Faculty & Research

Sample Research Achievements in 2021

1. In 2021, Lang Yi published “Are ‘System’ and ‘People’ Complementary or Alternative? The Impact of High-Performance HR Management Systems and Leaders’ Support on Employees’ Relational Psychological Contracts”, with the main points as follows:

Based on the perspective of meaning construction, this paper explores the establishment of employees’ relational psychological contract from the perspective of the meaning construction of support from system and leaders, and makes a preliminary exploration of the differences in the existing literature on whether the support from system and leaders is alternative or complementary. The results of the analysis of 1985 employees from 141 enterprises show that the perceived high-performance human resource management system, leaders’ support and work values of employees jointly affect the establishment of employees’ relational psychological contracts. The paper not only provides new perspectives for research such as the interaction between institutions and leadership, psychological contracts, and strategic human resource management, but also answers the important practical question of "how to better apply institutions and leadership to help employees establish relational psychological contracts."

2. In 2021, Li Xue published “Quality and Private Label Encroachment Strategy” in Production and Operations Management, with the main ideas as follows:

For manufacturer brands, private label is a competitive product, and private label intrusion occurs when a downstream retailer introduces a private label into the market, thereby placing themselves in a competitive relationship with its partner manufacturers upstream in the supply chain. Compared with manufacturer brands, private labels are generally positioned as products of lower quality and lower price. In recent years, however, it has been witnessed that a number of retailers introducing premium private labels to the market, which offer better quality and higher prices than manufacturer brands. The introduction of high-quality private labels represents a form of vertical differentiation in the high-end market, which may further enhance the bargaining power of retailers. However, the introduction of high-quality private labels is accompanied by a corresponding increase in their quality-related production costs. This trade-off between gain and loss therefore leads us to ask: why would a retailer introduce a high-quality private label product? If introduced, under what conditions? How will a retailer's private label differentiation strategy affect the performance of manufacturers and retailers and the game between the two? To address the above problems, the paper considers two quality differentiation scenarios, namely low-quality differentiation and high-quality differentiation. In the case of low-quality introduction, consumers prefer to choose the manufacturer brand when the retail price of private label and manufacturer brand is similar; the opposite is true in the case of high-quality introduction. By constructing an upstream and downstream game model of the supply chain, we optimize the price and quality decisions in both situations to obtain the optimal profit of the enterprise, and then obtain the optimal private brand quality level and introduction strategy equilibrium.

3. In 2021, LIAN Zeng published “International Friendship Cities and Cross-Border M&A of Chinese Enterprises--An Empirical Study Based on zephyr Global M&A Analysis Transaction Database” in Finance and Trade Economics, with the main ideas as follows:

International friendship city is a kind of long-term formal relationship with the main purpose of promoting commercial and cultural exchanges between countries (regions), which is important for promoting practical cooperation in various fields among international cities and building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Based on the cross-border M&A data of Chinese enterprises and international sister city twinning data between 2008 and 2019, this paper investigates the impact of the establishment of international sister cities on the amount of cross-border M&A, the number of M&A and the success rate of M&A. It is found that the establishment of international friendly cities plays a significant role in promoting the total amount and number of cross-border M&As of Chinese-funded firms, while the role on the success rate is not significant. By examining the characteristics of M&A host countries and M&A firms, it was found that the positive effects of international friendly cities were more pronounced for countries without Confucian cultural backgrounds, and the promotion effects on cross-border M&A of state-owned enterprises and service-oriented enterprises were stronger. The mechanism of action test indicates that the establishment of international friendship cities can promote cross-border M&As of Chinese firms through three ways: enhancing information exchange between China and the host country, improving the host country's cultural identity with China, and reducing trade costs between the two countries.

Based on the above conclusions, the paper proposes the following policy recommendations: first, build a sound institutional mechanism to continuously explore and give full play to the important role of international friendship cities in the international economic and trade field. As an important form of unofficial diplomacy, international friendship cities are not only an important channel for cultural exchanges between countries, but also play an indispensable role in promoting economic and trade exchanges. Second, encourage private enterprises to make full use of the international friendship city dividend and actively "go out" to acquire foreign high-quality assets. The government should give relevant policy support to private enterprises and vigorously encourage private enterprises to "go global" to help Chinese-funded enterprises accumulate cross-border M&A experience.

4.  In 2021, Liu Jun published "Can Robots Alleviate the Labor Shortage In China Brought about by Aging" in "Finance and Trade Economy", with the following main points.

At present, China is in a "critical period" when it is "shifting from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development". Artificial intelligence and robotics are already an important part of "providing new dynamic energy for high-quality development". The need to study the economic impact of robotics is urgent in order to realize high quality development in China. The study firstly examines the likelihood of replacement of different occupations in China, using LASSO regression and random forest methods. In addition, based on the perspective of robot substitution ability, I investigate whether robots can alleviate the labor shortage brought about by China's aging population from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.

5. In 2021, Wen Wen published “‘National team’ shareholding and corporate irregularities” in Management Science, No. 4, and the main academic points are as follows：

This paper explores the governance effects of special institutional investors with government backgrounds such as the "national team" from the perspective of corporate irregularities. The study finds that the "national team" shareholding significantly inhibits the company's irregularities, and companies with "national team" shareholding have lower propensity to violate and less frequent violations; the mechanism of action test shows that the "national team" shareholding plays a role in governing violations by improving the company's internal control system, restraining the opportunistic behavior of management, and improving information transparency. Compared with general violations, the shareholding of the "national team" has a stronger inhibitory effect on serious violations; The longer the "national team" holds the shares, the more obvious the governance effect on the company's violations.