Taiwan's Electronics Industry Research Articles

Exploring institutional pressure, the top management team's response, green innovation adoption, and firm performance: evidence from Taiwan's electrical and electronics industry

PurposePrior research on green innovation has shown that institutional pressure stimulates enterprises to adopt green innovation. However, an institutional perspective does not explain why firms that face the same amount of institutional pressure execute different environmental practices and innovations. To address this research gap, the authors linked institutional theory with upper echelons theory and organization performance to build a comprehensive research model.Design/methodology/approachA total of 800 questionnaires were issued. The final usable questionnaires were 195, yielding a response rate of 24.38%. AMOS 23.0 was used to analyze the data and examine the relationships between the constructs in our model.FindingsInstitutional pressures affected both green innovation adoption (GIA) and the top management team's (TMT's) response. TMT's response influenced GIA. GIA was an important factor affecting firm performance. Furthermore, TMT's response mediated the relationship between institutional pressure and GIA. Institutional pressures indirectly affected green innovation performance but did not influence economic performance through GIA. Finally, TMT's response indirectly impacted firm performance through GIA.Originality/valueThe authors draw on institutional theory, upper echelons theory, and a performance-oriented perspective to explore the antecedents and consequences of GIA. This study has interesting implications for leaders and managers looking to implement green innovation and leverage it for firm performance to out compete with market rivals as well as to make the changes in collaboration with many other companies including market rivals to gain success in green innovation.

Achieving sustainable industrial ecosystems by design: A study of the ICT and electronics industry in Taiwan

The environmental and economic aspects of sustainability have been the most common subjects in the manufacturing industry, while the social one tends to be neglected. The process of semistructured interviews is conducted with design practitioners in the computer, communication, and consumer electronics industry in Taiwan to comprehend how the participating companies can move from a business-as-usual model to a more sustainable business by design. Results show that ecodesign and design for circular economy are commonly applied as sustainable design strategies, highlighting the concept of dematerialization. The three pragmatic tools applied alongside for balancing the three pillars of sustainability are life cycle thinking, design thinking, and business model tools. To achieve sustainable industrial ecosystems, three key actors, namely, a driver, a facilitator, and a supporter, play an important role to create stakeholder engagement and supply chain collaboration. Hence, the companies must tackle major challenges related to organizational culture, social reputation and communication, resource availability, service at the end of life, and effective waste treatment. Relying solely on product level for sustainability is insufficient; the companies need to tap into socio-technical systems by creating new partnerships, supporting multidisciplinary teams, embracing new markets, integrating emerging technologies for social sustainability, and promoting innovative and social inclusive thinking.

A Study of the Financial Behavior Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

Personal finance and investments are closely related to people’s lives. Most investors focus on return rates than on risks. However, when the market changes considerably or unexpectedly, investors may incur losses. Employees in the electronics industry are a middle- to high-income group. However, their work may prevent them from acquiring financial knowledge and factors affecting investments. This group should also understand methods of reducing risks in investments and avoiding losses. This study examines employees in the electronics industry in Taiwan and uses the theory of planed behavior to investigate the effects of demographic variables and intention to manage personal finances and invest on investment behavior. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 469 were returned. Among the 469 questionnaires, 41 were incomplete and invalid and thus disregarded, posting a response rate and valid response rate of 78.16% and 71.33%, respectively. SPSS 20 and structural equation modeling were used for analysis. The results demonstrate that financial attitude has a significant and positive effect on financial knowledge and subjective norms, that subjective norms have a significant and positive effect on perceived financial control, and that financial knowledge has a significant and positive effect on financial behavioral intention. However, subjective norms and perceived financial control do not significantly affect financial knowledge. The results suggest that individuals should reduce risks in their personal finances and investments. Potential directions for further research are also provided.

How Artificial Intelligence Technology Affects Productivity and Employment: Firm-level Evidence from Taiwan

The effects of the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), a general-purpose technology, on firm performance is an emerging and crucial issue. This study examines the impact of AI technology on firms’ productivity and employee profiles. We use the keyword-matching method to parse the text of Taiwan patent grants, and obtain matched firm-level data on AI innovations in Taiwan's electronics industry for the 2002–2018 period. Empirical estimations indicate that AI technology is positively associated with productivity and employment. Meanwhile, non-AI patents also generate pro-productivity and pro-employment effects with a magnitude similar to that of AI technology. Inventing AI technologies crucially alters firms’ workforce compositions, which reduce the share of labor force with educational qualifications of college level and below. Robustness checks reaffirm these findings.

Intelligent Capital, Organizational Learning, and Corporate Performance Influence Relationship

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing intelligent capital on enterprise performance. Design/Methodology/Approach. Based on dynamic panel data of listed companies in the Taiwan electronics industry from 2006 to 2017, we used the GMM estimation method. Findings. The findings of this study indicate that human capital, innovation capital, process capital, and customer capital all significantly improve enterprise performance through the mechanism of organizational learning. Research Limitations/Implications. Future research on cross-country studies of various forms of electronics industry would be worth conducting to determine regional differences in the development of electronics industry activities. Originality/Value. The empirical results demonstrate that human capital, process capital, and customer capital exert a significant promoting effect on enterprise performance, while innovation capital significantly inhibits improvement of enterprise performance.

Understanding the interplay between competitor and alliance orientations in product innovativeness: An integrative framework

Competitor and alliance orientations represent different organizational logics, but their combined effects on product innovation outcomes remain unclear. To address this issue, the authors use the concept of fit and propose a comprehensive conceptualization of the combination of competitor and alliance orientations; additionally, we empirically identify the combined effects of balance, alignment, and the interaction on product innovativeness. A causal-explanatory, cross-sectional, questionnaire-based design with purposive sampling was conducted. The empirical assessment used a sample of 139 senior managers in Taiwan's electronics industry (with a valid response rate of 16.85%). Research hypotheses were evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling, analysis of covariance, and quantile regression analyses. The results show that the relative imbalance between the competitor and alliance orientations is not significantly associated with product innovativeness. Aligning these two orientations significantly improves product innovativeness, which supports the matching perspective of coalignment. Furthermore, in relation to fit as moderation, the interaction between the two orientations is negatively related to product innovativeness. These results provide a new lens through which scholars can assess and measure the joint effects of competitor and alliance orientations and offer managerial guidance to practitioners.

The Influence of Taiwan Electronic Production Company's Proprietary Data Products on the Interaction of Company Effectiveness

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the unique interaction of companies in Taiwan from 1998 to 2017 and the influence of the degree of international industry on the effectiveness of the company. Approach/Methodology/Design: We used time series methods to investigate and research. This study only has a significant impact on the upstream industry of the electronics industry, and there is no significant development in the middle and lower reaches of the industry. This is a very strange situation in Taiwan. Findings: At the same time, the interaction of the three attributes of the midstream computer industry can also produce the multiplication effect. In this study, it has been found that the degree of international internationalization has a higher impact on the effectiveness of companies, but no matter how high it is, it seems that increasing the degree of international internationalization at about 10% or 50% and more than 80% of the international level can produce and increase the effectiveness of the company. Practical Implications: This is a very strange situation in Taiwan. However, because the research strength has the effect of prolonging the effect, it may not play a significant role in the middle and lower reaches of the research and development of the product extension effect, so that the research intensity does not play a significant role in the first year of the development of the Taiwan electronics industry. Originality/value: Our value is mainly to solve the problems of internationalization and performance of Taiwanese electronics industry companies.

Industrial Effects and the CAPM: From the Views of Robustness and Longitudinal Data Analysis

The traditional approach by Fama and Macbeth (1973) to the validity of an asset pricing model suffers from two drawbacks. Firstly, it uses the ordinary least squares (OLS) method, which is sensitive to outliers, to estimate the time-series beta. Secondly, it takes averages of the slope coefficients from cross-sectional regressions which ignore the importance of time-series properties. In this article, robust estimators and a longitudinal approach are applied to avoid the problems of these two kinds. We use data on the electronics industry in Taiwan’s stock market during the period from September 1998 to December 2001 in order to examine whether betas from the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) are a valid measure of risk and whether industries to which the firms belong explain excess returns. The methods we propose lead to more explanatory power than the traditional OLS results.

Antecedents and consequences of green supply chain management in Taiwan's electric and electronic industry

PurposeEnvironmental sustainability is one of the most pressing issues faced by the electric and electronics industry today. Industries are being challenged to incorporate environmental initiatives in their corporate strategies. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of stakeholder pressures (regulatory, internal and market) on green supply chain management and green corporate resources as well as their effects on the economic and environmental performance of Taiwan's electric and electronic industry.Design/methodology/approachA total of 194 valid questionnaires were collected out of the 1,000 questionnaires distributed to Taiwan's electric and electronic product manufacturers. A structural equation modeling, using Amos 22.0, was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results of the analyses show that stakeholder pressure has a significant positive impact on corporate green resources and green supply chain management practices while green supply chain management practices have a significant and positive impact on organizational performance. Moreover, corporate green resources provide a mediation between organizational stakeholder pressure and green supply chain management.Practical implicationsThe results may be of value and interest to supply chain managers and policymakers on the push factors for implementing green supply chain management practices and their consequences.Originality/valueThis paper shows the complementarity of stakeholder and resource-based theories in influencing organizational performance in the electric and electronic industry in the context of sustainable development. This also enhances the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of green supply chain management and provides robust findings on the relationship between environmental and economic performance.

Asymmetric Loss Functions for Contract Capacity Optimization

For high-voltage and extra-high-voltage consumers, the electricity cost depends not only on the power consumed but also on the contract capacity. For the same amount of power consumed, the smaller the difference between the contract capacity and the power consumed, the smaller the electricity cost. Thus, predicting the future power demand for setting the contract capacity is of great economic interest. In the literature, most works predict the future power demand based on a symmetric loss function, such as mean squared error. However, the electricity pricing structure is asymmetric to the under- and overestimation of the actual power demand. In this work, we proposed several loss functions derived from the asymmetric electricity pricing structure. We experimented with the Long Short-Term Memory neural network with these loss functions using a real dataset from a large manufacturing company in the electronics industry in Taiwan. The results show that the proposed asymmetric loss functions outperform the commonly used symmetric loss function, with a saving on the electricity cost ranging from 0.88% to 2.42%.

Exploring the Family Effect on Innovative Capacity and Earnings Management

Purpose: This study examines whether family businesses (FBs) differ from non-FBs with regard to innovative strategies, and whether their innovation is a reflection of earnings management behavior. Design/methodology/approach: This study extended research into the issue of FBs by investigating innovation capacity and earnings management. We adopted the electronics industry in Taiwan (between 2010 and 2015) as a research sample to determine (1) whether family effects influence innovation performance at the firm level; (2) whether the innovation performance of FBs is an indication of earnings management behavior; and (3) the effects of family involvement and CEO-duality in FBs. Finding: Our results show that FBs are less likely than non-FBs to devote resources to increasing innovation. However, managerial participation of family members and a uniform CEO-duality leadership was shown to strengthen efficiency and flexibility in decision-making, thereby enhancing innovation capacity. We also found that FBs with higher innovation capacity are less likely to window-dress earnings. This association is more pronounced in cases of CEO-duality leadership, which implies that FBs’ innovative ambitions and duality leadership had greatly advanced in operating performance and corporate governance, and thus restrain managerial self-interested behavior. Research limitations/implications: This study had a number of limitations. First is the measure of innovative capacity. There are a number of ways of measuring innovation, and we posit that patents are superior to RD however, this does not necessarily reflect actual practices of earnings management. Although such proxies have been consistently used in previous research, may provide rich insights into earnings management behavior. Despite the noted limitations, our evidence clearly suggests the following: (1) FBs with strong family involvement in management and CEO-duality leadership tend to have higher innovation capacity; and (2) FBs with quality innovation capacity are less likely to engage in earnings management. Originality/value: This study fills a gap in the research on FBs by providing evidence concerning the effects of family on innovation and earnings management. Our findings have important implications for future research as well as the establishment of regulations and standards. Our findings provide evidence of a positive association between family effects and innovation capacity, which depends on the degree of family involvement in management and leadership structure. We found that family governance has a significantly positive impact on the competitive advantage of FBs. We also found that the innovation capacity of FBs is negatively associated with earnings management behavior. This study also re-examines the apparent contradictions in previous findings related to earnings management among FBs, while contributing to the literature linking family effects and governance mechanisms to earnings management behavior.

The effects of IT infrastructure integration and flexibility on supply chain capabilities and organizational performance: An empirical study of the electronics industry in Taiwan

In recent years, rapid development of information technology (IT) has forced companies to integrate tightly with their supply chain partners, enabling efficient information sharing between supply chain members and improving supply chain efficiency, in order to make their supply chain more flexible and efficient. IT therefore plays a critical role in supply chains. How to achieve higher organizational performance through IT in a complex and uncertain supply chain environment has become an important issue. Even though many practitioners and scholars have taken multiple points of view to investigate the effects of IT infrastructure capability on firms’ performance, little research has explored cause-and-effect relationships from the perspective of supply chain capabilities. Based on a resource-based view of the firm, this study develops a research framework for investigating the mediating role of supply chain capabilities in the relationships between IT infrastructure flexibility, integration, and firms’ performance. Data for the study were collected from 270 companies in the Taiwanese electronics industry and the relationships proposed in the framework were tested using the Partial Least Squares method. The results indicate that IT infrastructure integration and flexibility indirectly and positively impact organizational performance through the mediating effect of supply chain capability, and the mediating effect is a full mediation. The findings provide empirical support to resourced-based IT studies, which propose mediating IT impacts on organizational performance. This study should be useful to practitioners who implement IT strategy.

Developing exploitative and exploratory capabilities through capitalising on alliance orientation

ABSTRACTResearchers suggest that firms should acquire resources from external environments by adopting alliances to enhance their abilities in developing their core value-creating capabilities. However, the question of how to manage alliances effectively through organisational development in exploitation and exploration capabilities has not yet been examined in detail. Using primary data obtained from 159 R&D managers in Taiwan's electronics industry, this study focuses on the specific mechanisms of alliance orientation (AO) and examines its impact on the development of exploitative and exploratory capabilities. We find that AO enables firms to improve their exploitative and exploratory capabilities. Furthermore, unabsorbed slack resources strengthen the positive effects of AO on exploratory capabilities, while market uncertainty weakens the benefits of AO in both exploitative and exploratory capabilities. The positive effects of AO on exploratory capabilities are also weakened by technological uncertainty. These findings provide strategic insight into strategic alliances and the capability development of firms.

Confidence Interval Based Fuzzy Evaluation Model for an Integrated-Circuit Packaging Molding Process

The electronics industry in Taiwan has achieved a complete information and communication technology chain with a firm position in the global electronics industry. The integrated-circuit (IC) packaging industry chain adopts a professional division of labor model, and each process (including wafer dicing, die bonding, wire bonding, molding, and other subsequent processes) must have enhanced process capabilities to ensure the quality of the final product. Increasing quality can also lower the chances of waste and rework, lengthen product lifespan, and reduce maintenance, which means fewer resources invested, less pollution and damage to the environment, and smaller social losses. This contributes to the creation of a green process. This paper developed a complete quality evaluation model for the IC packaging molding process from the perspective of a green economy. The Six Sigma quality index (SSQI), which can fully reflect process yield and quality levels, is selected as a primary evaluation tool in this study. Since this index contains unknown parameters, a confidence interval based fuzzy evaluation model is proposed to increase estimation accuracy and overcome the issue of uncertainties in measurement data. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Developing a fuzzy green supplier selection model using six sigma quality indices

Under the impact of global warming, enterprises must grow, take care of the protection of the green environment and reduce the impact on society. Therefore, 4R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recovery) is an important green concept. For sustainable production, improving product quality is one of the most crucial strategies, because enhancing product quality can reduce process scrap and the rate of Reduce, increase product availability, prolong maintenance intervals, and increase the rate of Reuse for maintenance as well as the rate of Recycle for the reproduction of all components. Meanwhile, owing to the increase of the service life, the time of Recovery will be postponed. Taiwan's electronics industry has developed from semiconductor technology to peripheral electronic components with a complete industrial ecosystem and a highly specialized division of labor. In the entire specialized and cooperative industrial chain, suppliers must be carefully selected to ensure the quality of each component and the final product quality. To sum up, this paper can fully reflect the six sigma indicators of the process yields and quality levels to construct a complete green supplier fuzzy selection model. The fuzzy evaluation model developed in this paper analyzes whether the method of collecting the required data is consistent with the traditional method of collecting data, which can increase the practical convenience. Besides, regardless of the sample sizes, more accurate judgments can be made to select suppliers, assisting the businesses and all suppliers to improve process quality (technical upgrades) and performance and thereby increasing 4R benefits as well as moving towards the goal of industry sustainability.

The Competitiveness of the Consumer Electronics Industry in Taiwan: An Empirical Study of Transformer Industry

The Competitiveness of the Consumer Electronics Industry in Taiwan: An Empirical Study of Transformer Industry

The Causes and Economic Consequences of Patent Litigation

A survey of patent litigation in the Taiwan electronics industry between 2010 and 2015 provides insight into the causes and economic consequences of patent litigation. This survey had three key what were the findings of this study? First, companies with patents for new inventions are more likely to file plaintiff-initiated lawsuits and less likely to suffer defendant-related lawsuits. Second, credit ratings can reflect the effects of patent litigation and industry expertise on their rating decisions in cases where companies involved in patent litigation are audited by industry experts. Third, auditors with industry expertise tend not to be as concerned when their clients face patent litigation as those without such expertise.

Identifying the competitive determinants of firms’ green supply chain capabilities under uncertainty

The link between green supply chain (GSC) and firm performance has been thoroughly studied, and it has been argued that firms are unlikely to perform well if they apply their capabilities in isolation. However, there is a lack of studies that identify the competitive determinants, the critical success factors, of GSC capabilities of firms, and the evaluation of GSC capabilities is predisposed to subjective and linguistic preferences. This study proposes to address the vague nature of qualitative measures using the fuzzy Delphi method to filter the measures and the fuzzy analytic network process to deal with the linguistic preferences in hierarchical structure of firms’ GSC capabilities. Data were collected from supply chain networks of electronic industry in Taiwan. This study presents empirical evidence of firms’ GSC capabilities, concluding that cost is the top competitive determinant and the environmental costs is the top priority of GSC capability.

Relations among audit committee establishment, information transparency and earnings quality: evidence from simultaneous equation models

Either shareholders or related parties typically serve as the directors and supervisors of listed companies in Taiwan. Consequently, the managerial and supervisory functions of certain companies have failed to meet shareholder expectation, and there have been numerous cases where managers have embezzled company assets and inflated company earnings. Therefore, we contend that strong corporate governance should be established, and the supervision system should be improved. First, we discuss the relationship between establishing an audit committee and information transparency and that between audit committee establishment and earnings quality. Subsequently, we describe results obtained by employing simultaneous equation models to examine the interactions among audit committee establishment, information transparency, and earnings quality for companies in the Taiwan electronics industry in 2011. Our empirical results show that establishing an audit committee correlates positively with both information transparency and earnings quality. The simultaneous equation models result show that interactive and positive effects exist among audit committee establishment, information transparency, and earnings quality.

Merging Just-in-Time (JIT) Inventory Management with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Impacts on the Taiwan Electronic Industry

This paper compares the firm merging Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) with just-in-time (JIT) inventory management, to the firm with traditional inventory methods for the purpose of deter-mining the impact of both methods on reducing inventory cost. JIT inventory management eliminates waste which includes all material, equipment, inventories and labor since JIT requires the production of just the right quantities and results in elimination of waste. (EDI) is the electronic exchange of information, documents and business transactions between computers. The information transmitted in manufacturing includes purchase orders, shipping and freight invoices, and bills of lading. There are many advantages to using EDI transaction over a traditional paper exchange environment. When the exchange of information is electronic the transactions are instantaneous. Thus, the processing and handling of paper and input of data are eliminated with no rekeying of data. Therefore, the chances of errors, time spent on auditing, and tracing errors are all significantly decreased. Additionally, the use of electronic commerce was able to cut down the lead time of purchasing and speed up inventory turnover to achieve just-in-time inventory management. Therefore, the merging of JIT with EDI has brought unprecedented benefits to users, especially with the increase in the use of international sourcing. The use of information technology to control the value chain cycle is crucial in the electronic industry, since it requires effective and efficient inventory control to speed up production and cut down inventory cost. This is an exploratory research project facilitated via the case study method. Two hubs and their suppliers were investigated to reveal the use of electronic commerce in the electronic industry based on the value chain theory. The findings are the firm merging EDI with JIT will result in a higher percentage of transactions as compared with the firm using EDI with traditional inventory method. This higher percentage of transactions by EDI results in reduced supply chain inventory cost due to using EDI to reduce paper work and errors in rekeying of data, audit tracing errors, etc. Thus, the firm merging JIT with EDI results in significantly reducing supply chain inventory cost.