Bernard Gan

Creating a competitive advantage by occupying critical position: analysis of the tourism academy network in Taiwan.

This study analyzed the relationship between the critical network position and knowledge creation at the individual level. The hypothesis was tested among a sample of 109 tourism research scholars from 24 universities with tourism management departments. The majority of these universities are located in northern, middle, or southern Taiwan. The analyses tracked 466 scholars’ publications, 651 applications for research funding, and 675 coauthorships between 1993 and 2012. The results revealed trade-offs and nonlinear relationships between the critical position and the quality/quantity of knowledge created. Furthermore, research funding played important moderating roles, as it positively moderated the association between critical position and knowledge quality but negatively moderated knowledge quantity.

Converging divergence: the effect of China’s Employment Contract Law on signing written employment contracts

This article explores: (1) whether the 2008 Employment Contract Law (ECL) (or Labor Contract Law) has increased the likelihood of employees having written employment contracts; (2) whether that law has produced a significant convergence effect relative to pre-existing patterns of diversity in signing rates between urban and migrant employees, more and less educated employees, employees in different types of enterprises and in more or less economically developed regions. We used data from the Sixth and Seventh Surveys of Chinese employees, covering approximately 80,000 individuals, undertaken in 2007 and 2012, just prior to and after the enforcement of the new ECL. The results demonstrate the effect of ‘converging divergence’. Convergence is evident in that this law has significantly increased the likelihood of employees signing employment contracts. Notably, the ‘signing gap’ between employees of state-owned enterprises and of privately owned enterprises has narrowed as has that between less and more educated employees. Divergence and disparity remain in that gaps in the likelihood of employees signing employment contracts persist among employees at different educational levels and in different enterprise ownership types or different provinces, even when the hukou identity gap is enlarged.

How “quality” determines customer satisfaction

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a research framework to explain the relationship between overall restaurant quality and customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – To test this model, the authors deploy 48 mystery shoppers to evaluate 496 Taiwanese restaurants. Further, the authors performed two different regression models and performing the Baron and Kenny (1986) procedure to test the hypotheses. Findings – This study investigates whether restaurants are susceptible to the quality and level of restaurant service, and the restaurant’s physical atmosphere. Further, this study investigates whether these two constructs are likely to improve customers’ perception of restaurant quality, and whether such a strategy may also lead to customers’ satisfaction and facilities word-of-mouth recommendations. Practical implications – The evidence suggests that the construct of “restaurant service” and “physical atmosphere” are strong determinant of improving customers’ perception of overall qu...

Business-Government Relations and Institutional Leadership in Singapore: The Case of the Singapore National Employers’ Federation

Industrial peace and rapid economic development have been central goals of the People’s Action Party (PAP) which has dominated Singapore’s government for more than 50 years. It gradually established a comprehensive tripartite corporatist system to achieve and maintain those goals. Industrial peace was also important for its strategy of attracting and retaining foreign direct investment, as was forging successful business-government relations. Until the formation of the Singapore National Employers’ Federation (SNEF) in 1980, employer representation remained fragmented. Faced with the enormous social and economic challenges it had unleashed through its second industrial revolution in 1979, the PAP required coordinated employer engagement in its principal corporatist bodies through a single authoritative employer voice. PAP’s role in fostering the SNEF’s formation demonstrated how institutional links contributed to a more effective distributed pattern of leadership in national business and labour coordination. We contend that by incorporating Asian values and institutional leadership, the Singaporean government adroitly interwove political and economic priorities with business interests in building coordinating mechanisms and successful policies to secure national success.

The postentry performance of business groups’ new venture affiliates:

Using resource dependence theory, this study examines the determinants of firm performance among business groups’ new venture affiliates using a sample of 1512 new venture affiliates associated with 104 large-sized business groups in Taiwan. The empirical findings reveal that improved affiliate postentry performance is linked to the relative size of a business group’s new venture affiliate and the level of autonomy inherent in decision-making. Furthermore, when the product market of a new venture affiliate is resource-related to its affiliated business group’s main business, this affiliate may benefit from resource relatedness with an improved return on equity. JEL Classification: M10, M16, M38

Employers' associations in Singapore: Tripartite engagement

[Extract] Employers’ associations have received less attention in the industrial relations literature than have trade unions and government agencies. One reason for this may be that inter- country variation in the structure and functions of employers’ associations precludes general schema (Bean 1994: 72). Another is employer reticence to disclose information to researchers, resulting in researchers’ preference for more accessible information on industrial conflict and trade unions (Schmitter and Streeck 1999; Sheldon and Thornthwaite 1999; Traxler 2000). In the case of Singapore, it was recently observed that a reference to the merger of Singapore’s employers’ associations in 1980 was ‘perfunctory’ and substantially underestimated its importance (Sheldon et al. 2015: 438). Gan (2010) and Sheldon et al. (2015) have sought to remedy the apparent neglect. This chapter aims to follow them with an analysis and assessment of the structure, strategies and roles of Singapore’s employers’ associations.

Clarifying the effect of organization learning on service innovation: the mediating role of intellectual capital

Abstract The study of intellectual capital has gained interest in today’s highly competitive landscape. Using intellectual capital as a mediator, this paper developed an integrated model to examine whether organization learning affects and increases the capacity for new service development (NSD). The results from the study of 598 hotel managers support this model across multi-dimensions of intellectual capital and show that intellectual capital plays a mediating role between organizational learning and NSD. This paper also finds exploitative organization learning enhances the positive effect of organization capital because it fosters a positive link between relational capital and human capital. The study also discusses how this intriguing pattern of mediation could be explained by using theory and research with a regulatory focus.

Why “they” occupies the critical network positions?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw on social network theory to develop a new theoretical model to explain how experience and leadership influence critical network position. Broad analyses of the mediating role of leadership between experience and critical network position calls attention to the need to investigate the direct relationship between leadership and critical network position. Empirical examinations of the roles of leadership and experience within the social network context are lacking. The authors seeks to fill this gap by constructing a new theoretical model and testing it in the knowledge-intensive sector. Design/methodology/approach – The authors made 3,356 observations involving 427 faculty members in business and management departments in Taiwanese universities. To test the model, the authors performed two different regression models using the Baron and Kenny (1986) procedure and the Sobel test. Findings – The results that the authors obtained lead to three conclusions. First, ...

A Widely Ranges of Social Relations Extension of Different Impacts on Knowledge Creation

A proposed theoretical framework for the study of social relationships and knowledge creation includes both benefits and costs of social relations expansion over different phases of social capital accumulation and extension. In a sample of research hypothesis tests, the results strongly supported predictions of a horizontal, inversed S-shaped relationship between social capital and knowledge creation. Furthermore, individuals accumulating experience would achieve greater advantage from gaining in maintaining the social relations and improving the performance of knowledge create. The framework and findings highlight the complexity and temporal dynamics in social activities.