Bank business models and liquidity creation

Using a large panel of US bank holding companies from 2001 to 2015, this study investigates the association between functional diversification and bank liquidity creation. I document evidence of lower liquidity creation for higher diversification. The effect of moving into nontraditional activities on liquidity creation is more apparent with large banks and less pronounced with small banks. The impact of diversification on liquidity creation is less significant during the late stage of crisis and is more clearly observed in small and medium-sized banks. Low liquidity creation banks, leveraged by a higher share of non-interest income, are more likely to further decrease their liquidity creation. The study is of interest to regulators and policymakers who are concerned about bank business models.     

The angel investment decision: insights from Australian business angels

While much has been written about the investment criteria of business angels, few studies explore why these particular criteria are important to them. The Australian context has a diverse range of actors along with complex jurisdictional arrangements, making for an interesting background for investigation of the angel finance phenomenon. We examine 12 business angels in the rapidly changing Australian context and use nine corroborating participants to validate responses and identify four key drivers – personal experience, trust, the need to contribute and realistic expectations – that influence business angels during the initial investment process.     

Politically connected boards,family and business group affiliations,and cost of capital: Evidence from Indonesia

We investigate the effect of politically connected boards (both supervisory boards [SBs] and boards of directors [BODs]) on cost of debt and equity capital of listed companies in Indonesia which has established a two-tier corporate governance system. The results, based on 250 firms, suggest that companies with politically connected SBs experience lower cost of debt and equity capital, whereas politically connected BODs have no association with cost of either debt or equity. Furthermore, we find that family firms and firms belonging to business groups with politically connected SBs enjoy lower cost of debt and equity capital. Our main results are robust to alternative measures and to tests for endogeneity.     

From disruptively digital to proudly analog: A holistic typology of digital transformation strategies

Recently booming academic interest in digital transformation aims to provide continuous support to managers in dealing with this important issue. However, as with all new fields, the scholarly literature is characterized by increased variability and diversity of topics covered, constructs used, and the relationships between them, resulting in an unclear and blurry understanding of the whole of digital transformation. Our article closes this gap by identifying distinctive digital transformation strategies in terms of two critical dimensions: usage of digital technologies and readiness of a business model for digital operation. The result is a typology of four generic digital transformation strategies that essentially differ in the primary motivation and target of transformation, leadership style, importance of skills like creativity and entrepreneurial spirit among employees, risks and challenges faced in the process, consequences of potential failure, and available tactics for improvement. By providing heuristics and a systematic basis for comparison of different strategies, it is our belief that the proposed framework will be useful to researchers and managers responsible for and interested in digital transformation.     

Bidding for Firms with Unknown Characteristics

When a region successfully attracts a firm by offering subsidies, the firm often commits itself to performance targets in terms of employment. In this paper, we interpret these firm‐specific targets as a consequence of incomplete information. We analyze a model of two regions that compete for a firm, assuming that the firm's productivity is ex ante unknown. We show that performance targets often induce overemployment in high‐productivity firms, and that tax credits are often superior to lump‐sum payments. Moreover, when regions differ in wage rates, the low‐wage region wins the bid and has a higher surplus than under complete information. Finally, we show that, under incomplete information, bidding might not lead to efficient firm location.     

兰州局集团公司车务系统安全标准化体系构建实践

标准化建设是提高铁路企业效率和安全管控能力的重要途径。兰州局集团公司车务系统以标准化为主线,以实现人的行为安全可控为目标,遵循体系建设系统性、充分性、适宜性的要求,坚持体系化、标准化、闭环管理、流程再造的设计原则,从标准体系及标准评价体系、标准化车间、标准化生产指挥中心和智能行车系统等方面,对车务系统安全标准化体系功能进行设计,为构建管理规范、标准统一、保障有力的车务系统安全标准化体系提供支撑。     

The impact on stock prices of deferral and elimination of internal control audit requirement for small firms

This paper examines the cumulative market reaction to the events related to deferral of internal control audit requirement under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and its elimination under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 for nonaccelerated filers (small firms). We document that small firms experienced negative cumulative abnormal returns around these events; and the differences between the cumulative abnormal returns for small firms and the two control groups (accelerated and large accelerated filers) were negative and significant at the 1% level. These results support the notion that market participants value the reliability of financial information irrespective of the firm size. Within the small firms, we find no firm characteristic significantly explains the market reaction to the events considered. That is, all small firms lost market value in reaction to the events that delayed and eliminated their internal control audit requirement.     

Small system dynamics model for alleviating the general practitioners rural care gap in Ontario,Canada

The disproportionate concentration of healthcare professionals in urban areas is a concern in many countries, including Canada. A need to address this rural care gap has driven a large number of government led initiatives worldwide over the years. This paper presents a model that can be used as a tool to examine the efficacy of such policies on the workforce distribution in the long term. A small system dynamics model is employed to simulate the current and future distribution of general physicians at a jurisdictional level. The model represents the transition of general practitioners to provide insight into the dynamics of care provision over time. The movement, and competition, between rural and urban areas is modeled to enable detailed exploration of the ability for proposed measures to alleviate the care gap in the future. Among the tested policies are such commonly used initiatives as financial incentives to rural professionals, promotion of medical education in rural areas, expansion of rural education programs and the engagement of international medical graduates etc. We demonstrate how the model can be used as a tool to determine an efficient and well-chosen combination of policies which can help alleviate the rural care gap in the future, given that some policies are more effective than others alone but also combined with other initiatives. The presented small system dynamics model is tested on Canada's reality, but its simple nature lends itself to easy application to other countries that experience a similar problem.     

科技企业孵化器何以激活区域创新——风险投资与孵化基金的中介作用

完善创新生态系统、提升区域创新能力是我国科技企业孵化器建设的重要目标。基于2013-2018年中国（内地）30个省份面板数据，采用面板数据模型实证检验科技企业孵化器是否促进了区域创新能力提升，并基于中介效应模型探讨风险投资和孵化基金在其中的间接作用。结果发现：①科技企业孵化器建设显著提升了区域创新水平，但主要增加的是实用新型和外观设计专利申请授权数总量，对发明专利申请授权数并没有显著促进作用。上述结果在剔除直辖市样本、采用随机效应模型及空间计量模型的稳健性检验后依然成立；②通过中介效应模型检验发现，区域风险投资和孵化基金集聚效应是科技企业孵化器影响区域创新水平的主要机制；③科技企业孵化器对区域创新的影响在不同区域间差异较大，在东部地区的创新激励效应更加显著，而且政策工具强度对科技企业孵化器与区域创新水平的关系具有正向调节作用。     

Legally astute managers as a source of value in organizations

The legal and compliance departments in organizations have more influence than ever before. Why then are companies so vulnerable to legal liability? The problem may not be with talented legal professionals, but with the lack of legal knowledge held by MBAs and other business school graduates that make day-to-day decisions in modern organizations. Firms can close this knowledge gap and minimize legal liability by training their managers in legal astuteness—the ability of a manager to address legal issues successfully—by instilling four essential traits: respecting the rule of law, recognizing legal issues, resolving problems proactively, and reporting complex legal issues to experts. Job candidates should also be screened for traits of legal astuteness. A legally astute candidate, especially a graduate of a business school that requires legal education for all its students, can be a cultural ambassador for legal astuteness and a valuable liaison between legal and compliance departments and the candidate’s functional area. A legally ignorant candidate will require significant training and a frank assessment of the legal risk they bring to the organization. Modern firms in today’s legal environment face two choices: hire a legally astute manager now or deal with a compliance headache later.