Knowledge capital,CEO power,and firm value: Evidence from the IT industry

Disruptive innovation dramatically changes the demand of a product market in the information technology (IT) industry. In response to the impact of disruptive innovation, IT firms that may be eliminated from the competitive race actively develop innovative products and adjust their operating strategies to strengthen their survivability in the fiercely competitive market. Thus, this study explores the factors that affect firm value in the IT industry under the impact of disruptive innovation. The empirical results reveal that knowledge capital and CEO power play crucial roles in explaining firm value. IT firms with powerful CEOs and increased knowledge capital have high firm values. The effects of knowledge capital and CEO power on firm value are especially significant for founder and duality CEO firms. Furthermore, the influence of CEO power is more prominent in periods of financial crisis.     

CEO hometown identity and firm green innovation

Drawn on the upper echelons theory, this study investigates how chief executive officer (CEO) hometown identity drives firm green innovation. We propose that CEO hometown identity has a positive impact on a firm's green innovation performance. Furthermore, we explore the moderating role of managerial discretion determined by organizational and environmental factors (i.e., institutional ownership and market complexity). We propose that institutional ownership negatively moderates the positive relationship between CEO hometown identity and green innovation, but market complexity plays a positive moderating role. Using Chinese publicly listed firms from 2002 to 2016 in heavily polluting industries, our findings support these hypotheses. Our research contributes to the upper echelons theory and corporate social responsibility literature and has substantial practical implications.     

Excessive managerial entrenchment,corporate governance,and firm performance

This paper investigates the differential impact of positive and negative excessive managerial entrenchment on the CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, CEO compensation, and firm performance. We measure the degree of managerial entrenchment using the E-index introduced by Bebchuk et al. (2009). Our findings suggest that an increase in excess CEO entrenchment reduces the likelihood of CEO turnover due to poor performance. We also show a positive association between excessive entrenchment and CEO compensation as managers gain more power and authority when they are entrenched. On the other hand, excess CEO entrenchment has an inverse correlation with firm performance and firm value. Overall, we propose that excessive managerial entrenchment has a converse impact on board monitoring and shareholders’ welfare.     

CEO regulatory focus and myopic marketing management

This study details the mechanisms on how CEO regulatory focus affects the salience of the gains versus losses involved in myopic marketing decision-making, and how such CEO psychological attributes interact with internal equity-based compensation, external pressure from equity analysts, and environmental turbulence to affect firms’ myopic marketing management propensities. We find that when faced with short-term earnings pressure to meet earnings expectations and when time is no longer a resource, predominantly promotion-focused are more likely to engage in myopic marketing management to benefit from the temporary stock price increase, which comes from meeting or beating earnings expectations. Conversely, predominantly prevention-focused CEOs are less prone to such short-termist actions which results in long-term value loss. For the moderating variables, we find that: (1) equity-based compensation tends to attenuate myopic marketing tendencies of promotion-focused CEOs but have no impact on prevention-focused CEOs, (2) whether equity analysts improve monitoring or aggravate short-term earnings pressure depends on the CEO’s regulatory focus, and (3) environmental turbulence does not increase the myopic marketing management tendencies of predominantly promotion-focused CEOs but rather intensifies the relunctance of prevention-focused CEOs to take short-termist actions. We further find that myopic marketing management mediates the impact of CEO regulatory focus on future firm performance. These findings have important implications for firms and boards when selecting new CEOs and structuring the compensation of existing CEOs. Firms need to simultaneously consider the fit between the CEOs’ regulatory focus, firms’ needs, the business environment, as well as CEO compensation structure.     

Overconfidence and tax avoidance: The role of CEO and CFO interaction

We investigate how overconfident CEOs and CFOs may interact to influence firms’ tax avoidance. We adopt an equity measure to capture overconfident CEOs and CFOs and utilize multiple measures to identify companies’ tax-avoidance activities. We document that CFOs, as CEOs’ business partners, play an important role in facilitating and executing overconfident CEOs’ decisions in regard to tax avoidance. Specifically, we find that companies are more likely to engage in tax-avoidance activities when they have both overconfident CEOs and overconfident CFOs, compared with companies that have other combinations of CEO/CFO overconfidence (e.g., an overconfident CEO with a non-overconfident CFO), which is consistent with the False Consensus Effect Theory. Our study helps investors, regulators, and policymakers understand companies’ decision-making processes with regard to tax avoidance.     

Media coverage and investment efficiency

We examine the effect of media coverage on firm-level investment efficiency. We find that media coverage reduces under-investment but increases over-investment. The negative effect of media coverage on under-investment is more pronounced in firms affected by greater information asymmetry and poorer corporate governance. The positive effect of media coverage on over-investment is driven by media-induced CEO overconfidence. Additional results show that both investment- and non-investment-related news coverage decrease under-investment, while non-investment-related news coverage is more influential in increasing over-investment. In general, higher news optimism is associated with less under-investment but more over-investment. Moreover, media coverage affects investment efficiency through its information dissemination rather than information creation function. Collectively, our results suggest that firms’ media visibility promotes more over-investment than under-investment.     

CEO internal experience and voluntary disclosure quality: Evidence from management forecasts

Internally‐promoted CEOs should have a deep understanding of their firm's products, supply chain, operations, business climate, corporate culture, and how to navigate among employees to get the information they need. Thus, we argue that internally‐promoted CEOs are likely to produce higher quality disclosure than outsider CEOs. Using a sample of US firms from the S&P1500 index from 2001 to 2011, we hand‐collect whether a CEO is hired from inside the firm and, if so, the number of years they worked at the firm before becoming CEO. We then examine whether managers with more internal experience issue higher quality disclosures and offer three main findings. First, CEOs with more internal experience are more likely to issue voluntary earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Second, CEOs with more internal experience issue more accurate earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Finally, investors react more strongly to forecasts issued by insider CEOs than to those issued by outsider CEOs. In additional analysis, we find no evidence that these results extend to mandatory reporting quality (i.e., accruals quality, restatements, or internal control weaknesses), perhaps because mandatory disclosure is subjected to heavy oversight by the board of directors, auditors, and regulators. Overall, our findings suggest that when managers have work experience with the firm prior to becoming the CEO, the firm's voluntary disclosure is of higher quality.     

How Owners Matter? An Examination of Ownership Type in Corporate Disaster Relief Giving

Little research has investigated the effect of ownership identity (or type) and corporate philanthropy experience on giving. In this research, relying on legitimacy theory, we first assess the effect of ownership identity on corporate philanthropy (CP) in the context of the 2008 earthquake in China. Then we explore moderation effects of firms' prior CP experience and size as proxies for perceived legitimacy on owners' efforts at increasing giving and legitimacy. We find that state and CEO ownership are deterrents, while non‐SOE and institutional ownership enhances giving probability and amount. In addition, there is evidence that firm size and prior CP weaken the effects of institutional ownership on CP. This study provides a complete assessment of owner behaviour. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

创始人技术知识资产、两职合一与创新绩效

以2012—2015年中关村新三板挂牌的180个科技型中小企业为样本，以创始人技术知识资产为切入视角，以创始人持股比例为作用路径，采用中介效应回归法，分析创始人两职合一的原因，并进一步使用倾向匹配得分法（PSM）研究创始人两职合一对创新绩效的影响。结果发现：①创始人技术知识资产与创始人两职合一的比例显著正相关；②创始人技术知识资产通过创始人持股比例的部分中介效应能够促进创始人两职合一；③创始人两职合一可以显著提升企业创新绩效。分析拥有技术知识资产的创始人提高公司创新绩效的内部机理，并证实了两职合一的创始人能够更好地推动技术创新，为科技型中小企业优化公司治理结构和提高创新水平提供了新思路。     

The heterogeneous relationship between board social ties and corporate environmental responsibility in an emerging economy

Firms in emerging economies are faced with multiple, incompatible institutional forces in their environmental activities. Which of these forces will be dominant and instantiated within an organization is partly determined by the social relationships that a firm maintains with external actors. This paper investigates the relationship between board social ties and the level of environmental responsibility undertaken by firms in China, an emerging economy, by categorizing board social ties into three types in terms of the three isomorphic forces in the institutional field (coercive, normative and mimetic). Drawing on institutional and agency theories, using a sample of listed firms in environmentally sensitive industries, and a generalized least squares regression method, the results provide empirical evidence that ties that are linked to coercive and normative forces (i.e., political organizations and universities) are related to a higher level of environmental responsibility; however, those that are linked to mimetic forces (i.e., industrial peers) have a negative association with environmental responsibility, which is mitigated by CEO power. These findings suggest that the heterogeneous effects of board social ties on environmental responsibilities experienced by firms in a context of environmentalism are at an early stage.