Digital Commons Network^™

Estimating The Dynamics Of Mutual Fund Alphas And Betas, Harry Mamaysky, Matthew Spiegel, Hong Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article develops a Kalman filter model to track dynamic mutual fund factor loadings. It then uses the estimates to analyze whether managers with market-timing ability can be identified ex ante. The primary findings are as follows: (i) Ordinary least squares (OLS) timing models produce false positives (nonzero alphas) at too high a rate with either daily or monthly data. In contrast, the Kalman filter model produces them at approximately the correct rate with monthly data; (ii) In monthly data, though the OLS models fail to detect any timing among fund managers, the Kalman filter does; (iii) The alpha and …

Project Options Valuation With Net Present Value And Decision Tree Analysis, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve, Roger Vandenborre

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Real options analysis (ROA) has been developed to correctly value projects with inherent flexibility, including the possibility to abandon, defer, expand, contract or switch to a different project. ROA allows computing the correct discount rate using the replicating portfolio technique or risk-neutral probability method. We propose an alternative approach for valuing Real Options based on the certainty-equivalent version of the net present value formula, which eliminates the need to identify market-priced twin securities. In addition, our approach can be extended to the case of multinomial trees, a useful tool for modeling uncertainty in projects. We introduce within decision tree analysis …

Building Workplace Trust In Some Cultures Is To Blur The Line Between Professional And Personal Life, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

In China and Turkey, the separation between work and personal life is not so clear cut as compared with western societies, according to a joint study by Singapore Management University professor of organisational behaviour Tan Hwee Hoon, and management professors S. Arzu Wasti and Selin Eser of Sabanci University in Turkey. The main purpose of their research was to provide insights into the impact that different cultures have on trust in the workplace.

Marketing On A Shoestring In Not-For-Profits: No Pain No Gain, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Sarah Mavrinac is the founder and president of not-for-profit financial education organisation, aidha, which started operations in January 2007 in Singapore. aidha offers training courses to women migrant workers, in particular those in domestic service. Mavrinac delivered a talk recently on “Marketing on a Shoestring -- The Challenge of Not-for-Profit Outreach", organised by the Centre for Marketing Excellence of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University.

Making Great People Decisions Is The Toughest Business Challenge Say Top Executives, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Where great people decisions are concerned, the right person in a leadership position can take an organisation to greater heights, but the wrong candidate can steer a path to disaster. Founding leader of global search firm Egon Zehnder International, Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, introduced his new book, Great People Decisions, recently at a Singapore Management University Distinguished Public Lecture, followed by a panel discussion featuring top executives in Singapore.

St Engineering: A Globalisation Success Story, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Tan Pheng Hock is president and CEO of Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering), one of the largest companies listed on the Singapore stock exchange.The global integrated engineering group has 18,000 employees with operations in 20 countries, and 100 subsidiaries serving customers in more than 70 countries. Tan was the featured speaker at the Singapore Management University's Wee Kim Wee Centre CEO Talks series recently. He spoke to Knowledge@SMU about ST Engineering’s globalisation strategy and key learnings.

Monitor Group's Go-To-Market Methodology Advocates The 'Outside-In' Approach, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

How can companies, especially those operating in end-consumer industries and saturated markets, become successful? By transforming themselves into truly marketing-led organisations, advises the Monitor Group, a global management services firm. Monitor has developed a finely tuned go-to-market approach which calls for a fundamental shift at the leadership level from an inside-out perspective to an outside-in view of the marketplace.

Tennis, Anyone? Lessons On Innovation In A Mature Industry, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Tennis qualifies as the oldest racquet sport in the world. Since 1874, little had changed until the 1970s when the wooden racquet was phased out, followed by a succession of cutting edge designs. How did the classic tennis racquet lend itself to being so thoroughly reinvented? Wharton management professor J.M. Pennings, together with Hann E Kim, professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Korea, set out to find some answers.

Creating Alternate In-Basket Forms Through Cloning: Some Preliminary Results, Filip Lievens, Frederik Anseel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research on constructing alternate forms of assessment center exercises is very scarce. This study examines the effectiveness of a cloning procedure (incident isomorphic approach) for developing alternate forms of a computerized in-basket. In this approach, original and alternate items are essentially similar (they are based on the same critical incident), while being superficially different (they are situated in a different context). Results showed there was no significant difference between the overall in-basket score across the alternate forms. In addition, these overall scores correlated .66, with projected estimates for the full in-basket approaching .80. Implications and limitations of the use of …

Measurement Invariance Of The Pay Satisfaction Questionnaire Across Three Countries, Filip Lievens, Frederik Anseel, Michael M. Harris, Jacob Eisenberg

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In recent years, pay satisfaction has been increasingly studied in an international context, prompting the importance of examining whether the Pay Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ) is invariant across countries other than the United States. This study investigated the measurement invariance across three countries, namely, the United States (N = 321), Belgium (N = 301), and Cyprus (N = 132). Results showed that the measurement structure of the PSQ was invariant across these different countries because there was no departure from measurement invariance in terms of factor form, factor pattern coefficients, factor variances, and factor covariances. These results show promise for the …

Investigating Web-Based Recruitment Sources: Employee Testimonials Vs Word-Of-Mouse, Greet Van Hoye, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although the internet has dramatically changed recruitment practices, many web-based recruitment sources have not yet been investigated. The present study examines the effects of web-based employee testimonials and web-based word-of-mouth (i.e., 'word-of-mouse') on organizational attraction. The source credibility framework is used to compare these company-dependent and company-independent recruitment sources. In a sample of potential applicants for a head nurse position, word-of-mouse was associated with higher organizational attractiveness than web-based employee testimonials. However, potential applicants were more attracted when testimonials provided information about individual employees than about the organization. Conversely, word-of-mouse was associated with higher organizational attractiveness and more organizational pursuit …

International New Ventures: Revisiting The Influences Behind The 'Born-Global' Firm, Terence P. C. Fan, Phillip Phan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

There is a small but theoretically important literature on 'born-globals' or international new venture firms that positions itself in contrast to the more established sequential international entry literature. In this paper we examine the pattern of entry into international markets for a set of international new ventures and show that they need not be a distinct breed of firms, as previous research has portrayed. Absent a specific technological advantage, the decision for a new venture to internationalize at inception is influenced by the size of its home market and by its production capacity, as well as by cultural and economic …

The Effects Of Entrepreneurial Growth Orientation On Organizational Change And Firm Growth, Wee Liang Tan, Thomas Menkhoff, Yue Wah Chay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managing growth in an enterprise as it grows beyond the startup phase is a challenge for many entrepreneurs. One key element that can help or hinder growth is the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial growth has been linked to micro variables (motivations and psychological attributes of the entrepreneur) and macro variables. However, few studies have examined the role of the growth aspirations of the entrepreneur on the necessary elements of organization change related to growth.

This paper reports a study employing a typology of entrepreneurs based on their growth aspirations using an established dichotomous scale devised by Smith to differentiate between what he …

Building Swift Clan Control In Complex It Projects, Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Wee-Kiat Lim, Christina Soh, Siew Kien Sia

CCX Research

Clan control is often essential in complex multi-stakeholder projects for project success. Furthermore, clan control is especially important during requirements analysis which occurs at project inception. How can controllers quickly institute clan control in complex IT projects? Through the case analysis of a large IT project, we observed that clan control can be accelerated by the purposeful application of formal controls to build social capital. Our findings corroborate the notion that, properly structured, clan control can emerge quickly in a multi-stakeholder project to improve the likelihood of IT implementation success.

Measurement Equivalence In The Conduct Of A Global Organizational Survey Across Countries In Six Cultural Regions, Alain De Beuckelaer, Filip Lievens, Gilbert Swinnen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examined the measurement equivalence of a global organizational survey measuring six work climate factors as administered across 25 countries (N = 31.315) in all regions of the world (West Europe, East Europe, North America, Latin America, South America, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific). Across all countries, the survey instrument exhibited 'form equivalence' and 'metric equivalence', suggesting that respondents completed the survey using the same frame-of-reference and interpreted the rating scale intervals similarly. Schwartz's (1994, 1999, 2004) cultural value theory was then used for grouping the countries in cultural regions, and to anticipate measurement equivalence of the data from …

The Validity Of Assessment Centres For The Prediction Of Supervisory Performance Ratings: A Meta-Analysis, Eran Hermelin, Filip Lievens, Ivan T. Robertson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The current meta-analysis of the selection validity of assessment centres aims to update an earlier meta-analysis of assessment centre validity. To this end, we retrieved 26 studies and 27 validity coefficients (N=5850) relating the Overall Assessment Rating (OAR) to supervisory performance ratings. The current study obtained a corrected correlation of .28 between the OAR and supervisory job performance ratings (95% confidence interval .24 < =rho < =.32). It is further suggested that this validity estimate is likely to be conservative given that assessment centre validities tend to be affected by indirect range restriction.

Business Groups: An Integrated Model To Focus Future Research, Daphne W. Yiu, Yuan Lu, Garry D. Bruton, Robert E. Hoskisson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Business groups are the primary form of managing large business organizations outside North America. This paper provides a systematic and integrative framework for understanding business groups. We argue that existing theoretical perspectives of business groups pay attention to four critical external contexts, each of which draws from a specific theoretical perspective: market conditions (transaction cost theory), social relationships (relational perspective), political factors (political economy perspective), and external monitoring mechanisms (agency theory). Business groups adapt to these external forces by deploying various internal mechanisms along two key dimensions: one focuses on the distinctive roles of the group affiliates (horizontal connectedness) and …

Knowledge Narratives And Heterogeneity In Management Consultancy And Business Services, Robin Fincham, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark, Karen Handley, Andrew Sturdy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the professional services, diversification into various types of business advice has implications for knowledge boundaries. This is a sector of changing jurisdictional patterns and periodic reconstruction. Firms like large law practices that feed services into corporate clients have been merging to provide global coverage (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2001; Suddaby et al., 2004). But new specialisms in areas like consulting and IT are even more dynamic. Patterns such as the growth in outsourcing and movement into management consulting accounted for stupendous growth of the global accounting firms. These changes have themselves been overtaken, as the IT and systems giants muscled …

Including Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Sustainaibility, And Ethics In Calibrating Mba Job Preferences, David B. Montgomery, Catherine A. Ramus

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

It has long been understood by organizations and academics that the people make the place (Schneider, 1987). A quality workforce is an important source of competitive advantage, and organizational and financial success for firms (Capelli, 2000; Chapman, Uggerslev, Carroll, Piasentin, & Jones, 2005; Huselid, 1995; Pfeffer, 1994, 1998; Teece, 1998). Attracting talent is difficult for business organizations, and may become increasingly so in the years to come, as demographic and economic factors create a war for talent (Chapman, et al., 2005; Johnson, 2000; Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001). Particularly salient in this war for talent is the ability to attract …

Value Discount Of Business Groups Surrounding The Asian Financial Crisis: Evidence From Korean Chaebols, James Jinho Chang, Young Jun Cho, Won Kang, Hyun-Han Shin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the effect of business group membership on firm value in each pre-and postcrisis Korea. Consistent with prior studies, results show that group affiliated chaebol firms suffer value discount relative to non-chaebol firms in the precrisis period. However, we also find that chaebol firms experience an improvement in firm value relative to non-chaebol firms after the financial crisis. These findings imply that the value discount of business groups reported in prior studies is not an inevitable consequence of diversification, but can be alleviated or overcome by structural reforms in business practices or economic conditions.

The Association Between Audit Fees And Auditors' Opinions On Internal Control Weakness Under Section 404 Of The Sox, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Soo Young Kwon, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires top management toestablish, maintain, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the internal controlover financial reporting (ICOFR), and obtain an auditor’s attestation. In this paper, weidentify 232 firms that received “Ineffective” audit opinion on the effectiveness ofICOFR due to one or more material weakness in internal control (WIC). We examinethe association between audit fees and the WIC for pre- and post-SOX period. Wefind that highly levered clients with the WIC paid greater audit fees even in the preSOXperiod and continuously paid the high fees in post-SOX period, whereas theloss-making clients with WIC paid …

Self-Organizing Neural Architectures And Cooperative Learning In A Multiagent Environment, Dan Xiao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Temporal-Difference–Fusion Architecture for Learning, Cognition, and Navigation (TD-FALCON) is a generalization of adaptive resonance theory (a class of self-organizing neural networks) that incorporates TD methods for real-time reinforcement learning. In this paper, we investigate how a team of TD-FALCON networks may cooperate to learn and function in a dynamic multiagent environment based on minefield navigation and a predator/prey pursuit tasks. Experiments on the navigation task demonstrate that TD-FALCON agent teams are able to adapt and function well in a multiagent environment without an explicit mechanism of collaboration. In comparison, traditional Q-learning agents using gradient-descent-based feedforward neural networks, trained with the …

Understanding Highly Competent Information System Users, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Individuals differ in their abilities to use information systems (IS) effectively, with some achieving exceptional performance in IS use. Using the Repertory Grid Technique, this research identifies attributes of highly competent IS users that distinguish them from less competent users. Using the Grounded Theory approach, we identified categories and sub-categories of these attributes and used them to develop a conceptual framework to explain IS User Competency. The findings indicate that highly competent users differ from less competent users in their Personality Traits and Disposition Factors, General Cognitive Abilities, Social Skills and Tendencies, Experiential Learning Factors, Domain Knowledge of and Skills …

Competition In Modular Clusters, Carliss Y. Baldwin, C. Jason Woodard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated “clusters,” “networks,” or “ecosystems” of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands of firms. Different firms will design and produce the different components of a complex artifact (like the processor, peripherals, and software of a computer system), and different firms will specialize in different stages of a complex production process. This paper considers the pricing behavior and profitability of these so-called modular clusters. In particular, we investigate a possibility hinted at in prior …

An Empirical Analysis Of Mobile Voice Service And Sms: A Structural Model, Youngsoo Kim, William B. Vogt, Ramayya Krishnan, Rahul Telang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In addition to the wireless telephony boom, a similar exponential increasing trend in wireless data service - short message service (SMS) - is visible as technology advances. We develop a structural model to understand how mobile users behave, especially how they consume voice, and services. Specifically, we measure the own- and the cross-price elasticities of these services. The cross-price elasticity is of significant importance because marketing activities are critically influenced by whether the goods are substitutes or complements. The research context poses significant econometric challenges due to three-part tariff, sequential discrete plan choice and continuous quantity choices. Using detailed individual …

A Unified Interdisciplinary Theory Of Open Source Culture And Entertainment, Jerald Hughes, Karl Reiner Lang, Eric K. Clemons, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Digital technologies are profoundly transforming the production and consumption of culture and entertainment products. The emerging digital re-mix culture is an open source approach where content products in the arts and entertainment industries are increasingly rearranged, manipulated, and extended in the process of creating new works. This article offers a unified description of the tools and techniques that led to the development of the open source culture and that enable the processes which promote re-use of previously recorded materials. It then lays out the incentives and forces that either promote or inhibit the development, distribution, and consumption of modified cultural …

The Japanization Of American Corporate Governance? Evidence Of The Never-Ending History For Corporate Law, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The debate over corporate governance convergence has been heated for years and has created a cottage industry of experts. It is premised on the false assumption that American corporate governance has reached the end of its evolution by adopting a shareholder primacy and dispersed shareholding governance model. This article demonstrates that American corporate governance continues to evolve and that as such the convergence debate is fundamentally flawed and not worth fixing. The point of this article is simple: there is no endpoint corporate governance model. There is no optimally efficient American model. There is no optimally efficient Japanese model. To …

I’M A Virus Harming The Earth, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We humans plunder the raw material from our host planet with such an abandon that is only seen in viruses.

A Trans-Tasman Business Elite?, Nicholas Harrigan, Shaun Goldfinch

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines the close relationship between the Australian and New Zealand business communities to ask whether the relationship is best characterized as simply a bi-lateral trading relationship, or whether there is evidence of the formation of a transnational business community. This article also seeks to explore the nature of Australia—NewZealand integration, and specifically the degree to which the relationship is interdependent or asymmetrical. Data are drawn from quantitative sources — including a dataset developed from the IBISWorld's Largest 2000 Enterprises in Australia and New Zealand, Who's Who in Australia, and Who's Who in Business in Australia — and qualitative …

Global Transformations And “Cosmopolitical” Social Science, Michael D. Kennedy, Camilo Leslie, Allison Nau, Atef Said, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 2001 Siobán Harlow and Kennedy developed a graduate seminar through the International Institute around “Global Transformations.” While some had used the term before, its greatest advantage was its inclusivity: globalization, twenty-first century empires, international terrorism, the spread of infectious disease, migrations, climate change, and other themes all fit within that rubric. During a recent sociology seminar, we sought to discipline that discussion with the identification of three principal areas to guide “cosmopolitical” social science.