Business Commons^™

Consumers’ Reaction To Corporate Esg Performance: Evidence From Store Visits, Frank Weikai Li, Frank Weikai Li, Roni Michaely

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using micro-level data on consumer shopping behavior, this paper investigates end-consumers’ attitudes toward firms’ ESG behavior, and as importantly, the ability of consumers to affect firms’ policy concerning sustainability issues. We find that consumers care about firms’ approach toward ESG, and consumers’ behavior can impact firms’ attitudes. Using ESG incidents as a proxy, we find that the reduction in store visits is more pronounced for ESG-conscious consumers, such as those living in democratic counties, and counties with a higher fraction of educated and younger residents. Online shopping interest data yields similar results. Using abnormally hot temperature as a shock to …

Is Carbon Risk Priced In The Cross-Section Of Corporate Bond Returns?, Tinghua Duan, Frank Weikai Li, Quan Wen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the pricing of a firm's carbon risk, measured by its carbon emissions intensity, in the cross-section of corporate bond returns. Contrary to the "carbon risk premium" hypothesis, we find bonds of firms with higher carbon emissions intensity earn significantly lower returns. This effect cannot be explained by a comprehensive list of bond characteristics and exposure to known risk factors. Investigating sources of the low carbon premium, we find the underperformance of bonds issued by carbon-intensive firms cannot be fully explained by divestment from institutional investors. Instead, our evidence is most consistent with investor underreaction to carbon risk, …

The Future Of Cryptocurrency And Blockchain Technology In Finance, Wanyi Wong, Alan @ Ali Madjelisi Megargel

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cryptocurrencies have been all the rage in recent years, with many being drawn to their appeal as speculative investment assets. Its proponents also champion the secure and decentralised nature of the technology it is based on, called the blockchain. Given the secure nature of blockchain technology, the idea of adopting cryptocurrencies as legal tender currency has also been mooted and experimented with – with the most famous example being the Central American nation of El Salvador’s bold move to adopting the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021. In theory, this would provide a solution to the high transaction …

Lean Manufacturing Approach To Increase Packaging Efficiency, Lina Gozali, Irsandy Kurniawan, Aldo Salim, Iveline Anne Marie, Benny Tjahjono, Yun Chia Liang, Aldy Gunawan, Nnovia Hardjo Sie, Yuliani Suseno

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The company upon which this paper is based engages in flexible packaging production, especially pharmaceutical products with guaranteed quality, trusted by consumers. Its production process includes printing, laminating, and assembling processes. Production activities are done manually and automatically using machines, so various types of waste are often found in these processes, making the level of plant efficiency nonoptimal. This study aims to identify wastes occurring in the production process, especially the production of pollycelonium with three colour variants as the highest demand product, by applying lean manufacturing concepts. The Current Value Stream Mapping (CVSM) used to map the production process …

Bayesian Optimization With Switching Cost: Regret Analysis And Lookahead Variants, Peng Liu, Haowei Wang, Wei Qiyu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Bayesian Optimization (BO) has recently received increasing attention due to its efficiency in optimizing expensive-to-evaluate functions. For some practical problems, it is essential to consider the path-dependent switching cost between consecutive sampling locations given a total traveling budget. For example, when using a drone to locate cracks in a building wall or search for lost survivors in the wild, the search path needs to be efficiently planned given the limited battery power of the drone. Tackling such problems requires a careful cost-benefit analysis of candidate locations and balancing exploration and exploitation. In this work, we formulate such a problem as …

Evolve Path Tracer: Early Detection Of Malicious Addresses In Cryptocurrency, Ling Cheng, Feida Zhu, Yong Wang, Ruicheng Liang, Huiwen Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the boom of cryptocurrency and its concomitant financial risk concerns, detecting fraudulent behaviors and associated malicious addresses has been drawing significant research effort. Most existing studies, however, rely on the full history features or full-fledged address transaction networks, both of which are unavailable in the problem of early malicious address detection and therefore failing them for the task. To detect fraudulent behaviors of malicious addresses in the early stage, we present Evolve Path Tracer, which consists of Evolve Path Encoder LSTM, Evolve Path Graph GCN, and Hierarchical Survival Predictor. Specifically, in addition to the general address features, we propose …

On Teaching Multi-Criteria Decision Making With A Robot Assistant, Chen Zhang, Hakan Saraoglu, David A. Louton

Information Systems and Analytics Department Faculty Conference Proceedings

We propose a system and method for a robot assistant for teaching multi-attribute decision making (MCDM). Through questions and answers in natural language, the robot assistant learns the user’s preferences on multiple criteria involving a selection decision and makes recommendations using data on each criterion and the learned user preferences. It will include a use-case demonstration where NAO the robot will assist a human in forming a simple portfolio of mutual funds. Presenters will illustrate the architecture of the robot assisted MCDM and describe a method that is extensively used to structure complex decision problems and has been applied to …

The Effect Of Sustainability Information Disclosure On The Cost Of Equity Capital: An Empirical Analysis Based On Gartner Top 50 Supply Chain Rankings, Lingyu Li, Xianrong Zheng, Shuxi Wang

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

While disclosing financial information has been widely proved to reduce the financing cost of a company, the impact of non-financial information, such as sustainability information, disclosing on the financing cost of the company is still in debate. The goal of this paper is to explore the impact of disclosing sustainability-related information on the cost of equity for firms. The paper first introduces the concept of sustainability information disclosure, and then exhibits its benefit through exploring its impact on reducing a firm’s financing cost. It uses the Gartner supply chain top 50 rankings to construct the experiment environment to test for …

Managing The Creative Frontier Of Generative Ai: The Novelty-Usefulness Tradeoff, Anirban. Mukherjee, Hannah H. Chang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, drawing inspiration from the human creativity literature, we explore the optimal balance between novelty and usefulness in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. We posit that overemphasizing either aspect can lead to limitations such as hallucinations and memorization. Hallucinations, characterized by AI responses containing random inaccuracies or falsehoods, emerge when models prioritize novelty over usefulness. Memorization, where AI models reproduce content from their training data, results from an excessive focus on usefulness, potentially limiting creativity. To address these challenges, we propose a framework that includes domain-specific analysis, data and transfer learning, user preferences and customization, custom evaluation metrics, …

Beyond "Protected" And "Private": An Empirical Security Analysis Of Custom Function Modifiers In Smart Contracts, Yuzhou Fang, Daoyuan Wu, Xiao Yi, Shuai Wang, Yufan Chen, Mengjie Chen, Yang Liu, Lingxiao Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A smart contract is a piece of application-layer code running on blockchain ledgers and it provides programmatic logic via transaction-based execution of pre-defined functions. Smart contract functions are by default invokable by any party. To safeguard them, the mainstream smart contract language, i.e., Solidity of the popular Ethereum blockchain, proposed a unique language-level keyword called “modifier,” which allows developers to define custom function access control policies beyond the traditional “protected” and “private” modifiers in classic programming languages.In this paper, we aim to conduct a large-scale security analysis of the modifiers used in real-world Ethereum smart contracts. To achieve this, we …

Beyond Anthropomorphism: Unraveling The True Priorities Of Chatbot Usage In Smes, Tamas Makany, Sungjong Roh, Kotaro Hara, Jie Min Hua, Felicia Si Ying Goh, Wilson Yang Jie Teh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examined business communication practices with chatbots among various Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) stakeholders in Singapore, including business owners/employees, customers, and developers. Through qualitative interviews and chatbot transcript analysis, we investigated two research questions: (1) How do the expectations of SME stakeholders compare to the conversational design of SME chatbots? and (2) What are the business reasons for SMEs to add human-like features to their chatbots? Our findings revealed that functionality is more crucial than anthropomorphic characteristics, such as personality and name. Stakeholders preferred chatbots that explicitly identified themselves as machines to set appropriate expectations. Customers prioritized efficiency, …

Reducing Spatial Labeling Redundancy For Active Semi-Supervised Crowd Counting, Yongtuo Liu, Sucheng Ren, Liangyu Chai, Hanjie Wu, Dan Xu, Jing Qin, Shengfeng He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Labeling is onerous for crowd counting as it should annotate each individual in crowd images. Recently, several methods have been proposed for semi-supervised crowd counting to reduce the labeling efforts. Given a limited labeling budget, they typically select a few crowd images and densely label all individuals in each of them. Despite the promising results, we argue the None-or-All labeling strategy is suboptimal as the densely labeled individuals in each crowd image usually appear similar while the massive unlabeled crowd images may contain entirely diverse individuals. To this end, we propose to break the labeling chain of previous methods and …

A Conceptual Review Of Sustainable Development Goal 17: Picturing Politics, Proximity And Progress, Joanna Stanberry, Janis Bragan Balda

International Business and Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications and Presentations

We outline the discursive origins of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17, describing its ambiguous marching orders, which are further confused by shifting and contested stakeholder approaches. The widespread effect is to obscure the primary aim of making the tropics and other vulnerable countries more resilient, and also globally overcoming barriers to their development. We argue that ecological reflexivity, as developed and advanced by deliberative democracy and the Earth System Governance Project, belongs at the apex of those capacities needed for implementing the Agenda for Transformation. Ecological reflexivity conceptually grounds inclusive, open, critical, and consequential engagement of discourses situated …

Air Pollution, Regulations On Emission And Firms' Social Responsibility, Jun Myung Song

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This paper examines whether firms adjust their strategy in emission when air pollution is severe. Considering high PM 2.5 as severe air pollution across 65 countries, I show that firms from countries with severe air pollution have low emission score, suggesting that they put less effort in reducing emission. This is because if they improve emission strategy, firm performance deteriorates. However, such relationship disappears when the government’s environmental stringency is strong, suggesting that government’s intervention is crucial for sustainable environment. This paper concludes with analysis on the factors which can mediate the negative impact of air pollution on firms’ emission …

What’S Scope 3 Good For?, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

Opposition to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) new rule on updated climate risk reporting has focused on one category of disclosures as particularly objectionable: Scope 3 emissions.⁷ Otherwise known as “supply chain emissions,” Scope 3 emissions have been voluntarily reported by a growing number of companies since the term was invented as part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in 2001.⁸ They include all the emissions both up and downstream of a corporations’ own activities: the emissions of the privately-owned factory that produced the shoes Target sells, as well as the emissions you burn while driving to the …

Planning For A Gnarly Future: Reimagining Planning To Empower Your Community, Elizabeth Sodja

All Current Publications

The purpose of this document is to summarize key takeaways and resources from our 5-part online learning series featuring planning solutions to challenges facing Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) communities in the west.

Catching The Fast Payments Trend: Optimal Designs And Leadership Strategies Of Retail Payment And Settlement Systems, Zhiling Guo, Dan Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent financial technologies have enabled fast payments and are reshaping retail payment and settlement systems globally. We developed an analytical model to study the optimal design of a new retail payment system in terms of settlement speed and system capability under both bank and fintech firm heterogeneous participation incentives. We found that three types of payment systems emerge as equilibrium outcomes: batch retail (BR), expedited retail (ER), and real-time retail (RR) payment systems. Although the base value of the payment service positively affects both settlement speed and system capability, the expected liquidity cost negatively impacts settlement speed, and total transaction …

Is Carbon Risk Priced In The Cross Section Of Corporate Bond Returns?, Tinghua Duan, Frank Weikai Li, Quan Wen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article examines the pricing of a firm’s carbon risk in the corporate bond market. Contrary to the “carbon risk premium” hypothesis, bonds of more carbon-intensive firms earn significantly lower returns. This effect cannot be explained by a comprehensive list of bond characteristics and exposure to known risk factors. Investigating sources of the low carbon alpha, we find the underperformance of bonds issued by carbon-intensive firms cannot be fully explained by divestment from institutional investors. Instead, our evidence is most consistent with investor underreaction to the predictability of carbon intensity for firm cash-flow news, creditworthiness, and environmental incidents.

How Does Credit Risk Affect Cost Management Strategies? Evidence On The Initiation Of Credit Default Swap And Sticky Cost Behavior, Jing Dai, Nan Hu, Rong Huang, Yan Yan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we examine the effect of credit defaults swaps (CDS) initiation on reference firms' cost management strategies. CDS contracts provide insurance protection for creditors, inducing a shift in bargaining power from borrowers to creditors and an excessive incidence of bankruptcy. Anticipating more intransigent creditors in debt renegotiations and higher bankruptcy risk, CDS firms are incentivized to mitigate risk through decreasing cost stickiness after CDS initiation, as cost stickiness lowers liquidity and triggers early covenant violations. We find that, on average, CDS initiation is associated with a decline in reference firms' cost stickiness. This association is more pronounced for …

Producer Long-Term Marketing Opportunities With Ethanol Plants, Austin Harthoorn, Logan Lloyd, Cory Walters, Kate Brooks

Cornhusker Economics

Commodity marketing operates in a complex decision environment with constant information flow, which can conceal long-run financially profitable marketing opportunities for producers. In the corn marketing space, the competitive role of ethanol plants throughout the state may provide producers with long-run financial gains by strategically approaching marketing decisions. In this article, we characterize whether producers can gain financially from strategically marketing corn to ethanol plants. For example, do ethanol plants provide a better long-run return from pre-harvest hedging, spring sale, or harvest sale?

We investigate three important contracting times--forward contract for harvest delivery (called pre-harvest hereafter), harvest delivery, and spring …

Determinants Of Cloud Computing Integration And Its Impact On Sustainable Performance In Smes: An Empirical Investigation Using The Sem-Ann Approach, Mohammed A. Al-Sharafi, Mohammad Iranmanesh, Mostafa Al-Emran, Ahmed I. Alzahrani, Fadi Herzallah, Norziana Jamil

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Although extant literature has thoroughly investigated the incorporation of cloud computing services, examining their influence on sustainable performance, particularly at the organizational level, is insufficient. Consequently, the present research aims to assess the factors that impact the integration of cloud computing within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and its subsequent effects on environmental, financial, and social performance. The data were collected from 415 SMEs and were analyzed using a hybrid SEM-ANN approach. PLS-SEM results indicate that relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, top management support, cost reduction, and government support significantly affect cloud computing integration. This study also empirically demonstrated that SMEs …

Do Firms Respond To Peer Disclosures? Evidence From Disclosures Of Clinical Trial Results, Vedran Capkun, Yun Lou, Clemens A. Otto, Yin Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using data on the registration of clinical trials and the disclosure of trial results, we examine how firms respond to peer disclosures. We find that firms are less likely to disclose their own trial results if the results of a larger number of closely related trials are disclosed by their peers. This relation is stronger if the firms face higher competition (as measured by the number of competing trials). It is weaker if the firms are further along in their research than the peers (as measured by the trials’ phase) and if the peers’ disclosures convey more negative news (as …

Consumers' Perceptions Of Digital Privacy In The United States And Japan, Destiny Randle

Whittier Scholars Program

The purpose of my study is to explore the contours of contemporary consumer privacy protections derived from legislation, regulations and publicly available company policies as a way to get a better understanding of how consumer data is protected. A few examples ranging from company-based consumer protection in the United States to data breaches in Japan will be explored and examined. Finally, this paper includes a comparative survey of consumer perceptions and concerns related to personal data privacy in the U.S. and Japan. As a way to assess the degree to which digital privacy and personal data breaches have adversely influenced …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of A Chatbot Workshop As Experiential Teaching And Learning Tool To Engage Undergraduate Students, Kyong Jin Shim, Thomas Menkhoff, Ying Qian Teo, Clement Shi Qi Ong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we empirically examine and assess the effectiveness of a chatbot workshop as experiential teaching and learning tool to engage undergraduate students enrolled in an elective course “Doing Business with A.I.” in the Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB) at Singapore Management University. The chatbot workshop provides non-STEM students with an opportunity to acquire basic skills to build a chatbot prototype using the ‘Dialogflow’ program. The workshop and the experiential learning activity are designed to impart conversation and user-centric design know how and know why to students. A key didactical aspect which informs the design and flow …

The Persuasive Design Of Ai-Synthesized Voices, Hannah H. Chang, Anirban. Mukherjee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the impact of AI-based, machine-synthesized narrating voices on consumer cognitions and behavior in media-rich environment. Across four studies (plus pretests), we show that the design of AI voices systematically and predictably affects consumer cognition and behavior. Specifically, the designs of AI voices have differential effects in early versus later stages of consumer purchase journey. In situations where the consumers’ attention is already directed to the message, we find that marcomm with more AI voices generates a smaller proportion of favorable thoughts, which leads to a lower purchase likelihood. These results support our conceptualization that hearing more AI voices …

Scholars Day 2023 Program Of Events, Carl Goodson Honors Program

Scholars Day

This is the program of events for the 2023 Scholars Day Conference, where undergraduates across disciplines present their scholarly and creative works.

Deficit Irrigation Management For Irrigated Corn In Nebraska: Economically Viable?, Lia Nogueira, Cory Walters, Emily O'Donnell, Wesley Peterson, Suat Irmak

Cornhusker Economics

In this study we determine the economic value of deficit irrigation management using both technological and methodological advancements. The use of soil moisture probes represents the technological improvement. We provide improvements in the methodology as follows. Regarding data, we employ a field-size study, instead of plots, where the irrigation decision is determined by the moisture level in the soil measured through a soil moisture probe. Regarding the understanding of the yield response to water, although we examine the commonly used quadratic function, we improve upon this specification by also examining an alternative response function, the linear response stochastic plateau. Our …

Managing Cyber Defense As A Business Threat For Small And Medium Enterprises, Binh Quang Vo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The U.S small and medium businesses (SMBs) are constantly attacked by cybercriminals. Alarmingly, the number of victimized SMBs is growing considerably every year. This results in the increasing loss of billions of dollars and risks to the national economy. The problem addressed was the rising number of cyberattacks critically harming SMBs resulting in revenue loss, damages to reputation, and business closure. The purpose of this research was to reveal the contemporary barriers and challenges that impact cybersecurity competencies of SMBs. This study used semi-structured interviews of participants who are currently working as cyber professionals in SMBs across industries. The goal …

Match Results And The Equity Value Of Publicly Traded Soccer Teams, Ryan Bebyn

Honors Projects in Mathematics

This study aims to examine the relationship between the match performance of publicly traded European soccer clubs and their stock price returns. It is important for investors, owners, and fans to understand how competitive factors both on and off the field affect the equity value of European club soccer teams. Competitive factors such as basic match results (Win, Loss, or Draw), rivalry matches, and international matches will be evaluated against the daily stock prices of publicly traded soccer clubs. A sample of teams traded on public exchanges will be used to analyze the effects of their matches on the daily …

Graduate, 2nd Place: Assessing The Knowledge, Attitude, And Everyday Life Practices Adopted Among Eastern Illinois University Students Towards Sustainability, Joel Holison

2023 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

The concept of sustainable development gained attention and came into focus with the publication of the Brundtland Report (Brundtland, 1987). later the Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiative was presented in 1997 through the “Thessaloniki Declaration” as a carrier of the common and single message (Knapp, 2000). Sustainable development is the way a country pursues its economic development that does not jeopardize the opportunity for future generations to achieve their development (Brundtland, 1987). Deforestation, land destruction, soil degradation, air and water pollution, and other types of environmental deterioration are paid in the name of economic progress. This detriment may outweigh the …