From a supply chain perspective, new technologies such as blockchain can improve the efficiency and competitiveness of logistics and increase customer satisfaction. Although blockchain technology has been lauded as a way for firms to build sustainable supply chain networks, the rate of acceptance of this technology remains low. Therefore, this study seeks to identify the factors that discourage firms from merging blockchain with the supply chain. Instead of providing further reasons for adopting blockchain technology, we try to understand what deters firms from adding blockchain to their operations. Following the deductive approach, a confirmatory factor analysis is conducted on pre-test questionnaires to test, improve, and verify the constructs (questions) to measure the hypothesized factors. A theoretical model is proposed based on the hypotheses, and structural equation modeling is applied. The results are estimated using the partial least squares approach and a sample of 83 respondents. Our findings based on our empirical data support most of our hypotheses. We find that various factors impede the adoption of blockchain technologies, including technological barriers, constraints rooted in organizations and the environment, and system-related governmental barriers. In addition, various factors are critical determinants of resistance to blockchain in the technological, organizational, and environmental dimensions.

This study examines the impact of the quality of online shopping logistics services on customer satisfaction and in driving subsequent repeat purchasing behavior. Five hypotheses are established to represent the relationships between customer satisfaction and each factor of logistics services: quality of information, quality of order, quality of delivery, price of delivery, and customer service. The research includes surveys conducted over two months from 1 December, 2016, to 31 January, 2017, targeting mostly young Chinese customers with experience purchasing products online, thus representing e-commerce. A questionnaire was distributed to each subject in a sample of 150 Chinese customers with online shopping experience. The empirical analysis indicates that logistics service quality, and primarily the quality of delivery, has a statistically significant impact on customer satisfaction, which, in turn, has a statistically significant impact on repeat purchasing behavior. The results provide insight into the strategy behind China’s rapidly growing online shopping industry, which focuses on maintaining stability through long-term customer relationship management.

This study investigates the monitoring effectiveness of the largest institutional blockholder in Korea, the Korean National Pension Service (KNPS), on firms’ engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We use a large, unique sample from Korea, where the financial market is primarily characterized by chaebols. We show that lagged KNPS blockholdings do not significantly influence investee firms’ concurrent CSR indexes. This result indicates that even the largest institutional blockholder in Korea does not actively engage in firms’ CSR initiatives to enhance their long-term performance and prosperity. Overall, our results suggest that institutional investors should more actively serve as an effective corporate governance mechanism in emerging Asian markets, where companies aim to be profitable and long-term corporate governance is very important.

We conducted an empirical analysis to verify the relationship between companies’ ownership structures and earnings management. Our sample included 480 nonfinancial companies listed on Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and Hanoi Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2017, and our explanatory variables included several ratios, such as the controlling shareholders’ stake, management ownership stake, state-owned stake, and foreign ownership stake, which represent different ownership structures. We examined the effects of these ratios on earnings management. Our results suggested that earnings management has a significant linear relationship with the state-owned and foreign ownership stakes. Our results can enhance the understanding of the role of companies’ sustainable ownership structures in limiting earnings management, and they can contribute to future studies of the relationship between earnings management and corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting assurance practices that focus on corporate ownership structures.

Around the globe, socially responsible activities are being integrated into regulations, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly being recognized as a means of sustaining a business and improving its competitiveness. South Korea has made a significant effort to encourage CSR activities in order to increase its firms’ competitive advantage. This study evaluates the sustainable development activities of Korean firms, and empirically analyzes the positive impact of CSR on corporate performance (CP) in Korea over a period of four years. A comparison by industry reveals that CSR has a greater impact on CP in the manufacturing sector than it does in the nonmanufacturing and service sectors. Furthermore, the results for consumption goods are more positive than those for industrial goods, because the former are, in general, more affected by customer feedback. A case study of three Korean firms was used to examine CSR implementation in Korea, recent activities undertaken by Korean firms, and the integration of CSR concepts into firms’ strategies.