Entering its 40th anniversary, the Journal of Management and Business Research is the longest-standing and most iconic journal in the field of management in Taiwan. Widely respected and recognized for its excellence, the journal has strived to increase the speed of manuscript review to ensure that the first review is completed within 60 days after a manuscript is submitted. For theabout 40 manuscripts submitted in the previous year, the first reviews were completed within 60 days of their first submission on average. We will endeavor to continue providing efficient reviews and delivering timely, high-quality services to authors and reviewers through our electronic submission and review system.

The journal's review policy and principles have been updated in response to changes in academia. We previously conducted judgment-oriented reviews that apply strict standards, resulting in a high rejection rate. However, as a key player in the development of the academic community and the growth of researchers and scholars, we recognize the importance of giving promising articles the opportunity for revision. Therefore, we have shifted to a more diagnosis-oriented approach for our manuscript reviews and, along with our reviewers, begun to assist authors in developing and improving their articles. For manuscripts that explore interesting topics and exhibit the potential to make theoretical contributions, our reviewers will provide clear instructions and recommendations in their comments to facilitate progressive revisions of the manuscripts. To reflect this shift in our review approach, we have also modified our rigid review principles to grant the area editors and editor-in-chief greater decision-making power with respect to reviews.

Since 1992, Journal of Management and Business Research (JMBR) has been hosting the JMBR Thesis Award, aiming to attract more academic contributions and recognizing outstanding papers. A selection process was conducted in the second half of last year for reviewing papers published in JMBR in the previous year. Four papers were awarded the 2023 JMBR Best Paper of the Year: The Creation Process of Stylized Knowledge: Exploring Embodied Knowledge in Taiwan B&Bs Entrepreneuring, The Emotional Process Linking Customer Mistreatment and Employees' Physical and Psychological Symptoms: The Moderating Roles of Daily Stressor Appraisals and Trait Empathy, The Effects of Political Advertising Aesthetics on Voter Perceptions, Attitudes, and Voting Intentions toward Candidates, and Unexpected Monthly Revenue in the Taiwan Stock Market: A Comprehensive Analysis. One paper received the JMBR Best Paper of Practical Value: Complementors' Organizational Experience and Sustainability in the Platform-Based Ecosystem. The award-winning authors were honored at the annual ceremony of the Chinese Management Association in mid-December. All are welcome to read these award-winning papers.

In addition, in 2016, the publisher of Chinese Management Association and the editorial board of JMBR jointly established the Best Reviewer Award as a gesture of appreciation for reviewers who provided academic services, assisted in the review process, and provided professional academic insights to authors of submitted papers, maintaining a high academic standard for the journal. This year, the recipients of the award are Distinguished Professor Hou Sheng-tsung, Associate Professor Chang Jung-hua, Professor Chen Shu-ling, and Assistant Professor Lu Chien-lin. The editorial team extends their gratitude to all academic contributors. It is through your collective efforts that JMBR has achieved its current success.

This issue comprises five articles. The first article, titled “Application of the Fraud Triangle Theory in the Sports Industry: A Match-fixing Scandal”, explored the CTBC Brothers match-fixing incident within the Chinese Professional Baseball League. The Fraud Triangle Theory was applied to analyze the financial and nonfinancial key factors influencing match-fixing incidents. The article identified the core elements contributing to match-fixing incidents, such as salary structure and security, underworld threats and inducements, weak management systems, individual interest judgements, insufficient ethics of players, disorientation of players, rationalization of wrongful behavior, and brevity of players' career. The results revealed the causes and corresponding correlations of match-fixing in professional baseball and the influence of attitude tendencies on the assessment and correlations of causes, providing additional insights for implementing measures for fraud prevention.

The second article, titled “The Constraining Effect of Expensing Employee Bonus on R&D Expenditures and Its Impact on R&D Efficiency”, focused on the listed and (over-the-counter) Taiwanese companies between 2002 and 2012. Using annual data as observational units, the study investigated the phenomenon in which the capitalization of employee bonuses, measured at fair value, leads to a considerable reduction in stock dividends and restrictive effects on cash dividends for R&D expenditure. The results indicated that for companies experiencing higher potential impacts from fair value measurement, a greater reduction of stock dividends tends to occur after capitalization. Furthermore, for companies with a tendency to save cash dividends through stock dividends, a stronger negative relationship between case dividends and incremental R&D expenditure is observed after capitalization, and the degree of cash constraints enhances the restrictive effects of cash dividends on incremental R&D expenditure after capitalization.

The third article, titled “Do Pilot Directors Matter in Investment Efficiency?”, discussed the impact of directors' risk preferences on low investment efficiency. Companies listed in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index from 2000 to 2010 were examined. The results demonstrated that companies with directors holding pilot licenses display high investment efficiency. The improvement in efficiency is not centered on capital expenditure but on investments in joint ventures and unmerged subsidiaries. When managers have motives for risk-taking or are less prone to rent-seeking, directors with pilot licenses have stronger effects on the increase in investment efficiency. The findings are consistent with the assumption that directors' risk preferences can effectively mitigate risk-related agency costs, indicating how the board structure affects the effectiveness of internal supervision.

The fourth article, titled “A Flash in the Pan? Or Travel Again! Application of the Push–Pull Motivation Theory to Investigate the Influence Process and Situational Factors in Selecting Emerging Destinations from Multiple Perspectives”, utilized the push–pull theory as the theoretical framework. The study confirmed the moderating role of destination familiarity and explored tourists' destination choices from diverse perspectives. The findings indicate that consumers' familiarity with a destination increases their travel motivations and influences their emotional experiences toward the destination, which further affects their intentions to visit the destination. Therefore, for increasing travel motivations, novelty pursuit and maintenance should be prioritized. Tourists' pursuit of novelty not only directly influences their behavioral intentions but also indirectly affects them through surprise generation.

The fifth article, titled “How Leaders Affect Followers' Identity Orientation? Theory Construction and Scale Development of Three-Level Identity Leadership”, diverged from the existing leadership theory frameworks by adopting a three-level identification perspective. The study focused on identifying which leadership behaviors cause different levels of identification orientation among subordinates, and the study also aimed to establish a three-level identification leadership theory. The results implied that if leaders can adopt corresponding identification leadership behaviors according to the actual needs of the situation, they can stimulate self-identification in subordinates, leading to consistent, stable, and high performance. A measurement tool was developed on the basis of the theoretical framework and practical examples, and its reliability and validity were verified across three samples. The tool can serve as a useful measurement tool for future related research.