scholarly journals Risk-Antecedents of Firms and Strategic Mediators – New Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-35
Author(s):  
Ranjan DasGupta ◽  
Monika Dhochak

We examine the strength and nature of firm aspiration and expectation as strategic mediators in the association of risk antecedents and firm risk, after exploring the possible impact of such antecedents on firm aspiration, and firm aspiration’s preliminary influence on firm risk. Empirical literature is mostly silent about risk antecedents of firms in an emerging market or cross-country context, and to the best of our knowledge, the mediators proposed in this study are yet to be explored. We report strong significant positive mediating effects of firm aspiration and expectation in association of risk antecedents and firm risk. Our results also validate that all studied risk antecedents, except corporate governance- composition, significantly influence aspiration and expectation mediators and firm risk in line with our hypotheses. Our results also hold true after controlling for firm-level and country-level heterogeneities and conducting two additional robustness tests.

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong K. Duong ◽  
Helen Kang ◽  
Stephen B. Salter

ABSTRACT This paper examines the influence of national culture on corporate governance. We postulate that national culture can shape the contracting environments by serving as an informal constraint that affects incentives and choices in corporate governance. We hypothesize that national culture can explain cross-country variations in corporate governance after controlling for legal, political, financial, and economic institutions. We develop a Rule Preference Index as a proxy of national culture for a sample of 12,909 firm-year observations from 41 countries. Employing a hierarchical linear modeling approach to isolate the effects of firm-level and country-level variables, we find robust evidence that firms (and countries) with a higher Rule Preference Index tend to have better corporate governance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-82
Author(s):  
Ranjan DasGupta ◽  
Rashmi Singh

Firm-risk and managerial risk-taking though distinct are used interchangeably in empirical literature. Here, we identify these two distinctly by examining different proxies for them. We use income stream uncertainty and accounting beta to proxy firm-risk, and market risk and capital intensity ratio represent managerial risk-taking. Once defined, our objective is to find the antecedents of both these by using the most advanced structural equation modelling (SEM) approach from created constructs of performance, psychological, corporate governance, shareholding patterns, fundamental valuation and firm’s characteristics drivers. We formulate seven hypotheses based on empirical literature representing these constructs. We use data of 269 Indian firms for 18 (1999-2017) years to run SEM and then analyse our results individually and combinedly. SEM is used here to test the unidimensionality of the seven constructs (consisting of 19 drivers) and to analyze these drivers (i.e. antecedents) influence on firm-risk and managerial risk-taking i.e. firm’s risk-play. Results prove that present firm-performance, corporate governance drivers, promoters’ shareholding and firm’s characteristics are driving firm’s risk-play. However, fundamental valuation drivers have no role to play in influencing income stream uncertainty, systematic operating risks and managerial risk-attitudes. Psychological drivers and foreign shareholdings act only as a catalyst of firm-risk.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-94
Author(s):  
Ranjan Dasgupta ◽  
Rashmi Singh

Firm-risk and managerial risk-taking though distinct are used interchangeably in empirical literature. Here, we identify these two distinctly by examining different proxies for them. We use income stream uncertainty and accounting beta to proxy firm-risk, and market risk and capital intensity ratio represent managerial risk-taking. Once defined, our objective is to find the antecedents of both these by using the most advanced structural equation modelling (SEM) approach from created constructs of performance, psychological, corporate governance, shareholding patterns, fundamental valuation and firm’s characteristics drivers. We formulate seven hypotheses based on empirical literature representing these constructs. We use data of 269 Indian firms for 18 (1999-2017) years to run SEM and then analyse our results individually and combinedly. SEM is used here to test the unidimensionality of the seven constructs (consisting of 19 drivers) and to analyze these drivers (i.e. antecedents) influence on firm-risk and managerial risk-taking i.e. firm’s risk-play. Results prove that present firm-performance, corporate governance drivers, promoters’ shareholding and firm’s characteristics are driving firm’s risk-play. However, fundamental valuation drivers have no role to play in influencing income stream uncertainty, systematic operating risks and managerial risk-attitudes. Psychological drivers and foreign shareholdings act only as a catalyst of firm-risk.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (253) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Baum ◽  
Clay Hackney ◽  
Paulo Medas ◽  
Mouhamadou Sy

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are present in key sectors of the economies around the world. While they can provide an important public service, there is widespread concern that their activities are negatively affected by corruption. However, there is limited cross-country analysis on the costs of corruption for SOEs. We present new evidence on how corruption affects the performance of SOEs using firm level data across a large number of countries. One striking result is that SOEs perform as well as private firms in core sectors when corruption is low. Taking advantage of a novel database reforms, we also show that SOE governance reforms can generate significant performance gains.


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-315
Author(s):  
David Ng ◽  
Kun Qian ◽  
Adam Dix

This paper examines the importance of country-level corruption in explaining the variation of firm-level corporate governance. Analysis of firm-level corporate governance data and country level corruption data on over 400 companies in 26 countries confirms the hypothesis that corruption has a statistically significant negative impact on the quality of a firm’s corporate governance. One standard deviation increase in country-level corruption is associated with a 0.5 to 0.7 standard deviation decrease in firm-level corporate governance scores


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kose John ◽  
Mahsa S Kaviani ◽  
Lawrence Kryzanowski ◽  
Hosein Maleki

Abstract We study the effects of country-level creditor protections on the firm-level choice of debt structure concentration. Using data from 46 countries, we show that firms form more concentrated debt structures in countries with stronger creditor protection. We propose a trade-off framework of optimal debt structure and show that in strong creditor rights regimes, the benefit of forming concentrated structures outweighs its cost. Because strong creditor protections increase liquidation bias, firms choose concentrated debt structures to improve the probability of successful distressed debt renegotiations. Firms with ex-ante higher bankruptcy costs, including those with higher intangibility, cash flow volatility, R&D expenses, and leverage exhibit stronger effects. Firms with restricted access to capital are also affected more. A difference-in-differences analysis of firms’ debt structure responses to creditor rights reforms confirms the cross-country results. Our findings are robust to alternative settings and a battery of robustness checks.


Author(s):  
Ahmed Hassanein

Corporate cash induces the opportunistic behavior of corporate managers that can create an agency problem. A corporate governance system controls the opportunistic behavior of managers and can affect the firm's policy on holding cash. This study explains how the aspects of corporate governance, country-level and firm-level governance, can affect the corporate policy on holding cash. First, the study provides the nature, definition, and importance of corporate cash holdings. Second, it outlines various motivations and theories behind holding corporate cash. Third, it explains the relation between firm-level governance and corporate cash holdings. Fourth, it focuses on the impact of firm-specific governance attributes on the level of corporate cash holdings. Fifth, it presents the relation between country-level governance and corporate cash holdings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-370
Author(s):  
Markus Mättö ◽  
Mervi Niskanen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether religion or national culture can explain previously observed cross-country variation in trade credit. Design/methodology/approach Using the firm-level SME data from 35 European countries, religion and cultural factors of Hofstede and Schwartz, the authors provide new evidence on the determinants of the cross-country variation in trade credit. Findings The results indicate that religion and national culture are associated with trade credit. The authors find that the levels of trade credit are higher in Catholic countries than in Protestant ones and that peoples’ religiousness has an impact on trade credit only in Catholic countries. The authors also find that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, such as power distance and uncertainty avoidance, are positively associated with trade credit. Practical implications Overall, authors’ findings indicate that religion and national culture are important determinants of trade credit management, and that the association between commonly used cultural values and trade credit depends on the religious, legal, and financial environment. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to research the relationship between national culture and trade credit.


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