The Importance of Product Market Concerns When Timing of Irreversible Corporate Investment is a Signal

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Rix-Nielsen

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 645-671
Author(s):  
Hussein Abdoh ◽  
Aktham Maghyereh

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the effect of product market competition on the oil uncertainty–investment relation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use firm-level financial data from the COMPUSTAT database, competition proxies from Hoberg and Phillips (2016) and macroeconomic data on crude oil price uncertainty. Corporate investment is measured as capital expenditure scaled by total assets or as the annual change in (net) total fixed assets plus depreciation. Since our panel data covers a short period (22 years) and the regressions include a combination of a lagged dependent variable and firm fixed effects, the authors apply Blundell and Bond’s (1998) GMM system when regressing corporate investment on the interaction between oil uncertainty and competition.FindingsConsistent with the theories in the irreversible investment literature, the authors first show that investments are negatively related to oil uncertainty. Second, they show that firms in competitive industries decrease their investments in response to heightened uncertainty by a higher degree than firms in concentrated industries, suggesting that competition can exacerbate negative investment outcomes when success is uncertain. The authors also examine how competition relates to investment asymmetric reactions to positive and negative oil price return volatilities and find a stronger negative relationships between competition and investment-positive oil price volatility, indicating that increasing the probability of a negative outcome due to uncertainty leads firms to reduce investment to a larger extent.Practical implicationsThe findings provide useful insights to guide corporate investment decisions under oil price change uncertainty. In particular, if firms can wait for the resolution of uncertainty before deciding to pursue irreversible investment in a competitive market, they can avoid potentially large losses by foregoing investment when the outcomes are unfavorable. This is because competition brings a greater uncertainty to firm performance if the investment outcome is poor, as firms in competitive industries share a large proportion of industry-wide profits with rivals and, thus, competition could erode profit margins and increases the likelihood of being driven out of the market. Hence, firms in competitive markets should balance between strategic preemptive motives and waiting for the resolution of uncertainty before deciding to pursue investment.Originality/valueThis study is the first to examine the effect of competition on the relationship between investment and oil price uncertainty. Moreover, it is the first to examine the effect of competition on the asymmetric response of investment to oil price uncertainty emanating from positive and negative changes in oil price.



2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahdi Salehi ◽  
Ali Daemi ◽  
Farzana Akbari

Purpose This study aims to examine the effect of managerial ability on product market competition and corporate investment decisions, specifically, on risk-taking and investment efficiency. Design/methodology/approach The primary measure of managerial ability is Demerjian et al. model. In this study, Herfindahl–Hirschman Index is used to measure product market competition. Regression analysis is used to examine the association between corporate risk-taking and over-investment of free cash flow and product market competition and managerial ability. Findings Using firm-year observations from 2011 to 2015, the paper findings suggest that competition discourages managers to invest in risky investment. The study also found that managerial ability has no effect on the association between product market competition and investment decision. Originality/value The current study almost is the first study which is conducted on this subject; the results may give strength to further studies.



2015 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 196-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuxiu Jiang ◽  
Kenneth A. Kim ◽  
John R. Nofsinger ◽  
Bing Zhu


Author(s):  
Debarati Bhattacharya ◽  
Tai-Yu Chen ◽  
Wei-Hsien Li


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indrarini Laksmana ◽  
Ya-wen Yang

Purpose – The study aims to examine the association between product market competition and corporate investment decisions on, particularly, risk-taking and investment efficiency. Existing theoretical studies on whether product market competition mitigates or exacerbates agency problems are inconclusive. Prior research generally finds that competition constrains management opportunism in reporting operating performance. However, the association between product market competition and managerial investment decisions has largely been unexplored. Design/methodology/approach – The primary measure of product market competition is the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. The authors use regression analysis to examine the association between corporate risk-taking and over-investment of free cash flow (FCF) (as dependent variables) and product market competition (as an independent variable). Findings – Using firm-year observations from 1990 to 2010, the authors find that competition encourages managers to invest in risky investment. They also find that competition disciplines management on its use of FCFs. Overall, their results provide support for the disciplining role of product market competition in management investment decisions. The results are robust after they control for shareholder activism and executive compensations. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence of the disciplining role of product market competition in management investment decisions. First, the results suggest that competition encourages managers to invest in risky investment. One potential explanation for the results is that competition reduces opportunities for resource diversion for management personal benefits and, in turn, decreases management risk aversion. Another explanation is that competition forces management to take more risks for the long-term survival of the company. Second, the results indicate that competition disciplines management on its use of FCFs. Although firms in highly competitive industries make investment decisions that are less conservative, they tend to avoid suboptimal investment decisions, such as over-investment of FCF, compared to their counterparts.



2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Alhadi ◽  
Ahsan Habib ◽  
Grantley Taylor ◽  
Mostafa Hasan ◽  
Khamis Al-Yahyaee

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between financial statement comparability and corporate investment efficiency of a large sample of US firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a large sample of US-listed firms from 1981 to 2013. The authors use several econometric methods including ordinary least square, firms fixed effects and mediation effects regression. Sensitivity tests that include the use of alternative measures of both the dependent and independent variables provide results that are consistent with the authors’ baseline model results. Findings The authors find that financial statement comparability mitigates risks associated with both under-investment and over-investment. They also find that product market competition mediates the relation between financial statement comparability and investment efficiency. The authors consider this to be a function of a competitive environment, whereby firms normally disclose less private information. This in turn reduces the effect of financial statement comparability on investment efficiency. Conversely, where there are higher levels of product market competition, it is less likely that firms will under-invest. Their results are consistent with these predictions. Originality/value The authors contribute to this growing field of research by providing evidence that financial statement comparability does in fact improve firms’ investment efficiency. Findings enhance our understanding of the relation between investment efficiency and financial statement comparability which is likely to have flow-on effects in terms of financial reporting quality and firm value. This study also contributes to research that links agency theory to financial statement comparability through an analysis of moral hazard and adverse selection tenets, and how it leads to reduced levels of investment inefficiency in a firm.





2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H.L Ahmad Murdani

Ketak handicraft is one of any other superior handicraft in Lombok Tengah Regency, as one of any other revenue generator for Lombok Tengah regency and to increase the prosperity of people in this industry, it is needed to find out the ways and strategies to improve the performance of this business. This research was categorized as a descriptive research which used case method approach, it was aimed to find out the position of ketak handicraft among handicraft industry in Lombok Tengah based on recent performance and to identify alternative strategies which can be chosen in order to improve the performance of this industry. In order to find out the position of ketak handicraft business, it was used BCG Agam analysis and based on this position the strategy for improving this business was selected based on this analysis, the position of third business was in the stars position, where alternative strategies that can be chosen were: (a) development of the existing product (market expansion for the existing product); (b) diversification; (c) horizontal merger. Suggestion recommended was to apply one of these strategies based on analysis that had been conducted.



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document