This study investigates the impact of a specific organizational form – partnership – on employees’ awareness of risk control and job engagement in securities companies. Given that their organizational performance relies heavily on the performance of individual employees, it is critical for securities companies in China to adopt appropriate organizational forms so that they can better captalize on their employees’ human capital to cope with the increasingly intense market competition. Partnership, as one of the few organizational forms, has been widely adopted in industries that rely on the performance of individuals, such as law, auditing, consulting, and investment banking, around the world. In the context of China’s emerging economy, it has also been adopted as an incentive system by market leaders across several industries, including Alibaba in online shopping, Vanke in real estate, and Fosun in investments. In contrast, partnership has not been adopted or implemented by securities companies in China as most of them are still state-owned enterprises.

Based on my review of the corporate governance literature and qualitative analysis of partnership adoption in China, I propose that partnership can help better alighn the interests of employees with owners in securities companies as well. Specifically, the prospect of becoming a partner in the future can improve employees’ awareness of risk control and increase their job engagement. Taking advantage of partnership adoption at a Chinese securities company as a natural field experienment, I surveyed its employees about their awareness of risk contrl and job dedication before and after the adoption. The results from 505 matched surveys showed an increase in the average scores of both awareness of risk control and job dedication after the company adopted partnership as a new organizational form. Findings of this study have important implications for organizational and incentive design for securities companies in China.

Chinese commercial banks have experienced a period of fast and stable development since 2007. The adoption of a comprehensive enterprise risk management (ERM) system based on the Basel Accords was a significant event for the banking supervisory authority and the commercial banks during this period. This study investigates the impact of ERM adoption on the financial performance of the commercial banks as well as the underlying mechanisms using longitudinal data of 96 commercial banks from 2007 to 2016. Results from quantitative analyses suggest the following findings. First, ERM adoption had a positive impact on commercial banks’ financial performance after controlling for the negative impacts of factors such as macro economic conditions and fiscal and monetary policies. Second, although this positive impact was partially attributed to increased risk appetite after the adoption of ERM, results show that ERM adoption also increased risk-adjusted financial performance. Lastly, ERM adoption improved commercial banks’ competence in risk management, as indicated by their sensitivity of financial returns to risk exposures. The above findings also received support from interviews and surveys of senior executives of commercial banks and officials of the banking supervisory authorities.

This study contributes to the understanding of how the adoption of ERM influences the financial performance of Chinese commercial banks, and has important practical implications. Based on the empirical findings, I recommend all commercial banks in China to adopt and implement ERM so that they can better cope with the challenges presented by macroeconomic uncertainty, marketization, and internationalization. In the process, it is critical for them to understand the mechanisms through which ERM influences their performance. Meanwhile, they shall be aware of the operational costs associated with the initial adoption of ERM, learn from the experiences of those that have already adopted ERM, and have a long-term orientation about performance effect of ERM adoption. Supervisory authorities can also play a key role in guiding commercial banks to be more effective and efficient in the adoption of ERM.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been playing a very significant role in the capital market. Many companies regard mergers and acquisitions as an important way for their business expansion and transformation. This paper begins with a review of literature on firm’s motivations of and outcomes in M&A, and followed by a critical examination of three case studies of actual M&A transactions based on the insights provided from the literature review. For each case study, a firm’s motivations and related managerial initiatives for M&A activities were examined, followed by an assessment of the firm’s post M&A performance results. This allows the study to discerns the insights of why and how a firm proceed in its M&A transactions from its strategic intent to its post M&A managerial actions. Collectively, the results show that the key drivers for a firm’s M&A successes rest on a firm’s abilities to manage the M&A activities consistent with its strategic intent (e.g., creating synergies or transformation through diversification) and followed by its post M&A integration efforts in achieving its strategic intent.

This study investigates the performance effects of cross-industry mergers and acquisitions (M&A) using a sample of firms listed in China’s Growth Entrepreses Market (GEM). Compared to firms listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, firms listed in the GEM are much smaller and tend to derive the majority of their revenues from a single industry. I first analyze the motives for firms listed in the GEM to engage in M&As and propose a set of factors that may influence their likelihood of M&A activities. Using data on 55 cross-industry M&As between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2016, I find that investor generally responded positively in short-term, as indicated by the positive accumulated abonormal returns over the first five trading days following the announcements. Meanwhile, I found no evidence that investors benefited from cross-industry M&As in long-term over three years after the event. Further analysis suggests that the short-term effects of cross-industry M&As by GEM listed firms were influenced by the target firm’s market valuation, whether the M&A was paid by cash, the amount of the payment, and the degree of difference between the acquiring firm’s and the target firm’s industries. These findings have important implications for the investors and senior executives of firms listed in the GEM.

The emergence and fast growth of shared workspaces have attracted increasing attention from investors, practitioners, and researchers. Overall, this industry is still at an early stage of development and the business models of shared workspace providers are still evolving. To enhance the understanding of the different business models adopted by the leading shared workspace providers, I conduct an in-depth qualitative analysis of three current market leaders - Regus, WeWork, and UrWork – using the Business Model Canvas proposed by Osterwalder (2008). My analysis suggests that shared workspace providers creates value by offering three tiers of services: (1) satisfying users’ needs for physical office spaces, (2) helping them build an enterprise eco-system, and (3) facilitating the development of a user community. I further use the PEST model to analyze how the macro-environmental factors in China and U.S. may have contributed to the development of different shared workspace business models in these two countries. Based on the above analyses, I propose a list of factors that may be critical to investors’ valuations of shared workspace companies.

University graduates play a significant role in the labor market of China. Universities continuously supply senior talents and provide a strong guarantee to the country’s development. However, with the enlargement of the enrollment scale, more and more graduates become unemployed or forced to be employed. Most literatures mainly focus on the unemployed phenomenon or reasons, but had neglected the relationship among the employment, universities and the labor market. This assay is trying to using the supply and demand theory of classical economics to analyze the training direction and model of university from the perspective of the supply and demand of labor market. This assay proposes that universities have to integrate with the demand of the labor market so that to cultivate the talents to meet the social needs.

Firstly, the essay analyzes the relationship between the universities education and the supply and demand labor market by using the view of labor economics, and shows the mainly phenomenon and features of supply-demand imbalance. And then, the writer considered that universities talent cultivation development of China has gone through “absolute shortage”, “relative shortage” and “structural unbalanced” three stages. Thirdly, the survey results confirmed that the talent cultivation in universities does not match the demand of the labor market. On one other hand, over educated is a common phenomenon in the academic education. On the other hand, the graduates are lack of education skills training. Fourthly, the essay analyzes the reasons which lead to the unbalance. The unbalance is not only affected by the macro factors, but also by the micro factors. Fifthly, build up the interaction system model “UPT-LM” for the universities talent cultivation and the labor market, and separately building up the macro interaction system and the micro interaction system to analyze the balance of supply and demand. Based on this, it should strengthen the interaction on the feedback mechanism. At last, strengthening the connection of universities talent cultivation and labor market is a systematic program which needs the corporation from the government, the universities and the labor market.