|
Humour, as a double-edged sword, not only is a lubricant but also can be detrimental to interpersonal relationships. It is a key to developing interpersonal relations as it reduces social distances (Mesmer-Magnus, Glew, & Viswesvaran, 2012) and establishes interpersonal connectedness (Treger, Sprecher, & Erber, 2013). Humour blurs the social hierarchy (Ziv, 2010) and reduces the social distance within the group (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012; Romero & Cruthirds, 2006). However, a bad joke or failed humour may lead the recipients to view the actor as stupid, undesirable, unlikeable, unattractive, incompetent, and foolish (Williams & Emich, 2014). Along the same line, clown personality can also weaken the positive consequences of humour. Even though there is often a clown in every workplace, clown personality, which is undermined and perceived as useless, stupid, and unprofessional, has been seldom discussed in the management literature. According to Ackroyd and Thompson (1999), clown personality is defined in the workplace as enjoyment of making fools of oneself for the amusement of others. In this study, I intend to leverage the social exchange theory to explore the relational consequences of humour in an interpersonal dyad under clown personality. Specifically, this research further looks into how humour influences interpersonal helping behaviour and the moderation effect of clown personality. |
 |
|
Dr Wu Wai Yee 2019 DBA Graduate General Manager Kwok Tai Screws Manufactory Limited Supervisors: Prof. Xu Huang and Prof. Wu Liu |
Based on the three scenario-based experiments, the link between an individual’s humour, recipient’s reciprocal respect, and the helping behaviour was successfully proven. The findings demonstrate that the facilitating effect of an individual’s humour on the recipient’s reciprocal helping behaviour, through the recipient’s respect towards the focal individual was essential. Futhermore, it exhibites that an individual’s clown personality weakens the positive consequences of humour. That is, when an individual has a strong clown personality, the individual’s humour would less likely lead to the recipient’s respect or reciprocal helping behaviour. This study offers theoretical contributions to the humour literature and practical implications on the use of humour which could be beneficial to individuals and organizations.
|
In response to the competitive environment nowadays, creativity is vital and a key determinant for the success of many organizations. Research in marketing has suggested that collaborative communication is important to sustain competitive advantage. Leveraging the Resource-based view, this research provides a comprehensive view to examine the different facets of collaborative communication - reciprocal feedback, rationality, formal communication, and informal communication, on meaningfulness and novelty of new product creativity, and their impacts on new product performance in a multinational manufacturing company. Based on 181 sets of responses, my findings indicated that rationality posits a significant positive effect on the meaningfulness of new product creativity, which in turn contributes to new product performance. As for the novelty of new product creativity, it is influenced by informal communication, and the use of ICT further moderates the influence of informal communications on the novelty of new product creativity. This study provides theoretical contributions to the new product development literature as well as practical insights on the essence of collaborative communication to new product creativity and new product performance. |
 |
|
Dr Chan Ming Hei 2021 DBA Graduate Senior Director, Business Development Techtronic Industries Company Limited Supervisor: Dr Vincent Cho |
|
A family trust ownership-controlled company (FTOC) provides a means of family control and management that facilitates value. It is a corporate control framework comprising a discretionary trust integrated with a family relationship element that improves accounting performance. The FTOC’s trust format facilitates the family’s controlling ownership concentration of the business, thereby encouraging the beneficiary and trustee to participate in the management of the company and creating value. Therefore, an FTOC managed by a beneficiary and a trustee mitigates agents costs and performs better, especially while managerial trustee is also a beneficiary, combined effects (ROA and net worth growth) on performance. Subsequently, having a managerial beneficiary moderate agency costs for the trustee, while a managerial trustee moderate agency costs for the manager. Furthermore, the presence of a next-generation managerial beneficiary and trustee further boosts the net worth and performance of the FTOC, particularly while next-generation managerial trustee is also a beneficiary, compounded effects (net worth growths) on performance. Despite the fact that FTOC is positively associated with accounting performance; this benefit does not transfer to financial market valuation, causing hindrance in financing projects from the external equity fund market as investors are unlikely to pay an equity price that is higher than its valuation. Even though this setback, FTOC has the option to self-finance using internal resources gained through net worth growth. Furthermore, FTOC and family trust beneficiaries (FTBs), aware that their company is performing well, may be encouraged to purchase shares from the market at a low market valuation price. In practice, the founder of an FTOC is in an ideal position to understand the characteristics of the FTOC’s sustainability such as increased survivorship and the advantages of the beneficiary and trustee’s participation in management. Nevertheless, the founder must also be cautious in preparing the trust deed and letter of wishes to avoid endogeneity issues that the trustee not complying with the founder’s best interests and wishes. |
 |
|
Dr Lau Chung Hung 2021 DBA Graduate CEO/Owner Yee King Electronics Co., Ltd. Supervisor: Prof. Agnes Cheng |
|
A data breach is an incident where information is stolen from a system without the owner’s authorization. Both small companies and large organizations suffer from data breach incidents. Stolen data usually involves sensitive, proprietary, or confidential information such as credit card numbers, trade secrets, customer-specific data, or national security matters. The effects post a data breach can come in the form of damage to the target company’s firm value as well as reputation due to the “betrayal of trust” felt by the customer. Victims and customers usually will also suffer financial or monetary losses, as financial records can be part of the information stolen. Economic developments and technological improvements have driven modern financial regulation during the last three decades. Banks and financial service institutions have progressed to making the global markets more competitive, and currently, they work more efficiently for banking and financial services customers. Across the last two decades of digitization and data-rization, the finance sector has increasingly combined its services with related technologies, including online banking, mobile banking, e-financial services, e-credit checking, e-Insurance, big data and artificial intelligence, initial coin offerings ICOs, distributed ledgers and blockchain, smart contracts, regulatory technology (‘RegTech’), and digital identity, in a new era of FinTech. |
 |
|
Dr Fu Jiaojiao 2022 DBA Graduate Managing Director Hong Kong Vatican Investment and Management Ltd. Supervisors: Dr Xin Xu and Prof. Agnes Cheng |
The result of the advanced IT systems and devices in the financial service industry is that cybersecurity and data breach risks are now evolving into one of the major threats to the financial stability and financial security of banks and financial services across the globe. Furthermore, the new advancements of FinTech creative disruption and the cyber risks threaten the already weakened traditional banking and financial service models. The models depend on customer loyalty to upkeep the existing basic services. However, this loyalty is currently facing increased risks, partially caused by the technology challenges and improvements of new FinTech models of services.
The top motivation for cyber-attacks and threats are financial gain or money robbery. Cyber attackers or hackers use malware to obtain money from customer bank accounts. Other motivations for cybercrime may include sabotage or curiosity. There was an estimated cost of more than 2 trillion United States (US) dollars by 2019 on fraud or cyber threats and data breaches. The frequency and severity of cybercrime and cyber-attacks are increasing but can be controlled by further investment in system protection and new FinTech secure and safety technology.
Data breaches in the last two decades received significant attention in the financial press but little attention in the academic literature. Analysts and investors have little guidance on the effects of breaches on security-related financial losses. Additionally, when analysts, managers, and investors hear about a data breach, they have little guidance on the potential impact of the breach on the firm stock. Furthermore, the stock prices of different industry firms have different effects after cyber threats and data breach events. In this research study, hypothesis tests results shown that the post data breach incident firm value is negative for financial service firms in long term.
Data breach legislation differs in different countries around the world. Many countries still do not require firms to notify authorities of data breach incidents. However, in North America and France, firms are obliged to notify affected individuals of a data breach under certain conditions. In the US, listed firms need to disclose the data breach incidents, cyber-attack events, and financial losses estimated in financial reports as well as in public announcements.
Data breach notification laws in the US are one such approach. Forty-seven state laws and some sector-specific federal laws already require organizations suffering a data breach to disclose the incident and notify all customers if their data were exposed. Data breach notification laws serve two purposes for public policy. First, they incentivize organizations to protect sensitive data, as publicly disclosed security failures may harm their reputation and trigger costly remediation activities. Second, firms inform customers whose records were exposed, allowing them to react quickly to mitigate potential damages. More importantly, financial firms need to implement new skilled legal advisory personnel and make the correct disclosure and announcements post the data breach incidents. The disclosure and announcement need to meet legal requirements, comply with the law, meet the requirements of the board management, and be responsible to customers of the financial service firm. The skilled legal advisor or cyber security legal management officer needs to be in a senior position, and the trend is to position the law officer in the board room.
Based on the above, how major listed firms are affected in earnings and profits by cyber threats? How have the listed financial companies in the US disclosed the cyber security threats or data breach threats in their financial reports? How will firms handle a change of management or respond to the data breach incident in the board room to implement more security control? Finally, if the firms enhance corporate governance in cyber security control by employing an IT officer and implementing a legal background board room officer, will the firm value increase after the data breach incident?
Thus this research developed two hypotheses and performed additional empirical tests to examine 1) if the financial service firm value is impacted after data breach events, 2) how managers respond after data breach events, and whether the firm will add an IT officer to reinforce cyber security control and enhance corporate governance, and 3) finally, will employing an IT officer and legal background officer affect firm value.
Data were collected from databases of the global financial news channels, 3rd party analytical channels, companies’ public online reports, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports, listed companies’ earnings and profit reports, and companies’ own announcements. These were analyzed to evaluate cyber threats and data breach losses of firms among the top-listed US financial institutions.
This study analyzes current top-listed financial institutions during the recent nine years time frame (2010–2018) to test the hypotheses developed. The sample construction begins with the Audit Analytics database Cybersecurity Module. The sample is limited to financial service companies only (SIC 6000-6700). The data is then merged with the S&P Capital IQ COMPUSTAT database and the Institutional Shareholder Services Director and Governance database. After eliminating observations with necessary variables missing, there are 88 firm-breaches observations left, with 58 unique firms. The sample period is year 2010 to year 2018 to avoid possible confounding factors from major financial and economic events such as the financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. The research study also designed and developed methods to measure data breaches and firms’ cyber security awareness after the data breach incident.
In conclusion, the empirical results have shown that in US financial service industry, the listed firm value was negatively impacted after data breaches and cyber threat events disclosure, firms’ cyber security awareness increased, and firms responded after data breach events by adding an IT officer and reinforce corporate governance in cyber security and legal management by adding a legal skilled background member in the board room. Finally, additional tests have further shown that the firm value will be positively affected after firms increase cyber security awareness, employ an IT security control manager, and enhance corporate governance.
|
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) becomes an increasingly important topic in today’s business community and the academic world. In this thesis, I aim to contribute to this line of study by investigating how the ESG Performance of a company would impact on its credit rating and capital structure. I found that both ESG Disclosure and ESG Rating are positively correlated with credit rating. A company that has good ESG Disclosure and strong ESG Rating will have a good credit rating. I also found that good ESG Disclosure and strong ESG Rating are good proxies of conservative corporate risk management and there is a negative relationship between these ESG components on leverage, thus cater for capital structure considerations. Finally, ESG Disclosure do not have an impact on financial constraint whereas good ESG Rating can help to alleviate a company’s financial constraint by the reduction of cost of borrowing. My study hence bears important practical implications. Banks and investors should incorporate ESG Performance in their credit assessments and to use ESG Performance to help them understand the use of leverage in a company. Furthermore, companies should focus on the improvement of their ESG Rating in order to benefit from the reduction in their cost of borrowing. |
 |
|
Dr King Yuk Shun Augusto 2022 DBA Graduate Managing Director, Head of Capital Markets Group, Asia Pacific MUFG Securities Asia Ltd Supervisors: Prof. Wilson Tong and Dr Li Jiang |
|
This dissertation focuses on one specific type of online healthcare service: Online Preventive and Interceptive Orthodontic Treatment (OPIOT), which aims to assist the early planning for preventing and intervening the malocclusion for children. Rather than one-time intervention or treatment, effective OPIOT requires the parents to access it for long-term treatments continuously. Also, it engenders a new online service scape for healthcare that most people are unfamiliar with, and thus many factors can influence their adoption of OPIOT. Moreover, the efficacy of OPIOT relies on parents’ continuous adoption, which is further determined by their interactions with children and the necessary intervention of orthodontists. Aim: This dissertation aims to understand how to effectively promote the OPIOT service to parents who hope to prevent and intervene the malocclusion for children at the early stage. It tries to identify the fundamental factors that persuade consumers to adopt OPIOT service initially. This dissertation adopts the Theory of Problem-Solving Behavior as the umbrella framework to develop the proposed theoretical model. TPSB focused on how and why people react to problems and assumes individuals as problem solvers to initiate a nonroutine activity oriented toward changing an undesirable state of affairs. Accordingly, this dissertation postulates that consumers’ adoption of OPIOT starts from the parents’ awareness of the health status of the child (sleep disturbance, physical symptoms, emotional symptoms, and daytime dysfunction), which induces the parents’ concerns. The perceived parent-child relationship moderates the effects of health status on parents’ concerns. Meanwhile, in the procedure of problem-solving, peer influence and physician characteristics (perceived expertise and perceived physician support) are the antecedents of their trust towards OPIOT service. And finally, the parents’ concern and trust further determine the adoption intention and consumer compliance of OPIOT, which are moderated by the parents’ perceived self-efficacy in using the new healthcare service. |
 |
|
Dr Wang Ying 2022 DBA Graduate Senior Orthodontist The dental hospital affiliated Sun Yat-Sen University Supervisor: Dr Flora Gu |
Method: To empirically examine the proposed theoretical model, this dissertation organizes a nonprofit campaign, The Beauty Training Camp, for data collection. This dissertation conducts a two-wave design with an interval of approximately one month to reduce the concern of standard method variance procedurally. It collects the dataset by self-report questionnaire survey (sample size = 279). The model is estimated in Structural Equation Modeling in AMOS 22.0.
Results: This dissertation discloses the significant determinants of parents’ adoption intention and consumer compliance of OPIOT. As expected, the child's health status (except emotional symptoms) positively affects the parents’ concerns. Perceived expertise, peer influence, and perceived physician support significantly affect the parents’ trust in OPIOT. Both parents’ trust and concerns show a positive effect on adoption intention and consumer compliance. The perceived parent-child relationship strengthens the positive effect of children’s health status on parents’ concerns.
Conclusions: To successfully generalize the applications of OPIOT, the healthcare platforms are needed to consider the effects of the health status of users, user characteristics, physician characteristics, and social influence. To attract new adoptions, the OPIOT practitioners ought to pay more attention to the needs of potential users. The findings show that the health status of children, including sleep disturbance, physical symptoms, and daytime dysfunction has a positive impact on parents’ concerns. Besides, emotional symptoms do not influence parents’ concerns, which calls for more action to educate parents about the association between emotional symptoms and malocclusion problems. Furthermore, parents’ concerns are related to the adoption intention and consumer compliance of OPIOT, which implies that when parents are concerned about their child’s health, they will attempt to adopt OPIOT service and continuously use it.
Meanwhile, perceived expertise, peer influence, and perceived physician support significantly increase parents’ trust in OPIOT service, which influences parents’ adoption intention and consumer compliance of OPIOT service. Furthermore, the perceived parent-child relationship strengthens the relationship between health status and parents’ concerns. Meanwhile, perceived self-efficacy strengthens the relationship between parents’ trust and their adoption intention and consumer compliance of OPIOT. The findings of this dissertation reveal that OPIOT can effectively reach its potential users by targeting the consumer segments with high self-efficacy. Comprehensive media coverage can be favorable to promote the adoption of OPIOT, as the potential adopters are susceptible to peer recommendations. Besides, to maintain and encourage continuous usage of the adopters, OPIOT service providers should equip the parents with regular physician support and underscore the effective parent-child interactions during the OPIOT process. This dissertation advances theoretical development in the field of online healthcare services. The findings also provide insightful, practical implications for the professionals or organizations in the online healthcare service industry.
