Empirical Examination Research Articles

The Effect of Economic Uncertainty on Access to Finance: An Empirical Examination for European SMEs

This study examines the effect of economic uncertainty on the probability of access to finance for the years between 2015 and 2020. Survey on Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) dataset is used for measuring the level of access to finance and The IMF World Uncertainty Index (WUI) is considered as a proxy for uncertainty. According to probit regression model results, the uncertainty negatively affects the probability of firms’ access to bank loans while positively affecting the likelihood of access to trade credit. The results also reveal that some firm-level and macroeconomic indicators significantly impact access to finance.

Institutional Betrayal in Inpatient Psychiatry: Effects on Trust and Engagement With Care.

Patients' experiences of inpatient psychiatry have received limited empirical scrutiny. The authors examined patients' likelihood of experiencing institutional betrayal (harmful actions or inactions toward patients) at facilities with for-profit, nonprofit, or government ownership; patient-level characteristics associated with experiencing institutional betrayal; associations between betrayal and patients' trust in mental health providers; and associations between betrayal and patients' willingness to engage in care postdischarge. Former psychiatric inpatients (N=814 adults) responded to an online survey. Data were collected on patients' demographic characteristics; experiences of institutional betrayal; and the impact of psychiatric hospitalization on patients' trust in providers, willingness to engage in care, and attendance at 30-day follow-up visits. Participants' responses were linked to secondary data on facility ownership type. Experiencing institutional betrayal was associated with less trust in mental health providers (25-percentage-point increase in reporting less trust, 95% CI=17-32), reduced willingness (by 45 percentage points, 95% CI=39-52) voluntarily undergo hospitalization, reduced willingness (by 30 percentage points, 95% CI=23-37) to report distressing thoughts to mental health providers, and lower probability of reporting attendance at a 30-day follow-up visit (11-percentage-point decrease, 95% CI=5-18). Participants treated at a for-profit facility were significantly more likely (by 14 percentage points) to report experiencing institutional betrayal than were those treated at a nonprofit facility (p=0.01). Institutional betrayal is one mechanism through which inpatient psychiatric facilities may cause iatrogenic harm, and the potential for betrayal was larger at for-profit facilities. Further research is needed to identify the determinants of institutional betrayal and strategies to support improvement in care quality.

Shades of authoritarian digital sovereignty: divergences in Russian and Chinese data localisation regimes

ABSTRACT The concept of sovereignty is now referred to in cyberspace-related policy by a range of governments, both authoritarian and democratic. At the same time, the most prominent proponents of state – or sovereignty-centric models of internet governance are Russia and China, whose positions are often characterised as a shared ‘Sino-Russian’ model. This paper subjects this idea of a shared Sino-Russian approach to empirical scrutiny by conducting a comparative analysis of rules, regulations and policies on data localisation in both countries. By delimiting the research question to regulations on data localisation and cross-border data transfers in both countries, we identify an important set of similarities and differences between the Russian and Chinese approaches. They share some features associated with authoritarian regimes, such as uncertainty around the selective enforcement of broadly formulated rules and a centralised assessment of outbound data transfers. However, we also find significant differences in the level of institutional centralisation, degrees of responsiveness within the policymaking process, and economic logics driving data localisation and cross-border transfer regulations. Based on these findings, we argue that despite a perception that Russia and China adhere to a similar model of authoritarian digital sovereignty, there are significant disparities in their data localisation regimes.

Budget-Aware Local Influence Iterative Algorithm for Efficient Influence Maximization in Social Networks

The budgeted influence maximization (BIM) problem aims to identify a set of seed nodes that adhere to predefined budget constraints within a specified network structure and cost model. However, it is difficult for the existing algorithms to achieve a balance between timeliness and effectiveness. To address this challenge, our study initially proposes a refined cost model through empirical scrutiny of Weibo's quote data. Subsequently, we introduce a proxy-based algorithm, i.e., the budget-aware local influence iterative (BLII) algorithm tailored for the BIM problem, aimed at expediently identifying seed nodes. The algorithm approximates the global influence by leveraging the user’s one-hop influence and circumvents influence overlap among seed nodes via iterative influence updates. Comparative experiments involving eight algorithms across four real networks demonstrate the effectiveness, efficiency, and robustness of the BLII algorithm. In terms of influence spread, the proposed algorithm outperforms other proxy-based algorithms by 20%–255% and reaches the state-of-the-art simulation-based approach by 96%. In addition, the running time of the BLII algorithm is reasonable. Generally, the proposed cost model and BLII algorithm provide novel insights and potent tools for studying BIM problems.

The Impact of Free Trade Zones on Corporate Sustainability Performance: An Empirical Examination from the Dual Perspectives of Financial and Environmental Performance

As a “testing ground” for a new round of institutional innovation, China’s pilot free trade zones (FTZs) have created favorable development conditions for listed companies and significantly influenced their sustainability performance. Utilizing data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022, this study uses the establishment of FTZs as a “quasi-natural experiment” and measures corporate sustainability performance by combining financial and environmental performance. A PSM-DID model is constructed to explore the impact of FTZ construction on corporate sustainability performance. The findings are as follows: (1) The establishment of FTZs significantly enhances both the financial and environmental performance of companies. (2) FTZs promote corporate sustainability performance by reducing transaction costs and improving corporate innovation levels. (3) The establishment of FTZs has a significantly positive impact on the sustainability performance of companies in highly competitive industries, non-labor-intensive industries, high-tech enterprises, and large-scale companies. This study reveals the impact and transmission mechanisms of FTZs on corporate sustainability performance, providing new empirical evidence for the future direction of corporate sustainable development in China.

To Perform or Not to Perform: Exploring the Impact of COVID‐19 on Aotearoa New Zealand's Performing Arts Sector

ABSTRACTThis article explores narratives of how COVID‐19 impacted the performing arts sector, by drawing on interviews with creative workers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite the late exposure to COVID‐19 and the adoption of an elimination approach that afforded opportunities for performing arts to continue to varying extents between 2019 and 2022, cultural workers in Aotearoa New Zealand, as with their overseas counterparts, experienced significant and consequential disruption to their working conditions and lives. Taking into account the specificity of Aotearoa New Zealand's performing arts sector and the government's COVID‐19 response, the article contributes to the empirical examination of COVID‐19 experiences by teasing out narratives of impact from cultural workers. The thematic analysis demonstrates how participants presented (1) COVID‐19 as responsible for financial, emotional, and psychological costs, (2) framed opportunities arising from disrupted working conditions and wage subsidy as “silver linings,” (3) were reliant on digital technologies, and (4) constructed the return to “normal” as marked by the COVID‐19 “aftermath.” The article argues that uniting these perceptions and articulations of impact is the ongoing (re)evaluations of risks and benefits by cultural workers of working conditions that predate COVID‐19.

Asymmetric impact of climate change on banking system stability in selected sub-Saharan economies

This study is an empirical examination of the asymmetric impact of climate change on banking system stability in selected sub-Saharan economies. The study leverages a quantitative research approach through a panel non-linear ARDL framework and data from 29 selected economies, which spans 1996-2017. Findings from the study reveal that in the long term, partial sums of temperature have an insignificant relationship with banking system stability. Further, partial sums of precipitation are negatively related to banking system stability in the long term. The finding indicates that both positive and negative precipitation do harm banking system stability in the selected sub-Saharan economies. Moreover, we find that partial sums of greenhouse gas emissions had an insignificant relationship with banking system stability. In addition, we conclude that greenhouse gases (positive and negative) do not impair banking system stability in selected sub-Saharan economies in the long term. We surmise from the findings that both positive and negative climate change indexes are harmful to banking system stability. On the short-term asymmetric impact, we discover that partial sums of temperature, precipitation, and climate change index do not harm banking system stability. However, negative greenhouse gas emissions are pernicious to the banking system’s stability in the short term. Conversely, positive greenhouse gas levels were statistically insignificant. The study recommends that central banks and monetary authorities in Sub-Saharan Africa design green banking policies to push the climate change agenda in the banking sector.

“Unduly Harsh?”: An Empirical Examination of Best Interests Assessments in the Context of Parental Deportation

Abstract Thousands of people are deported from the UK every year, having served a sentence for a serious criminal offence, it being determined that it is no longer in the public interest for them to remain in the UK. For those who are parents, they can appeal against deportation on grounds that it would breach their right to family life and have an unduly harsh impact on their children. Detailed guidance has emerged, setting out the factors that should be taken into account in determining this question in a manner that is compliant with children’s rights. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of a sample of deportation case files, this paper provides a unique empirical insight into the extent to which this guidance is applied in practice, with a particular reference to children’s rights principles and processes.

Can an Expert Opinion Mitigate Racially Biased Diversion Decisions? An Empirical Examination in the Context of Re-Offense Risk Assessment

Using a vignette-based experimental design, this study tested whether the racial or ethnic identity of a justice-impacted person influences jury-eligible individuals’ perceptions of post-conviction risk, placement (incarceration vs. community supervision), and need for mandated treatment. Furthermore, we examined whether the inclusion of data from a reoffense risk tool could mitigate racial bias. Participants recruited through Amazon’s MTurk ( N = 448) were randomly assigned to conditions varying by race/ethnicity of an examinee (Black, Latino, White) and if/how risk assessment data were included (no risk data, risk data only, and risk data reported by a qualified examiner). There was no statistically significant effect of the examinee’s racial/ethnic identity on ratings of reoffense risk or placement decisions; however, the Black examinee was more likely to be mandated with treatment. Regardless of examinee identity, participants exposed to risk information proffered by an expert more often calibrated their risk decisions to the examinee’s actual risk level.

Assessing the impact of consumption values on satisfaction and usage intentions of millet-based food products

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to assess the impact of consumption values on customer satisfaction and intention to consume millet-based foods. This study examines both tangible and intangible values of the millet-based food to the customer.Design/methodology/approachBased on consumption value theory (CVT), the present study evaluates the impact of consumption value factors such as emotional, epistemic, health, price, prestige and taste/quality values on satisfaction and intention to use millet-based foods and develops a unique research model. Later, leveraging a dataset comprising more than 410 responses from Pune city in India, a rigorous empirical examination of the proposed model was conducted employing SmartPLS 4.0 software.FindingsThe study's finding unveils both the significant and insignificant impacts of various consumption values, both from the tangible and intangible consumption value perspectives on satisfaction and intention to consume millet-based foods. The study also provides a validated food consumption model which can be used for other similar food consumption behaviour of the customers.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides insights as to how different consumption values impact the satisfaction of the customers for the millet-based food. This study illuminates additional aspects of the tangible and intangible factors impacting the satisfaction level of customers to consume millet-based products. Also, this is a cross-sectional study, and the respondents are only based in Pune, India. Thus, the study results cannot be generalised.Originality/valueThis study employs CVT to explore the unexplored impact of consumption values on satisfaction and intention to use millet-based foods, which is unexplored in the past literature. Moreover, this study develops a theoretical model with high explanatory power, and the research model adds value to the existing body of literature from areas such as food preference, consumer behaviour and value consumption insights.

Presidential Activism on Social Media: Multidimensional Analysis and Empirical Examination of Presidential Twitter Use in Europe

Since the advent of mass media, ‘going public’ has been a key tool in the strategic inventory of presidents seeking to promote their policies to politicians and the public. Over the last decade, social media has offered presidents and their office with a new platform to address the nation directly without relying on traditional media gatekeepers. Nevertheless, both ‘going public’ strategies and presidents’ use of social media have almost exclusively been researched in the context of the presidential systems. The aim of this article is to extend research and offer the first systematic study of presidential Twitter use in European semi-presidential systems. We conceptualise presidential Twitter use as a form of presidential activism that is complementary to the use of formal powers or informal attempts to influence policy. Whereas the latter are driven by institutional or partisan conflict, going public strategies and presidential Twitter use primarily address societal concerns and, hence, are motivated by contextual factors outside the core realm of party politics. Instead, we should expect social conflict and societal grievances to determine demand and supply of presidential Twitter use. We test our propositions using a new dataset of tweets by presidents in European semi-presidential systems 2010–2020.

Socio-pedagogical tact in familial contexts: from empty space to teaching space and the handling of symbols and things1

ABSTRACT This paper informs about a specific German concept in Pedagogy, the concept of “tact”.Following an initial discussion of the particularities of the concept of (socio-) pedagogical tact, including its ethical and moral self-positioning and current demands for its operationality (1); will come the presentation of an empirical examination of the opportunities and limits to the feasibility of meeting these demands, based on a current example from the field of social work: ‘integrated family support’ (2); finally, options for further investigation of the potential effects of ‘socio-pedagogical tact’ will be identified (3).

Reputation Burning: Analyzing the Impact of Brand Sponsorship on Social Influencers

The growth of the influencer marketing industry warrants an empirical examination of the effect of posting sponsored videos on influencers’ reputations. We collected a novel data set of user-generated YouTube videos created by prominent English-speaking influencers in the beauty and style category. We extracted a rich set of theory-driven video features and used DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux reweighting to construct comparable treatment and control groups matched at the influencer-video level. The empirical analysis of the matched sample revealed a reputation-burning effect; that is, posting a sponsored video, compared with posting an equivalent organic video, cost the influencers 0.19% of their reputation (operationalized as the number of subscribers). The reputation-burning effect was stronger among the influencers with larger audiences. An analysis of likes, comments, and comment texts revealed a larger gap in audience response between sponsored and organic videos among the influencers with larger (versus smaller) audiences. The reputation-burning effect was mitigated when a high fit existed between the sponsored content and the influencer’s “usual” content and when the promoted brand was less well known. Our study empirically tested the assumption of several theoretical works. Moreover, it contributes to the literature on influencer marketing and celebrity endorsements and provides managerial implications for influencers, brands, and social media platforms. This paper was accepted by D. J. Wu, information systems. Funding: This research was supported by funding provided by Harvard Business School. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00193 .

The Elite Global Citizen: How Wealth Shapes Cosmopolitan Identity and Charitable Intentions

ABSTRACTIn four studies, we provide the first empirical examination of how wealth relates to cosmopolitan identity and its consequences for charitable intentions. Study 1 demonstrated that wealth positively predicted cosmopolitan identity in a 60‐nation dataset (n = 90,350). Study 2 replicated this finding with multi‐item measures in the United States, India and Australia (total n = 861); self‐esteem and self‐efficacy accounted for this association. Study 3 demonstrated the mediating role of cosmopolitan identity in explaining the link between wealth and charitable intentions (n = 351). Study 4 provided causal evidence for these relationships by experimentally manipulating wealth perceptions in the United States and India (total n = 537). People who were made to feel wealthy (as opposed to poor) reported greater self‐esteem and self‐efficacy, which flowed through to heightened cosmopolitan identification, and finally to increased charitable intentions. Together, these studies suggest that structural economic realities may impose psychological barriers to cultivating global citizenship, hence implicating prosocial downstream consequences.

Can Experimental Political Philosophers be Modest in their Aims?

AbstractThe last two decades have seen an increasing interest in exploring philosophical questions using methods from empirical sciences, i.e., the so-called experimental philosophy approach. Political philosophy has so far been relatively unaffected by this trend. However, because political philosophers typically rely on traditional philosophical methods—most notably reflective equilibrium in a form which requires neither empirical examination of people’s considered beliefs nor experimental attention to psychological studies of the mechanisms affecting those beliefs—it is as proper a target of the standard challenges from experimental philosophers as any other philosophical discipline. Sometimes experimental philosophers modestly present their approach as a supplement to traditional philosophical methods. I argue that the arguments in favour of experimental philosophy are such that if they are sound, then the use of empirical methods should drastically change how political philosophy is done.

Does a business education make for better innovative managers? An empirical examination of CEOs’ business education, CEO duality and R&D investment intensity

This study aims to explore how chief executive officers (CEOs) business education influences their company's investment in Research and Development (R&D) taking into account the moderating impact of CEO duality. Risks related to investment in research and development might have an impact on CEOs who are responsible for improving management effectiveness and company value. Insufficient education among executives can hinder effective oversight. Findings from analyzing data from 1632 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2020 of companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges reveal that CEOs with dual roles tend to prioritize R&D investments and innovation. Additionally, CEOs without a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or executive MBA education (EMBA) exhibit a greater willingness to take risks leading to more innovation and spending on R&D. This research emphasizes the need to consider CEOs' demographics, board structures and governance mechanisms to promote innovation in companies.

Retaliation in workplace sexual assault: The effect of #MeToo on federal court cases in the United States

The number of federal claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the United States by alleged victims of workplace sexual assault increased following the #MeToo movement along with allegations of retaliation by employers against these victims for making formal claims of sexual discrimination. This study distinctively presents an examination, not of the number of EEOC claims, but instead those claims which became federal court cases over the last three years in which a claims of workplace retaliation were alleged because of sexual assault in the workplace. The study provides an empirical examination of numerous characteristics, related factors, and outcomes of such retaliation cases involving sexual assault in the contemporary #MeToo era. The implications of these diverse results are advanced along with recommendations for employers and employees alike.

Unveiling how consumers accept digital-only fashion: an empirical examination building upon the functional theory of attitudes

Unveiling how consumers accept digital-only fashion: an empirical examination building upon the functional theory of attitudes

Succession planning practices and succession success in family-owned businesses: the role of leadership style as internal branding mechanism

PurposeAlthough leadership style plays a critical role in succession planning practices and succession success, empirical examination of its influence on the relationship between succession planning and success of succession in family-owned SMEs has received little attention in the literature. This study examines the interactive effect of the various types of leadership styles as internal branding mechanisms on the success of succession in family-owned SMEs.Design/methodology/approachWe analyzed the data from 124 managers/CEOs of family-owned SMEs that have at least transitioned beyond one incumbent leader using SPSS Version 29.FindingsThe result shows that succession planning practices are positively associated with succession success. It further shows that leaders who brand themselves as transformational and participatory leaders have a positive, significant interactive effect on the relationship between succession planning activities and succession success. The positive relationship between succession planning activities and succession success is dampened when managers rely too heavily on a transactional leadership style. Both autocratic and laissez-faire types of leadership have no significant interactive effect on the relationship.Originality/valueThe study is distinct from past studies. Until now, knowledge about the interactive effect of the various leadership styles as internal branding mechanisms on the relationship between succession planning practices like coaching, mentoring, job rotation and training and succession success in family-owned businesses remains limited. Theoretically, the study is pioneering in the sense that it is among the first studies that extends internal branding to succession planning in family-owned businesses. The study enlightened our understanding of how the various leadership styles and internal branding mechanism influence succession success in family-owned SMEs.

Firm Heterogeneity and India’s Manufacturing Exports: Lessons on Protection and Trade Theory

ABSTRACT Empirical examinations of heterogeneity among Indian manufacturing firms provide helpful lessons for trade theories and policies. Using descriptive statistics of cross-section data for 2011, 2015, and 2019, the asymptotic Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, and regression analysis, the study reveals that firms are heterogeneous within each 4-digit National Industrial Classification (NIC) category, exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters, and exporter premia decline with trading activities. The study concludes that recent protectionist policies reduced extensive trade margins, firm heterogeneity, and productivity in the Indian manufacturing sector.