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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Leveraging Reward-Based Crowdfunding During Covid-19, Hannah H. Chang, Erin Jasmine Guillermo, Colin Chai Dec 2021

Leveraging Reward-Based Crowdfunding During Covid-19, Hannah H. Chang, Erin Jasmine Guillermo, Colin Chai

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Over the last year, Singapore firms have faced unforeseen market disruptions created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Worldwide country lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, and restrictions on business operations due to public health and safety measures posed non-trivial challenges. Many companies scampered to find alternative sources of revenue and ramp up their efforts at digitalisation - or risk the possibility of business closure.


Follow The Smoke: The Pollution Haven Effect On Global Sourcing, Heather Berry, Aseem Kaul, Narae Lee Dec 2021

Follow The Smoke: The Pollution Haven Effect On Global Sourcing, Heather Berry, Aseem Kaul, Narae Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research abstract: We examine whether and how foreign environmental standards influence global sourcing decisions. Taking a question-driven approach, we find a negative association between the stringency of a country's environmental standards and its share in US imports for 82 manufacturing industries across 77 countries between 2006 and 2016. This pollution haven effect holds not only for sourcing from owned foreign operations (offshore integration), but also for sourcing from unrelated third parties abroad (offshore outsourcing), and is stronger in industries with high toxic emissions and low technological intensity. These results are robust across alternative measures of environmental stringency and to using …


Harnessing Digitalization For Sustainable Economic Development: Insights For Asia, John Beirne, David Fernandez Dec 2021

Harnessing Digitalization For Sustainable Economic Development: Insights For Asia, John Beirne, David Fernandez

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Digitalization has helped to transform economies by enhancing competitiveness and productivity across a wide range of sectors. The use of big data and the rise of online platforms have accelerated this process over the past decade. In addition, the adoption of digital solutions in the face of social distancing and lockdown measures introduced due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been integral to the economic recovery process. The shift to a digitalized economy has also reduced barriers to market entry for firms, lowered inequality, and led to a promotion of social and economic inclusion. Advances in digital technology …


Accounting And Finance Lessons In The Time Of Covid-19: Views From The Pacific Basin: Part 2, Kuan Yong David Ding, Julie Harrison, Martien Lubberink, Chris Van Staden Nov 2021

Accounting And Finance Lessons In The Time Of Covid-19: Views From The Pacific Basin: Part 2, Kuan Yong David Ding, Julie Harrison, Martien Lubberink, Chris Van Staden

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The global COVID-19 pandemic is now in its second year, and we are fast approaching the third. The year 2021 has brought some hope that vaccination will lead to the end of the pandemic. But it has also brought a more infectious variant of COVID-19 and multiple waves of surging cases that show no immediate sign of disappearing. As the pandemic continues to impact global societies and economies, it is imperative that we study its impact to try and understand how it will affect us in both the short-term and long-term. While the longer-term impacts are still unknown, there is …


Stock Return Prediction Using Financial News: A Unified Sequence Model Based On Hierarchical Attention And Long-Short Term Memory Networks, Haoling Chen, Peng Liu Nov 2021

Stock Return Prediction Using Financial News: A Unified Sequence Model Based On Hierarchical Attention And Long-Short Term Memory Networks, Haoling Chen, Peng Liu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Stock return prediction has been a hot topic in both research and industry given its potential for large financial gain. The return signal, apart from its inherent volatility and complexity, is often accompanied by a multitude of noises, such as other stocks’ performance, macroeconomic factors and financial news, etc. To better characterize these factors, we propose a new model that consists of two levels of sequence: an NLP-based module to capture the sequential nature of words and sentences in the financial news, and a time-series-based module to exploit the sequential nature of adjacent observations in the stock price. In this …


Unlocking The Creativity Potential Of Dialectical Thinking: Field Investigations Of The Comparative Effects Of Transformational And Transactional Leadership Styles, Roy Y. J. Chua, Jia Hui Lim, Wannwiruch (Fon) Wiruchnipawan Nov 2021

Unlocking The Creativity Potential Of Dialectical Thinking: Field Investigations Of The Comparative Effects Of Transformational And Transactional Leadership Styles, Roy Y. J. Chua, Jia Hui Lim, Wannwiruch (Fon) Wiruchnipawan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a digital economy characterized by high volumes of information and ideas, many of which could be contradictory to one another, employees high in dialectical thinking should be well poised to connect disparate ideas to generate creative solutions for business problems. Yet, it is unclear whether dialectical thinking as a creativity-relevant skill can be realized in naturalistic workplace settings, given past mixed findings and the lack of field studies. We propose that supervisors’ leadership styles are important moderators that can unlock employees’ creativity potential in dialectical thinking. Additionally, we compare the activating effect of transformational leadership and the inhibiting effect …


Volatility Timing Under Low-Volatility Strategy, Poh Ling Neo, Chyng Wen Tee Nov 2021

Volatility Timing Under Low-Volatility Strategy, Poh Ling Neo, Chyng Wen Tee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors show that the slope of the volatility decile portfolio’s return profile contains valuable information that can be used to time volatility under different market conditions in the United States. During good (bad) market conditions, the high- (low-) volatility portfolio produces the highest return. The authors proceed to devise a volatility timing strategy based on statistical tests on the slope of the volatility decile portfolio’s return profile. Volatility timing is achieved by being aggressive during strong growth periods and conservative during market downturns. Superior performance is obtained, with an additional return of 4.1% observed in the volatility timing strategy, …


Carlos Ghosn: The Rise And Fall Of An Automobile Legend, Jochen Reb, Abhijeet K. Vadera, Sin Mei Cheah Nov 2021

Carlos Ghosn: The Rise And Fall Of An Automobile Legend, Jochen Reb, Abhijeet K. Vadera, Sin Mei Cheah

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Was it politics, greed, or hubris that led to Carlos Ghosn's downfall? On December 29, 2019, disgraced auto titan Carlos Ghosn (rhymes with ‘tone’) made an audacious escape from house arrest in Tokyo, where he had been detained on financial impropriety charges. Of all the places imaginable, Ghosn hid in a huge case for musical instruments, which was then loaded onto an aeroplane as cargo. Dubbed as “one of the most brazen and well-orchestrated escape acts in recent history, involving a dizzying array of hotel meet-ups, bullet train travel, fake personas, and the chartering of a private jet”, it was …


Algorithmic Transparency, Jian Sun Nov 2021

Algorithmic Transparency, Jian Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

I study the optimal algorithmic disclosure in a lending market where lenders use a predictive algorithm to mitigate adverse selection. The predictive algorithm is unobservable to borrowers and uses a manipulable borrower feature as input. A regulator maximizes market efficiency by disclosing information about the statistical properties of variables embedded in the predictive algorithm to borrowers. Under the optimal disclosure policy, the posterior belief consists of two disjoint regions in which the borrower feature is more relevant and less relevant in predicting borrower quality, respectively. The optimal disclosure policy differentiates posterior lending market equilibria by the equilibrium data manipulation levels. …


Smart Manufacturing And Its Implications For Singapore's Smes, Thomas Menkhoff, Surianarayanan Gopalakrishnan Nov 2021

Smart Manufacturing And Its Implications For Singapore's Smes, Thomas Menkhoff, Surianarayanan Gopalakrishnan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

While Covid-19 and the climate catastrophe continue to make headlines, local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are quietly setting the gears of Smart Manufacturing in motion with a strategic focus on digitising and automating production processes powered by "Industry 4.0" (I4.0) ready business models. A shared view among several interviewees we talked to recently in the context of an ongoing study on the impact of I4.0 on the business models of local manufacturers is that Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT), machine learning, visual computing, automation and digital twining are deemed of great importance for the long-term competitiveness of Singapore's manufacturing ecosystem on …


Socially Responsible Corporate Customers, Rui Dai, Hao Liang, Lilian Ng Nov 2021

Socially Responsible Corporate Customers, Rui Dai, Hao Liang, Lilian Ng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate customers are an important stakeholder in global supply chains. We employ several unique international databases to test whether socially responsible corporate customers can infuse similar socially responsible business behavior in suppliers. Our findings suggest a unilateral effect on corporate social responsibility (CSR) only from customers to suppliers, an evidence further supported by exogenous variation in customers’ close-call CSR proposals and by product scandals. Customers exert influence on suppliers’ CSR through positive assortative matching and their decision-making process. Enhanced collaborative CSR efforts help improve operational efficiency and firm valuation of both customers and suppliers but increase only the customers’ future …


Technology Lends A Hand To Green E-Commerce, Hao Liang, Sin Mei Cheah Nov 2021

Technology Lends A Hand To Green E-Commerce, Hao Liang, Sin Mei Cheah

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The world has witnessed an e-commerce boom in the past 2 decades, and Asia-Pacific is now driving the latest wave of growth. The Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated consumers' growing preference for online consumption, with the Asia-Pacific region raking US$230 billion in online retail sales in 2020. This article is adapted from the authors' teaching case study - Alibaba Cainiao's Smart Green Logistics Strategy: Good for the Earth, Good for the Business.


Resource Capacity Requirement For Multi-Terminal Cooperation In Container Ports, Byung Kwon Lee, Mei Wan Low Oct 2021

Resource Capacity Requirement For Multi-Terminal Cooperation In Container Ports, Byung Kwon Lee, Mei Wan Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Capacity sharing among neighboring terminals offer a means to meet increasing or unexpected demand for cargo-handling without additional capital investment. This study proposes a model for capacity requirement planning of major resources, such as quay cranes (QCs), storage space, and gate, in multiterminal port operations where demand is time dependent. A resource profile simulation is run to generate random events across the terminals and estimate the capacity requirement in the form of workload distributions on port resources over time-shifts. The effects on workload requirement, arising from multiterminal cooperation, are subsequently evaluated in consideration of different container flows among terminals. Experimental …


What Makes Employees Feel Empowered To Speak Up?, Shilpa Madan, Kevin Nanakdewa, Krishna Savani, Hazel Rose Markus Oct 2021

What Makes Employees Feel Empowered To Speak Up?, Shilpa Madan, Kevin Nanakdewa, Krishna Savani, Hazel Rose Markus

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Most managers understand that empowering employees to voice their opinions can help companies innovate and uncover their own shortcomings. However, this understanding does not seem to translate into action. Research shows that over 85% of employees remain silent on crucial matters because they worry about being viewed negatively. How can managers encourage employees to speak their minds at work? The authors’ new research identified a novel method to encourage employees to exercise their voice: creating a company culture that emphasizes the idea of choice. They found that employees were more likely to share their ideas and opinions at a company …


Distressing For People’S Lives When Lights Go Off During Facebook Outage, Ramaswami, S. Oct 2021

Distressing For People’S Lives When Lights Go Off During Facebook Outage, Ramaswami, S.

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The rise of the super app has changed our lives – and livelihoods – as many of us depend on these social media sites to make a living. Are there alternatives or are we always going to be held hostage? SMU’s Seshan Ramaswami gives his take.


Air Pollution, Behavioral Bias, And The Disposition Effect In China, Jennifer (Jie) Li, Massimo Massa, Hong Zhang, Jian Zhang Oct 2021

Air Pollution, Behavioral Bias, And The Disposition Effect In China, Jennifer (Jie) Li, Massimo Massa, Hong Zhang, Jian Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Inspired by the recent health science findings that air pollution affects mental health and cognition, we examine whether air pollution can intensify the cognitive bias observed in the financial markets. Based on a proprietary data set obtained from a large Chinese mutual fund family consisting of complete trading information for more than 773,198 ac-counts in 247 cities, we find that air pollution significantly increases investors' disposition effects. Analysis based on two plausible exogenous variations in air quality (the vast dissi-pation of air pollution caused by strong winds and the Huai River policy) supports a causal interpretation. Mood regulation provides a …


Towards Better Data Augmentation Using Wasserstein Distance In Variational Auto-Encoder, Zichuan Chen, Peng Liu Sep 2021

Towards Better Data Augmentation Using Wasserstein Distance In Variational Auto-Encoder, Zichuan Chen, Peng Liu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

VAE, or variational auto-encoder, compresses data into latent attributes, and generates new data of different varieties. VAE based on KL divergence has been considered as an effective technique for data augmentation. In this paper, we propose the use of Wasserstein distance as a measure of distributional similarity for the latent attributes, and show its superior theoretical lower bound (ELBO) compared with that of KL divergence under mild conditions. Using multiple experiments, we demonstrate that the new loss function exhibits better convergence property and generates artificial images that could better aid the image classification tasks.


We Are On The Way: Analysis Of On-Demand Ride-Hailing Systems, Guiyun Feng, Guangwen Kong, Zizhuo Wang Sep 2021

We Are On The Way: Analysis Of On-Demand Ride-Hailing Systems, Guiyun Feng, Guangwen Kong, Zizhuo Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: Recently, there has been a rapid rise of on-demand ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber and Didi, which allow passengers with smartphones to submit trip requests and match them to drivers based on their locations and drivers’ availability. This increased demand has raised questions about how such a new matching mechanism will affect the efficiency of the transportation system—in particular, whether it will help reduce passengers’ average waiting time compared with traditional street-hailing systems. Academic/practical relevance: The on-demand ride-hailing problem has gained much academic interest recently. The results we find in the ride-hailing system have a significant …


Understanding Organizational And Socio-Cultural Contexts: A Communicative Constitutive Approach To Social License To Operate Among Top Hong Kong Companies, Angela K. Y. Mak, Suwichit (Sean) Chaidaroon, Alessandro Poroli, Pang, A. Sep 2021

Understanding Organizational And Socio-Cultural Contexts: A Communicative Constitutive Approach To Social License To Operate Among Top Hong Kong Companies, Angela K. Y. Mak, Suwichit (Sean) Chaidaroon, Alessandro Poroli, Pang, A.

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Embracing a constitutive view of communication, this study explores how organizations in Hong Kong make sense of and negotiate their corporate societal commitment. It does that by examining how the considered organizations construct their engagement in society and talk of their aspirations on identified society-oriented doings by cultural discourse analysis. Findings show that the studied Hong Kong companies constructed their engagement by communicationally relating to other societal actors, establishing we-ness in community engagement actions, incorporating elements of the local cultures (languages and places) and in their reasoning and disclosing emotion-rich considerations. Aspirations were instead presented through a constant reference to …


The 2021 Ipr Future Of Communications In Asia Report, Tina Mccorkindale, Sarah Crawshaw, Su Lin Yeo, Stephen Thomas, Alexis B. Fitzsimmons, Pang, A. Sep 2021

The 2021 Ipr Future Of Communications In Asia Report, Tina Mccorkindale, Sarah Crawshaw, Su Lin Yeo, Stephen Thomas, Alexis B. Fitzsimmons, Pang, A.

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The communication function within Asian-headquartered organizations is undergoing significant growth and changes that will be pivotal for its future success, according to a new Institute for Public Relations (IPR) research report. The “IPR Future of Communications in Asia” research report investigates key changes that will impact the future of the communications function. The analysis is based on interviews with 30 senior communications executives based in Asia in a variety of industries from 2019 to 2020, and three focus groups with nearly 20 senior communication leaders in late 2020.


Media Connection And Return Comovement, Zilin Chen, Li Guo, Jun Tu, Jun Tu Sep 2021

Media Connection And Return Comovement, Zilin Chen, Li Guo, Jun Tu, Jun Tu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Media news may cover multiple firms in one article, which establishes a media connection across firms. We propose a media connection strength (MCS) measure between two given firms, which is defined as the number of news articles co-mentioning these two firms. We show that the MCS measure can significantly explain and forecast return comovement of media-connected firm-pairs. Further analyses show that our results are robust to various alternative explanations. We argue that the MCS measure can capture comprehensive and complex correlated fundamental information among media-connected firms and hence may provide a new mechanism for return comovement beyond the existing rational- …


How Xiaomi Redefined What It Means To Be A Platform, Tony W. Wong, Yanting Guo, Liang Chen Sep 2021

How Xiaomi Redefined What It Means To Be A Platform, Tony W. Wong, Yanting Guo, Liang Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Traditional platform businesses generally fall into one of two categories: Ecosystems, such as Apple’s App Store, which offer limited resources to a wide array of independently-run firms; and Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) companies, such as Intel Capital, which invest heavily into a small number of ventures that promise either financial or strategic returns. However, new research into Xiaomi’s growth strategy suggests that the Beijing-based electronics giant has developed a blended approach, borrowing elements of both traditional ecosystem and CVC firms to create a broad ecosystem of strongly-supported partner ventures. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with executives from both …


The 2021 Ipr Future Of Communications In Asia Report, Sarah Crawshaw, Alexis B. Fitzsimmons, Tina Mccorkindale, Pang, A., Stephen Thomas, Su Lin Yeo Sep 2021

The 2021 Ipr Future Of Communications In Asia Report, Sarah Crawshaw, Alexis B. Fitzsimmons, Tina Mccorkindale, Pang, A., Stephen Thomas, Su Lin Yeo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

IPR interviewed 27 senior communications executives who work for Asian-headquartered companies, specifically in mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and India, through February 2020. Interviews were transcribed and a thematic analysis was conducted. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, IPR conducted follow-up focus groups with nearly 20 senior communications leaders in Asia in November and December 2020 to better understand the long-term impact of the pandemic on communications in the region. These sessions were conducted according to Chatham House rules, so the participants’ identifiers have been removed.


Case Study: National Library Board Singapore: Delivering Cost-Effective Service Excellence Through Innovation And People, Jochen Wirtz, Thomas Menkhoff Aug 2021

Case Study: National Library Board Singapore: Delivering Cost-Effective Service Excellence Through Innovation And People, Jochen Wirtz, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The National Library Board (NLB) Singapore is a statutory board that managed to become a serial innovator. Its globally leading innovations in the library context include shelf-reading robots, and even entirely self-service libraries. NLB’s consistent focus on excellent service delivery reinforced its commitment to innovation. Key levers were effective strategic leadership, a smart innovation strategy that made heavy use of technology — such as app-delivered self-service technologies, crowdsourcing, and robotics — as well as a people-centric staff culture. NLB managed to co-create attractive libraries of the future together with different types of community members, such as volunteers and corporations, ushering …


Monetary Policy Surprises, Stock Returns, And Financial And Liquidity Constraints, In An Exchange Rate Monetary Policy System, John M. Sequeira Aug 2021

Monetary Policy Surprises, Stock Returns, And Financial And Liquidity Constraints, In An Exchange Rate Monetary Policy System, John M. Sequeira

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the impact of monetary policy surprises on the stock price behaviour of a small developed economy, whose monetary policy is based on the exchange rate. We find that monetary policy surprises associated with all contractionary policy levers and a neutral policy lever, have a consistently significant and negative impact on stock returns. In comparison, only monetary policy surprises associated with a downward re-centering policy lever, has a significantly positive effect on stock returns. Using a recalibrated classification system, we also find that monetary policy surprises differ across sectors of the economy. Our results show how monetary policy …


Something In The Air: Does Air Pollution Affect Fund Managers’ Carbon Divestment?, Thanh Huynh, Frank Weikai Li, Ying Xia Xia Aug 2021

Something In The Air: Does Air Pollution Affect Fund Managers’ Carbon Divestment?, Thanh Huynh, Frank Weikai Li, Ying Xia Xia

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine whether fund managers overestimate carbon risk when they are exposed to local air pollution. We find that air pollution causes managers to underweight stocks of high-emission firms. The effects are stronger for less salient scopes of carbon emissions, among managers located in pro-environmental states, and among those likely to be surprised by air pollution—consistent with the idea that managers revise their beliefs about climate-transition risk following their exposure to air pollution. Carbon-intensive stocks sold by managers who are exposed to air pollution subsequently outperform stocks that they buy, suggesting that such underweighting is costly to fund investors.


Accounting And Finance Lessons In The Time Of Covid-19 – Views From The Pacific Basin, Kuan Yong David Ding, Julie Harrison, Martien Lubberink, Chris Van Staden Aug 2021

Accounting And Finance Lessons In The Time Of Covid-19 – Views From The Pacific Basin, Kuan Yong David Ding, Julie Harrison, Martien Lubberink, Chris Van Staden

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to create the worst economic recession in our lifetime and generate “enormous damage to our health, jobs, and well-being” (OECD, 2020). This special issue focuses on the lessons for accounting and finance policy-makers, practitioners, and academics as a result of the social and economic turmoil that arose in the immediate period following the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic (WHO, 2020). Governments responded to support businesses and economies using various policy tools to support markets, businesses and individuals impacted by the pandemic. It is timely to consider the extent to which policymakers and standard-setters …


Can Employers Justify Paying Workers Who Return To The Office More Than Those Who Work From Home?, Jared Nai Aug 2021

Can Employers Justify Paying Workers Who Return To The Office More Than Those Who Work From Home?, Jared Nai

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Employers have strong grounds to do so but should avoid differentiating for wrong reasons like presenteeism, Singapore Management University’s Jared Nai says.


Information Avoidance And Medical Screening: A Field Experiment In China, Yufeng Li, Juanjuan Meng, Changcheng Song, Kai Zheng Jul 2021

Information Avoidance And Medical Screening: A Field Experiment In China, Yufeng Li, Juanjuan Meng, Changcheng Song, Kai Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Will individuals, especially high-risk individuals, avoid a disease test because of information avoidance? We conduct a field experiment to investigate this issue. We vary the price of a diabetes test (price experiment) and offer both a diabetes test and a cancer test (disease experiment) after eliciting participants’ subjective beliefs about their disease risk. We find evidence that, first, some people avoid the test even when there is neither a monetary nor a transaction cost, and second, both low- and high-risk individuals select out of the test as the price increases. We explain our findings using three classes of models of …


Online Review Solicitations Reduce Extremity Bias In Online Review Distributions And Increase Their Representativeness, Hülya Karaman Jul 2021

Online Review Solicitations Reduce Extremity Bias In Online Review Distributions And Increase Their Representativeness, Hülya Karaman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Representative online customer reviews are critical to the effective functioning of the Internet economy. In this study, I investigate the representativeness of online review distributions to examine how extremity bias and conformity impact it, and explore whether online review solicitations alter representativeness. Past research on extreme distribution of online ratings commonly relied solely on observed public online ratings. One strength of the current paper is that I observe the private satisfaction ratings of customers regardless of whether they choose to write an online review or not. I show that both extremity bias and conformity exist in unsolicited online word-of-mouth (WOM) …