Research summary:This study proposes that CEOs may undertake intensive acquisition activities to increase their social recognition and status after witnessing their competitors' winning CEO awards. Using a sample of U.S. S&P 1,500 firm CEOs, we find that CEOs engage in more intensive acquisition activities in the period after their competitors won CEO awards (i.e., postaward period), compared to the preaward period. Moreover, this effect is stronger when focal CEOs themselves had a high likelihood of winning CEO awards. Our findings also show that acquisitions by focal CEO firms in the postaward period realize lower announcement returns compared to acquisitions by the same CEOs in the preaward period. Managerial summary:Each year a few CEOs receive CEO awards from business media and CEOs who receive such awards become instant celebrities, that is, superstar CEOs. This study explores how superstar CEOs' competitors react to not winning CEO awards. We find that superstar CEOs' competitors undertake more intensive acquisition activities in the postaward period compared to the preaward period. This is particularly true for competitors who were close, yet did not win CEO awards. In addition, acquisitions by superstar CEOs' competitors are associated with lower announcement returns in the postaward compared to the preaward period. These findings collectively indicate that acquisitions may be used as a channel for superstar CEOs' competitors to elevate their own social status, but at a cost to shareholders.

Abstract-This paper presents MARS, a novel multilevel full-chip gridless routing system. The multilevel framework with recursive coarsening and refinement allows for scaling of our gridless routing system to very large designs. The downward pass of recursive coarsening builds the representations of routing regions at different levels while the upward pass of iterative refinement allows a gradually improved solution. We introduced a number of efficient techniques in the multilevel routing scheme, including resource reservation, graph-based Steiner tree heuristic and history-based iterative refinement. We compared our multilevel framework with a recently published three-level routing flow [1]. Experimental results show that MARS helps to improve the completion rate by over 10%, and the runtime by 11 7 .Index Terms-Design automation, routing optimization methods, very large scale integration (VLSI).

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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to decompose the effects of country-of-origin labeling (COOL) into multiple dimensions—macrolevel image, related to the country image, and microlevel image, related to dairy industry/product attributes—and investigate how each dimension affects Chinese consumers' evaluation of imported milk.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) auction mechanism to elicit consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for milk from different countries (New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France and China). The experiment was conducted with 348 shoppers at supermarkets in three major cities of China (Hangzhou, Wuhan and Shijiazhuang). The study subject was ultrahigh-temperature processing (UHT) milk (200 mL Tetra Pak aseptic brick package).FindingsThe results show that Chinese consumers are willing to pay a premium for UHT milk from New Zealand, Australia, Germany and France compared to domestic milk, and the premiums are 59.4, 58.9, 57.9, and 52.9% respectively. Both microlevel and macrolevel images exert a substantial influence on consumers' WTP, and the microlevel image has a greater impact on consumers' evaluation of milk than the macrolevel image. Particularly, the macropolitical, microtechnology/quality and microdesign/package dimensions have a positive influence on WTP for milk.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the existing literature in introducing the country-of-origin image (COI) construct with different dimensions to get in-depth knowledge about the country-of-origin (COO) effect in food or agricultural economics.

With the emergence of the real estate market since 1990, the operation Beijing's economy has led to a re-shaping of its inner city. By reviewing the Old and Dilapidated Housing Redevelopment (ODHR) programme in Beijing in the 1990s, this paper seeks to uncover the forces that led to the prevailing large-scale urban redevelopment which induced serious environmental and socioeconomic problems. By analysing conflicts between major stakeholders of the ODHR programme, the paper finds that the root cause of these problems was embedded in the 'mismatch of plan and market' by which local officials and local developers utilised their privileges inherited from a planned economy to benefit from the emerging real estate markets. As a result, the hidden agenda of local elites was facilitated during the urban redevelopment process.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impacts of service category (utilitarian vs hedonic) on chosen degree of uniqueness (CDOU) and consumers' willingness to pay more (WTPM), as well as the moderating roles of consumers' narcissism trait (high vs low) and processing mode (rational vs experiential) on the relationship between service category and CDOU.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducts one online experiment-questionnaire study and one between-subject lab experiment to test the hypotheses.FindingsThis study finds that consumers are more likely to choose unique choices in hedonic service customization. Consumers' CDOU has a positive effect on their attitudes toward WTPM. In addition, consumers' processing mode moderates the relationship between service category and CDOU.Practical implicationsThe findings provide new insights into better understanding the factors affecting the choice of service customization and have significant practical implications. First, consumers' different desire for uniqueness of different service should not be neglected when examining the values of service customization. Second, high-level CDOU is quite prevalent for hedonic (vs utilitarian) service customization, especially for consumers with experiential processing mode.Originality/valueWhile previous studies state “need for uniqueness” as a key characteristic of product customization in general, we extend it to intangible service customization and connect it with consumers' WTPM. In addition, the moderating role of individual trait and decision-making processing mode is also checked. Thus, the findings refine the existing understanding of the relationship between uniqueness and service customization.

Molecular dynamics simulation was performed to investigate the adsorption and aqueous extraction of oil contaminants on silica surface with various roughness. The oil dispersion and immersion were characterized by molecular configuration, adsorption energy, and contact angle, while the oil detachment in water and cyclodextrin solution was evaluated by the overall extractability, extractability from the individual groove, and free energy analysis. Results demonstrated that the main resistance for oil release from the relatively shallow grooves was the strong intermolecular interactions among the oil molecules orderly stacked inside the grooves. It highlighted the role of cyclodextrin in breaking through the energy barrier for pulling out one oil molecule from the tightly stacked oil structure, which resulted in the fast release of the remaining oil. Previous studies attributed the oil extraction to the sequestration of oil into the hydrophobic cavity of cyclodextrin, while our results demonstrated that such an inclusion process was critical in initially destroying the stable structure of the oil compacted inside the grooves but contributed little afterward. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first molecular-level study on the cyclodextrin-aided oil detachment from a mineral surface, which improves our understanding of the oil cleanup mechanisms during aqueous extraction.