基于广义资源观的企业并购整合的价值创造

并购是重新配置资源有效机制,而并购后的整合是提高社会资源配置的有效手段。并购后整合是否能实现价值的创造是决定企业是否进行并购的重要决定因素。基于广义资源观,探讨了并购后整合的价值创造机理,认为在企业并购中资源、能力和知识的转移是可以实现的,但因要素特性不同和转移过程中遇到的影响因素不同使得其转移的过程和难度有所不同。在企业并购中,经过长期学习积累起来的、以知识为主要形态的无形资源、隐性知识和核心能力的转移难度就很大。无形资源、隐性知识和核心能力的转移难度与这些要素的特征有直接关系。     

Accounting quality,information risk and the term structure of implied volatility around earnings announcements

We examine the association between accounting quality, which is used as a proxy for firm information risk, and the behavior of the term structure of implied option volatility around earnings announcements. By employing a large sample of US firms having options traded on their equity during 1996–2010, we find that lower (higher) accounting quality is significantly associated with stronger (weaker) changes in the steepness of the term structure of implied volatility curve around quarterly earnings announcements. This finding (which is robust to controls for business-stemming uncertainty regarding future firm performance) is consistent with a stronger differential of short vs. long-term uncertainty for higher information risk firms, indicating greater uncertainty on the future economic performance of poorer vs. stronger accounting quality firms. We also establish the trading implications of these findings by demonstrating a (profitable in-sample) self-financed option trading strategy that is based on the quality of the accounting information released on earnings announcement days.     

Effects of hiring former employees of multinationals in the absorptive capacity of local firms

The attraction of foreign direct investment seeks, among other things, to increase the productivity of local companies through knowledge spillovers. However, the empirical evidence in this regard is contradictory. One influential factor is the absorptive capacity of the local companies. This article analyzes the effect of the presence of former employees of multinational corporations as employees of local companies, on the absorptive capacity of said companies. The study was done in Costa Rica, a country known for its successful strategy in the subject matter. The data come from a survey applied to 1167 companies by the Observatorio Costarricense de las Pymes in 2011. It was found that the hiring of former employees of multinational corporations by local companies has a positive effect on the index of absorptive capacity of companies in all productive sectors. Specifically, this hiring of former employees increases the index of absorptive capacity by nine percentage points, with differences by sector and the size of the company.     

Scale effects of R&D as reflected in earnings and returns

Using returns to scale as a conceptual foundation, we explore how R&D-related earnings performance and earnings variability depend upon firm size. We find that the positive association between the level of future earnings and R&D intensity increases with firm size, and that the positive association between the volatility of future earnings and R&D intensity decreases with firm size, consistent with R&D productivity increasing with scale. We also show that R&D scale is associated with lower market returns, consistent with the idea that R&D investment risk declines with scale.     

Constructive deviance as a driver for performance in retail

A growing body of research is concerned with deviance in the workplace. While much research has explored negative forms of deviance, we examine constructive deviance: behaviour that deviates from salient norms and benefits the reference group. We empirically explore manifestations, determinants and performance outcomes of constructive deviance in standardised work processes. We do this through a mixed-methods study in bakery trading departments of an Australian retailer. We illustrate that constructive deviance occurs in these settings and show that some manifestations of constructive deviance improve organisational performance and pave the way for applying constructive deviance as a strategic tool in retail.     

Labor Unemployment Concern and Corporate Discretionary Disclosure

We investigate how firms strategically vary their disclosure policies in response to labor unemployment concern. Using changes in state unemployment insurance laws as exogenous variations of labor unemployment concern, we show that firms provide more bad news forecasts when unemployment concern is low. This relation is stronger when firms are financially constrained, when CEOs and CFOs have higher equity incentives, and when workers are likely to be affected more by unemployment. Our findings are not driven by earnings management reversal or underlying performance changes, and are robust to a battery of identification tests. Finally, we find a similar effect of unemployment concern on disclosure using the tone of 10‐K and 10‐Q filings as an alternative proxy for corporate disclosure. Overall, our findings suggest that labor unemployment concern is an important consideration for corporate discretionary disclosure.     

The Informational Role of Short Sellers: The Evidence from Short Sellers’ Reports on US‐Listed Chinese Firms

Using US‐listed Chinese firms as the setting, this paper studies a novel channel through which investors can acquire information about firms’ financial reporting quality, that is, the reports published voluntarily by short sellers. I find that short sellers tend to target firms that have financial reporting red flags and that exhibit ‘good’ operating performance and stock valuations. Targeted firms experience an average three‐day cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of ?6.4%, and ?13.6% for initial coverage of the firm, and the CARs are more negative when the reports allege more severe misconduct of the firms. Non‐targeted firms also experience losses in value following short seller reports, especially when they hire the same non‐Big 4 auditors as targeted firms and when their earnings quality is poor. In comparison, analysts fail to perform proper due diligence and are much less effective than short sellers in exposing misreporting risk in Chinese firms.     

Forecasting in a Mixed Up World: Nowcasting Hawaii Tourism

We evaluate the short term forecasting performance of methods that systematically incorporate high frequency information via covariates. Our study provides a thorough introduction of these methods to the tourism literature. We highlight the distinguishing features and limitations of each tool and evaluate their forecasting performance in two tourism-specific applications. The first uses monthly indicators to predict quarterly tourist arrivals to Hawaii; the second predicts quarterly labor income in the accommodations and food services sector. Our results indicate that compared to the exclusive use of low frequency aggregates, including timely intra-period data in the forecasting process results in significant gains in predictive accuracy. Anticipating growing popularity of these techniques among empirical analysts, we present practical implementation guidelines to facilitate their adoption.     

Financial crisis and accounting quality: Evidence from five European countries

This study investigates how the economic crisis affects the scope for earnings manipulation and the value relevance of reported financial numbers for companies that are audited by a big 4 auditor. The analysis is focused on Portuguese, Irish, Italian, Greek and Spanish listed companies. The findings show that Portugal, Italy and Greece tend to engage more in earnings management in their effort to improve their lower profitability and liquidity, and accommodate their higher debt and growth. Ireland exhibits less evidence of earnings manipulation, while the findings for Spain are to some extent conflicting. Additionally, the reported financial numbers of Portuguese and Greek companies that are audited by a big 4 auditor were found to be of higher quality before the crisis. In contrast, Irish, Italian and Spanish companies report more value relevant financial numbers during the crisis. The results of this study are particularly useful for accounting regulators when preparing accounting rules that seek to reduce information asymmetry and earnings manipulation and increase the quality of reported disclosures in light of a crisis and for investors that need further assistance for the establishment of a profitable investment strategy in periods characterized by high uncertainty and volatility.