Xiong Zheng

The notion of price instability has garnered renewed interest because of ongoing swings in agricultural prices in nations like China. We investigate the root cause of price volatility in the mutton market in China. To this purpose, we develop a theoretical model to explain endogenous price changes in the Chinese mutton supply chain by using information from our fieldwork and estimates from unobserved component models. We use vector auto regressions and weekly data on sheep and mutton prices in China to derive hypotheses from our theoretical model that can be tested under conventional assumptions. Our empirical results are consistent with those of our theoretical model, and the evidence of endogenous dynamics in observed prices is resistant to different specifications and estimating techniques. We demonstrate with the aid of numerical simulations how empirically based parameterizations of our theoretical model can accurately represent the key elements of mutton price fluctuations in China. Our descriptive, empirical, and numerical studies have accumulated evidence that strongly supports the endogenous nature of price instability in China’s mutton supply chain.

Leadership humor is widely used in management practice and has aroused extensive discussion in academia. On account of the two-sided influence of leader humor on employees, its double-edged sword effect on employee behavior has been put more emphasis. As a benign violation of organizational norms and a kind of pro-organizational violation, respectively, both Leadership humor and employee bootleg innovation have the characteristics of violating organizational norms, but few studies have examined the relationship between them. Based on benign violation theory and social cognition theory, this study conducted a two-stage questionnaire survey and statistical-econometric analysis of 324 employees in 23 IT and manufacturing technology companies in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Beijing, and Shanghai, China. It not only examined the relationship between leadership humor and employee bootleg innovation but also tested a moderated mediation model. Results show that leadership humor is positively correlated with psychological empowerment and employee bootleg innovation, namely, leadership humor indirectly and positively affects employee bootleg innovation through psychological empowerment. Moreover, the indirect effect is positively regulated by leadership emotional trust. The higher the emotional trust of employees to leadership, the stronger the mediating role of psychological empowerment between leader humor and bootleg innovation behavior. The study enriches the existing path of research on the double-edged impact of leader humor on employee behavior, expands the boundary conditions of the relationship between empowered cognitive mediation and employee bootleg innovation and provides enlightenments for Chinese leaders to effectively apply the tool of leader humor.