scholarly journals Capital allocation and delegation of decision-making authority within firms

2015 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Graham ◽  
Campbell R. Harvey ◽  
Manju Puri
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shir Dekel ◽  
Micah Goldwater ◽  
Dan Lovallo ◽  
Bruce Burns

Previous research found that anecdotes are more persuasive than statistical data—the anecdotal bias effect. Separate research found that anecdotes that are similar to a target problem are more influential on decision-making than dissimilar anecdotes. Further, previous investigations on anecdotal bias primarily focused on medical decision-making with very little focus on business decision-making. Therefore, we investigated the effect of anecdote similarity on anecdotal bias in capital allocation decisions. Participants were asked to allocate a hypothetical budget between two business projects. One of the projects (the target project) was clearly superior in terms of the provided statistical measures, but some of the participants also saw a description of a project with a conflicting outcome (the anecdotal project). This anecdotal project was always from the same industry as the target project. The anecdote description, however, either contained substantive connections to the target or not. Further, the anecdote conflicted with the statistical measures because it was either successful (positive anecdote) or unsuccessful (negative anecdote). The results showed that participants’ decisions were influenced by anecdotes only when they believed that they were actually relevant to the target project. Further, they still incorporated the statistical measures into their decision. This was found for both positive and negative anecdotes. Further, participants were given information about the way that the anecdotes were sampled that suggested that the statistical information should have been used in all cases. Participants did not use this information in their decisions and still showed an anecdotal bias effect. Therefore, people seem to appropriately use anecdotes based on their relevance, but do not understand the implications of certain statistical concepts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bazeet Olayemi Badru ◽  
Nurwati A. Ahmad-Zaluki ◽  
Wan Nordin Wan-Hussin

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the differences in men and women, such as risk aversion in decision making, can influence the amount of capital that the board of directors can allocate for investment opportunities. Design/methodology/approach This study sampled 212 IPOs over the period of 2005–2015 and employed the OLS and the quantile regression techniques to examine the impact of female directors on capital allocation. Findings The results show that women on corporate boards have a positive influence on the amount of capital an IPO company can allocate for investment opportunities. These findings suggest that the investment strategies of women in an emerging financial market, like Malaysia, may differ from women in other financial markets. Practical implications The presence of women on corporate boards plays an important role in board involvement in a company’s strategic decision at the time of the IPO. Therefore, regulators and IPO issuers should pay close attention to the corporate governance structure of a company at the time of an IPO. In addition, investors and other stakeholders of a company may consider women on corporate boards as an important factor in financing and investment decisions. Originality/value Despite several studies that have examined the influence of women on corporate boards on corporate outcomes, globally, the presence of women on corporate boards and their influence on corporate decision-making related to allocation of capital to investment opportunities, have not been fully explored in the IPO literature.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Falko Paetzold ◽  
Timo Busch ◽  
Marc Chesney

Purpose – Investment advisors play a significant role in financial markets, yet the determinants of their behavior have not been explored in detail. The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of how actively advisors communicate about sustainable investing with their clients, and differences in the preferences of advisors compared to investors. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a survey with 296 retail and private banking investment advisors, this study employs an ordinary least squares regression model to explore the determinants of advisors activity in communicating about sustainable investing (SI) with their clients, differences in the aspects that matter to advisors and investors, and the role of the complexity of sustainability. Findings – Advisors activity in communicating about SI relates to their expectation of SI regarding financial return, real-world impact, and the fuzziness and trustworthiness of SI. Advisors appear not to be influenced by expected risk and their personal values, which runs against prior research findings and the interest of investors. Research limitations/implications – Future research should assess cultural differences and explore asymmetries between advisors and investors in regard to the role of volatility, values, impact measurement, and complexity. Practical implications – Investment advisors underweighting aspects related to risk and self-transcendent values relative to their clients might limit the suitability of clients ' portfolios, skew capital allocation, and depress the role of SI in financial markets. Generalized to salespeople this behavior might depress the market success of products related to sustainability at large. Social implications – The findings and their generalization indicate that salespeople might systematically deviate from their clients’ interests in regard to social responsibility. Advisors and salespeople in their mediating role might be an important barrier to sustainable development. Originality/value – This is the first quantitative study that explores the decision-making by investment advisors in the context of SI, and as such answers to specific calls in literature to explore the micro-foundations of decision making in regard to SI and social responsibility, and on the relationship between private investors and investment advisors. This study is based on unique and original empirical data on advisors that work with retail and wealthy private investors.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meirui Zhong ◽  
Anqi Zeng ◽  
Jianbai Huang ◽  
Kairong Hong

Aiming at option value of the project and fairness preference psychological utility features, this paper modified objective function between players by option game equilibrium and utility function of project managers by inequity aversion. Therefore, under the symmetric and asymmetric information conditions, a project capital allocation combination equilibrium decision model has been built. It draws a conclusion that the option value of projects has changed the utility function of shareholders and managers in capital allocation, whereas fairness preferences of the project managers have changed the way of allocation through psychological utility. These two effects have influenced the trigger point of capital allocation decision-making. One is the decrease of trigger point owing to capital allocation decision-making of a CEO affected by the option value; the other is the reaction due to the crowding-out and crowding-in effect of the project manager’s fairness preference, which restrains the severity of underinvestment. Therefore, a good incentive plan should be a balance among insurance, incentive, and fairness, not only a balance between insurance and incentive.


2013 ◽  
Vol 411-414 ◽  
pp. 2562-2566
Author(s):  
Ya Qun Li ◽  
Wan Chun Duan ◽  
Yong He Sun

With the development of Knowledge Economy and the transforming of economic growth pattern, human capital has aroused extensive attention, particularly the effective of human capital, has been the academic focus of the study in recent years. First, the index system of factors of the effective of human capital allocation is constructed; then, corresponding analysis model is suggested based on the Fuzzy DEMATEL (Decision Making Trial Evaluation Laboratory) method. Finally, the total degrees of given and received influences, the degree of cause and the importance grade are analyzed.


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