scholarly journals Too much reciprocity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 473-491
Author(s):  
Zhe Sun ◽  
Qi Ai

Purpose Using the evidence of Chinese outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&As) enacted between 2006 and 2014, this study aims to investigate the role played by home political connections on the cost implications of Chinese multinationals. It also examines whether home political connections – at different levels and of different configurations – impact the operational cost of Chinese multinationals. Design/methodology/approach The data were analysed using a multivariate regression model. To examine their heterogeneous effect on Chinese multinationals, the political connection data were further split into higher and lower level political connections and in chief executive officer (CEO) and chairperson political connections. Findings This study implies the negative effect of home political connections on the internationalisation of Chinese multinationals. At the same time, the impact of lower-level political connections is stronger than that of their higher-level counterparts. Moreover, CEO political connections have a stronger effect on the operational costs of Chinese multinationals than their Chairperson equivalents. Originality/value By unravelling the “black box” of Chinese internationalisation from the social exchange perspective, through the informal political connection networking ties between Chinese firms and the government, this study advances emerging market multinational theory, contributes to the understanding of the heterogeneous nature of political connections and sheds new light on social exchange theory from the perspective of the emerging phenomenon of Chinese internationalisation.

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk Berkman ◽  
Vidura Galpoththage

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to use a portfolio-time-series approach to examine the impact of five important political events on the value of politically connected firms in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach – This study examines five major political events to test if political connections affect market value of listed companies in Sri Lanka. Results show that despite numerous news articles and public perception suggesting otherwise, there is no convincing evidence which indicate that political connections increase firm value in Sri Lanka. Findings – The empirical results provide no evidence that political connections increase firm value in Sri Lanka. Further tests indicate that the government is not biased towards politically connected firms when granting major projects. The authors also fail to find a relation between Tobin’s Q and the level of political connection after including several common control variables. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature on the value of political connections by using a robust event study methodology and a novel setting: Sri Lanka in the period around the end of the civil war.


Author(s):  
Nada Hammad ◽  
Syed Zamberi Ahmad ◽  
Avraam Papastathopoulos

Purpose This paper aims to investigate residents’ perceptions of tourism’s impact on their support for tourism development in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires from Abu Dhabi residents (n = 407), who represented 30 nationalities residing in the emirate. Based on social exchange theory, structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses. Findings Results suggest that Abu Dhabi residents perceive the impacts of tourism positively and are more sensitive to the environmental and economic influences of tourism than the social and cultural influences. Research limitations/implications This study was limited to Abu Dhabi residents; findings cannot be generalized to other emirates in the UAE, or other countries. Originality/value This study adds value to extant tourism literature by investigating residents’ perceptions of the influence of tourism in one of the richest cities worldwide, which aspires to be one of the fastest growing tourism destinations in the Middle East.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Youliang Yan ◽  
Xixiong Xu

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how affiliation with the government-controlled business association, namely, China Federation of Industry and Commerce (CFIC), affects corporate philanthropy in an emerging market. Design/methodology/approach Through an analysis of survey data gathered from Chinese private firms, this paper conducts multiple regressions to examine the impact of the CFIC membership on corporate philanthropy. Findings Empirical results show that the CFIC membership of private entrepreneurs is significantly positively associated with corporate philanthropy. Moreover, this study finds that the provincial marketization level and the firm Communist Party branch attenuate the positive association between CFIC membership and corporate philanthropy, indicating that the effect of CFIC on corporate philanthropy is more pronounced in regions with lower marketization level and firms without Communist Party branch. The findings are robust to various alternate measures of corporate philanthropy and remain valid after controlling for potential endogeneity. Practical implications Firms will be more active in corporate philanthropy to respond to the government’s governance appeal when they join the CFIC. This highlights the implications of political connections and in particular on the value of government-controlled business associations in the Chinese business world. Originality/value This study extends the literature on the determinants of corporate philanthropy and deepens the theoretical understanding of the governance role of business association with Chinese characteristics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nor Farizal Mohammed ◽  
Kamran Ahmed ◽  
Xu-Dong Ji

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between accounting conservatism, corporate governance and political connection in listed firms in Malaysia where political influence plays a significant role in the capital market and in many business dealings. Design/methodology/approach By utilizing 824 firm-year observations comprising large listed companies over a period of four years from 2004, this study uses ordinary least squares regression models to investigate the relationship between accounting conservatism, corporate governance and political connections in Malaysia. Multiple measures of conservatism developed by Basu (1997) and Khan and Watts (2009) are employed. Findings The results show evidence of accounting conservatism (bad news being recognized earlier than good news) in Malaysia. Further, the results reveal that better corporate governance structure in terms of board independence is positively associated with accounting conservatism while management ownership is negatively associated with it. However, political connection has a negative moderating effect on the positive relationship between accounting conservatism and board independence. The results also suggest political connections have a positive association with firm’s future performance. Originality/value This study is the first in investigating the effect of political connections on accounting conservatism in Malaysian context and how political connections negatively affect the monitoring role of the corporate boards. By directly measuring political connection and controlling for various corporate governance mechanisms and firm-specific attributes, this study contributes to enhance the authors’ understanding of the political influence in financial reporting quality and firm performance in an emerging market setting.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhang ◽  
Lin Sun ◽  
Fang Qin ◽  
G. Alan Wang

Purpose In recent years, more and more e-retailers have adopted live streaming services to attract customers. Although the extant literature has mostly examined the motivations for live streaming usage, it remains unclear how to enhance customers’ purchase behaviour. Based on the social exchange theory, in the context of live streaming platforms (LSP), this study aims to investigate the impact of information quality and interaction quality on swift guanxi and customers’ purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted an online survey to conduct two rounds of data collection and analyses the data using SPSS and SmartPLS softwares. Findings The results show that information quality (believability, usefulness and vividness) and interaction quality (responsiveness, real-time interaction and empathy) are positively related to swift guanxi, which may influence customers’ online purchase intention on LSP. Originality/value Prior service quality studies tend to focus on traditional physical stores and e-commerce websites context. This study offers the description of key dimensions of service quality on emerging LSP context. The study also confirms the importance of swift guanxi in an online marketplace.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Zhang ◽  
Guyang Tian ◽  
Chao Ma ◽  
Yezhuang Tian ◽  
Zhongqiu Li ◽  
...  

PurposeGrounded in social exchange theory (SET), the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between empowering leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), as mediated by duty orientation (including duty to members, duty to mission and duty to codes). Further, this study proposes that perceived leader expediency moderates indirectly between empowering leadership and UPB.Design/methodology/approachThis paper tests this social exchange model across a survey study using time-lagged data collections from 215 employees of a service company in China.FindingsThe results show that duty orientation mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and UPB. In addition, perceived leader expediency moderates the indirect relationship between empowering leadership and UPB through duty orientation (i.e. duty to members and duty to missions).Originality/valueThis research aids in understanding the impact of empowering leadership on follower outcomes by investigating the dark side of empowering leadership and examining the relationships between empowering leadership, duty orientation and UPB. The present study also challenges the notion that the phrase “the greater the empowerment, the better the outcomes” suggests that organizations should offer a conditional approach to the empowerment of followers by their leaders.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Samaha ◽  
Hichem Khlif

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of audit-related attributes and regulatory reforms on timely disclosure as proxied by audit report lag (ARL) in an emerging market setting, namely, Egypt. Design/methodology/approach The paper used the balanced panel data of 372 firm-years observations of the most actively traded companies on the Egyptian Stock Exchange over the period from 2007 to 2010. The study measures the dependent variable of ARL as the number of days between the client’s fiscal year-end and the audit report. Findings Multivariate analysis indicates that audit committee activity (proxy for regulatory reforms) and external auditor type (proxy for audit-related attributes) contribute significantly to the reduction of ARL and increase disclosure timeliness. Furthermore, the paper found that ARL witnessed a slight decrease following the adoption of the new Egyptian Standards on Auditing (ESA). Finally, the paper’s findings show that industry types moderate the relationship between ARL and several audit-related variables and corporate governance attributes. Practical implications The results may have policy implications for both regulators and investors. For instance, policymakers in Egypt can enact new rules to reduce the Chief Executive Officer duality and establish the minimum required number of audit committee meetings to improve transparency level and, thus, increase disclosure timeliness. Besides, if future regulations aiming to increase disclosure timeliness are intended by Egyptian regulators, this paper’s findings suggest that this may have implications for the audit market because the Big Four audit firms will be more able to meet shorter audit delays. Originality/value The empirical evidence provided in this study further enhances the understanding of timely disclosure in Egypt which represents one of the leading emerging markets in the Middle East and North Africa region.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (8) ◽  
pp. 856-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zengji Song ◽  
Abraham Nahm ◽  
Jun Yang

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether substantial differences in institutional environment in China lead to different levels of demand for political connection. Design/methodology/approach – Using a data set of 296 listed private sector enterprises (PSEs) in China, the authors empirically investigate the effects of institutional environmental factors upon political connection. Findings – The authors find that the lower the level of regional property right protection, the more powerful the government intervention, and the slower the economic development, the more motivated the PSEs were to build relationship with the government via partial state ownership. However, the degree of local corruption was not correlated with the demand for political connection. The authors also find that partial state ownership in PSEs exerted a positive effect on performance. Originality/value – Deviating from previous literature that has been mostly concerned about the economic consequences to firms caused by political connections, this paper examines the reasons for political connection among Chinese PSEs. The authors introduce a new dimension of political connection, namely, partial state ownership in PSEs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphane Renaud ◽  
Lucie Morin ◽  
Jean-Yves Saulquin ◽  
Jocelyne Abraham

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to answer the following two questions: What are the HRM practices that have a significant impact on employees’ functional retention?, and Does the impact of these HRM practices on functional retention differ based on the employee’s status as an expert or a non-expert? Our theoretical foundation rests on human capital theory and social exchange theory. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses longitudinal data that come from multiple surveys conducted on new employees within a Canadian subsidiary of an international information technology (IT) firm. Findings – Results show that four out of five HRM practices under study have a significant and positive impact on functional retention of employees regardless of their expert status: satisfaction with a respectful and stimulating work environment, satisfaction with training and development, satisfaction with innovative benefits and satisfaction with incentive compensation significantly increase functional retention of employees. Functional retention was found to be higher for experts than for their non-expert counterparts. Last, results show that expert/non-expert status play a moderating role between HRM practices and functional retention. Originality/value – In short, this study offers five main contributions to the literature: first, it focuses on retention rather than turnover; second, it goes further by examining functional retention as the dependant variable; third, it distinguishes between two categories of employees: experts and non-experts; fourth, it extends the limited literature on IT workers, HRM practices and retention; and fifth, it is based on longitudinal data whereas the overwhelming majority of published studies have been based on cross-sectional data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 794-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Khalid ◽  
Sajid Bashir ◽  
Abdul Karim Khan ◽  
Nida Abbas

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding behaviors. The authors further investigate how abusive supervision is linked with knowledge hiding behaviors, and why some subordinates, unlike others, tend to engage in more knowledge hiding behaviors in response to abusive supervision. The authors propose that interpersonal justice mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding behaviors, and that Islamic work ethics (IWE) weaken the hypothesized relationship between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding behaviors. Design/methodology/approach The data were gathered in three time lags from 224 respondents working in the hospitality industry of Pakistan. Findings The results reveal that the abusive supervision is positively associated with a knowledge hiding behaviors. This relationship is mediated by perceptions of interpersonal justice, but the IWE moderated this relationship such that in the presence of high levels of IWE, the impact of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding behaviors is weak. Practical implications Employees’ values and beliefs can serve as a safeguard against reactions to abusive supervision. The impact of abusive supervision on employees’ behaviors may be minimized by building their ethical values around Islamic principles. Originality/value To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding behaviors. The authors integrate displaced aggression and social exchange theory with the IWE literature to offer new insights in-to the mechanisms and boundary conditions associated with the relationship between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding behaviors.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document