Virtual manufacturing is an emerging manufacturing practice that is increasingly popular among manufacturers. Unlike the conventional practices of outsourcing and/or sub-contracting different aspects of the operations function for the sake of cost reduction, the success of virtual manufacturing requires an in-depth understanding and innovative applications of operations strategies, supply chain management techniques, and business dynamics that are key to operations management. On the other hand, the ongoing downturn in the global economy, together with such trends as rapidly changing customer behaviours and increasing demand from society, has rendered the manufacturing industry highly competitive. Therefore, it is necessary for virtual manufacturing firms to find ways to sustain their business and organizational performance. Identification of the critical capabilities of virtual manufacturing is the first step in this direction because it enables virtual manufacturing firms to understand the sources of their competitive advantage on the one hand, and to leverage their assets to achieve superior organizational performance on the other.

Dr Alex Wong Siu Wah 2019 DBA Graduate Chairman and CEO King’s Flair International (Holdings) Limited Supervisor: Ir Professor Edwin Cheng

The aim of this study is then to identify the critical capabilities of firms that adopt virtual manufacturing and understand their organizational performance implications. So far, studies on virtual manufacturing are limited. Specifically, few studies have been conducted to identify the critical capabilities of virtual manufacturing and examine how they are related to the virtual manufacturing firm’s organizational performance. To fill this gap, this study is undertaken whereby two lists of potential critical capabilities from the academic perspective (based on generic and industry-specific (manufacturing) perspectives) and practical perspective (based on focused groups in accordance with the Grounded Theory approach) were compiled. From the lists, nine initial constructs containing 100 measurement indicators of capabilities and six initial constructs with 70 measurement indicators of organizational performance measures pertinent to virtual manufacturing were identified. Based on the identified initial constructs and their corresponding measurement indicators of capabilities and organizational performance measures, a structured survey questionnaire was designed for data collection and applied to conduct an organizational-level field study. The survey questionnaire was sent to 193 targeted respondents, selected suppliers of King’s Flair International (Holdings) Limited (SEHK: 6822.HK), to collect data. The survey returned 150 valid responses, which were analyzed by exploratory factor analysis to identify the potential critical capabilities and organizational performance measures pertinent to virtual manufacturing, and by multiple regression analysis to examine their relationships to determine the critical capabilities of virtual manufacturing.

Four critical capabilities, namely technological capability, marketing capability, dynamic capability, and relationship capability, and four organizational performance measures, namely personnel performance, corporate social performance, relationship performance, and marketing performance were identified. The four critical capabilities are statistically associated with the four organizational performance measures at different levels of significance. Relationship capability is the most prominent among the four critical capabilities as it is significantly associated with all the four organizational performance measures in the case of virtual manufacturing.

A case study of King’s Flair International (Holdings) Limited was conducted to validate the statistical findings of this study, whereby the measures and practices undertaken to achieve superior organizational performance were critically reviewed and discussed. Another listed virtual manufacturing company in Hong Kong, the Li & Fung Limited (SEHK: 494.HK), was also studied for benchmarking purposes.

This study contributes to research on virtual manufacturing from the academic perspective by identifying the critical capabilities of virtual manufacturing, and to practice of virtual manufacturing from the application perspective by establishing the relationships among the critical capabilities and different organizational performance measures. This study also contributes to real-world operations management by providing guidance to virtual manufacturing firms on prioritizing and allocating resources for developing, maintaining, and enhancing their critical capabilities to attain superior organizational performance.

Investor Relations Management (IRM) has become more and more important since 1980s for many firms and has become a professional function taking the responsibility of the peripheral part of the firm’s chief financial officer (Useem 1993; Rosenbaum 1994). There have been some findings focusing on the relationship and relevance between effective IRM and analyst coverage, liquidity, institutional investors following share price, market value, even cost of capital. Previous research findings show that investor relations management reduces information asymmetry, and increases institutional ownership. Throughout the global market, almost all of them are dominated by institutional investors. But in Chinese A-share market, it is still dominated by individual investors which accounted for more than 80% of trading volume in the year 2018. Individual investors are good at short-term holding, lack of systematic understanding of the company itself and its industry characteristics. Because small and medium-sized investors are often limited by professional knowledge and information acquisition ability, and it is difficult to maintain communication and interaction with listed companies, listing companies always take analysts as one of the key targets to manage investor relations. They provide investment advice for institutions and individual investors in the form of predicting corporate profits and writing research reports. This brings with it a result that listed companies would always pay more attention to institutional investors, analysts or media, but putting very few focuses and resources on individual investors.

Dr Cai Jin 2020 DBA Graduate General Manager (Capital Markets and Investor Relations) Kaisa Group Holdings Limited Adjunct Professor School of Accounting and Finance The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Supervisors: Dr Steven Wei and Dr Yangyang Fan

There are very few researches focusing on and investigating the relationship between IRM and investors and analysts. This paper aims to examine and test the effect of IRM on investors and analysts in A-share market in mainland China, by way of testing the effect of IRM on investors’ and analysts’ reaction when firms make announcement about their earnings.

The aim of this research is to identify the use of IRM in crisis management, and the need for improvement of IRM with individual investors in Chinese A-share market.

Findings of this research will be significantly useful for listed companies in A-share market, providing them with reliable evidence that IRM is of great use in crisis management, and IRM with individual investors should be further improved.