Working capital management,corporate performance,and financial constraints

This paper examines the linkage between working capital management and corporate performance for a sample of non-financial UK companies. In contrast to previous studies, the findings provide strong support for an inverted U-shaped relation between investment in working capital and firm performance, which implies the existence of an optimal level of investment in working capital that balances costs and benefits and maximizes a firm's value. The results suggest that managers should avoid negative effects on firm performance because of lost sales and lost discounts for early payments or additional financing expenses. The paper also analyzes whether the optimal working capital level is sensitive to alternative measures of financial constraints. The findings show that this optimum is lower for firms more likely to be financially constrained.     

Investment Decisions, Liquidity, and Institutional Activism: An International Study

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism’s effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables (such as cash flow and liquidity ratio) and market variables (ownership concentration and value creation index). To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom (U.K.), Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during the period 1995–2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market.     

虚拟经济对现代经济增长的贡献效应

本文认为,虚拟经济是以金融系统(金融机构、金融工具和金融市场)为主要依托、与虚拟资本的循环运动密切相关的经济活动,是金融资产交易关系的总和。它既可对风险定价,提供发现未来价格以及锁定、规避风险的有效机制,又可合理安排公司制度对公司实施有效的控制,以此协调各方利益关系,还通过经济的货币化实现交易的专业化。这些功能为现代风险投资、规模经济和公司价值最大化提供了巨大空间,并使现代经济增长呈现新特征。     

Reconsidering the Common Good in a Business Context

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism’s effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables (such as cash flow and liquidity ratio) and market variables (ownership concentration and value creation index). To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom (U.K.), Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during the period 1995–2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market.     

我国上市公司资本结构现状及优化研究

目前,我国上市公司资本结构方面突出的问题就是偏好股权资本、严重依赖外源融资,对负债经营缺乏正确认识。其成因是股权融资成本较低,股票市场的非理性发展,债券市场发展缓慢等所导致的。为了实现公司价值最大化的目标,应积极构建上市公司最优资本结构,完善资本市场和上市公司治理结构,充分发挥财务杠杆效益,调整上市公司负债结构,提高上市公司盈利水平,从而实现公司价值最大化。     

资本结构与经营绩效非线性关系研究——来自中国能源行业上市公司的经验证据

以中国1999-2008年能源行业上市公司的平衡面板数据为样本,运用非线性计量方法—面板门限模型,实证分析资本结构与经营绩效的关系。以Tobinq值作为经营绩效衡量指标进行负债(资产负债率)门限测试,实证结果发现:存在单一门限效果,其门限值为26.4%,其区间上下影响系数分别为正相关、负相关,并且都很显著,即存在一正一负的非线性关系。对我国能源行业上市公司来说,适度的利用财务杠杆、提高资产负债率,可以提高经营绩效;但是过度使用财务杠杆会增大企业财务风险并无法有效提高经营绩效。因此,企业经营管理者应在适度的范围内,合理运用财务杠杆,实现股东财富最大化的目标。     

Valuation and firm investment and financing policies with personal tax biases

In this paper we examine firm financial policies in the presence of personal tax biases (e.g., favoring capital gains relative to interest and dividends). A form of the value additivity principle (VAP) for the tax bias case is established and applied to the firm's merger, investment, financial structure, and dividend decisions. As with the neutral tax VAP, the revised VAP requires transaction costless capital markets but does not require capital market completeness or competitiveness. Share value maximization is found not to be the proper goal for a firm that seeks to maximize the shareholders' current expected utility; however, it is found that share value maximization is generally a good approximate objective. Firm investment policy with financial structure irrelevance (owing to offsetting personal and corporate taxes) is examined assuming that the revised VAP holds.     

金融“脱媒”现象下的商业银行经营策略

本文通过分析美国的实际情况发现，随着资本市场的发展及多样化投资工具的日益普遍，商业银行的经营业绩并没有因为传统业务被挤占而一蹶不振，反而开创出了新的盈利空间。与资本市场形成了一种良性互动的发展态势。共同促进整个经济体系的持续增长。这全归功于美国商业银行的法人治理结构、业务运行模式及利润来源发生了根本性的转变。因而，对于处于变革中的中国商业银行而言。面临金融”脱媒”的影响。应该改革现有的产权制度，成立金融控股公司，转变业务运行模式及增加非利息收入来源。     

Investment dealers' ways of working: Integrating compensation with relational capital

For the past 20 years, practitioner and academic research has highlighted that the performance of companies is linked to staff and management's ways of working, particularly in service‐oriented enterprises (A. P. Kakabadse, Savery, Kakabadse, & Lee‐Davies, 2006). Yet despite the monumental impact that financial institutions have on a nation's economy, few studies have examined the ways of working of investment dealers. In the finance literature, two distinct bodies of thought have endeavored to grasp the enigmatic nature of financial markets, investor behavior, and investment decision making. These are, on the one hand, the more traditional finance theories and, on the other, behavioral theories that examine, respectively, the quantitative and qualitative psychological attributes of individually driven investment decisions. Yet it appears that both areas do not meaningfully consider the impact of contextual dynamics on investment decisions (A. Kakabadse, 2000). In response, this article attempts to redress this imbalance by presenting emerging findings from 41 interviews with corporate finance specialists and managers employed in retail and institutional broker departments. Presented is an array of evidence highlighting that employees' ways of working are influenced by investment‐related demographics—namely, structure of compensation and the disciplined pursuit of relational capital. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Top management team characteristics,R&;D investment and capital structure in the IT industry

This paper is based on agency theory, resource-based and upper-echelons perspectives to examine the relationship between R&D investment and capital structure and the moderating effects of top management team (TMT) characteristics on the financing decisions of R&D investment in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Using data for SMEs in Taiwan’s IT industry, we find that (1) SMEs involved in R&D activities tend to have lower debt levels and (2) TMT characteristics exert considerable influence on the R&D investment-financial leverage relationship in SMEs. One important implication of the empirical evidence is that for SMEs trying to compete on the basis of innovation, the TMT characteristics significantly influence financing decisions. As innovative activities increase, the selection and development of top executives, who are responsible for choosing an optimal capital structure that could keep financial costs low while providing sufficient financial resources for maintaining a continuous, uninterrupted rate of R&D, is crucial for SMEs.     

A SUPPLY CHAIN‐ORIENTED APPROACH OF WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

This article analyzes and illustrates the role of payment terms for working capital improvements in supply chains. So far, research has shown how individual industries and powerful companies were able to enhance their cash‐to‐cash cycles at both their supplier's and customer's expense. From a “network perspective,” the exploitation of individual advantages by a single powerful company lowers the overall financial wealth of the supply chain. Therefore, a collaborative working capital management approach is proposed, by which the cash‐to‐cash cycles of companies with the lowest weighted average cost of capital (WACC) should be extended, while companies with higher financing costs are relieved by a shortened cash‐to‐cash cycle. An unequal distribution of power, however, between supply chain members can be the main hindrance for developing a collaborative working capital management solution.     

股东营利性:公司法人营利性的根源

股东营利性作为投资公司的根本动因是促进公司资本积累,整体经济效率提高的一个重要原则。坚持股东营利性不仅可以保障公司社会责任的有效实现,也可以在完善公司治理的基础上找准公司经营理念、价值取向,从根本上促进经济的和谐发展。     

When does corporate venture capital investment create firm value?

Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been invested by established companies in entrepreneurial ventures—what is often referred to as corporate venture capital. Yet, there is little systematic evidence that corporate venture capital investment creates value to investing firms. Scholars have suggested that established firms face underlying challenges when investing corporate venture capital. Namely, structural deficiencies inherent in corporate venture capital may inhibit financial gains. However, firm value may still be created as a result of other benefits from investing—primarily providing a window onto novel technology. In this paper, we propose that corporate venture capital investment will create greater firm value when firms explicitly pursue corporate venture capital to harness novel technology. Using a panel of CVC investments, we present evidence consistent with our proposition. The findings are robust to various specifications and remain unchanged even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in investing firms. Our results have important implications for corporate venture capital in particular, and technology strategy in general.     

R&;D investment and financing constraints of small and medium-sized firms

This study tests for financial constraints on R&D investment and how they differ from capital investment. To identify constraints in the access to external capital, we employ a credit rating index. Our models show that internal constraints, measured by mark-ups, are more decisive for R&D than for capital investment. For external constraints, we find a monotonic relationship between the level of constriction and firm size for both types of investment. Thus, external constraints turn out to be more binding with decreasing firm size. On the contrary, we do not find such monotonic relationships for internal constraints. Differentiation by firms’ age does not support lower constraints for older firms.     

对外投资的财务风险管理与资本成本决策探析

从对外投资所承担的任务和目标来看,其财务风险管理较之一般产业公司的财务风险管理更重要也更具有挑战性.一个公司的资本成本应该是一种包含各种动态变化因素在内的综合成本.在很大程度上,资本成本决定着公司的一项重大资本投资决策是否正确.如果一项投资能够收回资本成本,那么对财产、设备,或另一家公司的投资决策就是明智的.     

Going Public and the Enrichment of a Supportive Network

Past research on initial public offerings suggests that the reputation of a company positively affects the success of the offering. Success is usually measured in financial terms as if the essence of the operation lay only in the short-term inflow of money. In this paper, we investigate important albeit often neglected implications of going public by combining evidence from a series of preliminary case studies taken from the results of a survey of 57 Italian initial public offerings. Evidence from our research suggests that, besides providing an important inflow of capital, going public may actually improve the reputational and social capital of a company, by increasing its visibility, prestige and perceived trustworthiness. Therefore, going public may be an important way to support entrepreneurial activity, as it may expand and reinforce the network of relationships that offer access to external resources, complementary skills and investment opportunities.     

Supply Chain Management Competency and Firm Financial Success

Supply chain management (SCM) plays a major role in creating (or destroying) shareholder value by influencing the three major drivers of firm financial performance: revenue, operating costs, and working capital. Yet, the relationship between SCM competency and firm financial performance is not well‐established. Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm, this study assesses this relationship using Delphi‐style opinion data from AMR Research’s Supply Chain Top 25 rankings to assess SCM competency and Altman’s (1968) Z‐score statistic as the measure of financial success. The study findings show that firms recognized by industry experts for SCM competency have significantly higher Z‐scores than their close competitors and industry averages.     

Investment in online advertising and return on sales: Does it pay to outsource the services to an advertising agency?

Abstract

The effect of investing in online advertising on a firm’s financial outcomes can depend on whether or not the development and implementation of advertising campaigns are managed by advertising agencies. Agencies may have experienced professionals or workload to perform these jobs, but the costs are greater. This paper aims to investigate the effects of investments in digital marketing on the financial outcome of a company’s services, comparing whether or not it is outsourced to advertising agencies. The secondary data relates to services advertised and marketed by a firm. We tested the possible moderating effect of outsourcing the service in the relationship between investment in online advertising (Google and Facebook) and return on sales (profit margin), by controlling the effect of covariates. Through four regression analyses, the results showed that outsourcing the service moderates the relationship. Specifically, the higher the amount of advertising investment, the more it pays to outsource the service to an advertising agency in order to generate greater profit margin. But with a low investment value, it does not pay to outsource. This study helps to identify situations in which it pays to outsource digital marketing services to an advertising agency.     

The Nature and Dimensions of Scottish Foreign Investment, 1860–1914

It has long been assumed, on the basis of generally impressionistic evidence, that Scots were more enthusiastic capital exporters than their English counterparts in the half-century before the First World War. This article offers the initial results of a research project aimed at reassessing Scottish foreign investment in this period. In focusing upon an analysis of new data sets relating to Scottish company registrations for foreign investment and samples drawn from Scottish probate inventories containing foreign assets, this study provides novel insights into the social composition of Scots-resident overseas investors (who rose in number from around 4,000 in 1867 to 80,000 in 1913); the geographical and sectoral breakdown of investment activities; and the survival rate of the 853 identified firms registered in Scotland for overseas activities in the 1860–1914 period. It also makes a tentative examination of Scottish capital flowing abroad through the London stock market and investment undertaken by Scottish-based financial institutions and multinational enterprises.     

我国资本外逃与经济开放度的实证研究:1982-2004年

本文以国际收支平衡表中的经常账户和资本与金融账户为基础,分别从实体经济层面的贸易开放度和金融层面的投资开放度来界定我国的经济开放度指标,运用两变量VAR系统分析方法对1982-2004年我国资本外逃规模与经济开放度各指标之间的关系进行实证研究,结果表明二者之间具有显著的正向协整关系,相对投资开放度而言,贸易开放度对资本外逃规模有较大的影响。基于此结论,本文提出了相应的政策建议。