Corporate Diversification and Risk: Portfolio Effects and Resource Redeployability

By analogy with portfolio diversification by stock market investors, managers and researchers have often expected that firms that spread operations across product or geographic markets reduce risk. However, numerous exploratory studies in corporate strategy and in international business have not been able to robustly confirm this expectation. This study develops a formal model to scrutinize implications of corporate diversification for corporate risk. The model incorporates the key distinction of corporate diversification, economies of scope, that qualifies the analogy between corporate and portfolio diversification. The presence of a particular type of economies of scope, resource redeployability, not only inherently increases risk but it can also raise risk over the level in undiversified firms. The model uses determinants of resource redeployability from previous research to derive conditions with which corporate diversification enhances risk. The developed elaborate operationalization of corporate risk should facilitate future research and help corporate managers.

R&D expenditure and managerial ownership: evidence from firms of high-vs-low R&D intensity

Purpose Corporate managers spend on research and development (R&D) for reasons of growth and survival. However, they may be less willing to invest in R&D because of its long-term horizon, high failure rate and uncertain outcomes. This study aims to explore the extent to which managerial ownership influences R&D expenditure decisions. Design/methodology/approach Apart from the linear regression models, this study uses a semi-parametric quantile regression analysis for a sample of German non-financial firms throughout 2009–2018. Findings This study finds a nonmonotonic sensitivity of R&D spending to the level of managerial ownership over various quantiles of R&D distribution. That is, managerial ownership increases the expenditure on R&D at low R&D intensity firms. However, it decreases the expenditure on R&D at high R&D intensity firms. These results suggest the presence of a maximum level of R&D expenditure, after which owner-managers would be unwilling to spend on R&D. Practical implications The results confirm the importance of corporate ownership structure for firm R&D and innovation activities. It provides an implication for corporate policymakers to reform the corporate ownership structures to encourage corporate managers and owners to invest in R&D projects. Originality/value This study offers two distinct contributions study. First, it provides the first German shred of evidence on the nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and R&D expenditure decisions by distinguishing between high and low R&D intensity firms. Second, unlike prior research, it uses a semi-parametric quantile regression analysis. This method is more efficient than least-squares estimators and produces robust estimators to heteroscedasticity of the residuals.

Capital budgeting practices and political risk: evidence from Lebanon

Purpose This paper aims to examine how capital investment projects are appraised in Lebanon; whether the risk is incorporated into this process by Lebanese firms and the impact of political risk on the capital budgeting process. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a questionnaire survey to investigate the capital budgeting practices of companies located in Lebanon, which is a country characterised by a high level of political risk. Findings Lebanese companies tend to use more than one method of investment appraisal and, increasingly, they are using sophisticated discounted cashflow techniques alongside the payback period. The most widely used methods to evaluate risk include scenario and sensitivity analysis. Finally, political risk plays an important role in the capital budgeting processes of Lebanese companies. Originality/value The paper reports on whether the methods of capital investment appraisal used throughout advanced Western economies are used in the context of an emerging economy. In addition, Lebanon is an ideal research site to study capital budgeting as the conflicts in the country of the past 50 years have required sizeable new expenditure on capital projects; the country is characterised by high levels of political risk which may lead corporate managers to use different approaches to investment appraisal and it provides an opportunity to study capital budgeting decisions by private, unlisted firms.

Economic Policy Uncertainty, National Culture, and Corporate Debt Financing

Financial innovation vis-à-vis economic policy uncertainty (EPU) without due regards being given to debt financing. This paper fills this gap and unveils the dynamic role of national culture in defining debt financing via EPU. We use a sample of 3831 non-financial firms of Asian economies and employ the System Generalized Method of Moments to estimate the regression coefficients. Our findings reveal an inverse relationship between the EPU and debt financing, which suggests that debt finance mitigation strategies are successfully executed in the region. The potential reasons for this include the policies by businesses to reduce business activities and avoid the unfavorable rising financing cost through EPU. On the supply side, the rising EPU induces the banks to accelerate their interest rate due to increased default risk. Similarly, we observe that high uncertainty avoidance (UND) has a negative and significant link with debt financing due to an unpleasant behavior of corporate managers towards debt when they have an alternate source of financing instruments instead of accepting long-term obligations. However, we find that the UND and EPU interaction has a significantly positive impact on debt financing due to the rigid behavior of managers, which forces them to consider cultural traits and converts their risk-averse attitude into risk-friendly behavior. This implies that corporate managers should reflect the sensitivity of the national culture while considering debt financing.

Brand attachment and oppositional loyalty: The moderating role of moral identity

Comprehension of the driving factors and dimensional structure of oppositional loyalty (OL), which comprises willingness to pay a price premium, oppositional referrals, schadenfreude, and antibrand actions, is limited. To analyze OL behavior, we collected 453 surveys from Xiaomi mobile online communities. The results show that brand attachment had a positive effect on each dimension of OL. In addition, moral identity positively moderated the brand attachment–oppositional referrals relationship, and negatively moderated the impact of brand attachment on schadenfreude and antibrand actions. Our results can help corporate managers understand OL behavior, and contribute to new understanding of brand loyalty, customer relationships, and business ethics.

The methodology to assess the impact of corporate governance on the enterprise value

Subject. The article investigates pricing factors that determine the enterprise value with respect to the effect of corporate governance factors. Objectives. I analyze the impact of corporate governance factors on the enterprise value and build a technique for assessing the effect of corporate governance on the business valuation of the Russian public companies. Methods. The study relies upon the synthesis, deduction, induction, methods of statistical analysis, comparison and generalization. Results. I devised the method, which comprises five steps considering the effect of corporate governance factors on the enterprise value. Following the steps of the method, the specifics of the valuation subject is analyzed in terms of business and legal forms, the use of modern Russian corporate governance principles, the composition and the number of shareholders, industry the entity operates in, and fundamental metrics of the enterprise value. Conclusions and Relevance. Currently, there is few information in the literature about the impact of corporate governance principles set forth in the 2014 Corporate Governance Code, on business value. The article presents the method for assessing the impact of corporate governance on the business valuation, which accounts for the specifics of business and legal forms in terms of corporate governance principles, capital structure, the number of shareholders, the State’s involvement, industry, and fundamental metrics of business valuation. The proposed method can be used by financial analysts, appraisers, corporate managers so as to build and manage the enterprise value.

Critical study of leadership styles in handling COVID-19 crisis

The world is passing through an unparalleled crisis, named COVID-19. The world economy is surrounded by it, and therefore on a daily basis, there are many updates in the situation, which is rapidly changing the status of the nation’s worldwide. Some are on the verge of survival, some are trying to get the makeover and some are facing turmoil. In order to overcome this situation, the leaders of the different countries had to plan the strategies to deal with this current situation. Therefore, this paper is focused upon determining the different leadership styles followed by the leaders of the different countries and the effectiveness of these leadership styles in handling the COVID-19 situation. Both primary and secondary data has been collected for the research. This research would encourage the academicians, researchers, management students, corporate managers and employees etc. to understand the impact of different leadership styles followed by the leaders to control any devastating situation that could shatter the economy of any nation. This research would help develop the proper understanding of the different leadership styles and its implementation for determining the effectiveness of the different leadership styles in handling this uncontrollable situation.

PENGARUH PROFITABILITAS, LIKUIDITAS, DAN SOLVABILITAS TERHADAP OPINI AUDIT GOING CONCERN

This study aims to test the effect of profitability, liquidity, and solvency to the audit opinion going concern. Testing was conducted at 125 sample of the company service sector listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in the 2015-2019. This type of research is associative research that aims to know the effect of profitability, liquidity, and solvency on audit opinion going concern. The type of research data is quantitative data with secondary data obtained from the company’s financial statements accessed through the website official IDX and each sample company. Data processing techniques using logistic regression analysis methods with IBM SPSS software application 25. The result of this study indicate that profitability and liquidity have not significant effect on the audit opinion going concern, while but solvency has an significant effect on the audit opinion going concern. Research results can implications for corporate managers, auditors, investors, and creditors in making decisions and analyzing financial condition of the company that was threatened to get audit opinion going concern where it can establish the right policy for the condition.

Trade Credit as a Determinant of Firm’s Financial Performance: Moderating Role of Bank Financing

The objective of study is to find out the impact of trade credit on a firm’s financial performance and how this effect diversifies when enterprises acquire bank loans to finance the trade credit channel. To achieve the objective, we employ the data of 6,654 non-financial-sector firms from 12 Asian economies and apply fixed-effects model to estimate the regression. The statistical output of the model provides consistent evidence that the firms that adjust their trade credit activities through bank financing perform better financially. Acquisition of bank loans to expand the trade credit activities is a healthy financial activity because it provides financial setbacks in case of any fluctuation in trade credit. However, acquiring bank loans when firms have no operational need for such types of funds can disturb their financial health. Briefly, the analysis provides novel evidence that efficient usage of bank loans into physical business activities can intensify financial efficiency of corporate firms. The analysis provides financial guidance to corporate managers that before entering into any trade credit terms, they should ensure the availability of bank loans because it provides a strong financial pace against any financial shock.

Managerial overconfidence in capital structure decisions and its link to aggregate demand: An agent-based model perspective

Objective This study aims to connect two strands of the psychology and economics literature, i.e., behavioural finance and agent-based macroeconomics, to assess the impact of managerial overconfidence at the micro and macro levels of the economy as a whole. Method We build a macroeconomic stock-flow consistent agent-based model that is calibrated for the specific case of Poland to explore whether the overconfidence of top corporate managers in the context of their initial capital structure decisions is detrimental for the firms being managed in this way, the financial market dynamics, and the selected macroeconomic indicators. We model heterogeneous firms with different capital structure decision criteria depending on their degree of managerial overconfidence. Our model also includes a complete macroeconomic closure with aggregated households, capital producers, banking, and a public sector. Results We find that firms with overconfident managers outperform in terms of investment and size but are also more fragile, thereby making them more likely to default. Finally, we run policy shocks and show that while investors’ flight to liquidity creates financial turmoil and increases the probability of default. Conclusions This paper contributes to the knowledge base by linking behavioural corporate finance and agent-based macroeconomics. In general, the excess overconfidence on the micro level, either an increase in the proportion of overconfident firms or a higher degree of overconfidence among managers, has a strong destabilizing impact on the economy as a whole on the macro level.