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The second article studies the effect of working capital management on estimated
discretionary accruals. It is argued that the discrepancy between working capital and actual
operational needs—accruals resulting from working capital management—should be normal
accruals, not discretionary accruals. Using the growth rate employee numbers as a proxy of
the level of working capital management, it finds that the discretionary accruals are
positively related to the level of working capital management. The simulation results indicate
that estimation biases exist in the discretionary accruals of the sampled firms and thus may
affect the results of prior empirical studies about earnings manipulation.
The last accounting paper examines the determinants of customer profit contribution to
a large Taiwan pharmaceutical firm. The empirical results suggest that average customer
order size, yearly total order amount, and new product purchase ratio are all positively and
significantly associated with customer profit contribution, while customer maintaining cost is
negatively and significantly associated.
The marketing articles
The first one investigates the perceptions of manufacturers, their responses, and
outcomes regarding destructive acts by distributers, whereas most previous studies would
adopt the perspective of distributers. The study finds that increased total dependence and
relational norms does not diminish the perceived destructive acts of distributors; the more
normative contracts there are, the more perceived destructive acts of distributors occur. This
conflicts with from findings in other research adopting different perspectives.
Analyzing secondary data, the other article reviews representative eWOM (electronic
word of mouth) studies by scholars in Taiwan, and discusses issues of using and analyzing
secondary data in the international literature. Several suggestions are provided for Taiwan
scholars who would like to further push the frontier of eWOM studies such as cross-
disciplinary research, newly developed platforms and business models.
The management article
The one article in the field of technology and innovation management, or TIM,
analyzes and reviews the development of TIM studies in Taiwan through three common
perspectives of strategic management—voluntarism, determinism, and interactionism.
Authors find that Taiwan scholars tend to emphasize the voluntaristic view of TIM activities,
while intentionally or unintentionally ignoring the possibility of interactionist explanations.