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This is issue 4 of volume 11 (2008). This issue includes ten articles covering a variety of areas, such
as benefit strategies, investment models, corporate governance, e-marketing and finance.
The first article, by Kan and Li, proposes a model to analyse employee's needs in terms of benefit
issues according to the Delphi and AHP methods. By integrating Kano's model and the relevant concepts
of decision models, the authors establish a satisfaction decision diagram as well as principles to assist
companies determine appropriate benefit strategies. Through case studies of four enterprises, the authors argue
that the proposed model can be used to effectively understand the changes needed by employees as well
as maximizing their satisfaction in terms of benefit issues.
In the second article, by Pan et al., apply genetic programming to forecast the investment return and the
net value of domestic mutual funds. Data envelopment analysis is first employed to evaluate the performance
of 71 balanced funds. Funds with an efficiency ratio of one are selected for genetic programming to
establish the prediction model. Empirical results show that the proposed method outperforms both grey
prediction and multiple regression models.
In the third article, Xie and Li examine how electronic commerce can be applied to the culture and
art industries in the Taitung area of Taiwan. The emergence of e-galleries offers a new marketing channel to
the industry and enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing activities and communications.
Other novel information technologies such as database marketing and customized marketing are also studied in
the paper.
Wang et al., in the fourth article, study how the ethics codes is perceived by distributors of member
companies of the Taiwan Direct Selling Association (TDSA). Based on the study from 401 distributors of
TDSA members, the paper discusses how ethics codes perception, job satisfaction and organization
commitment are related to each other. The study results could be used to help direct-selling industries promote
their distributor's organization commitment and job satisfaction.
The fifth article, by Cai et al., investigates whether corporate governance plays an effective monitoring
role in reducing agency costs and enhancing intangible investments. Using a sample of Taiwanese listed
firms between 2001 and 2002, the authors conclude that management ownership has a significant effect
on reducing agency cost and in enhancing intangible investments. In addition, a large board size in
traditional listed firms has a positive effect on investment in intangible assets and outside block ownership in
high technology firms is positively related to asset utilization and intangible assets. Finally,
institutional shareholding is positively related to asset utilization, but has a negative effect on intangible
assets.
Xu et al., in the sixth article, discuss whether an overreaction effect existed in the Taiwan stock
market during the period of January 1997 to March 2003. The paper also explores the explanatory factors
to excess returns of the contrarian strategy through the monthly data of 117 stocks. The results indicate
that overreaction existed for the portfolio of two to 48 months and contrarian investment strategy will
obtain positive abnormal returns. The authors also claim that the proposed model has the highest
explanatory power to excess returns and the explanatory factors.
By utilizing envelopment analysis, Malmquist Index and Tobit regression, Chen et al., in the seventh
article, evaluate the performance of 279 credit unions between 2002 and 2003 with respect to their efficiency
and effectiveness. The authors report that while credit unions in Taiwan present a positive growth in
general, there is still room for improvement in terms of operation efficiency. They also recommend that credit
unions
revise their existing business so as to reduce overdue loans and enhance the overall performance by
referring to the managerial experience of headquarters of unions.
Zhu, in the eighth article, explores the influence on the antecedent, mediator and moderator factors of
online purchasing intention, and attempts to compensate the insufficiency regarding online purchasing behavior
by developing a complete online purchasing model. Not only can information-richness environment and
message framing increase the communication effect in terms of Internet advertisement, they also help
improve the enterprise image. The investigation also finds that Internet information-richness environment
and customer's product involvement degree affect each other, and negative message framing is more
efficient than positive message framing.
Li et al., in the ninth article, attempt to quantify the values of enterprises in the communication industry of
fine works award in Taiwan by utilizing a key performance index to classify seven major dimensions and
thirty measured indexes. Fuzzy AHP is then applied to set up an assessment model and find that the most
important key factors are research, development and innovation respectively.
The last article, by Jiang and Fang, investigates the exchange rate exposure of 18 Taiwan industrial
sectors between 1995 and 2005. The study modifies the asymmetric model proposed by Koutmos and Martin
by adding the asymmetric effort from the magnitude of exchange rate. The relationship between exchange
rate exposure and appreciation/depreciation is then reported.
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