350 subsidiaries located in the Philippines and Thailand.     

Scheduling online advertisements to maximize revenue under variable display frequency

The online advertising industry realized annual revenues estimated at over $26 billion, in the United States alone, in 2010. Banner advertising accounts for an estimated 23% of all online advertising revenues. Publishers of banner advertisements face a scheduling optimization problem on a daily basis. Several papers in the literature have proposed mathematical models and solution approaches to address a publisher's banner advertisement scheduling problem and the problem has been shown to be NP-hard. In this paper we propose a new model variation for the problem, which incorporates variable display frequencies. We find that the variable-display frequency model provides significantly improved space utilization relative to the fixed-display frequency model and consequently higher revenues for the publishers.     

Revenue management games with government mandate

In 2007, the Chinese aviation authority asked the five airlines that offer service between Shanghai and Beijing to form an express shuttle alliance so that tickets from one airline could be used for any flight offered by any of the other airlines. In this paper, we study the impact of such a government mandate on the competitiveness of the market and on airline operations. First we extend a competitive airline seat allocation model to include such a government mandate and provide sufficient conditions for the existence of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in such a model. Both our analytical and numerical results show that fewer low-fare seats would be made available in a market with the government mandate, and furthermore, revenues of individual airlines would be lower as well. We then study a seat inventory and price competition game between duopoly airlines with the government mandate and establish the existence of pure-strategy Nash equilibriums. We show that with the government mandate, the airlines would reserve more high-fare seats and raise the prices of high-fare seats. In addition, we show that the revenues of the airlines would decrease as fewer low-fare seats are offered and increase as the prices of high-fare seats are increased. We also discuss how the government mandate should be designed so that the market could operate as efficiently as possible.