Institutional Ownership and Distribution of Equity Returns

Although there is considerable evidence of the importance of skewness and kurtosis in equity returns, much less attention has been paid to their determinants. Recent theoretical and empirical advances in the literature suggest that the information structure and other market characteristics affect the nature of return distributions. One such characteristic is the degree of institutional ownership in the stock. This study hypothesizes and documents a significant inverse relationship between the degree of institutional ownership and the standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of equity returns.     

Board Composition in New Zealand: An Agency Perspective

This paper looks at board composition determinants in New Zealand. We document that the proportion of outside board members is inversely related to insider equity ownership supporting the notion that these variables are substitute mechanisms in controlling agency problems. We also find that board composition is directly related to debt, ownership concentration, and profitability and inversely related to growth and firm size. There is evidence that firms with influential CEOs have lower outside board representation. Finally, we document that the passage of the legislation reforming company and securities laws in 1993 was associated with increased outside members on the board.     

The Information Signaling Hypothesis of Dividends: Evidence from Cointegration and Causality Tests

This paper uses cointegration and causality tests to study the temporal behavior of dividends and earnings at the individual firm level. We find that, for a sample of 143 non‐utility firms, approximately one‐fifth of the firms exhibits a temporal relationship between dividends and earnings that is consistent with the information signaling hypothesis of dividends. In the case of 72 utilities, about a third exhibit dividend policies that are consistent with the signaling notion of dividends. Further examination of firm characteristic differences between signaling and non‐signaling firms shows that, in the case of non‐utility firms, signaling firms tend to be smaller, have a lower growth rate of total assets, and have a higher leverage ratio. In the case of utilities, we find no major differences in firm characteristics between signaling and non‐signaling firms.     

Do Credit Ratings Really Affect Capital Structure?

This paper revisits recent investigations into the role credit ratings play in the marginal financing behavior of firms. Although it has long been documented that credit ratings may be an important determinant of firm capital structure policy, academics have only recently subjected this motivation to empirical scrutiny. We add to the brief existing literature by investigating the sensitivity of marginal financing behavior of firms to a number of attributes deemed to capture firms’ affinity to emphasize credit ratings in their financing behavior. Our results suggest that credit ratings are not a first‐order concern in capital structure decisions.     

The Europeanization of manufacturing and the decentralization of bargaining: multinational management strategies in the European automobile industry

Employee turnover remains to be one of the biggest human resource problems facing the Indian international call center industry. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive study of how the attitudes of call center employees toward different aspects of their work affect their intention to leave. Our specific contribution to the literature is in understanding the heterogeneity among employees and how this affects meaningful inference in studying employees' intention to leave. To achieve this goal, we compare and contrast between traditional ordinary least squares regression models that have been used in the extant literature with latent class analysis. Latent class analysis suggests the presence of three distinct groups of employees, thus confirming the heterogeneity present in the data. The three groups can be represented as the two polar groups, one keen on staying and the other keen on leaving, and a significantly large third group of employees who are unsure. We also find that the impact of different attitudes vary between groups in terms of both economic significance (magnitude of coefficients), and statistical significance. This study throws important light on the research on turnover and has significant research and practical implications.     

SMRP维修与可靠性指标的开发

维修与可靠性专业学会（SMRP）根据会员和工业界的需要,首先开发维修与可靠性（M＆R）专业名词的标准化工作。这项工作由SMRP最佳经验委员会负责实施。这个委员会已经开发了衡量关键M＆R业绩方法的定义,即通常所说的指标。通过小组讨论一致同意和有关专家的全面审查,包括利用网络调研,这些指标已经成为SMRP标准。因此,当寻找最佳经验时,这些标准可用于标准评定法（Benchmarking Process）中。     

Decision making in mergers: An application of the analytic hierarchy process

A critical element in the success or failure of an acquisition outcome is the ability to identify compatible acquisitions. This study focuses on the operational problem of effectively ranking a set of potential acquisition candidates against a multivariate set of attributes. The paper illustrates the usefulness of the Analytic Hierarchy Process methodology in this regard. The model is fairly easy to use and is flexible enough to permit the decision maker to consider multiple viewpoints and multiple attributes that may be qualitative or quantitative in nature. The suitability of the model is illustrated by applying it to a hypothetical example.     

Regulatory Climate and Electric Utility Capital Structure Decisions

A theoretical model of the role of regulatory climate in the capital structure decisions of regulated electric utilities is developed that indicates managers can mitigate the consequences of unfavorable regulation by increasing the proportion of debt in the capital structure. The increase in leverage is limited by increased bankruptcy risk with higher levels of debt. The model predicts that utilities will react to their regulatory climate by adjusting capital structure. This behavior may be an undesirable consequence of the regulatory process. Empirical support for the model, both cross sectional and over time, is provided.     

The Impact of Illegal Business Practice on Shareholder Returns

Data regarding illegal firm behavior were obtained for the period 1980–1990. Using the single index market model, the study finds that public announcements of indictments for major corporate crimes have a significant and long-term negative impact upon shareholder wealth, particularly for firms found guilty of the indictment. The results indicate that indictments of larger firms have a proportionally smaller impact on excess returns. Furthermore, indictments handed down since the Levine/Boesky scandal appear to have had a more adverse impact.