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Lee Kong Chian School Of Business Year In Review 2021-2022, Singapore Management University

SMU Corporate Reports

As Singapore and the world reopens, this has led to changes, especially as people feel safe to travel abroad again. This has impacted us of course. We have seen an 8.9 percent drop in undergraduate applications from our 2022 high. This decline is due in no small part to the relaxation of travel restrictions. However, despite the drop, the quality of applications this year is similar or maybe even slightly better than the year before. In the end, we matriculated 884 students, above our target. This includes 38 scholarship recipients who accepted our offer, representing a record yield. We have …

The Livingston Survey 2022, S. Anderson, B. Bovino, M. Brown, Thomas Lam, Et Al

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The 16 participants in the December Livingston Survey weakened their forecasts for real GDP growth, compared with their projections in the June 2022 survey. The forecasters, who are surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia twice a year, expect 2.0 percent annualized growth in real GDP during the second half of 2022. They project 0.4 percent annualized growth over the first half of 2023. The forecasters predict that real GDP will continue to decline and reach -1.0 percent annualized growth in the second half of 2023.

Empirical Study Of Cashback Affiliate Strategy: Evidence From A Cashback Website, Liu Xinyong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the rapid development of internet technology, e-commerce has become increasingly prosperous with online shopping increasingly penetrating into the daily life of consumers. Online channel has become an indispensable channel for merchants to reach their customers. To improve sales performance and address competition from rivals, online merchants have developed various promotion methods. Cashback promotion has gradually become one of the popular promotion methods, and attracted attention from scholars. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between cashbacks and consumer behaviors using data on Taobao merchants on a large cashback website in China. Two studies with a large number of transaction …

Employees’ Job Positions, Psychological Ownership, And Commitment To Change, Bo Zhang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Organisational change is crucial to the development of enterprises. However, when enterprises are implementing major changes, there are great differences in the attitudes and behaviours of employees in different job positions toward changes. Research in this area is insufficient. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the problem of employee commitment amid enterprises’ organisational changes. This dissertation is committed to determining why employees at different levels and with different roles have different degrees of commitment to change and confirming the role of job positions in affecting employees’ psychological ownership of the change process. According to the findings, the impact of employees’ job rank …

Understanding Sentiment Through Context, Richard M.Crowley, M.H. Franco Wong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine whether empirical results using text-based sentiment of U.S. annual reports depend on the underlying context, within documents, from which sentiment is measured. We construct a clause-level measure of context, showing that sentiment is driven by many different contexts and that positive and negative sentiment are driven by different contexts. We then construct context-level sentiment measures and examine whether sentiment works as expected at the context-level across four prediction problems. Our results demonstrate that document-level sentiment exhibits significant noise in prediction and suggest that document-level aggregation of sentiment leads to missed empirical nuances. The contexts driving sentiment results vary …

The Value Of Fiduciary Duties: Evidence From En Bloc Sales In Singapore, Jianfeng Hu, Kelvin F. K. Low, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the impact of fiduciary duties on collective asset sales in the case of owners acting as delegates for other owners, thereby potentially inducing conflicts of interests. Our identification strategy exploits a unique legal shock in Singapore, which established fiduciary duties in those transactions in the real estate market known colloquially as en bloc sales. The imposition of fiduciary duties caused the price premium of units sold via en bloc sales to increase over units ineligible for en bloc sale, as well as over units that, although eligible for en bloc sale, are sold individually. In addition, this …

Learning From Manipulable Signals, Mehmet Ekmekci, Leandrro Gorno, Lucas Maestri, Jian Sun, Dong Wei

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study a dynamic stopping game between a principal and an agent. The agent is privately informed about his type. The principal learns about the agent’s type from a noisy performance measure, which can be manipulated by the agent via a costly and hidden action. We fully characterize the unique Markov equilibrium of this game. We find that terminations/ market crashes are often preceded by a spike in (expected) performance. Our model also predicts that, due to endogenous signal manipulation, too much transparency can inhibit learning. As the players get arbitrarily patient, the principal elicits no useful information from the …

Shaping Ott Movie Consumption Through Immersive Cinema: A Qualitative Investigation Of Consumer Perspectives, Avirupa Basu, Pratap C. Mandal, Ashutosh. B. Murti, Tamas Makany, Tamas Makany

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entertainment sector saw a worldwide disruption with restrictions on outdoor activities. Consequently, consumers turned towards video and music streaming services for their entertainment consumption. Several film studios have taken the digital release route on over-the-top (OTT) sites to avoid revenue losses and indefinite delays. However, these non-theatrical OTT film releases need to experiment with different strategies to bring the experiences to par with theatrical ones. This exploratory study aims to provide insights on whether Immersive Cinema can be used to imitate the physical world through digital simulation on OTT platforms to gain credibility in …

Optimal Channel Strategy Of Luxury Brands In The Presence Of Online Marketplace And Copycats, Sarah Yini Gao, Wei Shi Lim, Ziqiu Ye

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The strategic interaction between authentic luxury brands and their copycats has evolved since the proliferation of online marketplaces. Using a game-theoretic framework, we examine how an authentic luxury brand, observing the strategic behavior of its competing copycats, should make its optimal entry decision to a third-party online marketplace. Our findings reveal that the authentic luxury brand does not sell on the online marketplace when either the quality or the physical resemblance of the copycat to the authentic luxury brand is high. This contributes to the related literature by offering an explanation for the increasing quality of copycats amid the e-commerce …

Charting New Courses To Enter Foreign Markets: Conceptualization, Theoretical Framework, And Research Directions On Non-Traditional Entry Modes, Keith D. Brouthers, Liang Chen, Sali Li, Noman Shaheer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Recent advances in digitalization and increasing integration of international markets are paving the way for a new generation of firms to use non-traditional entry modes that are largely marginalized in previous entry mode studies. While extant research revolves around the level of resource commitment and control in foreign activities, non-traditional modes are encapsulated by the extent of embeddedness required for exploring new and/or exploiting existing resources. In particular, we draw attention to four such categories of non-traditional entry modes the literature has touched on, i.e., capital access, innovation outposts, virtual presence, and the managed ecosystem. We explore the key attributes, …

Nature Tech: A Nascent Ecosystem, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

When people talk about climate tech, they tend to mean carbon tech. It’s all carbon tunnel vision: Carbon footprint, carbon equivalent, carbon credit, carbon compensation, carbon emission reductions, carbon offsets, decarbonization and so on. By extension, the entire debate about energy transition, energy transformation, clean power and green energy is similarly a debate that is largely held within the carbon tunnel. Make no mistake about it. These are important topics to address. The energy transition will not only prevent catastrophic climate change but have massive benefits for human health by tackling fossil-fuel induced air pollution at the source.As the above …

Arts Marketing, David Ocon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although there are hundreds of resources on traditional and commercial marketing, the materials available specifically for arts marketing are scarce, posing additional challenges for Gillian. Furthermore, while some focus on arts management, few of them address marketing from the perspective of a small-to-medium (often financially struggling) arts organization. An organization like Gillian’s often has limited resources, both financial and human, and can only approach marketing informally. However, it experiences the same pressures to perform well as larger arts institutions. Often, survival depends on how well it implements the marketing strategies that marketing staff create on their own. This chapter is …

Governance And Design Of Digital Platforms: A Review And Future Research Directions On A Meta-Organization, Liang Chen, Tony W. Tong, Shaoqin Tang, Nianchen Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The burgeoning digital-platforms literature across multiple business disciplines has primarily characterized the platform as a market or network. Although the organizing role of platform owners is well recognized, the literature lacks a coherent approach to understanding organizational governance in the platform context. Drawing on classic organizational governance theories, this paper views digital platforms as a distinct organizational form where the mechanisms of incentive and control routinely take center stage. We systematically review research on digital platforms, categorize specific governance mechanisms related to incentive and control, and map a multitude of idiosyncratic design features studied in prior research onto these mechanisms. …

The Impact Of Subscription Programs On Customer Purchases, Raghu Iyengar, Young-Hoon Park, Qi Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Subscription programs have become increasingly popular among a wide variety of retailers and marketplace platforms. Subscription programs give members access to a set of exclusive benefits for a fixed fee upfront. In this paper, we examine the causal effect of a subscription program on customer behavior. To account for self-selection and identify the individual-level treatment effects, we combine a difference-in-differences approach with a generalized random forests procedure that matches each member of the subscription program with comparable non-members. We find subscription leads to a large increase in customer purchases. The effect of subscription is economically significant, persistent over time, and …

Using An Online Bidding Game To Teach Costing In Management Accounting, Poh Sun Seow, Suay Peng Wong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper describes an online multi-player game (Bidding Game), which was developed to reinforce the understanding of cost behavior and cost concepts taught in an introductory management accounting undergraduate course. The Bidding Game was motivated by the aim to facilitate active learning as students apply the theories that they have learnt in a fun and interactive manner. The survey results suggest that the game significantly improves students’ perceived knowledge of the costing topic. Students also agreed that the game enhanced their learning and that they had a positive experience playing the game.

The Effectiveness Of Using Python Programming Approach In Teaching Ffnancial Analytics, Clarence Goh, Yuanto Kusnadi, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study presents a learning method and challenges regarding implementing a Python programming approach in teaching financial analytics to graduate accounting students. The advent of Big Data, as well as related applications and technologies, has significantly changed the process and practice of accounting. This has led to essential changes in the construction and teaching content of accounting education. While there have been several studies examining how data analytics is embedded in the accounting curriculum, the majority of the teaching cases in accounting focus on analysis and communication with Excel as the principal tool, with very few covering the necessary steps …

Unveiling The Process Of Collaborative Learning Through The Use Of Digital Whiteboard Historical Action Logs, Hua Leong Fwa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many educational institutions to transit from face-to-face to online delivery of lessons. Precluded from meeting face-to-face in a classroom due to pandemic curbs, a digital whiteboard affords both teacher and learners to be collaborating and completing a task from home instead. In this paper, we first used a survey to assess learner’s acceptance and use of digital whiteboard. We next web-scraped and visualized historical action logs recorded by the digital whiteboarding tool to uncover the process of problem-solving between and within the teams. This is significant as social-loafing and free-riding are typically difficult to detect …

Pickup And Multi-Delivery Problem With Time Windows, Pham Tuan Anh, Aldy Gunawan, Vincent F. Yu, Tuan C. Chau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper addresses a new variant of Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows (PDPTW) for enhancing customer satisfaction. In particular, a huge number of requests is served in the system, where each request includes a pickup node and several delivery nodes instead of a pair of pickup and delivery nodes. It is named Pickup and Multi-Delivery Problem with Time Windows (PMDPTW). A mixed-integer programming model is formulated with the objective of minimizing total travel costs. Computational experiments are conducted to test the correctness of the model with a newly generated benchmark based on the PDPTW benchmark instances. Results show …

What Should Streamers Communicate In Livestream E-Commerce? The Effects Of Social Interactions On Live Streaming Performance, Danyang Song, Xi Chen, Zhiling Guo, Xiao Liu Liu, Ruijin. Jin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Compared with traditional e-commerce, livestreaming e-commerce is characterized by direct and intimate communication between streamers and consumers that stimulates instant social interactions. This study focuses on streamers’ three types of information exchange (i.e., product information, social conversation, and social solicitation) and examines their roles in driving both short-term and long-term livestreaming performance (i.e., sales and customer base growth). We find that the informational role of product information (nonpromotional and promotional) is beneficial not only to sales performance, but also to the growth of the customer base. We also find that social conversation has a relationship-building effect that positively impacts both …

Do Chief Financial Officers Need To Be Qualified Accountants? A Study Of Whether And When Accounting Qualification May Not Be Necessary For Cfos., Vincent Boon Seng Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Many empirical research studies suggest that Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) with accounting qualifications improve company performance in various ways such as through better financial reporting accuracy (Aier et al., 2005), internal control (Li et al., 2010), corporate governance (Sun et al., 2015) and tax efficiency (Chen et al., 2020). This suggests that CFOs should be qualified in accounting. However, this study found that this may not always be the case.

By looking at the top listed companies in Singapore, it was found that a significant percentage of CFOs are not accounting qualified, which indicates a significant gap. The study conducted …

The Effects Of Prior Trading Performance Have On Risk-Taking Of Subsequent Trading – The House Money Effect, Lenz Tan Koon Bin

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study tests for house money effect on 2,030 non-professional FX investors trading through an Australian Financial Service provider. The results indicate that, in general, investors display a positive relationship between prior gains and the change in subsequent weekly risk-taking - the house money effect. The results also suggest that astute investors display a stronger house money effect than mediocre investors following prior gains. In comparison, mediocre investors display a stronger disposition effect following prior losses than astute investors. The study further reveals that investors who initially demonstrated the house money effect became more prone to the disposition effect during …

The Impact Of Board Heterogeneity On Corporate Internationalization Strategy, Yi Qiang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study analyzes the relationship between board heterogeneity and the company’s internationalization strategy to determine the internal mechanism through which board heterogeneity affects the company’s internationalization strategy. Based on the analysis of the primary effect, the moderating effects of contextual factors at various levels, such as individual, organization, and environment, are introduced. Subsequently, this study empirically tests the proposed research hypothesis using the data of Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2020.

The empirical results indicate that board heterogeneity has a positive impact on the company’s internationalization strategy. When the board chairman is female or has a longer tenure, board …

The Past, Present, And Future Of China-Related Accounting Research, Qiang Cheng, Luzi Hail, Gwen Yu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This discussion makes several observations regarding the past 25 years of China-related accounting research reviewed in Lennox and Wu (2022). First, we discuss factors of supply and demand that led to the rise of China-related studies and how this growth has contributed to the internationalization of accounting research. We note that the taxonomy of the literature by geographic region rather than topic or methodology is unusual and makes it difficult to formulate a common framework that would help organize the many contributions. Next, we distill distinct patterns in authorship, choice of topics, and asserted contributions of China-related studies. Studies are …

Introducing A Model For How Knowledge-Driven Agile Innovation Can Drive Digital Transformation In Firms, Lipika Bhattacharya, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Digital transformation often arises from the distribution of tasks among interdisciplinary teams of experts. One important factor that determines the success of digital transformation relates to an organization’s ability to innovate in an agile manner. In this article, we identify key drivers of digital transformation, which include organizational agility, knowledge management and innovation. Another crucial aspect of knowledge management relates to the coordination of knowledge. It is important for organizations to focus on knowledge coordination because the lack of coordination can dissuade them from meeting the demands for flexibility and speed during digital transformation, thereby negating the potential benefits from …

Responsible Hedge Funds, Hao Liang, Lin Sun, Song Wee Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Hedge funds that endorse the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) underperform other hedge funds after adjusting for risk but attract greater investor flows, accumulate more assets, and harvest greater fee revenues. Consistent with an agency explanation, the underperformance is driven by PRI signatories with low environmental, social, and governance (ESG) exposures and is greater for hedge funds with poor incentive alignment. To address endogeneity, we exploit regulatory reforms that enhance stewardship and show that the ESG exposure and relative performance of signatory funds improve post reforms. Our findings suggest that some hedge funds endorse responsible investment to pander …

Is There A Strategic Organization In The Behavioral Theory Of The Firm? Looking Back And Looking Forward, Henrich R. Greve, Cyndi Man Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the 20 years of Strategic Organization, how well has knowledge drawn from the behavioral theory of the firm contributed to the field of strategy? We see progress both in the pages of SO! and elsewhere in the field of strategy, but this progress has been held back by divisions between strategy and organization theory in what theories should predict, what mechanisms are preferable predictors, and what outcomes are of interest. Despite these divisions, the last few years have seen particularly rapid progress, turning the behavioral theory of the firm into one of multiple organization theory sources of strategy knowledge. …

Avoiding Bias In The Search For Implicit Bias, Wilson Cyrus-Lai, Warren Tierney, Christilene Du Plessis, My Nguyen, Michael Schaerer, Elena Giulia Clemente, Eric Luis Uhlmann

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To revitalize the study of unconscious bias, Gawronski, Ledgerwood, and Eastwick (this issue) propose a paradigm shift away from implicit measures of intergroup attitudes and beliefs. Specifically, researchers should capture discriminatory biases and demonstrate that participants are unaware of the influence of social category cues on their judgments and actions. Individual differences in scores on implicit measures will be useful to predict and better understand implicitly prejudiced behaviors, but the latter should be the collective focus of researchers interested in unconscious biases against social groups.

Social Performance Feedback And Firm Communication Strategy, Heli Wang, Ming Jia, Yi Xiang, Yang Lan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although corporate social performance has become an important measure of firm performance, there is little understanding about how firms respond to social performance feedback and how impression management may function as an important firm response to the feedback. Building upon and extending the literature on the behavioral theory of the firm and the strategic use of language, we examine how discrepancies between firms’ social performance and their aspiration levels affect how firms use visual expressions in their CSR reports. In addition, we argue that the relationship between social performance discrepancies and the use of visual expressions in CSR reports is …

Governance, Risk And Compliance (Grc) In Digital Transformation: Investor Views, Clarence Goh, Yuanto Kusnadi, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Companies are embracing digital transformation to enhance their competitiveness. Existing studies show that it is important for companies to manage the governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) aspects of their digital transformation initiatives. While companies are increasingly understanding the importance of the role of GRC in digital transformation, it is unclear from the investors’ views. Thus, this study examines whether investors are placing importance on the role of GRC in digital transformation for their investment decisions. The results show that investors care about the GRC aspects of digital transformation initiatives undertaken by companies. The findings of this study are consistent with …

Can Big Data Cure Risk Selection In Healthcare Capitation Program? A Game Theoretical Analysis, Zhaowei She, Turgay Ayer, Daniel Montanera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: This paper analyzes a market design problem in Medicare Advantage (MA), the largest risk-adjusted capitation payment program in the U.S. healthcare market. Evidence exists that the current MA capitation payment program unintentionally incentivizes health plans to cherry pick profitable patient types, which is referred to as “risk selection”. However, the root causes of the risk selection are not comprehensively understood, which we study in this paper. Academic / Practical Relevance: The existing literature primarily attributes the observed risk selection in MA market to data limitations and low explanatory power (e.g. low R2) of the current risk adjustment design. …