From Arms to Trees: Opportunity Costs and Path Dependence and the Exploration-Exploitation Tradeoff

The literature on the exploration-exploitation tradeoff has anchored on the n-armed bandit problem as its canonical formal representation. This structure, however, omits a fundamental property of evolutionary dynamics. Contrary to a bandit formulation, foregoing an opportunity may negate the possibility of engaging in that opportunity in the future, not just modifying the beliefs about the attractiveness of engaging in that opportunity. Thus, the bandit structure only incorporates path dependence with respect to beliefs and not with regard to capabilities as our usual conceptions of dynamics of learning and capabilities would suggest. Furthermore, the consideration of opportunity cost is rather static and does not address the dynamic unfolding of opportunity structures. The nature of path dependence and opportunity costs are used to frame many of our existing conceptualizations of search processes and firm dynamics, including bandit models, real options, pivoting, the “secretary problem,” and “island” models of firm diversification. The discussion points to the need to develop canonical models of what evolutionary biologists’ term phylogenetic trees and opens up a set of new questions, such as what is the degree of parallelism of trajectories that is possible within an organization, what is the fecundity of different trajectories in terms of likelihood of branching possibilities arising, and how are these latent branching opportunities accessed?

Diversification Strategy and Good Governance: Does It Affect Firm’s Leverage?

This paper aims to analyze whether firm diversification affects firm leverage in developing countries. This research model is based on the agency theory view that focuses on diversification in leverage through good governance mechanisms. The data comes from 43 companies from 215 observation companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the 2014–2018 period, supporting the co-insurance hypothesis; our findings suggest a positive effect of diversification on debt levels. Our findings show that cost advantages occur in diversified firms, including higher debt ratios in the firm’s capital structure. These effects are more substantial when firms have better corporate governance. These findings add value to the existing literature on the relationship between firm diversification, corporate management, and leverage and can be helpful for managers and policy-makers regarding the evaluation of diversification strategy and corporate governance implementations in Indonesia that has been widely studied.DOI: 10.26905/jkdp.v25i3.5758

Managing Liquidity in Production Networks: The Role of Central Firms

Firms in the US economy are closely interconnected in a production network and are subject to shocks that propagate within the network. This study examines the liquidity management of firms centrally connected in the network. I show that, while central firms are more exposed to aggregate swings, they maintain higher cash holdings to protect themselves and connected firms against such exposure. Central firms’ cash holding motives are alleviated by firm diversification but are aggravated by industry competition. Such motives are not explained by alternative determinants of cash policies. My findings suggest that systematically important firms proactively dampen the propagation of shocks in the production network.

Geographical proximity and value of corporate cash holdings

PurposeIn this paper, the authors examine the association between a firm's geographical location and the value of its cash holdings.Design/methodology/approachFollowing Loughran and Schultz (2005) and Nielsson and Wójcik (2016), the authors define firms as either geographically remote or geographically proximate based on their distance to areas that are either largely populated or concentrated in financial expertise. We also estimate the marginal value of cash using the model developed by Faulkender and Wang (2006).FindingsThe authors find that the marginal value of cash is $0.10–$0.16 lower in remotely located firms than in geographically proximate firms. The lower marginal value of cash is prominent among remotely located firms with greater severity of information asymmetry. Our findings support the view that the inability of shareholders to closely monitor how managers use of firm cash may increase the perceived conflicts of interest associated with managers' cash spending and decrease the value of cash.Originality/valuePrevious studies try to explain the cash holdings puzzle by attributing it to CEO overconfidence, external funding constraints, poor corporate governance, difference in corporate financial policy, poor investor protection, lack of firm diversification and large operating losses. This study contributes to the extant literature by offering new evidence of the role of geographic location on the value of cash holdings.