Business Commons^™

Showcasing The Diversity Of Service Research: Theories, Methods, And Success Of Service Articles, Sabine Benoit, Katrin Scherschel, Zelal Ates, Linda Nasr, Jay Kandampully

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to make two main contributions: first, showcase the diversity of service research in terms of the variety of used theories and methods, and second, explain (post-publication) success of articles operationalized as interest in an article (downloads), usage (citations), and awards (best paper nomination). From there, three sub-contributions are derived: stimulate a dialogue about existing norms and practices in the service field, enable and encourage openness amongst service scholars, and motivate scholars to join the field. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method approach is used in combining quantitative and qualitative research methods while analyzing 158 Journal …

Vungle Inc. Improves Monetization Using Big-Data Analytics, Bert De Reyck, Ioannis Fragkos, Yael Gruksha-Cockayne, Casey Lichtendahl, Hammond Guerin, Andre Kritzer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The advent of big data has created opportunities for firms to customize their products and services to unprecedented levels of granularity. Using big data to personalize an offering in real time, however, remains a major challenge. In the mobile advertising industry, once a customer enters the network, an ad-serving decision must be made in a matter of milliseconds. In this work, we describe the design and implementation of an ad-serving algorithm that incorporates machine-learning methods to make personalized ad-serving decisions within milliseconds. We developed this algorithm for Vungle Inc., one of the largest global mobile ad networks. Our approach also …

When Feeling Good Feels "Wrong": Avoiding Hedonic Consumption When It Reflects Immoral Character, Stephanie C. Lin, Taly Reich, Tamar A. Kreps

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In contrast to traditional mood repair motivations, we find that people desire to experience negative emotions in response to moral violations. Therefore, people avoid hedonic consumption after negatively valenced moral content, and feel uncomfortable when negatively valenced moral content is followed by hedonic frivolous content in social media contexts

Performance Of Cellular Bucket Brigades With Hand-Off Times, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A cellular bucket brigade is a way to coordinate workers along an aisle with work content on both sides. Each worker in a cellular bucket brigade works on one side of the aisle when he proceeds in one direction, and he works on the other side when he proceeds in the reverse direction. Although the cellular bucket brigade eliminates the unproductive walk-back, it requires more hand-offs to assemble a product than a traditional (serial) bucket brigade. These hand-offs may waste significant production capacity as each of them requires an exchange of work, which can be complicated and time-consuming in practice. …

Male Immorality: An Evolutionary Account Of Sex Differences In Unethical Negotiation Behavior, Margaret Lee, Marko Pitesa, Madan Pillutla, Stefan Thau

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Past research finds that men negotiate more unethically than women, others report comparable rates of unethical negotiation behaviors. Based on evolutionary psychology, we predict conditions under which sex differences in unethical negotiation behavior are more versus less pronounced. We theorize that greater levels of unethical behavior among men occur as a consequence of greater male intrasexual competition for mates. This suggests that more male unethical negotiation behavior should primarily emerge in situations associated with intrasexual competition. Using a two-wave survey design, Study 1 found a positive relationship between mating motivation and unethical negotiation behavior for male, but not female employees. …

Smart Contracts: Terminology, Technical Limitations And Real World Complexity, Eliza Mik

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

If one is to believe the popular press and many “technical writings,” blockchains create not only a perfect transactional environment but also obviate the need for banks, lawyers and courts. The latter will soon be replaced by smart contracts: unbiased and infallible computer programs that form, perform and enforce agreements. Predictions of future revolutions must, however, be distinguished from the harsh reality of the commercial marketplace and the technical limitations of blockchains. The fact that a technological solution is innovative and elegant need not imply that it is commercially useful or legally viable. Apart from attempting a terminological “clean-up” surrounding …

Board Independence As A Panacea To Tunneling? An Empirical Study Of Related Party Transactions In Hong Kong And Singapore, Christopher C. H. Chen, Wai Yee Wan, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines the effect of imposing higher board independence requirements on private benefit extraction by corporate management or controlling shareholders in Hong Kong and Singapore. This article shows that higher board independence negatively correlates with fewer related-party transactions (RPT), though in a nonlinear relationship with the marginal effect of higher board independence diminished. However, we find no clear causal effect of Hong Kong's imposition of a minimum board independence threshold in 2012 on reducing tunneling. Our data also show that higher concentration of ownership might not be associated with more tunneling by RPTs. Overall, this research lends support to …

The Essence Of Luxury: An Asian Perspective: Lvmh-Smu Luxury Research Conference 2016, Srinivas K. Reddy, Jin K. Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A number of developments in the luxury market have been attributed to the arrival of luxury products in Asian markets. The modernisation of Japan some decades back paved the way for a growing trend towards imbibing western lifestyles in Asia. Japan’s economic success after the Second World War was a key factor responsible for the introduction of luxury marketing in Asia. In the 1970’s, Japanese tourist-shoppers became a noticeable phenomenon in Europe. The European luxury houses were quick to recognise the opportunity and began setting up branches and luxury outlets in Japan. The Japanese were not only the driving force …

Do Security Analysts Learn From Their Colleagues?, Kenny Phua, T. Mandy Tham, Chi Shen Wei

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how learning from colleagues affects security analyst forecast outcomes. We represent the brokerage house as an information network of analysts connected through industry overlaps in their coverage portfolios. Analysts who are more centrally connected in their brokerage network produce more accurate forecast estimates and generate more influential forecast revisions. Consistent with learning, more central analysts tend to unwind their colleagues’ recent forecast errors in their forecast revisions. Learning appears to benefit all colleagues, as working at more interconnected brokerages (i.e., denser networks) improves forecast accuracy for all analysts.

Transshipment Hub Selection From A Shipper’S And Freight Forwarder’S Perspective, Gang Chen, Waiman Cheung, Sung-Chi Chu, Liang Xu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Transshipment hub selection becomes increasingly important to the global logistics community. From the perspectives of shippers and freight forwarders, a selection must align with cost control strategy and sustain service reliability across cooperative service providers. This paper assesses the selection with the options of both sea and air transports, and from the influence of country of origin of the company. Critical factors of transshipment hub selection, both qualitative and quantitative, are identified through focus group discussions. Relative importance of these factors is determined based on collective views of logistics stakeholders. The competitiveness of transshipment hubs is then assessed using an …

An Examination Of The Statistical Significance And Economic Relevance Of Profitability And Earnings Forecasts From Models And Analysts, Mark E. Evans, Kenneth Njoroge, Keng Kevin Ow Yong

Research Collection School of Accountancy

In this paper, we propose and empirically test a cross-sectional profitability forecasting model which incorporates two major improvements relative to extant models. First, in terms of model construction, we incorporate mean reversion through the use of a two-stage partial adjustment model and inclusion of a number of additional relevant determinants of profitability. Second, in terms of model estimation, we employ least absolute deviation (LAD) analysis instead of ordinary least squares (OLS) because the former approach is able to better accommodate outliers. Results reveal that forecasts from our model are more accurate than three extant models at every forecast horizon considered …

When Is The Best Time To Release A New Smartphone?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Pent-up consumer demand can drive profits, but there are risks

In the world of technology, advances occur at breakneck speed and history tells us that if companies don’t lead the pack, they pay a high price – oblivion.

From Capitol Hill To Venture Capital, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The CEO of Y! Combinator on how a ‘dumb idea’ became the world’s top videogaming community, the core of being an entrepreneur…and pizza

Sports Analytics: Why Your Favourite Team Knows More About You Than You Think, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

t's not just the players being tracked throughout the season Each time German football team Bayern Munich plays a home game, the event generates nine million separate pieces of data. There’s data about what the players do on field gathered from sensors in their uniforms; data from videos of where the crowd moves to at different times in the event and where the bottlenecks are; data on sales at food and clothing concessions and how the crowds move to them; and data on where the workers and volunteers are at every point in the event.

Nostalgia Makes Us More Patient, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Want to make customers more willing to wait? Create a nostalgic experience for them, a new study by CUHK Business School suggests.

Communication Or Action? Strategies Fostering Ethical Organizational Conduct And Relational Outcomes, Soojin Kim, Arunima Krishna

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business

This study investigated the relationships between two public relations strategies, bridging and buffering, and their impact on ethical organizational conduct and relational outcomes. Bridging is a relationship-centric, action-based strategy for problem-solving while buffering is an organization-centric, messaging-based strategy for impression management. In explaining the impact of these two strategies on organizational outcomes, this study examined the role of ethical organizational conduct as a mediator between bridging, buffering, and two relational outcomes. Based on a survey of 105 organizations in Korea, a positive association between bridging strategy and ethical organizational conduct was found, along with paths to relational improvement and conflict …

How Singapore Investors Can Profit From Unstructured Data, Clarence Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Data that is collected in the business environment can be structured or unstructured. In general, structured data refers to information which is highly organised and which can easily be stored in rows and columns within database systems. On the other hand, unstructured data does not have a strict data structure, and is also not organised in a pre-defined manner.

Social Value Creation And Relational Coordination In Public-Private Collaborations, Nigel D. Cadwell, Jens K. Roehrich, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Public-private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize because of disparate goals, incentives, and management practices. Some of this misalignment is addressed structurally or contractually, but not the management processes and practices. In this study, we examine how the coordination of these social and work relationships, or relational coordination, affects task performance and the creation of social value. We employ a dyad perspective on two long-term relationships that are part of a wider ecosystem. We illustrate the social value creation process, identifying mutual knowledge and goal alignment, as necessary to create relational coordination. We find that the …

A Director’S Duty Of Loyalty And The Relevance Of The Company’S Scope Of Business: Cheng Wai Tao V Poon Ka Man Jason, Pearlie M. C. Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal has utilised a ‘scope of business’ inquiry to delineate the boundaries of the no-conflict rule for the company director. Such an inquiry is directed at discerning the realistic ability of the company to exploit any particular business opportunity and a strict capacity approach is eschewed, at least where the no-conflict rule is concerned. The decision is premised on a bifurcation between the no-conflict and no-profit rules, suggesting that the tests to determine breach of these fiduciary rules are not necessarily the same, thus permitting a more nuanced consideration of directorial breaches.

Combining Machine-Based And Econometrics Methods For Policy Analytics Insights, Robert J. Kauffman, Kwansoo Kim, Sang-Yong Tom Lee, Ai Phuong Hoang, Jing Ren

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Computational Social Science (CSS) has become a mainstream approach in the empirical study of policy analytics issues in various domains of e-commerce research. This article is intended to represent recent advances that have been made for the discovery of new policy-related insights in business, consumer, and social settings. The approach discussed is fusion analytics, which combines machine-based methods from Computer Science (CS) and explanatory empiricism involving advanced Econometrics and Statistics. It explores several efforts to conduct research inquiry in different functional areas of Electronic Commerce and Information Systems (IS), with applications that represent different functional areas of business, as well …

Developing An Evidence Base For Assessing Natural Capital Risks And Dependencies In Lending To Australian Wheat Farms, Theodor Florian Cojoianu, Francisco Ascui

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Farmers are highly dependent on stocks of natural capital, and lenders are in turn exposed to natural capital through their loans to farmers. However, the traditional process for assessing a farmer’s credit risk relies primarily on historical financial data. Banks’ consideration of environmental factors tends to be limited to major risks such as contaminated land liabilities, and to large project and corporate finance, as opposed to the smaller loans typical of the Australian agricultural sector. The relevant risks and dependencies for agriculture vary by sub-sector and geography, and there is a lack of standardised methodologies and evidence to support risk …

Integrating Situational Judgment Tests And Assessment Centre Exercises Into Personality Research: Challenges And Further Opportunities, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this rejoinder, I discuss several broad themes that emerged from the 32 commentaries in response to my target article about the value of integrating Situational Judgment Tests and Assessment Centre exercises for advancing research on the personality-situation interplay. Specifically, I summarize the various challenges put forward (e.g. deficient/contaminated trait measurement, assessment of situation construal, inclusion of personality-driven situation experience) and offer potential conceptual (e.g. use of situational taxonomies and contextualized personality perception) and methodological solutions (e.g. use of open-ended and nonlinear SJTs and multiple speed assessment). Taken together, this fits into a more comprehensive multi-method approach to personality assessment.

The Effects Of Risk Management On Management Forecast Behavior, John L. Campbell, Sean Cao, Hye Sun Chang, Raluca Chiorean

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior research examines several reasons why managers voluntarily disclose information, but provides relatively little evidence as to whether day-to-day operational decisions influence a manager’s disclosure choice. In this study, we examine whether a particular operational activity – risk management through the use of derivatives – affects whether a manager decides to issue earnings forecasts. Using a large hand-collected sample of derivatives users and non-users, we find that derivatives users are more likely to issue earnings forecasts relative to non-users. We then find that this result is stronger when the use of derivatives makes it less costly for managers to issue …

Gender And Connections Among Wall Street Analysts, Lily Hua Fang, Sterling Huang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine how alumni ties with corporate boards differentially affect male and female analysts’ job performance and career outcomes. Connection improves men’s job performance — forecasting accuracy and recommendation impact — significantly more than women’s. Controlling for performance, connection further contributes to men’s, but not women’s, likelihood of being voted by institutional investors as “star” analysts, a marker of career success. These asymmetric effects are stronger in more opaque firms and among younger analysts, but is absent from a placebo test. Our evidence indicates that men reap higher benefits from social networks than women in both job performance and subjective …

Comparative Price And The Design Of Effective Product Communications, Thomas Allard, Dale Griffin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors propose amodel relating a product's comparative price to the construal level of its associated communications and show how perceived expensiveness shapes consumers' response to the wording of marketing communications. A series of six studies shows that for both absolute low-and high-cost product categories, comparatively expensive (inexpensive) products are preferred when accompanied by high-construal (low-construal) messages, due to the conceptual fluency of the "match" between price-induced psychological distance and construal level. The model provides novel implications for designing effective marketing communications: comparatively expensive versions of objectively low-priced products (e.g., an expensive chocolate truffle) are best promoted through more abstract …

The Four Horsemen Of Negotiator Power, Michael Schaerer, Adam D. Galinsky, Joe Magee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Scholarly research generally finds that democratic governments are more likely to respect human rights than other types of regimes. Different human rights practices among long-standing and affluent democracies therefore present a puzzle. Drawing from democratic theory and comparative institutional studies, we argue more inclusive or "popular" democracies should enforce human rights better than more exclusive or "elite" democracies, even in the face of security threats from armed conflict. Instead of relying on the Freedom House or Polity indexes to distinguish levels of democracy, we adopt a more focused approach to measuring structures of inclusion, the Institutional Democracy Index (IDI), which …

Firm-Specific Knowledge Assets And Employment Arrangements: Evidence From Ceo Compensation Design And Ceo Dismissal, Heli Wang, Shan Zhao, Guoli Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Summary: We argue that firms with greater specificity in knowledge structure need to both encourage their CEOs to stay so that they make investments with a long-term perspective, and provide job securities to the CEOs so that they are less concerned about the risk of being dismissed. Accordingly, we found empirical evidence that specificity in firm knowledge assets is positively associated with the use of restricted stocks in CEO compensation design (indicating the effort of CEO retention) and negatively associated with CEO dismissal (indicating the job securities the firm committed to CEOs). Furthermore, firm diversification was found to mitigate …

What Makes A Competent Change Manager? The Importance Of Developing The “Right” Attitudes, Siu Loon Hoe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of developing the “right” attitudes toward change.Design/methodology/approachThe viewpoint is based on more than 20 years of experience gained and insights developed through consulting projects and training conducted for numerous multinational companies and public sector organizations across Asia. An overview of international and national competency frameworks that include change management from Australia, United Kingdom, and Singapore is also presented.FindingsA competent change manager requires a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitude to effect change. While knowledge and skills have traditionally been emphasized, there is a need to develop the “right” attitude as …

Assessing Personality-Situation Interplay In Personnel Selection: Toward More Integration Into Personality Research, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Over the years, the personnel selection field has developed methods to assess trait expression in particular situations, but these approaches have evolved mostly outside the field of personality psychology. In this article, I review available personnel selection evidence regarding two such approaches: (i) situational judgement tests that present short scenarios and ask job candidates how they would handle the situations and (ii) assessment centre exercises requiring candidates to display behaviour in specified interactive situations. I describe these approaches and discuss their relations with personality research. I posit that adapting these approaches to personality research creates methodological diversity to address key …

The Impact Of Csr On Corporate Financial Performance, David K. Ding

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We provide one of the first analyses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance using only annual financial reports. We document a link between corporate financial performance (CFP) and CSR, although this is not always positive. Specifically, we investigate whether CSR performance can be implied from financial reporting and provide evidence that CSR information implied by financial reports have a significant association with CFP. Furthermore, we provide the first comprehensive study of CSR reporting and link it with CFP in New Zealand.